Object to the decline in Shutterstock's Contributor earnings - Sign the Petition!
http://chng.it/BMGqx9bPdC  Change.org

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And not to forget the new video subscription plan they just announced....

That makes 15 % of 8,95 � for a video.

I just discovered that a buyer can chosse a color scheme in his search for a particular picture.
For example - searching for a yellow tulip I can click the yellow box in colour scheme.
And it gives me only yellow tulips. And just one single page with pics (not hundreds as usual).

How can I get my yellow tulip on that page beeing a photographer?
Using the word "yellow" or "color" in keywords or description does not make my yellow tulip appear on that page.
What do I have to do when uploading and tagging? Where does that color scheme take it�s information from?

If I would be a buyer I would much love that colour scheme thing.

Now I want to get my own pics to appear there.

Big Stock. It follows the same patterns as SS.

In my case BS rejects completely different pictures than SS does....
If they get rejected on SS BS will accept them - and the other way round.

I think picworkflow has more functions than xpiks including the ability to store your files with them and also you only need to upload once if using picworkflow and they send to all sites using their bandwidth, where as xpiks works as traditional ftp.

I don�t know what xpiks does but with picworklflow I do indeed upload a picture once to their storage and click which 10 or 20 agencies I want them to submit to. They then downsize to the allowed size and submit my picture to all agencies I asked for.

I had a very slow connection until recently and it took every picture 4 or 5 minutes to upload. So I was happy to only upload them once and they distribute them.
Xpiks sounds more like an FTP upload like FileZilla?

They made it an easter present - finally:

Current Cleared Balance: $94
We'll pay you on 01 May 2020

Over the last two weeks I tried submitting only one or two pics at a time, only the best, during daylight, full frame sensor, in my opinion no technical problems.

All rejected for noise.
I give up with shutterstock.
At least for the moment.

100 % rejection today.

Submitted 27 pictures over the last three days, all different subjects, taken over a period of several weeks.
They were reviewed today- 100 % rejection for "noise". All of them.

Not one single pic made it through review..... ( iStock and Adobe had no problems with the same pics- all approved over there).

Edit: I just discovered that two og those pics are already online- I submitted them a few weeks ago already. In those days they were approved ok.
So they should have been rejected for beeing doublettes- but not for noise.

I had a few sales with Alamy several weeks ago (altogether 235 $)  but they don�t show up in my "cleared balance" so I can�t aks for a payout.
How long does it usually take with Alamy before one can ask for payout?
That�s what my account says since several weeks:

Balance brought forward:    $94.10
Total sales:    $0.00
Commission / charges:    $0.00
Total payments to you:    $0.00
Balance carried forward:    $94.10
Cleared balance:    $14.23
Next payment date:    Not due

If it takes two or three days before reviewing my rejection rate is about 5 %.
If it takes two minutes to review (as it happened three weeks ago) it�s 99% rejection rate.

At the moment it takes several days and now pictures, which were rejected three weeks ago, are ok.

and the general public would probably just scroll past it.

The general public does not even understand that there is a problem.

An aqauintance of mine was just sentenced for using two pictures on his website without paying one of the stock agencies for a license. I�m quite sure he did that by mistake without knowing he was doing something wrong.

There was a whole discussion on his facebook page about that. Any many users screaming how "unfair" that agency was to impeach him for using those two pictures. They should be free and they found it ridicolous agencies do charge money for pictures.

I tried to explain my side of the coin that photographers do earn their living by selling licenses.

But it clearly showed that the majority of people do not understand how much work a photographer puts into his pictures and that he/she should be paid for that. The majority believes pics should be free 

I�m now quite sure my photos are no longer reviewed by a human but by a digital programme.
I uploaded about 40 pictures over the last week, all in batches of 3 or 4 pictures, and they were reviewed within one (ONE!) minute or two minutes, but never waiting for more than two minutes for review.
And all got rejected.
Several reasons, always the same reason for the whole batch.
I�m quite sure no human was involved in that process.
So I now stopped uploading. A rejection rate of 100 % makes me step out now.
And the other agencies (Bigstock, Dreamstime, Adobe, iStock, deposit) all had no problems with those pictures and accepted them.
That�s GOODBYE Shutterstock for me.

Oh I nearly forgot: I uploaded 4 editorial pictures (same settings as the non editorial, but with tourists in it I have no release for). Those pictures took about 3 days to be reviewed and were all ACCEPTED!!! - so there a human was involved I guess).

I defenately give up with SS for now.
My 95 % approval rate changed to 95% rejection rate over the last 10 days.

Most images were rejected for "lens dust" and I removed every oh so small spot I could discover, uploaded the images for a second time and then got a rejection for poor quality instead ( "using auto-focus or poor camera sensor"). Well , I work with a Sony A7RII with a 42 MP full frame sensor. If this is a poor sensor I simply give up with SS.