Author Topic: shutterstock rejecting everything,Why? (Read 79078 times)

Slovenian · « **Reply #75 on:** June 10, 2011, 08:42 »

And since there's no "democracy" on today's agencies anyway and they're cutting royalties at will, they could also start deleting all the cr@ap at will, IMO 75% of the content should be deleted. What did sell before 2008 doesn't necessarily (usually!) sell today and all that BS isolated on white still life/portraits, tens of thousands of images of grand canyon should be gone. And all the numerous similars and also the new cr@ppy stuff. It would benefit all of us, but mostly agencies.

helix7 · « **Reply #76 on:** June 10, 2011, 12:11 »

Quote from: Tempusfugit on June 10, 2011, 04:27

Quote from: helix7 on June 09, 2011, 12:49

I don't see any illustration work in your portfolios. Which images did they reject?

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-gay-image5703013

Well, to be honest, if that's the sort of stuff you're seeing rejected by SS, I think the rejections are justified. That type of work just isn't going to cut it anymore. And not just at SS. There are tons of silhouettes on all the sites. Maybe you could get a group of silhouettes approved (9 or more silhouettes in 1 file) but even that may be a stretch.

You definitely need to step it up with your illustrations if you expect to get approvals.

Mantis · « **Reply #77 on:** June 10, 2011, 20:40 »

Quote from: helix7 on June 10, 2011, 12:11

Quote from: Tempusfugit on June 10, 2011, 04:27
Quote from: helix7 on June 09, 2011, 12:49

I don't see any illustration work in your portfolios. Which images did they reject?

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-gay-image5703013

Well, to be honest, if that's the sort of stuff you're seeing rejected by Shutterstock, I think the rejections are justified. That type of work just isn't going to cut it anymore. And not just at Shutterstock. There are tons of silhouettes on all the sites. Maybe you could get a group of silhouettes approved (9 or more silhouettes in 1 file) but even that may be a stretch.

You definitely need to step it up with your illustrations if you expect to get approvals.

Helix is right. That doesn't align with today's standards. The problem is that although it may be technically acceptable, agencies have to balance content with quality or they end up with a collection of sub par images sprinkled in with their top dawg images. But I say that the inspection process at SS is greatly flawed. Take photos. There is one guy on SS who claims to be the king of stock and he is the worst photographer in general I can think of, yet SS continues to reject good images and accept his junk. There is, in my opinion, a double standard over there. Not a variance in inspectors for him, but favoritism for him. When I look at the crap he gets accepted and the excellent images that get rejected I can only conclude that there is a different set of rules for some photographers. This isn't just one or two images I disagree with. It's been that way for years, that's why he has 10,000 images on line THERE. He can't get accepted anywhere else. If I have 10,000 GOOD images I would certainly take the time to upload on all sites I could. He doesn't.

I don't personally know the guy nor do I blame him. I blame Shutterstock for creating that unfair rift and showing clear favoritism.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #78 on:** June 10, 2011, 21:24 »

Quote from: Mantis on June 10, 2011, 20:40

I don't personally know the guy nor do I blame him. I blame Shutterstock for creating that unfair rift and showing clear favoritism.

we all know him, show me the money, show me the dog!

now more seriously if you open his port you will find nice pics too

Pixart · « **Reply #79 on:** June 10, 2011, 23:19 »

If they have 15 M photos, why don't they stand at that number - accept every GOOD photo and drop photos off the bottom with some criteria, lowest sales/views etc. Just doesn't make sense to refuse relevant material - especially when they are a subscription agency.

sharpshot · « **Reply #80 on:** June 11, 2011, 02:24 »

^^^I presume it would cost them more to delete old files than it does to reject new ones? I wouldn't of thought that was true but why else would they do this? Perhaps all the links that are created over the years help the sites with things like google ranking? Perhaps deleting all the old junk is detrimental in some way? Or perhaps they hope that lots of us will just stop uploading and that will cut their reviewing costs? I hope there's a reason for keeping old images that haven't sold in years and rejecting new ones that would sell. If there isn't, they are just throwing money away. It's already severely reduced my production and I'm researching other ways to make money.

lthn · « **Reply #81 on:** June 11, 2011, 04:02 »

Quote from: sharpshot on June 11, 2011, 02:24

^^^I presume it would cost them more to delete old files than it does to reject new ones?

? deleting old files takes something like a 10-20 line sript, it would cut thru the database in a few hours...

... but the agencies generallly brag about having a large and ever growing stock, it's a focal point of their self promotion, so why would anyone think they'll go around deleting stuff en masse'?

If you ask me they could delete stuff that sold only once or none in the last 2-3 years, and I suspect that would halve their stock.

