Pard my French, but I just have to let it out.

They reject left and right even images with good selling potential for being "similar", and when something gets rejected, there is no use to resubmit because 100% of rejected images just keep getting rejected for the same reason.

I don't think this is that much due to SS's policy itself, I think it's more about incompetent reviewers. They are not just incompetent, they are f*cking idiots.

I feel better now, but these idiots will remain being idiots and they'll just keep rejecting left and right without using their brain even a little.

1000% agree! I get rejected stuff for stupid 'similar content'. These fools are losing money, I have best selling vector christmas backgrounds which I upload in various format (square, 4/3, wide, portrait etc...) and they reject it. They used to accept it before with no problem. Well fxxx them they will sell on AS and elsewhere.

I got rejected for "File transfer error", and repeatedly so. Finally I got 3 images somehow transferred ok, after one(!) minute all 3 rejected for Focus issues... And a few days before the similar images accepted, no any focus problem whatsoever. 

So something really bad is happening there...

1000% agree! I get rejected stuff for stupid 'similar content'. These fools are losing money, I have best selling vector christmas backgrounds which I upload in various format (square, 4/3, wide, portrait etc...) and they reject it. They used to accept it before with no problem. Well fxxx them they will sell on AS and elsewhere.
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I agree that the similar policy is not giving  the customers that can't create vectors on their own or don't have time to create them options.

The policy is a shutterstock policy and you can't  blame the reviewers for following policies.

Quote from: Noedelhap on October 16, 2019, 06:53

Not only have they gone overboard with their similars policy (if I upload just 3 variations on an image, each with a different symbol, two of them get rejected even though the concept is clearly different), they have also killed vector uploading with their insane 4 MP minimum for vectors. And for what? They're vectors! Since we can no longer upload accompanying JPEGs (which I used for keywords and description) the upload process has become a chore again.

You can embed the keywords and descriptions in Illustrator files and eps10 and files using exiftools
https://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

I know, but the point is, I don't want to adjust and complicate my workflow just for them. So I've stopped uploading vectors for the time being.

Quote from: Cider Apple on October 15, 2019, 03:32

�.
When I asked why? the support guy said just upload again and leave a re-submitted note. You cant leave a note though just the tick box of re-submitted (so you cant explain why they are so different).
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yep, had one today of an old tilted barn on a hillside -- the desc said leaning, and there's a fence & tree that are vertical, but rejection for composition (which usually means horizon is off)

What next, crooked tree rejected for not being straight? 

I never click the previously submitted box. Why should I? And yes, I have rejections that after looking, they are right, but others, I don't think so. I review, wait, maybe edit... upload again, they pass. Waste of time, but if I get a download, I feel better.

Just uploaded a wide, I mean like 8 images wide stitched and I liked the center image of the series. Just waiting to see if that triggers a rejection. Editorial which I'll say, in the past, has been a little less NI!

If people here have mentioned that SS is losing sales, you might also get the impression, that they just don't care if my images are there or not. Heck they add over a million new images a week, what's 100,000 stupid rejections going to hurt?

As far as workflow, that's why I stopped uploading to IS.

Quote from: Noedelhap on October 16, 2019, 09:57

I know, but the point is, I don't want to adjust and complicate my workflow just for them. So I've stopped uploading vectors for the time being.

I get it. I hate changing my workflow too. (it seems like it's almost daily) Can I offer you a quote from Darwin?

"It is not the most intellectual or the strongest of species that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself." Charles Darwin

Darwin was right about that, but spending my precious time creating new stuff that OTHER agencies will accept instead of wasting it on Shutterstock is a form of survival too

hi have the same issue...a lot of no sense rejection lately...until they came up with the policy i had only few rejection in 8 years....i suspect they are using AI tecnology to review content...

They are probably using Artificial Idiocy technology

I suspect the quality of the reviews reflects what reviewers are being payed for their efforts.

I got another animation rejected for
Interlacing: Clip exhibits noticeable interlacing issues.

I have no idea what this is an how it applies to animated videos done in after effects.

Would anyone be able to explain to me what this is, so I can avoid this in future? I've looked online and there isn't much in regards to animation.

After having got some rejections such as a bird mistaken for sensor dust, or a lack of sharpness on the corners of a wide angle shot of a landscape, I agree with all above, the reviewers are back to 2017!

Regarding the similars, I made a few tests: I submitted a landscape picture similar to one that got accepted one week earlier. The file is however different, there are probably a few mm of focal lens of difference between the two, and a different post-processing: it got accepted. I submitted another landscape picture, the exact same file that I had submitted a year ago, but this time with a much heavier and different post processing, it got rejected. The AI detection is therefore the most probable reason.

To counter the stupid rejections, in the end, I am trying to submit a first time the files as I am submitting them to other agencies. If some are getting rejected, I am then trying to process them a bit more to reduce the noise, while applying an old trick: reducing the dimensions. Usually, after the second or the third review, the remaining rejected files are mainly only the ones that show real issues.

When I was a beginner in microstock, one of the rules was not to fight a rejection. With the unqualified reviewers in SS, I think we need now to discard this rules...

Have had birds rejected other places as well. This one is not limited to SS. Alamy for one, sees birds in a scenic view, as dust. 

Wow interesting about the similar find, this could actually be good news. Not for people who like to revisit and reprocess images and upload versions, but for finding thieves? Imagine that, if they are looking for similars. Of course if it only searches ours against ours, that's terrible.

AI probably helps the humans find flaws, similar images, lighting problems, but humans still make the final decision. If someone lazy (or stupid...) is working to make the most of their time or quota, they aren't going to care about wasting our time with a frivolous rejection or wrong analysis from the AI help. Whatever the reviewers were, they aren't anymore. And as far as consistency which was already going downhill, this is hitting the wall at the bottom. Terrible!

I know some very smart and good creative people who did series and groups, and I'll bet they are going to get rejections, which are unfair, for similar, when it's of course somewhat similar, lighting colors and composition, but useful, honest variations.

Personally I don't see toning, coloring, filters or just reprocessing as a new image. I can see both sides though, as agencies say, a buyer can alter the image on their own, we don't need duplicates with minor color variations.

But don't they also say, images that are ready to use by a buyer, because they might now be able to edit or might not know how to do that?

Two contradicting bits of advise.

rejections are not a problems..the problems is the collapsing of sale over 38 cent...rpd is collapsing...i don't care if they reject something....all in all most new content don'tsell at all because nobody is so idiot to search for new files...make any search first with new then with relevant...who in the world would mess looking for a usable file using the new tabs?...the problem is 99 % of sale are sub. and not only here in general...i'm up 35 % sale in all agency down 200 % in terms of dollar so far...i need 10 times more images sold than last year to match the dollar. time to ficus n rm for agency like westend and offset...microstock is collapsing.

You just discovered that? What a genius. 7 years and you just saw the problem.

For example I got videos rejected for 'similar content' which are accepted at Videohive! : when you know how it's hard to get your stuff approved by there...