Quote from: SuperPhoto on April 22, 2020, 03:35
very frustrated with some of the reviewers who appear to just do an auto "100%" rejection because they are too lazy to do their job.

seems some of the reviewers shutterstock employs have figured out how to game the system, so are doing zero work, to get paid. (to be clear, not all of them - some do their job - I like those reviewers - it's the ones that don't do their jobs that I don't like).

seems the game is for those ones is - they wait as long as possible to review the items (i.e., say a week) - so it gives the "appearance" of being reviewed to the (semi-automated) metrics shutterstock uses - so they can paid for doing nothing. I'm all for reviewing & approving 'good quality' images & videos, and rejecting poor quality. But when you happen to land one of these reviewers who just wants money for nothing, so autorejects 100%, it's very frustrating.

Would be a great time now shutterstock to either weed out these poor quality reviewers - OR - a different company to do a better job than shutterstock.

I have been experiencing bogus rejections as well.  I posted about one of them awhile back where they rejected my waterfall photos for ""Title: Title must be descriptive and relevant to the subject matter and must be in English. Titles cannot contain special characters, spelling/grammar errors, or repeat words/phrases in excess."  My title for both (same waterfall, different angles) was: Name of waterfall, Name of National Park, Name of State, USA.  All in English. Completely relevant to the subject matter.  All spelled correctly.  Nothing repeated.  No special characters - just commas.  I re-submitted them and they still rejected one of them, even though the focus was on the waterfall and was f/13 taken on a tripod. 

The other bogus rejection I got recently was for another waterfall.  This time it said I was missing a property release and that the title/key words contained trademark issues.  Again, I re-submitted it and it was accepted....because a property release was not needed nor were there any trademarked words in it.

It would be nice if SS would address these reviewers who aren't doing their job properly.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 03, 2020, 15:34

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on April 03, 2020, 00:23

Quote from: gnirtS on April 02, 2020, 11:51
Just guessing.... Noise and artifact rejection?

Wasn't sure if this as for me or someone else, but my rejection was for focus.  The focus was on the waterfall at f/13, so not sure what more they wanted.

I know what you shoot and how nice it is, they are being stupid and rejecting water moving for focus, others have found the same. So flowing water gets rejected!

Quote from: trabuco on April 03, 2020, 07:19
Same here. Landscapes with f18.

Sometimes all accepted. Sometimes all rejected for focus and noise.

Same for yours. Although f/18 is a little over the top and you could be getting some diffraction, that's not going to be enough for a legitimate rejection.

I expect that both of you are smart enough and experienced enough to know that f/4 to f/8 is the sweet spot for most lenses and going higher could cause a problem. But... I doubt that either of you are getting rejections for that reason. Besides if you want to have everything from small objects close up to the distant, all in sharp focus, true f/## is the only way to get that.

I had a clear landscape with a flag, way in the back on the horizon, which got rejected for blur. Yeah, a flag blowing straight out in the wind and they expect it to be sharp, like it's standing still? 

Tough to fight a reviewer who looks at what the software finds and just clicks reject, without using any sense.

By the way, they do look sometimes. I actually had one with intentional shallow focus and motion blur, accepted last month. How unusual and welcome. I had some that were rejected four years ago, I found them and though, hey maybe? All accepted. (except the similar of course)

Then yesterday I had a wide crop accepted, but the rotated square of the same close up, rejected for lighting.  Exposure: Content is underexposed, overexposed, or is inconsistently exposed. How's that possible? Not worth the time and I'm over caring. Fine rejected, it wasn't the best image in the world, or the only one, so I don't care.

Bottom line, we still have something out of our control and that's lazy reviewers who want to be fast and make money per click, who aren't actually looking at the images or using any sense.

Thanks.
With waterfalls, it depends on the light as to what f/# you can use.  I was already at ISO 100 and my shutter speed has to be a specific number for the water to look correct (in my case, I like the slower shutter speeds).  And using a circular polarizer is a must.  Stacking on another filter could reduce sharpness as well, which is why I don't do it.
Since they took the "better" shot of the two (one was more visually appealing than the other), I am fine with them rejecting the other....even if I do think they were wrong. lol
You can definitely tell when you've gotten a lazy reviewer.  And lately, it seems to be most of their employees.

Quote from: MatHayward on April 02, 2020, 18:10
Hi everyone,

I want to invite you all to join in the discussions with the Adobe Stock artist community at our new Discord channel. It promises to be an engaging and inspiring place to be where you will find many members of the Adobe Stock team from around the world actively engaging.

https://discordapp.com/invite/tZbBPRe

I'll be talking about it a bit more during the webinar today at noon Pacific time. I hope to see you there!