Mantis · « **Reply #82 on:** June 11, 2011, 07:35 »

Like Dreamstime. I am expecting a bunch of de-activations this month for images that haven't sold in three years. They cull their collection as most of you know.

lisafx · « **Reply #83 on:** June 11, 2011, 12:05 »

Quote from: lthn on June 11, 2011, 04:02

... but the agencies generallly brag about having a large and ever growing stock, it's a focal point of their self promotion, so why would anyone think they'll go around deleting stuff en masse'?

If you ask me they could delete stuff that sold only once or none in the last 2-3 years, and I suspect that would halve their stock.

Exactly. I don't think they are looking to halve their stock. As a subscription site, a larger collection is a selling point to their buyers. Even if many of the older images are sub-par, they are probably just dropped to the bottom of search results, so practically invisible.

cascoly · « **Reply #84 on:** June 11, 2011, 12:18 »

>>>>>The other laugh to me is their editorial policy, which is just clueless and liable to cost them many potential sales. Their arbitrary standard that images must be "newsworthy" is silly. Who says what is newsworthy? The greatest use of editorial images is NOT because they are newsworthy, but because they INFORM and illustrate a story or article or book or web page. Merely a non-commercial application.

that's SS biggest problem - they define 'ediitorial' reasonably, but then dont train/inform their reviewers most of whom think editorial MUST BE newsworthy. % wise i sell more editorial than non on SS, but it now takes multiple submissions to finaly hit a reviewer who knows what they're doing

heywoody · « **Reply #85 on:** June 11, 2011, 14:24 »

Quote from: Mantis on June 10, 2011, 20:40

There is one guy on Shutterstock who claims to be the king of stock and he is the worst photographer in general I can think of, yet Shutterstock continues to reject good images and accept his junk. There is, in my opinion, a double standard over there. Not a variance in inspectors for him, but favoritism for him. When I look at the crap he gets accepted and the excellent images that get rejected I can only conclude that there is a different set of rules for some photographers. This isn't just one or two images I disagree with. It's been that way for years, that's why he has 10,000 images on line THERE. He can't get accepted anywhere else. If I have 10,000 GOOD images I would certainly take the time to upload on all sites I could. He doesn't.

I don't personally know the guy nor do I blame him. I blame Shutterstock for creating that unfair rift and showing clear favoritism.

Is it acceptable to pick on an identifiable individual (hell, even I know who you're talking about) like this using a cloak of anomynity?

gbalex · « **Reply #86 on:** June 11, 2011, 14:58 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 10, 2011, 21:24

Quote from: Mantis on June 10, 2011, 20:40
I don't personally know the guy nor do I blame him. I blame Shutterstock for creating that unfair rift and showing clear favoritism.

we all know him, show me the money, show me the dog!

now more seriously if you open his port you will find nice pics too

To be fair his work has improved a great deal over the last year.

Understandably we all avoid blasting anyone's work and in truth it does not go down well for most of us when we go there out of frustration. Mantis made a very good point; it has nothing to do with said submitter, it is clearly not his choice. In my opinion they are doing him no favors by setting the bar so low.

However we should be holding their feet to the fire about his one and we should be asking ourselves WHY they are using him as a poster boy. What are they trying to accomplish besides alienating the submitters who helped make them successful? Who are they trying to encourage?

I kept asking myself why the great divide between the images that they are accepting or rejecting from us as individuals. And when the reviews for the rest of us no longer made sense to me or to some very long time submitters I started asking myself more questions. In particular the question kept coming up, what are they accepting?

The new higher technical image and content standards argument does not hold up, if you spend a week or two every day and take a good look at the images they ARE accepting in each category. The content and quality for the images that they are accepting has not changed. It is still the same old same old.

heywoody · « **Reply #87 on:** June 11, 2011, 17:45 »

I don’t know if he is or isn’t a poster boy but if it’s not his fault he shouldn’t be singled out.
Anyway back to the substantive point about how the site is losing money by rejecting high quality content where the subject matter is well covered. The simple fact is they aren’t. Consider, a designer is looking for a shot of a pretty girl on a telephone isolated on white and your absolutely brilliant interpretation of just this has just been rejected. What happens? The designer just buys another from the thousands of quality examples already there and the site still makes a sale. On the other hand I submit a reasonably adequate Robin Hood that is nowhere near the technical standard you have set – mine is accepted because the buyer looking for a full length Robin Hood isolated on white would have to go elsewhere and they would lose a sale. What they are doing makes perfect commercial sense.

gbalex · « **Reply #88 on:** June 11, 2011, 23:05 »

