Hello gwhitton!  All fair questions.  I have forwarded this on to Jarel our review manager as he can best answer your questions

Hello Microbius!  Thanks for the feature request. I will bring this up with the team and post back here with and answer.

Quote from: joshsprague on December 17, 2011, 22:00

Hi TheBlackRhino! I'm sorry to hear about the issue you are having with rejections.  We value your input and would encourage you to email any legitimate concerns to the reviewer, or support. We certainly acknowledge that we are not the only shop in town and we are very willing to listen to you the author and learn and adapt where applicable.

 
Hopefully this clears it up a bit and offers a bit of assistance at the same time.  Feel free to hit me up if you need anything at all.

just how can we resubmit for 'legitimate concerns' when your boi;lerplate rejection emails says:

=======
Unfortunately we're not able to accept your submission at this time as the image quality does not meet our quality requirements due to one or more of the following aspects:

 - Element or framing composition
 - Noise, exposure, lighting or saturation
 - Chromatic aberration, moir� pattern or other image quality issues

Thanks for your submission, we look forward to seeing more of your work.

=============================

also, i've made several resubmits of soft rejects of multiple anatomy images on 1 image.  you had suggested submitting these separatelybut i explained  that these scans were made at original size from old texts, so probably shouldn't upsize them.  others in this series have been accepted here.  THe resubmitted images were soft rejected without any acknowledgement of that explanation

similarly some maps from 100-300 year old atlases were rejected for copyright reasons, while others were accepted

Hello again TheBlackRhino, sorry for the delayed reply... If I'm not mistaken, if you are receiving emails for your rejected submissions, you can reply to those with your questions but I could be mistaken.  Please keep in mind, you can always submit a support ticket, or even contact Jarel our review manager at jarel

• envato.com

We really do appreciate your patience as we work through some of these issues

@ joshsprague

What's happening with the FTP, I uploaded over 1200 files over the weekend and none of them are showing up in my author dashboard.

Oh man!  Can you give me your PhotoDune username so I can take a look? You are uploading them to the "bulk_import" folder correct?

Hello Josh, thanks for taking the time to reply and help sorting things out; it proves that you really are committed and try to improve things, much appreciated!
I think i'm fine for now (the files i uploaded through FTP all came through eventually), but you can see how needing a manual to upload isnt exactly user-friendly...

A few humble tips for improving the user-friendliness of the form:
*ditch that whole first page and take us to that 2nd page at once and give us the option to add releases and submit from there.
...just skip the silly steps of having to select it again from a dropdown after uploading (its a form to upload max 1 pic anyway!), having to add a title there (most have it in their IPTC info anyway!), and create the item submission... just take us to that 2nd page at once. The FPT version does this already
* For the first batch to become an author; add the info releases should be included in the zip, i was waiting for a 2nd field or page to add them but instead it went pending for review already
*I have a double in my 'images ready to submit' section, but i cant find a way to delete it... is there a way?

Hello again Artemis!  Your humble tips were right on the money.  We are actually working on all of those I believe   As to the issue of double images, I don't believe there is a fix for that as of yet.  You can however hit up support if you would like and they can help you out.  Worse case i suppose is they both go into your portfolio where you can then choose to remove it.

Thanks again for your time and fine suggestions.

All im about to say has been said here before, but i need to rant.
Holy sh*tters..... i decided to give PD a try, but what an utter, utter PITA to get files in the pending queue...
First i uploaded my ZIP for them to approve me; i suspect i had to guess that MR's just have to be included in that zip... no probs after all, i got approved without releases, but the worst still was coming...
PD you win a prize for having the most complex, anti-intuitive upload process of ALL agencies!
I didnt get this whole main file thing and create item submission thing (tried with 1 file first, couldnt get it through, so thought i'll put them in a zip and upload that, didnt get through either, retried, found out the first image was now processed, together with my 2nd attempt, now have it double in the editting queue and cant delete) so tried the FTP instead; it kept throwing error messages (cant change directory yadayada) but it looks like 6 so far slowly are getting through (took them over 15 minutes), i guess i now have to dump the MR's in the other folder and PD will sort out which release goes with which file...?
I figured out how to upload one by one through the form, but how to attach MR's?? If i upload them after uploaded the picture, the picture is gone, if i upload it before the picture the release is gone... and i suspect i'll have rejections for the ones through FTP because how can they know which release belongs to which pic?!
I suppose this whole process takes some getting used to and i'll get the grasp of it eventually, but seriously, there's a LOT of room for improvement.

Hello Artemis! Excellent rant, not the best I've seen here but a good one non the less

I understand your frustration with our system and you have certainly hit on some areas that need improvement.  Please know, we are committed to you the author and are working hard to improve the overall user experience. Let me see if I can help if not for you, then for others who may come upon this post.

The first issue you had was when submitting your initial set of photos required for you to become an author correct?  You are right, though we didn't do a good job explaining this, you do need to add your MRs to the initial set of images you submit for approval.  (this is the only time you will do it this way)

Now for the second issue, here is a link to the instructions for uploading using the web upload form.  At this point though, I would only recommend going this route if you don't have a large portfolio.
http://wiki.envato.com/selling/upload-instructions/photodune-upload-process/

As for how we handle MRs via FTP.  When you upload your portfolio using the instructions found here http://wiki.envato.com/selling/upload-instructions/photodune-upload-process/ any MRs you add to the model_release folder will be attached automatically to any photo in the "photos" directory. There is nothing more you need to do with MRs.