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/current-trends-in-a


Stay safe,

Mat Hayward

I thought Discord was for gamers.  Just curious why Adobe is choosing that site?

Quote from: gnirtS on April 02, 2020, 11:51
Just guessing.... Noise and artifact rejection?

Wasn't sure if this as for me or someone else, but my rejection was for focus.  The focus was on the waterfall at f/13, so not sure what more they wanted.

Quote from: qunamax on March 28, 2020, 12:57
No point in stressing over it and wasting any more time. Look how many assets are being uploaded weekly, no workforce can do that reviewing job remotely decent, it's probably just a software mostly.
It just doesn't matter anymore, resubmit if you think you have a strong seller, change title or whatever, it's a waste of time to discuss, a time that could be used for resubmitting or submitting another image.

Not stressing here.  There are more important things to stress over.  Like, do I have enough tp or should I buy another thousand rolls?
It was just a question.  I thought that was what this forum was for.  To communicate with others with what we are experiencing on sites.
If it's a waste of time to discuss, why did you spend your time replying rather than submitting more images?

Quote from: lostintimeline on March 27, 2020, 23:49
just resubmit and they ll get pass.its not humans its the INFAMOUS AI

Thanks.  I re-submitted.  One was accepted and one was rejected for a new reason.  Since they took my favorite of the two images, I'll consider it a win.

I just had two waterfall pics rejected.  Why?  This is a new one for me....

"Title: Title must be descriptive and relevant to the subject matter and must be in English. Titles cannot contain special characters, spelling/grammar errors, or repeat words/phrases in excess."

My title for both (same waterfall, different angles) was: Name of waterfall, Name of National Park, Name of State, USA

All in English. Completely relevant to the subject matter.  All spelled correctly.  Nothing repeated.  No special characters - just commas.

Am I missing something here??

Quote from: rinderart on March 26, 2020, 05:19
would Pay to read something new...

.

Says the man digging into 14 year old posts....

Leaf, don't delete the old stuff.  Some people might find it helpful.  Just like an obscure stock photo, you never know it's need until it's needed.

My stocks are doing normal, if not a little better. 

Quote from: Stock4Me on January 08, 2020, 00:44

The most important factor is the photo itself, if not viewed no sale. Did you watch the AdobeStock video?

Yup.  And some of my top selling photos on Adobe have 50 keywords.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 07, 2020, 20:22

Did you ever try less words to see if your sales would be even better, as an A/B test?

Since there is no way to really have a true dependent variable, there is no way to accurately test this.  I could post the same pic on different sites, but even with the exact key words, the sales are different.  And I could post a slightly different composition, but again, with the same key words, one might sell better than the other based on the needs of the customer and the random algorithms of the site. 

In the set I mentioned, some of the shots are older.  And some of them don't have 50 words.  I checked one shot that was more popular back in the day and it only has 24.  But a photo that is only slightly older has 44 keywords and it sold better.  The most popular one in the set is newer and has 50 keywords.

I think the most important factor is the photo itself.  If it's a photo people want, they'll buy it.  However you want to keyword your photos is up to you.  I'm sticking with what is working for me.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 07, 2020, 15:31

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 07, 2020, 12:37

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on January 06, 2020, 23:20
So, I did a little research on my top selling set of photos.  There's about 12 main photos in that set that sell and they are all closely subject-related. 

Shutterstock only gives you the percentage of keywords used over all the downloads, so you don't really know how many times each word was used.  And they don't always give you any of the keywords, which is a huge inconsistency.  But I was lucky that all 12 photos did have key words and percentages listed.

Dreamstime also doesn't always give you the keywords used to find your photo, but I went through 20 pages to get the keywords to the photos.

Of those photos, there were 46 different keywords used to find them.  25 of those words were used more frequently (but it's hard to tell how much more due to the lack of info given).

Since I was just about the upload a few more photos to that set, I just checked the keywords and I definitely see where I want to switch up some of the words.  I'm still going with 50, but just not the same 50.

46 different keywords used to find 12 related photos on DT? Do those mean sales or views? What are the # of different words on the same photos on SS?

True it's frustrating when SS doesn't show words. I think it's the same on Alamy. Sometimes people aren't using words, they are searching categories? Logically how could someone find an image, without entering keywords? Well, many ways it appears, because they do.

Here's a tip on why so many different words might be used on DT and why some of mine were found using words that aren't in the keywords or title.



