MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: bobkeenan on April 23, 2011, 09:10
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I have about a thousand images at SS that I have added over the past 2 years. My acceptance rate has averaged about 60% It used to be rare that I get a 100% rejection on my images. OTOH at IS my acceptance rate is about 20%.
But... the last few months I have been getting whole 10 image submittals rejected at 100%. I am now at about 3 in row (30 images). I took those same images and submitted them to BS and about 25 were accepted. 30-90% were accepted at most of the other Top and Middle tier sites.
My IS rate is still almost a constant 30%
I just wonder what in the heck is going on at SS. Its my best sales site. But they are behaving like they are Getty or something. Maybe they don't want my style of images anymore?? Most of my stuff is nature, buildings, abstract.
Its getting really depressing.
Does anyone know what is going on?
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Bob;
There seems to be one or two inspectors at SS that does not understand nature/wildlife. I have same problem, especially if my images come to review at mid-week. My acceptance rate runs at 70% but at times, this one inspector rejects everything; never for spots or anything-usually because he wants more saturation, crisper lighting, etc. He just does not seem to understand we do not use studio lighting when photographing Siberian Tigers in the Primorski region of Russia. He also does not have a firm grasp of white balance for early morning or late afternoon, rejecting things because images have a yellow or similar tint of early or late light. Part of one rejection said to white balance the bird (laughing gull with pure white belly in very early morning light) but that would have killed the sunrise colors and made the image a dull shot. Same image was accepted by 19 other sites.
Sometimes, you just need to move on and forget it. I used to get really bothered by rejections, now I just do my work and submit. With over 20 sites carrying my images, they will be available somewhere.
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No Bob I don't know.
I used to have a fairly good idea what was acceptable and what was throw it at them and hope. Now I send things that I expect to pass and they get refused. Maybe they have just reviewed and trained the inspectors and are enforcing higher standards. Maybe I was just getting some undeserved passes? My SS rejections are up lately, however maybe they deserve to be?
For me I still get more accepted at SS than IS and BS takes some that the others don't. I know that SS says they are going for the same standards, but for some reason I get more through, same images, uploaded on the same day, and BS takes them. The funniest one was one refused at BS that's a top ten seller on SS.
Of course there is some proof in that, acceptance doesn't mean sales. I sell nearly nothing at BS!
I normally will not re-submit and don't bother thinking that I'm missing something. If an image is a good seller someplace else, then I might try, if not, nothing lost. I tried a resubmit at IS and it was an edit correcting the flaws. Got a note back that I was "abusing the system" because it had been refused without a resubmit the first time. Oops, and it's my best selling on SS. ???
Looking the other direction. I don't think I have anything that gets through at IS that has been refused on SS, but I could be wrong.
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SS rejected 3 of my images in my last batch, quite opposite with BigStock, they approved all..
So where is technical standard between these two sisters?
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I've had SS rejecting wholesale recently on batches which are getting 70% - 80% acceptance on iS. I don't know what's going on, either.
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Well, add me to the "pissed off camp"; just had a round of rejections at SS, on the weekend no less. Is there no recourse for rejections on SS; for all the images, reviewer did not like the focus, all were wildlife at approx. 40 ft with 600mm lens at f11 or so; so there was ample focus for the subject (small to med. birds), three they accepted, 9 they rejected, focus same on all.
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Well, add me to the "pissed off camp"; just had a round of rejections at Shutterstock, on the weekend no less. Is there no recourse for rejections on Shutterstock; for all the images, reviewer did not like the focus, all were wildlife at approx. 40 Fotolia with 600mm lens at f11 or so; so there was ample focus for the subject (small to med. birds), three they accepted, 9 they rejected, focus same on all.
I was wondering what "40 Fotolia" was - then I realized the letters f t must get changed to Fotolia.
It is frustrating getting this kind of rejection. SS does like all of the subject to be in focus - maybe a point and shoot with a tiny sensor would solve this problem for you. HA
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Well, add me to the "pissed off camp"; just had a round of rejections at Shutterstock, on the weekend no less. Is there no recourse for rejections on Shutterstock; for all the images, reviewer did not like the focus, all were wildlife at approx. 40 Fotolia with 600mm lens at f11 or so; so there was ample focus for the subject (small to med. birds), three they accepted, 9 they rejected, focus same on all.
I was wondering what "40 Fotolia" was - then I realized the letters f t must get changed to Fotolia.
It is frustrating getting this kind of rejection. Shutterstock does like all of the subject to be in focus - maybe a point and shoot with a tiny sensor would solve this problem for you. HA
Actually, I really enjoyed the photo shoot; the birds in Florida are in breeding plumage, the laughing gulls are mating at this time. I felt like a director of a porn flick with all the gulls having sex around me; there were times I wanted to hide my eyes. The male gulls are like 16 year boys; they yell and scream while doing the deed so that the whole community sees them "on top"; it is a real gas. So when I get pissed, I try to remember how much fun it was taking the images.
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The big sites seem happy just selling old images. Istock might accept more now but do they sell many new images? This could work out well for us because the newer sites are going to have different collections and it should be a good reason for buyers to look at them. The old sites still have lots of old images that haven't sold and were produced with the lower quality cameras of a few years ago. If other people do what I do, only submitting the good stuff to new sites, they should have something superior to offer buyers.
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Here's the change I've seen...
