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Wow, that's a different approach to rejections - a positive attitude!
Over the years I've become a much better photographer then I was when I first started with stock - I certainly didn't have the positive outlook on people judging my photos as you do. It's amazing the things I didn't see in my photographs until they were pointed out in the rejections.

And no, "Custom" isn't code for rubbish. What follows the word custom is normally a note from the inspector on tips to fix what they thought was wrong about your image, or more specifically why your image was rejected.
Things like "composition", "over-underexposed" are standard rejection reasons that the inspector can select. "Chromatic aberration" or "soft" would have been the custom rejection reasons, and probably followed the word "custom".

Does that make sense - sometimes I confuse myself.

Welcome to Crestock!
Nice start to your portfolio - I like the Broken Glass image.

Ron

Ahh, I see. Thanks for the lesson. Yes, I'm looking forward to improving, and thanks for the encouraging words. I like what I've accomplished in a year, but I also know where I want to be, and most of my photos aren't there yet. I want to be a Master of Light. :cool:

And as for "custom" - thanks, that's helpful. A couple of the images looked like they could possibly be re-submitted ("needs more contrast", "clean up the spots on the aquarium glass"), but I wasn't going to bother because I thought, "well, why would I if they'll still think it's rubbish?" hehe. You know some of the other sites say something like "This photo is already a well-covered subject in our database and there is no need for it at this time" but then at the bottom, it says, "If you can fix this problem, please re-submit to this address." It makes me scratch my head, but laugh, too. So I'm glad that's not what was going on here. Just very constructive criticism.

I think I will learn a lot on this site, and hopefully make a buck or two while I'm at it.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

In the same boat as you Sharon. My submission to acceptance ratio at first was really really bad from photographs that I thought were good. Now, it's getting better and I am learning what techniques and changes are needed when taking stock photographs. I am submitting more of people as that is what Crestock is after. I ALWAYS use the lowest ISO setting on my camera to eliminate noise and other such methods to better my pictures. This, as you say is making us better photographers and I find personal feedback a BIG help.

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

We're striving to be tough, but fair and helpful at the same time. Everybody wants to see you producing the best kind of images you're capable of.

Hope it remains rewarding for you, both in experience and sales.

Sharon, Florin,
thank you very much for the positive feedback on the inspections. As Ron and Josh already said - that is what we are actually after, but not everybody takes criticism as you do. If you ever have problems in understanding one of the rejection reasons, just post your question in the forums and we will try to explain it more clearly.

Welcome to Crestock!!!

It would be interesting to know, what the ratio of uploads to downloads is? Maybe this is somewhere else? I was just wandering?

Sam

I don´t know if there is a statistic like that. All I know is that it depends very much on your portfolio. While some have very few images and make great sales, others have a lot of images and sell just occasionally.

So having a statistic like that would just be random for the user per se ;)

Hi, I´m sure somebody will take care about this. I´ll try to speed things up.

Sorry, I don't think I wrote it right. I meant for the whole of Crestock. As in how many photographs there are, total sales etc.

I joined here about 6 weeks ago and have had 773 images approved and 51 rejected. I work that out as nearly 94% acceptance. I can live with that :)

Another Newbie here. Crestock accepted my first batch of files, but have rejected all those that followed. I especially like that they give an actual reason for rejection not just a generic technical issue.

Most of my photos are rejected: Artifacts / compressions flaws / ISO Noise

Is this something I might be able to correct in a photo imaging software? Could I then resubmit?

Thanking you in advance

PS: The only criticism I have of the site is the 'today's worst image'. Is that really necessary? I feel it is negative and humiliating to the submitter. But hey, that's just me.:unsure:

Hi and welcome to Crestock!
Nice to hear - we inspectors really try to help improve. Not only because we ourselves also like to see better pictures when inspecting ;).
Unfortunately Artifacts, Compression Flaws and ISO noise can hardly be reduced (except you have a RAW file which you can process again - and even that is no guarantee). There are some noise reduction programs and sure some people will say they love them and you can give it a try - but to be honest: the quality of the picture will not get better. In fact many images we get for inspecting show a massive overuse of these kind of filters.

