Very interesting thread, as I have been pondering exclusivity at istock myself. I've resisted for a long time, and I'm not 100% committed to the idea yet. As I contribute presently to Dreamstime, too, six months from a couple of weeks ago would be the soonest for me to even seriously consider. I will also be coming up to 10,000 downloads right about then.

I do have a couple of friends who are exclusive there and one person was exclusive, then went non-exclusive, but then went back to exclusivity. That person says they noticed an increase in sales over and above the double commissions after going exclusive the second time, and it was just less time-consuming and easier to track photos being misused.

The other person went exclusive as soon as he was eligible. He hasn't been disappointed. Well, except for wishing for more sales, like the rest of us.

I posted this on the Microstock forum also.

I too have experienced rejections for noise when I know there is none.
Not only at StockXpert but at all the microstock sites.

I understand your frustration. Did you upload a whole bunch at one
time? In my experience, I have had better luck uploading smaller
batches at a time. 5 or 10 photos, maybe. I know it takes much longer,
but there have been nightmare tales from many contributors where
reviewers will find fault with one or two photos, get lazy and hit the
reject button for all of the batch.

Just a suggestion.

Wow, that would be high stress. The photos were amazing. That Annie Leibowitz really knows her stuff. I can't even fathom taking a portrait like that and not using a tripod.

So even though in their rejection reason it says "could be...visible logo", why don't they just write "manufacturers name in center of clock needs to go" so you know exactly what they are talking about? That's what always cracks me up. Another rejection reason that cracks me up is "overfiltered" when the photo I have submitted is straight out of the camera.

All the sites seem to dish out review hell at one point or another.

I don't have a request for payment in (yet...coming soon though) so I am not experiencing the frustration like you other folks (yet).

I had to jump through some of Paypal's hoops while setting up a company account for our company estore. It was pretty ridiculous. It was bad enough to find them lackadaisical in worrying about piddly little consumer accounts, but large corporate accounts? I find their customer service department appalling.

In case you haven't noticed, DT appears to have a 'rotation' element in its search engine.  This is why so many people comment that 'DT goes quiet for a couple of weeks, then takes off like a rocket'.

Most of the sites do. IS just changed their Best Match results again. 

sorry yingyang I meant the same thing, just said it wrong. but thanks for reiterating.

In this situation, as noted above, they are looking for the owner of the statue to sign a property release. Unless you yourself created that statue, then you would sign the release and state that you sculpted the statue.

If you had taken that photo of a statue in a recognizable garden, let's say Central Park in NY as an example, you would more than likely need a property release for the statue AND from Central Park because you took the photo on their property.

When I click on the link in the first post, it goes to Duncan1890's page. Am I missing something? Sure would like to see the Diamond list.