Unfortunately that means they have not been accepted for commercial use, but for data licensing only.

 Shutterstock just sneakyly removed the notice that would tell you that they have been accepted for the data catalogue only from your "recently reviewed" tab and now the only way to know whether they ended up in your normal catalogue or the data cataloge is by seeing whether they show up in your portfolio or not.

I know this from Shutterstock support, though they told me the message not showing up was an "error". But seeing as this hasn't been fixed in over 2 weeks now, while this is something so minor that it should take seconds to "fix", I am not buying it and think it's intentional.

What upsets me about the limit is not only that we do not know it, but that a factor that plays into it is the rejection rate. This was never a problem for me in the past, my acceptance rate on Adobe was - apart from editorial content where I could never figure out what they accept - 99%.

But now it's over 50% because every second image gets rejected for being "too similar" - and since the similar rule does not apply to our OWN portfolio, but all of the database, I have zero control over it. Just not submitting images that are similar to the ones in my port isn't helping. I cannot check every image I want to submit with 17 million images in their database. So I feel like that's very unfair, because it is nothing that I have control over or nothing that has anything to do with the quality of my content.

The same goes for the free Adobe plan by the way - I factor for qualifying for it is also your rejection rate.

I just had another photo removed (happens daily now), that had been apporved over a year ago and the rejection reason is:

"Thank you for submitting your image. Unfortunately, we were unable to process your file. Contact us for more information."

This is absurd.

So in total I got removed about 300 pictures It look like thet stopped removing at this moment, but for how long?

They didn't stop. I just got a mail about more image being removed from my port this morning.
If Adobe continues like this, soon I'll have a negative port....

Btw, I am 100% convinced the images that are being removed are selected by some wonky AI and not by human. There are so many that make absolutely no sense.

You cannot "replace" them, but you can delete the old one and then re-submit the new one.

But be aware that there is still a risk that the new one might be rejected for being "too similar" and you do not even know which image Adobe thinks it's too similar to.

I went from a 99% acceptance rate for years to a 90% rejection rate. Almost everythin gets rejected now including images where I absolutely do not have any even slightly similar images in my portfolio. It's like "oh, you already have ONE photo of a dog in your portfolio? Now you are not allowed to ever have a photo of a dog in your portfolio ever again, because that's too similar."

I am not denying that I have few similar looking images from the same shoot in my portfolio.  I am not going to spend money on props, set up my lamps, backgrounds, etc. arrange an image and then just take exactly ONE single image. That's not worth the effort and money. Just like when you book a model you would not do so if you were told that you are only allowed to submit ONE Image with that model. That's just not economic. Of course you will try to get the most out of it and yes, that might lead to a few similar looking images - though from my experienve there are customers who are looking for exactly that.

But for me Adobe isn't just rejecting images where I already have "similar looking" images in my port. They are literally rejecting everything where I already have a similar topic in my port, even if the photo itself looks completely different.

decided to revive this oldie not because i want to complain again but because i made a small discovery based on a suspicion.  after this original thread and with mat's help the ducks i was waiting 5 months to be reviewed were reviewed and approved (probably, i didn't even care anymore but they are no longer in "in review").  at almost exactly the same time i also uploaded some images of a bridge.  these images are currently waiting to be reviewed for 10 months.  they were uploaded, tagged and submitted 10 months ago.  i have about 100 files that are stuck on 3+ months along with them.  they are not amazing images but a smaller, less famous bridge that isn't well covered in the agencies.  images like this don't sell a lot but do get a few sales here and there.  in fact these images have sold on other agencies already in the last 10 months since no agency lets images sit that long without review and the other agencies accepted them no problem.  about 3 or 4 months ago i uploaded the same images again with the same metadata.  they are also stuck.  a few weeks ago i uploaded them again, a 3rd time but wrote the minimum number of words in the metadata fields.  they have been reviewed and approved.  my suspicion was metadata caused some of these files to get flagged and put in the "we'll get to it in 10 years" pile.  in this particular case i used specific name places (like the name of the county, etc) that this bridge is located in.  if you have images stuck forever try re uploading with minimal metadata and fill it all in once they get reviewed.  as for the original images... it seems i will soon find out what comes after "1 year ago."

Thanks f�r the tip. I will try that, becaus ei have image ssitting in review for 7months+ and resubmitting just has them sit in review again. I will try to use less keywords.

I have 7000+ downloads but only uploaded 119 videos, do I still qualify?

Unfortunately no. You need to have uploaded a minimum of 150 new assets, so 119 is not enough.
And while one video download counts as 3 downloads, there is no such equation for uploads.

How can you tell the images are Gen AI other than their unlikely perfection? I�m genuinely interested.

How can you not tell?
A deer with 5 legs and butt-anlters doesn't make you suspicious?


or these hands' very strange anatomy?


See nothing wrong with this bird's legs?


Or this bird's claws?


Shutterstuck is really FULL of these images. It's like they aren't even trying.

The new contributors are faced not only with an upload limit of 50 but have also wait for months.

The old experienced ones have currently to wait just for some days.

Also can't confirm this. I have been an Adobe contribut for many years. My oldest image still waiting to be review was submitted 3 months ago.

Quote from: Her Ugliness on November 10, 2024, 03:07

This just means your image or video was rejected.
All rejected images go to the "Data licensing" cataloge, regardless of whether you opted in or out. If you opted out it just means your content won't be used for data licensing (or so Shutterstock claims), but it's still ends up in the cataloge, apparently only visible to you.

It also means that you cannot "fix" mistakes the content was rejected for and resubmit, because you will be told it was already approved. In my opinion that's done on purpose, because Shutterstock is trying to push you to accept data licensing as that'S the only future for Microstock companies.

You can get around this sort-of by temporarily opting IN to licensing.  This then allows you to delete the data catalogue.  Then you opt straight back out.  Its flushing the toilet if you like.

I would strongly advice against this, because the 60 seconds when you are opted in is all Shutterstock needs to feed all of your images to their own AI. It negates the whole purpose of opting out. It's pobably even the sneaky reason why Shutterstock does not let you delete images without opting in in the first place.

For me the mail starts with "Hi Shutterstock Artist" and ends with "Thank you,The Bigstock team".   

The "request payment" option method isn't even an option on Shutterstock, but it's available on Bigstock, so that makes more sense.
 I think they want everyone to collect their earnings so they can finally shut the page down for good. They haven't even been accepting new submissions for a long while now, so we all knew that's where they were heading.

Honestly, Adobe Stock has been pretty fair and good for contributors.  I don't know where your anger is coming from.  I'm happy with Adobe Stock and Pond5.

Did you ever have a problem where you actually needed to contact the non existing support at Adobe?

You already got your big payment last year. Adobe will not pay you for using the same images to train the same AI application twice. The training has already happened.
I don't understand how some people still believe having their images used for AI training would be any sustainable means of income. It's a one-time thing.

You will probably get a payment for new images you have added since then, but unless you are a new contributor or somehow managed to add as many new images last year as in all your previous years with microstock combined, the amount you will recive will be much smaller.