At best you get it all out of the camera and make minimal post processing (allmost no sharpening please - a good lens on a good camera doesn´t need sharpening at all). Use the best available quality setting (even though that means that you get much less images onto one memory card. Use ISO 100 wherever possible - never higher than ISO 400 (except on not even a handful of pro cameras).
Check (and understand) your histogram if you have one and reshoot it immediately if the exposure is off.
Only upload your best images of a shooting (if you think it is a little out of focus, it usually is too much in our opinion).

I guess that´s probably it. Sure we will accept more of your images in the near future, we are looking forward to them...

And regarding the worst image: sure it might be a bit strange, but for non-professionals it is perhaps easier to learn from a worst image than from a best image. Noone has to take it personally, we all had those worst images in the beginning. Most of them haven´t been public though, because "in the old days" people were only uploading to databases after years of experience. That has changed (dramatically sometimes).

AWESOME !! Thank you for your reply and input. I just bought this new camera and was hoping for better photos. I will work with your suggestions and look forward to better quality photos. Thank you again. NEWBIE

You can reduce some grain and artifacting with careful exposure. Too dark an exposure will be grainer. Too bright an exposure, even if you mange to keep from burning out highlights, is more likely to have purple fringe.

I know a few tricks for editing out purple fringe, I may start a thread about that.

Hey Darla, would be interesting to read because actually there are not a lot of lenses out there where you can totally avoid CA (at lease on fullframe). And it is not really easy to eliminate in Photoshop either.

Hi there, I'm new here and enjoying the learning I'm experiencing for sure. I've always played with taking pictures, but just recently thought I might have fun "really" getting into the nitty-gritty of it all - so here I am.  I uploaded 7 pictures and was just notified they all were rejected.  I have to say that I feel fortunate that I've gotten this far - it's really a stretch for me and I am gung-ho to improve - whatever.  It says in the e-mail that it would say under each picture what was wrong, but there is nothing...hmm, what to do?? I want to improve and it will take some learning, and I'm open to whatever it takes...:)  I was thrilled to know that I even uploaded them - hehe...

Thanks for any explanation or suggestion.

I still say this is great and I love this website - so much talent...wow.!:cool:

Welcome to Crestock,
if you go to "upload your images" you can click on "rejected". Then you get all the rejected images listed. Click on the ones you want to know the reasons and they will be displayed under the image.

Hope that helps. If you have further questions, just post the image number here and we will glad to help.

Hi, thanks for helping me.  Image 548704 has for the explanation (Artifacts/compression flaws).  They all have the same explanation and I'm clueless as to what it means.  Compression would - I assume - mean reducing. So there's something I haven't got right in making them the right size.  Can I correct all of them? Help is really appreciated.  I'm determined to learn this as I love "catching" images...

Thanks again,

Carole  :cool:

Hey Carole,
Artifacts/compression flaws tells you that the image shows signs of compression. That can either be set in the camera (you should always use the best quality), or in post production. Since I don´t think this image was heavily worked on in post production, it must be the quality settings.

Now here is something that hopefully doesn´t bring you down. Some cameras actually can´t produce the quality that is needed for stock. To understand, please take a look at your shot at 100% and compare it for example to images on www.dpreview.com - there are camera comparisons with sample images that give a good idea what quality can be achieved (mostly with digital SLRs). Now since we have to satisfy our customers (to keep them returning and buying from our site), we need to provide very good image quality.

Talking about "catching" images - even if it wasn´t meant that way. When taking a picture, try to rather prepare a shooting than catch anything that happens. Usually stockcustomers look for something specific that suites their subject. So when shooting something - try to think about a possible usage of this file - and only if you yourself can think of a clear usage - it is worth all the work of shooting, retouching and keywording.

Hope that helps and motivates for a future career as a stockphotographer!

Hello,

I also got such a rejection reason, despite my gear is good (I hope:)) with relatively good lenses too.

Anyway, I had to increase the exposure level (+ 1.0 EV if I remember correctly) to avoid a too dark image. Could this have reduced the compression quality of the picture?

Thank you very much.

Best wishes,
Michael