Quote from: heywoody on June 11, 2011, 17:45

I don’t know if he is or isn’t a poster boy but if it’s not his fault he shouldn’t be singled out.
Anyway back to the substantive point about how the site is losing money by rejecting high quality content where the subject matter is well covered. The simple fact is they aren’t. Consider, a designer is looking for a shot of a pretty girl on a telephone isolated on white and your absolutely brilliant interpretation of just this has just been rejected. What happens? The designer just buys another from the thousands of quality examples already there and the site still makes a sale. On the other hand I submit a reasonably adequate Robin Hood that is nowhere near the technical standard you have set – mine is accepted because the buyer looking for a full length Robin Hood isolated on white would have to go elsewhere and they would lose a sale. What they are doing makes perfect commercial sense.

Exactly, they have the majority of content well covered by the early submitters who helped them grow and clearly they can only gain by accepting content that fits your description. They will pay less by making it available to buyers and they are well aware of this.

However I doubt if buyers would have to go elsewhere. Most content that buyers need is already well covered and available on the majority of the micro sites already. That content is just buried by the ever expanding deluge of new content that the sites accept daily.

jm · « **Reply #89 on:** June 12, 2011, 04:57 »

I found this on SS Forum. But it doesn't change anything on the fact that some of the rejections are really absurd (like poor lightning - white balance may be incorrect - for my bitmap illustration).

Dear Contributors,

We work hard to improve our review standards on a continuous basis. As the Shutterstock collection grows, we want to maintain consistency and improve overall quality within the collection.

There has never been any automation in our review process. We utilize knowledgeable reviewers who do their best to provide fair reviews for all submitted content.

The fact remains, however, that the process is a subjective one. If you receive a rejection and would like a bit more information as to why, we welcome you to post your photos in the critique forum to get feedback from other contributors. With the help and input of the talented Shutterstock contributor community we know you will continue to meet the challenges of these improvements.

If you still feel that a review was done incorrectly, you are welcome to contact support ([email protected]) with your request.

Best Regards,

Content Operations
Shutterstock

cathyslife · « **Reply #90 on:** June 12, 2011, 07:41 »

As far as posting your rejection in their forum for critique, I'm not sure what good that will do. If you ask 10 people their opinions, you're going to get 10 different opinions, all of which may be correct. I'll bet I could look at every single photo that's been accepted and find something wrong with it, technically. It's a given that forum contributors are going to find something wrong with it.

The important part is that Shutterstock's reviewers accept the photo, not every other contributor on the forum. I think I would stick with contacting support if I had a question about a rejection.

heywoody · « **Reply #91 on:** June 12, 2011, 10:16 »

gbalex,

Try searching for "Robin Hood" on the big 4 then try "girl telephone". There must be tons of examples like this where SS is providing some product and IS really aren't.

gbalex · « **Reply #92 on:** June 12, 2011, 13:11 »

Quote from: heywoody on June 12, 2011, 10:16

gbalex,

Try searching for "Robin Hood" on the big 4 then try "girl telephone". There must be tons of examples like this where Shutterstock is providing some product and IS really aren't.

"Generally speaking" the need for Robinhood sales, should rank right up there with a speck of a dog flying around the moon sales. The micros may fill out their sites with obscure, not often sold content. However the people who use their time and resources to produce that content will not see much in the way of sales. Once again a win win for who?

heywoody · « **Reply #93 on:** June 12, 2011, 14:48 »

Quote from: gbalex on June 12, 2011, 13:11

Quote from: heywoody on June 12, 2011, 10:16
gbalex,

Try searching for "Robin Hood" on the big 4 then try "girl telephone". There must be tons of examples like this where Shutterstock is providing some product and IS really aren't.

"Generally speaking" the need for Robinhood sales, should rank right up there with a speck of a dog flying around the moon sales. The micros may fill out their sites with obscure, not often sold content. However the people who use their time and resources to produce that content will not see much in the way of sales. Once again a win win for who?

I wouldn’t argue with that. However, between the speck of dog and the archetypical stock shot there is a whole raft of subject matter that is covered to a greater or lesser extent. If these sales didn’t add significantly to the income of the site they wouldn’t have 300,000 contributors, there would be just the few (relatively speaking) pros and semi-pros involved. The point remains that the better a subject is covered, the more picky the vendor can be about what he accepts without hurting his sales. HCV for the contributor does not mean that it’s the same for the vendor. The people who produce this content may not see much in the way of sales but possibly more than they would for more mainstream images that are rejected.

gbalex · « **Reply #94 on:** June 12, 2011, 16:18 »

Quote from: heywoody on June 12, 2011, 14:48

Quote from: gbalex on June 12, 2011, 13:11
Quote from: heywoody on June 12, 2011, 10:16
gbalex,

Try searching for "Robin Hood" on the big 4 then try "girl telephone". There must be tons of examples like this where Shutterstock is providing some product and IS really aren't.

