EDITED
There's no error. 50 is max for best acceptance ratio(80-100). Lower than that you only get a part
Users with an approval percentage of between 50-80% can upload the fifth part of the maximum amount of images daily.

wow, is this so?  at close to 80% but not quite there, and you only get  a fifth of the max , ie.10?
that 's not even proportional. what kind of arithmetic is this? 

10 years ago nobody would touch cheap Chinese junk. Now there is only cheap Chinese junk :-) Microstock will eliminate all other competitors and then standards will not matter if there is no choice.

very profound,mela. congrats.
much like if you were born listening to madonna and rum dmc or whatnot, and never heard of charlie parker, monk, trane, or even jerome kern, gershwin,etc...
or instead of tolstoy and herman hesse, you were weaned on your local tabloids,etc... you wouldn't even know what you're missing out .
or like from day one you've been fed fast food with pop, you would not like cordon bleu culinary served with a glass of  chardonnay or shiraz, even if you hit your head walking into the restaurant 

fine points,mela.

Quote from: randy_mckown on January 18, 2010, 10:53

Location doesn't matter so much .. at least in that case. That client was located in Dallas, TX which is I dunno 10-13 hours from me. Honestly, I thought they were asking for pretty generic stuff too (that's why I loved doing it .. easy money LOL) All I can say is some companies have a lot of funding behind them. When you own a company who is bringing in millions on a monthly basis a couple thousand bucks for some photos is not a big deal. That client ran a online dating site. Not only did they spend that on the shoot but a few weeks later they noticed one of my models and asked if I would ask her to fly down there and shoot a 20 second video. They paid for her airline tickets from Kansas City to Dallas, hotel for the entire weekend and paid her a few hundred bucks to sit there and giggle while pretending to chat with somebody online for 20 seconds in front of a camera. Places that have money don't have a problem spending it and the more money they have just means the more money they need to try and spend so their accounts can work those numbers into their expense goals.

I use to have my email posted in some of my profiles as a way of making contact .. but I started getting bombarded with more spam than anything so .. bad idea LOL. As for being a reviewer I actually get paid pretty good. I'm probably not allowed to say how much but it's what most people would call a full time income and I've been doing it since 2004 so it's just second nature at this point. That and it's kinda fun .. my wife says you get to travel the world everyday. ... I'm actually thinking about starting up a new educational microstock website that focuses on learning the acceptance/rejection side of micro. Everybody is always talking about not understanding the rejection process on the forums .. since I'm a 5 year reviewer it kinda makes sense for me to start a blog or something on it. (I always need to stay busy LOL)

Out of interest do you read your stuff back to yourself before posting it and ever ask yourself whether it sounds credible or not.

As for your educational blog, maybe one of the first subjects could be explaining how you've got a significantly higher number of images on the site you're a reviewer at than all the others you submit to. Most people understand the rejection reasons - the reviewer 

no RT, you cannot use your reviewer pass to get your own portfolio approved.
that would be  gross conflict of interest 

you know how the great artists (musicians, painter, photographers) always say, "let my work speak for me" ?

you should do the same. my business card is a little bigger than the typical business card.  the dudes in the office look at it like "duh, so big?" , but my clients, bankers,etc... use it for both contact reference and display on their desk.

you sell photographs, you make images that speak for your clients,etc..
as my best friend (she's in real estate) keeps reminding me, "let your work speak for you".  iow, if you're a writer, worry about verbal presentation, if you're in imaging, find the one image that will speak for you.

be aware of composition, colours (certain colours attract attention, others turn people off, yet others get ppl to look at it then forget it), ...
pick one image that stands out for that little size of the business card.
many images that look incredible at 4MP look weak business card size.

what i do is i print my selections, throw them all on the carpet,
and leave them there. the one that my eyes keep looking at, that one i print as my next business card.

hope it helps.

as for text, nothing much is needed,  name, business name, phone, email...
sometimes, esp when i travel, i don't even bother with address or phone, as they change. if you have a mobile , sure... as long as you know it's not going to change.
email. yes... most ppl communicate with you via email nowadays.
phone numbers are not even that important anymore, as most of my clients contact me first via email.

but you know the rest.

Quote from: PERSEUS on January 17, 2010, 17:21

i don't use cell phones, only land line, i'm one of those ppl who never quite like the idea being contacted by phone literally wherever i am.

I thought I was the only person left on the world without a cell phone! 

ya, isn't it nice to be the few left without a prosthetic ear 

Quote from: PERSEUS on January 17, 2010, 17:21

Quote from: ShadySue on January 17, 2010, 05:23

EDITED.
Actually, I guess you could ask Support specifically about that, they might give permission on a case by case basis. But it's the principle that you have to do that - for instance I've used photos taken on a mobile phone - the pics are only used on the Smartboard, they don't have to be 'pixel perfect'.

i'm sorry if i misread.
did you say you actually got a picture approved by Istock taken with a MOBILE?

