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Hi there, I just need to have more info for this mass rejection similar to this photo, just to help with my next uploads. Thanks, fred  
[Last Modified: 10/4/2006 12:20:54 AM]
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Fred, you uploaded 47 photos of the same model in the same setting. I do not think we have ever accepted a series that large, or anywhere near it. We will look through them all and pick those we feel are the best. As you have experienced, the rejections will often come first, as it is easiest for us to first remove those that will obviously not make it, and then do the "approval batch" later, where the best images will be accepted.
Out of your 47 photos, 25 have been rejected. A lot of those featured some very weird and unnatural expressions on the part of the model, while others had some lighting issues. Then there where some that where very similar to other, slightly better photos in the same series. I can safely say that the 22 images that are still pending are the best of the lot, and you can expect to have a good portion of these admitted.
Tips? For one, you could perhaps be a bit more selective in what you submit. Other than that, well, I guess you could improve your studio skills, both when it comes to lighting, and working with the models to get believable emotions from them in the photos. This really goes for most people working with studio photography, as it is far from an easy thing to master.
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I did not catch your name but thanks for the detailed reply, I guess I can only apologies for the extra work and will be more selective in next batch.Much appreciated, fred
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Sorry about that, my name is Lars Hasvoll Bakke, and I'm part of the Crestock staff.
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Sometimes, it would be nice to get more detail on why a picture is rejectected.Often we're encouraged to 'address the issues'. Does that mean that a simple fix, like adjusting the cropping, colour balance etc might be all it would take to make the picture acceptable? I've usually accepted that a rejection means that it's just a bad picture and then moved on to working on new pictures - I'd hate to think that there are photos languishing in my reject pile that might have made it with their more fortunate siblings for the sake of a few minutes more work. (yes, yes, I know you get a LOT of submissions and I KNOW it's too much work to write an essay on the faults of submissions) ;) Andy
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i had a loads of "out of focus" rejections here last week.
all of them are sharp and focused.
all made with EOS 5D and prime lenses. all with 1/900 flash exposure. none of them rejected elsewhere including two major market players we all know. all of them making great sales. i victimised my time to be a crash test dummy for some not experienced reviewers.
knowing the fact reviewers are training is good. knowing the fact they are using my potrfolio as trainging ground is VERY BAD BUSINESS. :sick:
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I am still not sure if I want to continue submitting my images to crestock. Sometimes it seems like a waste of time. Almost all by best sellers the are working very well for me with other agencies got rejected here. I have been doing stock for a while so I do know what makes a good stock photo. I don't submit out of focus or noisy images. So the quality is not an issue usually with rejections - it's some vague statement that the image doesn't meet their criteria, whatever that is. It is logical to assume that the criteria should be - will it sell or not, since this is about selling images right? So - either the reviewers don't have enough experience to make that judgement call, or the criteria is something other than sellability of the image. I still can't figure out what it is.
So - should I hold on submitting and give them time to figure out what sells? Or should I drop the whole thing and use my time to process a few thousands of images that are sitting on my harddrive and will make me money somewhere else?... Just thinking aloud here.. Anyone has similar thoughts?
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I have to agree that the review system here is completely arbitrary. If you submit a series of images, more than half get rejected automatically just because they are the same subject yet ALL other sites are more than happy to accept series of images.
I seriously doubt it's possible to get a single batch accepted, it's almost like the policy is to reject at least 50% of a batch regradless.
Some of my best sellers have been rejected here and my all time best selling image ever has just been rejected here with the reason that it had
something that they think looked like compression artefacts but not artefacts but in any case it won't get many views.
That 'textured' image has sold almost 1,000 times.
Who knows what the philosophy of Crestock is????
I've just uploaded a series of 7 abstract smoke images. No doubt 6 of those will be rejected because they all contain smoke..
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I had plenty of rejections at Crestock of what was taken EVERYWHERE else and those "rejected" images did generate some money there.
However, it is Crestock's right to take or to reject whatever they feel is worth accepting/rejecting. Why would you complain if you already have these images selling somewhere else? So they already earn money for you. I would understand it if you couldn't get them online anywhere else...
I see images here that I don't see on a lot of other sites. Crestock is a little different and that's the reason why purchasing clients come here.
Now, one more thing about model series. I didn't have the pleasure yet to even have a setting AND a model at the same time but I have seen lots of portfolios where it seems that the photographer simply uploaded every single shot he/she made. It resulted in 80-100 or more shots of slightly different poses. No wonder those photographers have portfolios of 1600+ images - lol.
I understand that one day a buyer is looking for that pose or this pose but isn't it "better" to have one or two striking images of one shoot that are really outstanding than uploading whatever you can capture?
The owner of another stock site once stated which has been confirmed by other stock photographers before: If you manage to have 300-400 outstanding images you can easily make a living. And btw with outstanding I mean really, really good shots and those can include an apple or a seagull... Although more challenging subjects can be chosen.
I am far away from that but it gives me hope. Trying to convey a concept sometimes generates more money than half naked ladies...
Good luck to everyone!
