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But you'll admit the new images do get a big position boost right?

I see the opposite of that.  Although i dont subscribe to the "images need to age" theory but i get far more selling and starting to be consistent months after upload rather than days or weeks.

Previously (ie 5+ years ago) new images got a short term massive boost but if they failed to sell in that short, few day period they rapidly lost position and disappeared.  That isn't the case now (at least not what i see).

Yes and no. Yes you are right the boost isn't as long, but I don't think anything changed, it's just that we are up against 1 million new images uploaded when five years ago (just to pick one point) it was thousands of images.

What I mean is, we just get buried faster, but the initial boost is the same as it was. You are correct in the effect and results of course.

I'll make a suggestion, which isn't new and I've pretty much repeated this for years. See if you can find something that's needed and not well covered, and upload that kind of material. You'll have less competition and more of a chance to be "discovered".  Yes the subjects that aren't well covered, aren't the most popular, but when there's a need and a demand, the sales will make up for the not as popular and less competition.

I don't mean find something so specialized that hardly anyone can use it, try for something in the middle, but not what everyone else is uploading. It's a good game trying to find things and make them.

Editorial video here, I've sure noticed an impact under the new policy, clips get rejected if there is a similar clip already on the site not just your portfolio so I am suddenly getting 75% rejection rate on new uploads because there is often something similar already there.

The good thing is it forces me to shoot better and different and perhaps more creatively so that more clips squeak through the new system and in turn that gives buyers more variety to choose from.

Lot of rejections not only for similarity, but also for noise, artifacts, pixelation, banding all together nice

Someone doesn't know what similar means. I just got one shot of food from directly above accepted and every other view of it rejected. Apparently side view and top view are "too similar".

Sounds like their AI isn�t learning much.

I emailed them, too, to point out the system doesn't seem to be working properly.

I emailed them, too, to point out the system doesn't seem to be working properly.

And it was a waste of time. They just brushed me off referring to a generic post about similars. I guess nobody read what I'd written.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 01, 2019, 00:11

I emailed them, too, to point out the system doesn't seem to be working properly.

And it was a waste of time. They just brushed me off referring to a generic post about similars. I guess nobody read what I'd written.

Looks like reviewers gone wild, over the top rejections for anything marginally similar. It's humans, because no AI could be that stupid.

yeah, i had a picture of a train worker on a steam train, engulfed in Steam- clearly described, rejected for focus... 

I just had clouds and mist covered distant hill, rejected for the usual, Focus: The main subject of this image is not in focus.

Well you could have fooled me, I never knew that a distant hill in the fog was supposed to be in focus. 

Maybe I'll try distant hills obstructed by fog and mist? Or maybe I'm just wasting time as it's just a landscape background. Whatever I do it's no rush and not important. I don't see buyers lining up for yet another soft focus landscape of clouds and mist over the distant woods.

Let me check... oh wait this could make me rich, great unfulfilled concept, only 29 here. (just kidding of course)  29 clouds and mist over the distant woods stock photos

Yes, their system has gone crazy.
To get rid of similar images they are also punishing good contributors who put lot of efforts trying to make every work different than other.

SS team needs a good counseling

Absolutely! I have a series of vintage backgrounds in light and dark version and now they systematically reject one if the other was uploaded before.
But they sell both!

I went to their support and they replied, accepting their fault and saying there is always room for improvement and urged me to resubmit.

Next, I resubmitted and it was again re-rejected. This is height of stupidity.

Nope, just OCD under order and symmetry disordered behaviour symptoms.
Thank God they don't go abusive or suicidal from time to time.
Oh wait...

With the number of submissions they have encouraged with their free for all entry requirement I would imagine its impossible to recruit and train enough competent reviewers and give them time to review at a economic price.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on August 20, 2019, 11:36

but the classic worst recently was a guy with a GoPro, driving down the street in Saigon or someplace similar, shooting time lapse through the windscreen, and uploading each as an individual image. They are fuzzy and terrible, but also hundreds if not thousands of images. I doubt that he will get more sales than if he had taken 2 good shots and uploaded them.

do you have a link to that portfolio?

It's been linked many times under spamfolio and on SS too. I'm not sure if it's OK to post the link here, but it's not anyone on the forums. 

Some people call out spam for multiple images, similar images, but for example, here's what I'm calling as spam, not just picking on people for their personal choices and how many of something they upload. Yes I like singles and a few of any setup, while others do well uploading dozens of well thought out variations. The later is not spam... this is! 

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/fiqahanugerah?page=2&section=1&sort=newest&search_source=base_gallery&language=en

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/CharoensilpPhotoData?page=10&section=1&sort=popular&search_source=base_gallery&language=en

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/fernandocomet?page=1&section=1&searchterm=chinese%20dragon&measurement=px&sort=newest&safe=true&search_source=base_gallery&language=en&saveFiltersLink=true

for example.

A whole long thread for Spamfolios.  https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/94721-spamfolio%E2%80%A6-post-here-the-link-of-spammy-portfolios-you-find-on-shutterstock/?tab=comments#comment-1690960

Now they are really overdoing it. I made one image where the object is isolated on white and one image where the object is in snow and a snowball is next to it. Where is that similar? I had the image with snow and the snowball rejected for similar. I have never made similar images like others where I couldn't even see the difference in the photos unless I looked at it for 10 minutes.

I do mostly editorial video and I am sure it's an AI/software application that's screening their massive database of 600 million files for similar content and rejecting it or flagging it for the reviewer to reject, I don't even know if SS has human reviewers anymore, could all be AI for all we know.

All I know is if pretty much any part of the images in the video are similar to anything already on the site it now gets rejected, I went from about 10% rejection to 90% rejection.

They most definitely are conserving server space.