Hello,

        Well, for the second time I've tried to be part of the "Stockxpert community" but then I've failed again. I knew it was not easy to be accepted there but I didn't know it could be that hard. The strangest thing is that I am now member of all the other top microstock sites and I was accepted by Shutterstock on my first attempt, and by Istock on my 2nd attempt. So I'm still not sure what they exactly want from me. Maybe it's because I don't take photos of people or, maybe because my photos are still far from being of good quality or original.
        Here's the message they sent to me explaining, in an obscure way, the reasons why they didn�t approve my 2nd batch:

         Dear phgraphis,

We regret to inform you that your artist application was rejected. We are very sorry but at the moment we are not looking for pictures like the ones you uploaded.

Admin message: Overall quality is good. If you would have taken the time to clean the scratches and dust in Photoshop, it would of brought up the quality even more. Unfortunately, content wise, it is not what we are looking for.


I'm pretty sure that the dust/scratches issue applies to the "pocket watch" photo I've sent to them, but I would not agree that that's an important issue regarding all the other 4 photos.

    I'd be glad if anybody here could send me any suggestion so I can improve the quality of my photos before I try to send another photo sample to Stockxpert. Feel free to choose your personal "top 5" on my portfolio too.

      Thanks!

Hi,

       I've found a briefly but interesting description about the differences between royalty-free and rights-managed photos at the Wikipedia site and would like to share it with you. Here's the description:

        Royalty-free (a confusing term, this does not mean the image is "free")

   1. Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
   2. No time limit on when you can use an image.
   3. No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he wants).
   4. A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times you can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow you to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called the print run. Above that print run you are required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.

Rights-managed (sometimes called "licensed images")

   1. Pay each time you use the image.
   2. There is a time limit on how long a buyer has exclusive use of an image (usually one year). This allows the photographer to sell exclusive rights to the image again when the first buyer's time limit is up.
   3. You must choose a Rights-managed license if you want exclusive use of an image. The photographer would not be allowed to sell the image to anyone else if exclusivity is part of the license. Not all Rights-managed licenses are exclusive, that must be stipulated in the agreement.
   4. Fee is based on such things as exclusivity, distribution, length of time used, geographic location of use.
   5. A Rights-managed image usually allows a much larger print run per image than a Royalty-free license.
   6. Editorial is a form of rights-managed license when there are no releases for the subjects. Since there are no releases the images cannot be used for advertising or to depict controversial subjects, only for news or educational purposes.


 I hope it is useful to someone.

      Regards