50 is too many, unless the subject is complex and has many, many, words needed to describe it. Most images can be perfectly defined with 25 or less words.

True though, placement does = sales if the images are good enough. Question I ask though is, if I'm first in a search that no one uses, how does that translate to sales and money? I could have Extracentrifical Force in my images and if no one searches the word, and I'm first on a page that only has my images, that will not translate to a sale.

I can be first on a page for something that isn't the main subject or concept of my image, just because I added words. And I won't ever get a sale, because the buyer is looking for images that represent what they are looking for, not something else.

What I think people should ask themselves, and I do, is "if I was a buyer, what words would I use to find this image?" not "do I have 50 words", that are half, not relevant or describing what's actually the subject and concept of the image.

Maybe that's just me, but I think buyers want to see what they are looking for, not something else, and if someone uses the most logical words, that would explain what most buyers will also use, not some convoluted logic that obscure and irrelevant words, will make more sales. More words does not = more sales.

ps do not use 50 words on Adobe, this has been covered, seems like that's being neglected. So I'll say, 50 words is too many, while 49 might not be. But I'll never advocate having 49 words, just to have as many as possible, because it's 49.

Quote from: charged on September 18, 2019, 19:31
(clipped)

I also thought that when there are 50 keywords all keywords are flat vs 49 keywords or less, then keywords are weighted. Seems not smart. A/B testing would have solved this quirk. There is no need to assume someone is spamming if they have 50 keywords vs 49 if you just did A/B testing.

Anyway, these are just my uneducated thoughts.

Do other sites also assume that 50 keywords is spamming, and down rank your images?

https://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?action=post;quote=539016;topic=34889.25

Here's the podcast for anyone who missed it. I need to watch the entire cast for how to increase sales.  https://www.crowdcast.io/e/keywords-count-effective/register

What I found from my research yesterday is that what *I* thought were important key words weren't ever searched for in those photos.  And words that I didn't even think would be important were being searched for. 

And we will just have to agree to disagree on the number of keywords.  It's working for me.  My photos are selling.  And the photos I mentioned that are in top spots in search results are some of my best sellers.

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 07, 2020, 12:37

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on January 06, 2020, 23:20
So, I did a little research on my top selling set of photos.  There's about 12 main photos in that set that sell and they are all closely subject-related. 

Shutterstock only gives you the percentage of keywords used over all the downloads, so you don't really know how many times each word was used.  And they don't always give you any of the keywords, which is a huge inconsistency.  But I was lucky that all 12 photos did have key words and percentages listed.

Dreamstime also doesn't always give you the keywords used to find your photo, but I went through 20 pages to get the keywords to the photos.

Of those photos, there were 46 different keywords used to find them.  25 of those words were used more frequently (but it's hard to tell how much more due to the lack of info given).

Since I was just about the upload a few more photos to that set, I just checked the keywords and I definitely see where I want to switch up some of the words.  I'm still going with 50, but just not the same 50.

46 different keywords used to find 12 related photos on DT? Do those mean sales or views? What are the # of different words on the same photos on SS?

No, 46 different keywords used to find them between both sites.  And this is all in relation to sales.  The 25 were from SS...because they just lump the stats all together.  The remaining 21 words were from DT.  Obviously, DT also had some of the 25, but I'm not spending any more time on it.  I found what I wanted to know.

So, I did a little research on my top selling set of photos.  There's about 12 main photos in that set that sell and they are all closely subject-related. 

Shutterstock only gives you the percentage of keywords used over all the downloads, so you don't really know how many times each word was used.  And they don't always give you any of the keywords, which is a huge inconsistency.  But I was lucky that all 12 photos did have key words and percentages listed.

Dreamstime also doesn't always give you the keywords used to find your photo, but I went through 20 pages to get the keywords to the photos.

Of those photos, there were 46 different keywords used to find them.  25 of those words were used more frequently (but it's hard to tell how much more due to the lack of info given).

Since I was just about the upload a few more photos to that set, I just checked the keywords and I definitely see where I want to switch up some of the words.  I'm still going with 50, but just not the same 50.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 03, 2020, 15:39

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on January 02, 2020, 00:28

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 31, 2019, 11:45

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 31, 2019, 11:21

Quote from: ShadySue on December 30, 2019, 23:09

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 30, 2019, 16:15
If it's just a tomato on a white background, then you'll have hard time finding more than 30 relevant keywords.

30!!!