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Of course Crestock can choose what they want and don't want on their site. The point is that they are probably alienating a lot of good photographers with very saleworthy images because the review process lacks any sort of consistency and the reasons given for rejection are quite often completely meaningless.
When I talked about series of images, I wasn't referring to camera dumps of the same subject. I was talking about maybe half a dozen or so images from the same shoot. Can you imagine a whole shoot and only being allowed to upload one or two images from that just because the subjects are similar despite being different angles, compositions and perpsectives??
Designers like a choice, I'm not suggesting that anyone should upload 200 images but sometimes the slightest difference in angle or facial expression can make the difference between a sale or no sale.
For example, someone wants an image of 3 boxes but can only find images of a single box because images of 2 boxes or 3 boxes together are deemed to be too similar. Doesn't make sense. Sorry, we won't accept your image of 3 apples because you already uploaded an image of a single apple. That's the kind of thing I was talking about.
Look at Fred's images at the start of this thread, rejected here yet every other sites finds them more than acceptable. :w00t:
If buyers were paying a premium for super high quality images and commission for photographers were substantial then I'd understand but this is microstock. Limited choice isn't the name of the game for photographers in microstock. At the current rejection rate for the majority of photographers here, it would take a long long time to build up a portfolio of even 300-400 which is hardly worth the effort or return.
[Last Modified: 10/16/2006 5:59:45 PM]
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Everyone has preferences when it comes to selling their work. I don't feel comfortable having the same subject (model/object) in tens of images with different lighting and/or expressions.
Of course it doesn't mean that this is bad - absolutely not I just don't like having many shots of the same thing (even with different expressions/lighting) in my portfolio.
When I look at extraordinary, very successful (micro)stock-photographers they rarely have several images (5-20) of the same series in there. It is one model one great shot one emotion and that's it. If it is the same model again, then it's mostly a completely different setting...
NO doubt that the model could make more expression but what if that one is - THE ONE. It seems hard to me to bring my point across.
But let me give you an example. I was taking pictures of various road signs and I got about 5 or 6 different ones approved. Only one out of these 6 is selling extremely well - it outsells every other road sign image (of mine) by a ratio of 10:1.
So why would I bother taking pics in bulk to achieve "1"-downloads if I know I can get that "10" image. Which may take me longer to achieve but to create a portfolio just existing out of such "10" shots will eventually reward you more than having too many unnecessary "1"s in there.
I haven't looked at your portfolio and I am not saying you have "1"s - by all means. I am just trying to explain what I mean.
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your portfolio is very respectable, my friend. these flags are well done and will bring you high, but they don't show me you're the one to speak about models and expressions a lot to us.
microstock is all about one simple thing. MONEY. if 20 images of same model in same setup do sell 100 times a month each - it's called BINGO, believe me. :)
if 10 of them are rejected due to "similarity" somewhere it will only make them sell elsewhere, making money for photographer and those stocks who are thinking money instead of searching for similarity. and leaving itself aside of sales and money these rejected pictures bringing to someone else is not a good buisiness for rejecting stock. so simple.
i have a few series of top selling images. they perform extremely well. each and single one from series. no blank "one sale" shots. i have maybe 20 in each of these series. same model, same setup - every picture sells like crazy. it's called magic. model + MUA + photographer + mood. chemistry of magic. i will expand each of these series to 50 minimum soon - this stuff is just golden. top notch. will buy me another lexus till the end of year. i would never achieve it selling one image of each of these series. never. :exclamationmark:
[Last Modified: 10/17/2006 2:33:16 AM]
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Yup, like I said - a reviewer have to know what is likely to sell. Series or no series, you have to have an idea what is going on in this industry, what people are looking for, how many images of the same subject they download (I had sales where 5 to 20 images of the same series would be downloaded by the same person at once). Same with "we don't need nature of flowers" statements. Great nature shots sell really well, believe it or not. But this kind of knowledge only comes with expereience, and this is what I feel many crestock reviewer are still yet to acquire. The only question they have to ask themselves when looking at the image (apart from quality criteria) - will it sell? You can have an outstanding artistic image everyone would love to look at but noone would want to buy. Simply because people buy what they need, not what looks nice. Some of the "today's best images" here are very nice photography work but keep me wondering - who and how and where can possibly use this? It's nice for a photography magazine, but this is a microstock agency. People don't look for designer clothes in Wallmart, and designers don't sell them there. If you sell it cheap you have to have a lot of choice and know what Wallmart=microstock buyers are looking for.
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Dolgatchov has it right on. The guy's pictures sell like hotcakes (I've even downloaded some) and when some reviewer on crack decides pictures are out of focus: maybe it's the reviewer's eyes that are out of focus.
I just submitted a batch of 10 photos. Two of the had a slight shadow left over (not quite processed out in Photoshop). The other 8 didn't. The reviewer rejected the first one due to the shadow and didn't even bother to take a look at the other 9 just gave them rejections on "similarity to other submitted pictures". It would have made sense if they were already in my folio and I was submitting duplicates. Seems that some reviewers are just damn lazy.
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