Frankly I find the last choice in your poll in very poor taste and choose to abstain.

Another vote though for thread deletion.

Without seeing the full size it is very hard to judge because the technical accuracy of the isolation work is an important component. Aesthetically, nothing jumped out at me as being overly good or overly bad.

Just a few comments

Here clothing does not complement model. flesh tone looks too blue, crop too tight, and nasty reflection on eyeglasses. Sidelight from left just unnatural. Can work in some photos but does not work here.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072114.html

Here crop too tight, possiblly blown highlights, nothing interesting at all in the pic. I can also see a reflection of possibly a shooting umbrella in the bottom rim of the glasses, and the glasses may be a proprietary design.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072133.html

Here the choice of the golden yellow fabric or blanket casts nasty color tone on the model's lower body half, while the torso skin looks balanced towards blue color temeperature. Face looks like too much flat makeup, washed out, or possible over Photoshopped, Model has good body tone though, but I think her look is more suited to athletic theme rather than boudoir attempt. Nice shadows shows body dimension, but that yellow blanket should not have been used. Throws off the skin tones and takes the image out of balance.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072141.html

This one is just plain bad. It looks like she has a body part missing because the hand at left is blown in addition to being awkwardly posed.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072108.html

Really we could play this game all day.

I suggest http://strobist.blogspot.com/ and take their lighting courses there. They are free. The Lighting forum over at DPReview used to be pretty good and the guys there pretty honest in their  critiques.

I can't give you magic formulas for acceptance, nor can anyone else here. Submit your very best work. Look at the variety of what you are submitting. Perhaps shoot one or two new just to show variety in subject matter.

Include a clear and concise business image instead of models trying to play coy to the camera and not succeeding. Here is one I like on SS that I picked at random. Maybe look at this guy's port and get some ideas. I don't know the photog here, but if I were buying and saw this, I would look at the rest of his stuff too. BTW, I think the image is nicely lit here, even showing the folds in the black fabric of tthe suit.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-12786892-beautiful-businesswomen-speaking-with-somebody-by-mobile-phone.html

As far as the model shots, this is the only one that jumps out for me as being a good seller

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072187.html

The model shots are pretty mundane and they don't allow for creative space.

In this one here, the white balance looks horribly off

http://www.123rf.com/photo_3072199.html

I noticed some coffee cup still life shots. They do not pop at all and would probably be rejected for poor lighting/white balance. You might want to try for a look more like this - I just picked thia one at random. Not great, but there are nice shadows, and there is a nice highlight on the liquid from the cuo

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-6287707-cup-of-tea-isolated-on-white.html

Not trying to be cruel, but 123RF is not a good barometer for quality. Out of 200+ submitted there, have had one rejection.

Without seeing what you actually submitted and knowing the rejection reasons, hard to advise further.

Hope this helps you out.

Serious buyers have little time for such nonsense. It is unfortunate that you had to concern yourselves with this kind of crap over there. The ratings system you desribe benefits no one except for perhaps those wo have too much time on their hands and screw others to get their own jollies. Better to concentrate on what is reliable, credible, and profitable for you.

I have an image which has all sorts of lighting issues which I nearly didn't upload 2 years ago but decided to just let the reviewers decide.   It has sold over 500 times at IS, nearly 900 at SS and various amounts over the other sites.  It still sells well but now that I have got better there is no way I would have uploaded that image now and it definitely wouldn't get accepted.  It surprises me everytime it sells as I now have similar and much better images in my portfolio but you can never tell what the buyers are looking for.

Your image has that nice undefinable X factor which appeals to buyers. Sometimes even if things are technically wrong, aesthetically it is appealling. Congrats on your odd success 

I just took a quick look out of curiosity. One photo I found that is obviously in need of a model release says Release information "n/a". The photo is not a news event, and is taken indoors on apparent private property.

Sorry, but from a buyer's viewpoint, I want to be sure that if such a photo is used, it is properly released. It is obvious that whoever is running this OPP game does not know the business.

Won't even link to the photo, because I don't even want to send a bit of traffic there.

My opinion: Stay far, far away from this one.

Cshack great comments. You also said

Also a question is how long before every category has an overabundance?

I think there is an overaabundance of smiling girls wth headsets 

By the way doesn't Vista ONLY run Photoshop CS3? ... so if you buy a Vista machine, you have to buy all new Adobe software?

 

I am not sure on this. To me Vista is just another giant piece of expensive trash, and running three computers here, I refuse to play this Mother May I? crap on the internet to constantly verify software that I legally purchased.

I don't download music on my machines, I don't watch movies. Vista is all about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and nothng else in order to protect the entertainment industry. I work on my machines, and I don't need some giant bogged down piece of crap code dragging me down with constant M$oft spy checks. On my graphics machines, I don't even run any anti virus trash because I keep the machines off the internet. Just slows me down too much.

I didn't even upgrade Adobe Illustrator. I still have version 10. All I really use it for is technical drawing, and why do I need a new version for that, drawing straight lines and curves? For AutoCad, I still run AutoCad 2000, because the new versions are yet another upgrade racket and more bloatware.

Back to Bibble for Raw - I believe they offer a 30 day trial, and new cameras are added to the mix pretty quickly. It's not sleek and pretty like Adobe, but it sure does the job, and the correction tool for chromatic aberration works as well as or better than Adobe products.

Sorry about the rant. Thanks for listening.

In general, May slow. But yesterday I had a BDE at SS. Go figure.

Yes forgot about the cutting to DVD part. Sorry. Been 2 years since I really played with video for home playback.

I cut some wedding DVDs of video combined with stills using Roxio Easy Media Creator. I still have old version 7 and it worked well for home use. And not a lot of money. Played on every DVD player we tried it on and the wedding client really liked it.

While you're whining about the Yay name, we'll all be getting paid in Euros.

Josh, thanks for letting us know.

Is there a way to spread the word about confirmed thiefs on a unified web page? Maybe it would be a good idea for the microstock community and all the microstock agencies if someone comes up with "thief's board" so all us can communicate with appropriate microstock authorities and eliminate these, excuse me, idiots.

Could be very dangerous to do that. What if the originator is tagged and he/she is not the thief? There are then things like libel and slander issues. One  scenario where thngs could backfire is if the image is grabbed from a macro shooter who isn't even on the micros. And then that image get's copied over and over. I do believe one art site tried to start something like this and I think the abandoned because of such issues. Public whipping is not the answer and if such a site existed, it would be the site owner that is left holding the bag when it comes to damages due to defamation, etc..

I find the best way to spot a fraud is to look at the overall quality of the portfolio if findng a questionable or familiar image. If there is a load of garbage in the port, and one or two stellar shots, they are likely grabbed from somewhere.

Last year I ran across a contest for a company on the web (yes as a way to find their own promo images). In the rules it stated that the source file must be made available to the company, meaning raw camera file, photoshop layered file, or original vector file. They did not require you to submit it with the entry, but there was a qualiifier box to say, "Yes I have the source file and it is available for inspection" or something like that.

Maybe it is time to kick things up a notch and begin to implement such a qualifier. Apparentlty the common qualifier of "yes I own the copright" is not working too well. Availability of a raw camera file or files, would certainly put the brakes on the photo thieves. For vectors, much harder and I can't offer suggestions there. The vector stuff is just running amuck with theft especially in the old Eastern Bloc countries, (Russia, the Slavs, etc)

Josh, have you looked at Tin Eye and it's possible integration into your system? Take a look at the video there.

http://tineye.com/login

May not be feasible for every single image but could be useful if you just have that feeling it has been nabbed.