Somebody mentioned 30 as the sweet spot, that's why I took that number

Let's try!
tomato, isolated, vegetable, berry, stem, ripe, juicy, red, green, white, food, ingredient,  raw, healthy, health, edible, diet, nutritious, nutrition, fresh, organic, natural, produce, background, photo, no shadow, single

27 tags, although I admit I'm really pushing it.

No normal person searches for a red tomato isolated, using half those words, but of course I'd probably have most of them myself. We're like a bunch of superstitious pigeons getting random rewards and we don't know why. I mean, does anyone search for ripe, juicy, food, ingredient, edible, nutritious, nutrition, produce, or do they look for Tomato Isolated On White? With red or green or sliced or some modifier.

Be honest?

If you were looking for a sliced red tomato isolated on white, what would you type into the search? Hmmm? Most of the words we add are grasping for straws and maybe someone will see us, because, we added some obscure word, that no one searches for?

And you left off  No one, copy space, neutral space, isolated on white, Solanum lycopersicum, nightshade,

I give all my photos 50 keywords.  You never know what search word is going to bring a buyer to your photo. 

Dreamstime is the only site that I know of that tells you what a person was searching for when they purchased your photo.  That has been extremely helpful in knowing which words are most commonly searched for with specific photos that I take.

You don't want 50 words on Adobe. If you watched the video or read the advice here, you only want 49 at most. I still don't know why people are so obsessed with having more words. If you read the words used on DT, that should teach you something about what words are actually used and how much time you are wasting adding irrelevant or useless words.

SS tells words used too (sometimes?)



and Alamy has some interesting information on searches. Alamy Measures:  https://www.alamy.com/Alamysearchhistory/contributorsearch.aspx

So you can add two more sites that you know now? 

50 words is probably too many, most of the time. How many of the 50 words are actually something important or describing the image, for a potential download? Useless words can hurt the search and rank of your images, while good words that are actually used for images found and sold, will improve your image rank.

I don't feel that having that many key words has hindered my sales.  If an image is good and in demand, it sells.  I have many images that are in the top results.
 
In addition, I don't spend that much time on keywording, so it's not really wasting my time to include them.  Nor am I obsessed....I just feel that you never know which word will bring a customer in.  All of my keywords are relevant to the photo.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 31, 2019, 11:45

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 31, 2019, 11:21

Quote from: ShadySue on December 30, 2019, 23:09

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 30, 2019, 16:15
If it's just a tomato on a white background, then you'll have hard time finding more than 30 relevant keywords.

30!!!

Somebody mentioned 30 as the sweet spot, that's why I took that number

Let's try!
tomato, isolated, vegetable, berry, stem, ripe, juicy, red, green, white, food, ingredient,  raw, healthy, health, edible, diet, nutritious, nutrition, fresh, organic, natural, produce, background, photo, no shadow, single

27 tags, although I admit I'm really pushing it.

No normal person searches for a red tomato isolated, using half those words, but of course I'd probably have most of them myself. We're like a bunch of superstitious pigeons getting random rewards and we don't know why. I mean, does anyone search for ripe, juicy, food, ingredient, edible, nutritious, nutrition, produce, or do they look for Tomato Isolated On White? With red or green or sliced or some modifier.

Be honest?

If you were looking for a sliced red tomato isolated on white, what would you type into the search? Hmmm? Most of the words we add are grasping for straws and maybe someone will see us, because, we added some obscure word, that no one searches for?

And you left off  No one, copy space, neutral space, isolated on white, Solanum lycopersicum, nightshade,

I give all my photos 50 keywords.  You never know what search word is going to bring a buyer to your photo. 

Dreamstime is the only site that I know of that tells you what a person was searching for when they purchased your photo.  That has been extremely helpful in knowing which words are most commonly searched for with specific photos that I take.

Quote from: ShadySue on December 21, 2019, 01:21

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on December 21, 2019, 00:49

Quote from: ShadySue on December 20, 2019, 19:26
How many QC stars have you got? If you are 5*, your files are accepted and you can manage them within seconds/minutes depending on batch size, and they go live at the next database update.

I believe the max number of stars is 3.

It's 5.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5sjltxqgo32rupg/FiveStar.jpg?dl=0

I stand corrected.  I was just going by the Alamy site.  They only mention up to 3 stars.

Quote from: ShadySue on December 20, 2019, 19:26
How many QC stars have you got? If you are 5*, your files are accepted and you can manage them within seconds/minutes depending on batch size, and they go live at the next database update.

I believe the max number of stars is 3. 