No. What I said was that in many cases a photo taken on a mobile is adequate for many school uses but still iStock's exclusive rules would prevent an exclusive from offering them to a file-sharing site. (basically I was saying that iStock would never want the photos, but exclusives can't freely share them, which I find a real pain)

phew, thx ShadySue.

yes, i have to admit there are still certain "quirky" conditions that seem a bit unreasonable:
one being what you just mentioned,
the other being .... rejected images.

thx gannet77...thx all... you have a good sunday..

EDITED
As for regrets - well, if I had any, I would drop exclusivity.  It's not a life sentence.

good point.
so i construe this :
 the ones who are not IS exclusives ...are not because they cannot... rather than they do not wish to be.
it's pretty obvious , esp now that there is a lot more carrot waving to be IS exclusive.

Quote from: PERSEUS on January 17, 2010, 09:54

- i also have been getting whatever resubmittable rejections  approved
 how does RESUBMIT approval figure in approval ratio ?
is it one reject, one approval ? or one approval?

It's one reject, one approval.

Missing MR don't count as rejections.

thanks MichaelJay. and also for your elaborate insight.  i can relate to most of it.
one being it will certainly be more sensible to just have IS as most of my submission to them is almost straight off the camera except for spotting and cc. and isolation...
as IS preference to as little post processing suits me just fine.
i am not a big fan of increased contrast, saturation,sharpening,etc..

i also like the simplicity of IS keywording. no abstract, just the description of what the images entail.
simply because my keywording stinks, lol... but asking me to just simply describe the image is cool.

but really, the thing that points to IS is that you now have the premium collection which contains a lot of creative images and of course more money for dls. it's nice to finally see that there is a place where the cream rises to the top.

quite a bit change from my initial impression of micro stock and it's direction for this new decade.
have a good sunday.

Went exclusive about a year and half ago and have no regrets. For me it was about the time and the money. I tried non-ex for about 10 months and my iStock earnings never dipped below 70% of the total. Others have had different results of course. Time: I realized I'd much rather spend that extra 30% of my time (uploading, keywording, and categorizing the other sites) actually shooting and planning. So for me it was a no brainer.

I think I had around 800 or so images.

time saved. that's a prime mover for me in considering exclusivity too. i see really only FT, DT and IS as worth the trouble, but i also see from my peers i've PMed that IS is really where you want to be because you can go from there to better things with your performance history.

i am consistently above 50% approval, so that is not a fence i need to jump. i have that already .

i also project  to put most of my future works in RM with Alamy, as for now, i have 100% approval there but all in RF..., and i am told i can still maintain Alamy with IS exclusivity.

my problem is trying to get the existing RF off the other Big 6  when the moment comes when i meet the other requiement of IS exclusivity.

ps
two lingering questions though:
- i have in the past 3 months 100% approval with StockXpert who approve my work within hours. i guess i will also have to leave StockXpert too , huh?
- i also have been getting whatever resubmittable rejections  approved
 how does RESUBMIT approval figure in approval ratio ?
is it one reject, one approval ? or one approval?

I think it certainly used to be that people with little experience could be moulded into iStock's ways more quickly than those with a lot of experience in other fields of photography, who know that sub-optimal photos are often used to great profit elsewhere and railled at the thought of images, being sold for so little, have to be pixel perfect. They probably had a steeper learning curve than those who only know where the 'take' button was.

that may be also a very good point, but  i tend to agree more with Mr.Locke's point of view.

dp

to be a philantropist, you usually pay your own passage. if not, that would not be volunteerism.
if it's to help mankind, and to go to a place where you can also use your camera for editorial usage,  there are lots of such NGO (i think that's what they used to call them) organization  that are based in these places, central am, south am,etc..
some even give you citizenship if you remain with them for 5 years.
if it's for other reasons, such as excavation sites for archaelogy, there are similar organizations are well.

it's been a long time , but i know that was so with favela-ridden Brazil where you volunteered to help build communities. lots of young ppl, mostly from europe, during my days of travelling constantly used to volunteer to become "missionaries" to help with building houses, digging wells, building roads, education,etc.. in the most remote areas of Brazil.

maybe madelaide would know if it's still prevalent, but i know , as i said, many many years ago, Brazil used to  highly values such services to , as i said, even offer you the choice to become Brazilian citizen after 5 years of volunteerism.
you pay your own passage naturally.