its really a crapshoot these days

Last batch got rejected for: At this time, we are not accepting images that contain large amounts of foreign text.

Not sure how to translate buildings outside English speaking countries to English and also how does a customer ever find it if not using the original name. Like Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore has to be basilica of Saint Mary Major? Yeah kudos to the customer who comes up with that while searching for it.

I'm also taking a break from uploading to SS, not worth the effort if everything gets rejected for some bs reason.

I never had a reviewer beat me up.... yet 


(I did get my fair share of rejections)

It does seem like if you use any selective focus or shallow DOF, they are kicking those back as "focus not appropriate" or out of focus. I do like a shallower DOF but just as a test I sent some in that were shot at f/11 with everything in the image in focus and they booted those too. Yup, for focus. Lol.

I've posted in the past about my belief that SS has partially automated their reviewing and that these crazy rejections are the result of software algorithms that are supposed to evaluate focus and noise but aren't really all that sophisticated.   Is anyone ready to believe me yet?

Lately all I've uploaded to SS have been abstract backgrounds & textures - digitally created from my photos - and they've all passed and some even sold on day 1 so they're in the mix.

The last time I had any rejections it was for unusual stuff like keywording and logos on buildings in a city skyline so I feel your pain...

I've been concentrating more on no-micro stuff but had planned to upload a bunch of photos from Rome and Venice taken with my D70 since they are 6MP and not something I'd be likely to sell much on the macros these days, but now I worry they'll be rejected if the names that anyone - English-speaking or Italian ... or from anywhere else .... would use to find certain landmarks will cause the image to be rejected. I have a few of the photos that I couldn't initially upsize to 50MB for Alamy in the old days on SS and other micros and they sell so it seemed like a good idea.

Now, one thing that has crossed my mind is that I feel it is often a 'soft' let down on the rejections but the main reason I am rejected is that the category is over saturated.  Rejections are very subjective to say the least thus if the reviewers are told to be very hard on say 'Flowers' that they will find any reason to reject a technically perfect flower shot by me.     

Just my deep thoughts...

Yes! same here and has been like that for some time.
It's hard to understand, but at least if an image is going to be rejected we deserve a proper reason, not ones that are so blatantly wrong!

SS are now just a bit more picky than the others and can afford to be

That's a part of it, but not all of it.

They've certainly upped their standards, but there are enough totally idiotic rejections - such as wrong white balance for pre-sunrise/sunrise/sunset images - that aren't borne out by sales if you talk them into accepting the image.

One just broke my top 50 list and they rejected that (Jan 2013) for incorrect white balance until I resubmitted with a note that the light is that color at that time of day.

I believed the automation theory in the first place - not that they don't have human inspectors but that there is some type of pre-screening (and I'm fairly sure one of their early earnings calls made some reference to automation of the review process).