Quote from: MatHayward on December 20, 2019, 14:57
Hi Everyone,

During the week of Christmas through New Year, Adobe shuts down so employees can celebrate the holiday season with our families. I want to let you know after today I will be offline until January 2. We do have staff answering tickets during the shutdown if you need support though response time may be slightly delayed.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I appreciate this forum very much and look forward to a fantastic 2020 with you all!

Yours sincerely,

Mat Hayward

Thanks, Mat!  I appreciate you letting us know.  Have a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

"We're experiencing an unexpected delay in reporting your statement(s) and are working hard to resolve the issue. This does not impact our ability to issue payments. We apologize for the inconvenience."

This is now being displayed on the Royalties page. 

Quote from: The Mighty Jungle on December 20, 2019, 16:54

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on December 20, 2019, 16:49

Quote from: The Mighty Jungle on December 20, 2019, 16:30
Just curious ... where are you all getting your latest statments? Mine is not in my email, not on DeepMeta and not on the ESP/Getty site. It's about 11:30am EST Friday.

Tnx

If you didn't follow the above comments, it looked like we were all going to get our statements yesterday.  But then some people got statements that didn't belong to them.  Then it went back to looking like they were uploading data again.  And then it went back to just showing October.  So, no one has their statement yet.

Thanks.

I never received even the wrong statement. Guess I'm lucky.

Gee, I wonder who got mine.... hmmm.

The incorrect statements were never sent out, just displayed on the website I guess.  I didn't ever see any information that didn't belong to me.

Quote from: The Mighty Jungle on December 20, 2019, 16:30
Just curious ... where are you all getting your latest statments? Mine is not in my email, not on DeepMeta and not on the ESP/Getty site. It's about 11:30am EST Friday.

Tnx

If you didn't follow the above comments, it looked like we were all going to get our statements yesterday.  But then some people got statements that didn't belong to them.  Then it went back to looking like they were uploading data again.  And then it went back to just showing October.  So, no one has their statement yet.

Quote from: ShadySue on December 20, 2019, 01:24

Quote from: stockman11 on December 20, 2019, 00:29

Quote from: ShadySue on December 20, 2019, 00:25

Quote from: stockman11 on December 20, 2019, 00:18
Is anyone else getting the "unexpected error" instead of the message about importing?

I'm getting them alternating.
Oh the fun!!!
(Couldnae run a menage)

Magical Christmas spirit is here, brought to us by Getty / Istock.

And now the wheel has stopped turning, but there is no November report. Word is that it "probably won't be tonight".
Ho hum. Will it be worth the wait? It's such a lottery!

The downloads for November are showing.  If I go by just sheer number of downloads for November, it's going to be a BME.  But you never know with them.  I'll make more popcorn. lol

Quote from: derby on December 19, 2019, 21:44

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on December 19, 2019, 20:53

Quote from: derby on December 19, 2019, 20:36
Mmm Better to forget It in my opinion...
I received a lot of invitation in the past for my area, all about US cities... And I live in Italy 

And what is your opinion based on? 
My invitation was for my area.

My opinion is based on my experience, of course! What else?
As I said, I received a lot of invitation for "random" places... so I didn't give them good credit.

You ask about this invitation and I told my experience, based on what I directly saw.
Which kind of answers do you expect from your post? If it's good for you, it's ok.

Asking something like "exclusivity or not" is quite strange, you can read the specific agreement for every single assignment (of course is always exclusive, by the way....). The same is for how much they pay (really poor in my my opinion), you can red by yourself in their agreement.

Apart of this, the only thing I can add is that IN MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE they are simply looking random around the world someone available for their need, and this (always in my opinion) is not really serious.

I was just curious if you had participated in the invitation.  Obviously not.  No need to be snotty about it.

Not sure why my question about exclusivity is strange.  I stated that there was NO mention of it in the offer.  I had to dig to find even a little info, and still wasn't sure if it pertained to my particular offer.  And there is no agreement to be found, so I was asking fellow users about it. 

Quote from: ShadySue on December 19, 2019, 20:34

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on December 19, 2019, 19:15

Quote from: ShadySue on December 19, 2019, 19:00

Quote from: Hoodie Ninja on December 19, 2019, 18:38
The website is not displaying some pages correctly so they must be uploading the stats now.

The 'unexpected error' displaying pages has been happening on and off all month.
So mebbes aye, mebbes naw.
'Should' be reported by end of day tomorrow on PST.

But.....but.....but.....I already got the popcorn!  I will not be denied my popcorn! lol

Patience, Poppet!
"Statement data is currently not available because we are importing new statement data. Please check back later."

Me waiting for my royalties statement....