| | Having been submitting images to Crestock for a while now, I've noticed a few things that, I think, leave room for improvement
1. Whilst the image submit process from uploading images to pending is top notch, getting the images to Crestock via FTP is dead slow - almost half the speed i get when uploading the same batch of photos elsewhere. I'd like to see this speeded up a notch.
2. Crestock claims to uphold higher standards than "the others". This is Crestocks prerogative, which I find challenging and which is the main reason I continue uploading. However, information on what Crestock exactly is looking for, is sub par. The information available is very limited, and, considering the high standards, too generic. Going over the "recent image uploads", I - more often than not - get the impression that if I were to submit such images, I'd either get a "creative standards", a "composition", a "production level" or a "too similar" rejection. Maintaining high standards also involves to properly brief all photographers on what you are looking for. This assures you of an adequate supply of needed images for your clients / buyers, and will enable contributors to be more selective in what they submit, saving all parties involved a lot of time. Please make this information easier accessible and public.
3. Rejections are bound to be part of the deal when maintaining high standards. Getting the occasional additional email on what to fix is an appreciated touch. However, going over rejections on-site provides very little, if no useful, information at all. Rephrasing the rejection reason, making them more meaningful could result in both higher acceptance levels, and remove the scent of ambiguity and favourism, that currently veils the reviewing process.
4. A more personal approach from the "Crestock Evaluations Team" would be nice. Recently they started answering in the forums more frequently, which is a good thing, but in all their communications they remain anonymous. To me, this comes across as a rather arrogant. Microstock is a form of UGC, which requires active monitoring and involvement from site administrators, from people to people. The current attitude I perceive does not help in removing the apparent favourism and ambiguity of the reviewing process. I think it would be a good thing if reviewers would be more accessible for feedback.
5. General policies are not clearly communicated, or very difficult to find. I was recently told that it's not allowed to resubmit images, threatening me with banning my account, but I've been unable to find anything even remotely close to addressing such issues on crestock.com. (reply unanswered, see item 9) Updating the FAQ could solve a lot.
6. The recent uploads section usually contains a lot of images from the same series, by the same contributor, and repeatedly from a very small group of contributors. This strengthens my believe in favourism. I suggest to either pick the recently uploaded images randomly, or spread them out more evenly over all contributors.
7. Please, add more image management tools - allow contributors to change, amend, and remove keywords. remove images, and add an opt-out to subscriptions. We own the copyrights, and I feel that should allow us to control which accepted images remain available for sale at Crestock at any time, without having to email support or post in the forums. The latter will only leave a negative atmosphere, affecting everyone.
8. Resizing images to mask alleged flaws during the reviewing process is something that strikes me as rather disdainful, because it seems to be happening batch wise, and not image wise. I suggest to either accept or reject an image. On the other hand, with a meager $0,25 commission revenue for contributors, I'd rather have all my images available as "small-only" (That would be a great, and differentiating, feature!).
9. I've sent a lot of emails to support without receiving a proper follow-up. Recently, things seem to have improved a bit, though. As I do feel challenged by Crestock's attitude and claim to uphold higher standards than other agents, I keep sending them, but being denied a proper soundboard does not help me provide you with the images you need, Besides attitude is met with attitude, which isn't very constructive, either.
I guess this epistle is foremost a "managing expectations" thing; claiming to be one step above the others, also requires Crestock to act accordingly. Currently, it is difficult to see the evidence in your contributor relations to back up such claims.
Kind regards,
Hugo
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| | I was just about to make a similar post as I saw yours. Although I generally like Crestock, there are some things that are going into the wrong direction, IMHO. 1. It is Crestock's credo to accept only the highest quality images. The high rejection rate is a direct function of this approach. And while some may find many reasons for rejections ridiculous, I for my part can see the point in most of them. There really is an incentive to learn from them. But - and this is a BIG BUT - Crestock should also try to learn from the reactions of the contributors to the rejections. Much of the criticism circles around the fact that top selling pictures from other sites are rejected by Crestock for whatever reason. What can be learned from that? The technical and aesthetic perfection of a picture that Crestock insits in is far from being the only criterium why buyers decide to download a picture. In many cases they just don't care if there are tiny "artifacts" or a certain level of under/overexposure or jagged edges in CG renders or whatever. When buyers only need a small verison for their web page, many flaws can't be noticed at all. And when pictures are priinted, artifacts up to a certain level are superseeded by the rasterization. Why don't you let buyers decide if the techical quality of a picture is alright for them? Give them the possibiliiy to zoom in to 100% size and let them decide. Rejecting "not quite perfect" pictures is a kind of paternalism that I am sure many buyers don't like. Crestock is in the business to make money. Rejecting pictures that sell well elsewhere is like deliberately refusing people to give you money. Do you really want that? 2. Crestock's rigid review standards are mant to be a service for buyers so they can choose only from the best of the best. Apart from the fact that I just stated that this may not be so postiive after all, where is your service for the contrubutors? You insist that we give you the best of the best. What do you give us in return? A lousy 25 cents per download. Do you feel this is appropriate? I think this kind of business relationship is pretty one-sided. Something is really going wrong here. In the past the month I have started to sumbit my portfolio to a handful of sites. My earnings: Site A: $70, Site B: $40, Site C: $8, site D: $7, site E: $5, Crestock: $1 Regards, Oliver
[Last Modified:
4/23/2009 8:40:36 AM]
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| | Hi 36clicks,
Many thanks for your input on this. There's a lot to think about here, so we will not aim to address all of your suggestions/recommendations/observations here and now, but we will aim to discuss many of these issues during a meeting next week.