We really do appreciate you taking the time to upload to PhotoDune and i'm hoping that many future sales will make the initial headache a distant memory  Let me know if I can help in any way!

So to submit via the web form we'd need to upload just one at a time, and type in the title - but if we submit by FTP the titles come from the IPTC?

Hi stockastic, that's a great question.  So you can actually upload more than one at a time by simply holding down ctrl/command and select as many as you would like and it will upload them all.  The problem is though that you can still only submit one at a time for processing so this system is not ideal for someone with many photos.  Please note, we are aware that this is not an ideal way of doing things and are working on bettering our system.

So to be clear, ftp is a much better way in in my opinion for sure.  Does that help?

Quote from: joshsprague on November 30, 2011, 14:41

@Tabimura, sorry as well for the delayed reply.  Things have been a bit hectic I'm afraid but Jarel will get with you soon.

So, what exactly does "soon" mean? It's been a week since then and everyone at photodune seems to be in holiday.

Hi Tabimura, I am terribly sorry, you appear to have slipped through the cracks.  Please contact me directly at [email protected] and I will make sure you are taken care of   I will need your PhotoDune username as well.

can someone explain how to attach model release at photodune?

I had ftp all my images, then it seems there is no option to attach model release.


do i have to ftp the files which needs model release, and ftp the release same time?

thanks.

Hi mtkang!  Thanks for taking the time to upload to PhotoDune  In your FTP directory you will find a folder called bulk_import/photos,  this is the folder where you will upload your photos. Inside that folder is a folder called model_releases.  This is where all MRs go.  Now all MRs will be attached automatically to any photo in the "photos" folder so there is no need to attach them on your own.  Now, I have been told many, many times that this is very different from other stock agencies and apologize for any confusion.

"do i have to ftp the files which needs model release, and ftp the release same time?" To be clear, yes you should upload MRs to the model_releases folder at the same time you add the photos with the models into the "photos" folder.

Here are the official instructions, but please feel free to contact me with any questions at all
http://photodune.net/wiki//selling/upload-instructions/photodune-ftp-upload/

My first photo (which was part of my initial 10 too) got rejected because it would be more suitable on graphicriver - but I was under the impression that was for vector art - although looking at it it appears that they also include vector photo composites.

Has anyone else uploaded straight photos to graphicriver?

you can see the image in question here:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-fireball-image993876

I got an e-mail about this image, but I couldn't find this image on the site anywhere - where are the results of image reviews displayed?

Hi pancaketom!  This can be a tricky one.  Can you tell me, is this file simply a jpeg or is there psd/AI file available?  The answer will help me determine where it should reside

Quote from: joshsprague on December 01, 2011, 14:02

Hi again RT, thanks for taking the time to respond, I know your time valuable.  Again, I apologize for the issues you are experiencing for what it's worth.  As to the 405 error, we are aware of this and there is a thread here http://photodune.net/forums/thread/405-not-allowed/54869 discussing it as well.  Long story short, it appears that your submission may have went through just fine (did you get an email confirming such).  We also have a support ticket in so this can be addressed properly with our dev team.

Hi Josh,

Once again thanks for taking the time to respond, I fully appreciate any new site will have teething problems but these are basics that should have been addressed earlier, saying you're aware of all these issues is all well and good but how does that look to someone like me who has to "discover" them, if you know about them put something on the upload page!

I've just received an email so will see what happens from there, as for the other issue regarding model releases, again I suggest you implement (sooner rather than later) the same type of procedure every other agency uses, having to upload model releases with each and every batch is not something I'm going to do, it's a needless waste of time.

Hi RT, thanks again, your point is well received. I have a call scheduled to discuss this and other issues in hopes to prevent further confusion.  I also appreciate your comments on our model release process, I know this is something that is already being discussed as we really do want to make our system something that "just works" and gets out of the authors way.

I've done my share of complaining, but I think you have to cut PhotoDune a little slack as they're sincerely trying to help people who encounter problems and generally offering reasonable workarounds.

When I started with SS in 2004 Jon was still inspecting and they were just getting FTP up and running. It was a buggy mess for a little while but look how that turned out

If you abandoned all sites with bugs or irritants, you'd give up on submitting anywhere. I only have 150 files online (got started early last week) and I've already made 2 sales, so for me, I have the incentive to keep working with them on whatever issues there are.

Congratulations jsnover!  Looks like you are at 3 sales now, gotta love the Christmas season

I've opened an account and uploaded the ten files via FTP, however now I'm completely lost as to what you're meant to do with them, they all have a tick next to them but won't allow me to do anything else because I get an error saying they're not a .zip file. Any suggestions?

Also am I right in thinking there's no release folder and that you have to upload the releases with each future batch? If that's the case I won't be bothering.

This has got to be the most complicated upload system on any of the micros.

@RT, pancaketom is correct.  When you are uploading your initial sample of 5 - 10 photos, you need to create a zip with your photos and model releases and upload them from the PhotoDune "Submit a portfolio" page. (where you land after taking the quiz) This is the only time you will need to do it in this manner. After you are approved as an author,  you will then have the correct directory structure in the ftp that will allow you to easily upload photos and MRs both.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions at all I am more than happy to help