"Generally speaking" the need for Robinhood sales, should rank right up there with a speck of a dog flying around the moon sales. The micros may fill out their sites with obscure, not often sold content. However the people who use their time and resources to produce that content will not see much in the way of sales. Once again a win win for who?

I wouldn’t argue with that. However, between the speck of dog and the archetypical stock shot there is a whole raft of subject matter that is covered to a greater or lesser extent. If these sales didn’t add significantly to the income of the site they wouldn’t have 300,000 contributors, there would be just the few (relatively speaking) pros and semi-pros involved. The point remains that the better a subject is covered, the more picky the vendor can be about what he accepts without hurting his sales. HCV for the contributor does not mean that it’s the same for the vendor. The people who produce this content may not see much in the way of sales but possibly more than they would for more mainstream images that are rejected.

I am guessing that what you and I think of as picky is very different.

One point we do agree upon is that HCV for the contributor does not mean the same to the bottom line for the micro sites. Thus they focus on plumping out the bottom line by attracting 300,000 contributors who produce just good enough work to sell for those individual contributors in small numbers. And they count on those contributors producing in such small numbers that they rarely make payout.

This landslide of content rounds out the revenue they receive from contributors who do consistently do produce HCV content and the majority of sales for the site. These are the HCV contributors who helped build the micros business to sustainability and they reward them by burying their new content and then increasingly rejecting new content from them that could easily compete for sales with this landslide. http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-8-Holidays.html

heywoody · « **Reply #95 on:** June 12, 2011, 17:00 »

You know what? We are actually in agreement

Don't get me wrong, I never said it was right or fair to the folks who made this business model work but corporations really don't care about fairness and this won't hurt them. * sure you can compete with the deluge but that won't make more sales, just different sales.

Slovenian · « **Reply #96 on:** August 10, 2011, 13:17 »

Sadly, it doesn't look like it's just temporary, employing new reviewers or something like that. It's not about the quality over quantity as well. They either incorporated some kind of automated reviewing process or they outsourced it to a country with super cheap workforce, that also, unfortunately for us, doesn't know the first thing about photography.

sharpshot · « **Reply #97 on:** August 10, 2011, 16:22 »

The upside to this is that I can still make BME's with SS, despite hardly any new images getting accepted. While that continues, I find it hard to complain too much but I do think in the long term buyers and contributors will want new images to replace some of the old stuff. If there are any buyers around that want to see what's getting rejected by the old sites, they should have a look at sites like Graphics Leftovers and Canstockphoto. I hope they will get a boost from this and it will make the old sites reconsider their policy. I haver already seen lots of sales from images that SS and DT now reject.

Slovenian · « **Reply #98 on:** August 10, 2011, 17:01 »

I guess it's time to register with those 2 small timers

(just kidding, but I will give it some thought;)

Microstock Posts · « **Reply #99 on:** August 10, 2011, 17:54 »

Quote from: sharpshot on August 10, 2011, 16:22

The upside to this is that I can still make BME's with SS, despite hardly any new images getting accepted. While that continues, I find it hard to complain too much but I do think in the long term buyers and contributors will want new images to replace some of the old stuff. If there are any buyers around that want to see what's getting rejected by the old sites, they should have a look at sites like Graphics Leftovers and Canstockphoto. I hope they will get a boost from this and it will make the old sites reconsider their policy. I haver already seen lots of sales from images that SS and DT now reject.

Yeah sales for me are stronger than ever, despite having most things rejected now. I've noticed that a lot of my images that fail to get on the big sites, get sales on smaller sites, which goes to show that it's not that the buyers don't want them, they just can't get past the reviewers on the big sites.

There are just so many of us submitting, that they reject for anything at all these days. And I really can't differentiate between the ones that get online and the ones that are rejected. I mean what's the difference, why do some get through and others don't. It's just luck of the draw. The weirdest thing for me is that BS can accept an image and ss can reject it and vice versa. Which just shows how much luck of the draw it is.

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Author Topic: shutterstock rejecting everything,Why? (Read 79078 times)

Slovenian

helix7

Mantis

luissantos84

Pixart

sharpshot

lthn

Mantis

lisafx

cascoly

heywoody

gbalex

heywoody

gbalex

jm

cathyslife

heywoody

gbalex

heywoody

gbalex

heywoody

Slovenian

sharpshot

Slovenian

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