Used to be that SS accepted 100% of my stuff, and IS accepted about 60%
Now, SS is at about 99%, and IS about 20%
So for me, SS is virtually unchanged and IS is liking me less and less despite my stuff selling pretty well there. I think there's a disconnect between what customers want and what the reviewers feel they deserve.
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SS: if I don't take into account weird mass rejections (happens very seldom nowadays in fact), my rate is well over 90%.
IS: about 95-98%, unchanged since my last 7-8 batches (which spread over many months, to be fair ;D)
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I gave serious consideration to try getting accepted on IS as a photographer (I currently have video clips there), but after the latest round of "adjustments," I decided it might not be worthwhile. I see quite a few photographers bailing. I'm interested in getting opinions.
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For me, after over 5 years and 5000 images, I have quit uploading to SS. the mass rejections that use to be erratic have now become the norm. Almost all for composition, the rest for lighting. Other sites haven't changed much for me. Couple that with the fact that SS doesn't sell new images like it use to and it's just not worth my effort. I'll keep checking to see if this gets turned around, otherwise good luck to all the people who are still doing good there.
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I'll take a contrarian view, which won't surprise anybody who's read my earlier posts. I have seen Shutterstock get a little tougher, but only a little. I've improved my shooting and editing, and generally do very well in reviews. Yeah, I get the occasional mass rejection, but I look at the images and can see what they didn't like. Sometimes it's a technical detail, sometimes it's composition, sometimes it's choice of subject. I don't always agree, but I can understand. Shutterstock still sells far more for me than any other site, they have a fast and easy submission process, they're more willing than most to accept lots of images from the same shoot and let customers decide what they want, and they generally make me feel less stabby than anyone else. That's worth a lot, especially since I'm not going to earn a living from microstock. It's a profitable hobby, and Shutterstock's a big part of that.
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Its better to have 5 accepted at SS, that will eventually sell! then 20 accepted at IS, that will end up on page 500 and slowly die.
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After 2 months of mainly random reviews, I noticed an improvement at SS in the last few days: faster and better reviews. Better means good pictures in, borderline pictures out. This is the kind of review I like: strict but making sense. They will never admit it, but I am convinced that there were some bad reviewers which are now out.
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I hope you're right. ;D But they might just be taking a Spring holiday. :(
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My reviews this past week have been much better, I hope it is a trend.
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quite easy I guess, mine was around the 40 to 50 now that I have been sending people I am now at 65% seem that it will grow quite fast
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"studio lighting when photographing Siberian Tigers"
I would love to see this done- Here Kitty, Kitty with a bowl of cat food while luring in the tiger- now that would be a best seller! Of course this would be your life photo before the tiger decided the cat food isn't enough!
Okay, being serious I have run hot and cold with SS. One day the take everything and the next day nothing basically for the same photos. Weird....
Tom
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My reviews this past week have been much better, I hope it is a trend.
Attila the reviewer was on Easter Break? :D
All those people holding uploads for after vacation missed their chance.
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Uh oh, looks like Atilla might be back. I'm only a small contributor but used to have a fairly good acceptance rate at Shutterstock. Istock was okay, but rejected more than Shutterstock. Lately, it has been the complete reverse. Istock has been accepting nearly all my photos, and Shutterstock gives me mass rejections.
As some of the others have reported in this thread, Shutterstock does not seem to have a clue when it comes to nature photography. I just had another 100% rejection on a batch of 8 images, most of them because of white balance (late afternoon) or lcv due to composition.
These days, I have no idea what they want. I get the feeling that all they want is people and studio (product) shots?
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maybe this is frowned upon but whenever i get a batch that gets rejected across the board and i get that feeling that the reviewer just went through without fair consideration, i simply resubmit them all. most of the time they get through the second time around ???
funny thing is, ive found batches that get rejected on friday will usually make the cut if i resubmit them and they get re-reviewed earlier in the week.
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Not for me. My acceptance rate at IS is now higher than SS.
Also, sales at IS are starting to catch up to SS. Never thought that would happen.
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I do illustrations and I submit both vector and raster versions at the same time. Recently I've had some vectors rejected but the rasters approved and these rasters have sold (rasters do not sell as well as vectors normally). What I do in cases like this is resubmit the vector with a note to the reviewer and invariably they then approve the vector.
My thoughts here is this: how is it that one reviewer will reject an image yet another reviewer approve the exact same image albeit in a different format.
Yesterday it happened again, the raster approved but the vector rejected, resubmitted and waiting to see if vector gets approved today.
One illustrator contacted support a while ago on this same subject and the reply was that if one version was accepted then there is no reason why the other version of the same image should not be accepted (unless there is some technical error with the file), alas this scenario happens often these days.
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shutterstock is starting to reject batches for lack of commercial potential. Some already selling elsewhere. Really pisses me off. Put the best in and send me an apology when they sell? Seems some inspectors can not see beyond what they sell or do not understand niche markets.
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I certainly agree that the rejections on SS seem to be irrational and unpredictable, but it's hard to be too critical because the ones that do get approved are selling pretty well, and I really like their new content editor, which makes uploading and keywording a breeze.
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Not sure what is going on here, have had 100% rejection for the last month. These are the same ones that are getting approved at IS and DT. Even sent in a few on a retry and those thrown out again also. Is any one getting anything approved? And if so, what is it?
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Early vacation season started?