Best regards,
The Crestock Team |
| | Hugo and Oliver I too have many of the same gripes. One of my images was rejected for whatever reason and that is my number one selling image of all times everywhere else. Its been on magazine covers, 20x30 posters have been printed from it, postcards, its been in tv ads, and more. It just sells. Except with crestock image reviewers. LOL :) I was shocked when it was denied but I haven't resubmitted it and wont. It sells elsewhere so its really a non issue for me. It just surprised me thats all :) |
| | If I were a manager at a microstock site, I would regard any rejected picture that sells elsewhere as a slap in my face. I would ask myself "why the heck didn't we notice that this picture actually HAD commercial potential?" Of course nobody is perfect, and rejections of pictures selling well elswehere happen on all sites. But when this happens a lot, I would most probably question my review standards. And as we all know, the forum here is full of stories like this. This leads to another observation I made. On some sites, the forums have evolved into a real community. There is a fair amount of contributors that have a very tight bonding to the site, some kind of a virtual xyz (insert name of site here) family. On the Crestock forum, discussions circle mainly around rejections and how to have one's account deleted. I don't think I ever read something like "Crestock is great!". Makes you wonder... Regards, Oliver |
| | I have given up on up loading images on crestock. They reject most all my images. I am on five other sites that have small sales every day. I will take a small sales over complete rejection anyday..........
[Last Modified:
4/28/2009 1:04:38 PM]
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| | I continue uploading because it is fast, and IF pictures are approved, they are online fast. It only takes a few minutes to upload, so I don't care. |
| | If I were a manager at a microstock site, I would regard any rejected picture that sells elsewhere as a slap in my face. I would ask myself "why the heck didn't we notice that this picture actually HAD commercial potential?" Of course nobody is perfect, and rejections of pictures selling well elswehere happen on all sites. But when this happens a lot, I would most probably question my review standards. And as we all know, the forum here is full of stories like this. This leads to another observation I made. On some sites, the forums have evolved into a real community. There is a fair amount of contributors that have a very tight bonding to the site, some kind of a virtual xyz (insert name of site here) family. On the Crestock forum, discussions circle mainly around rejections and how to have one's account deleted. I don't think I ever read something like "Crestock is great!". Makes you wonder... Regards, Oliver This is also what bothers me. It will not only benefit the submitter but also Crestock as well when images that are accepted in other sites are accepted by Crestock rather than rejected. The forum at times I found to suck! Peopel just dont have the interest to participate in it since they are already discouraged by all the rejections without any explanations. 
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| | If, as Crestock has advised us so brazenly, the standards here are more strict than at other agencies, why don''t the commissions reflect that? From what I see, the images here are very strong, truely of high quality. Do buyers pay a higher price for these extra special photos? If so, why don't we contributors receive a corresponding commision. If not, stop with the "Are you sure you want to submit....." , please. |
| | I've thought of a great idea for Crestock to teach themselves something about what sells and to make contributors some money. I suggest creating a duplicate Crestock site for about 6 months and getting all the rejected images onto it for sale. If Crestock is right, none of them would sell or at least the sales should be miniscule compared to the approved image Crestock site. However, if the sales on the 'rejected images' site are significant, then it just proves what everyone at this forum seems to be going on about i.e. the evaluators are having terrible problems identifying images that sell OR they just aren't interested in contributions from the general community, but only from a smaller select group of 'favourite' contributors. C'mon Crestock, I challenge you to give it a go. Or perhaps all us other contributors could set up our own Crestock Rejects site and start earning a lot more than a ridiculous 0.25c for premium quality (but in Crestock's opinion 'not up to our very high standards' ) images. Elina P.S. If you use the idea, feel free to pay me at least 0.25c for my contribution.
[Last Modified:
5/21/2009 7:40:03 AM]
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| | Everywhere you look, here and other forums as soon crestock is mentioned you get the instant dislike and get told they want the best, but they pay the worst. And it's been said for a very long time (so why am I bothering - oh well). Whether true or not it says the site is arrogant and it creates a bad feeling for your artists so you are missing many extremely good people and images (which defeats your purpose of trying to be the best). And because of the this feeling very few people refer others (including buyers) to crestock because of their feelings towards the site. You have blog content aimed at photographers etc but the underlying ethos of the site contradicts it so you really dont have a 'community', just some people who upload images, collect money and leave. As has been said before raise your commissions, especially for subs,to at least the industry standard, or show you really want the best and raise subs commisions to be best :) and even (or even put in sliding scale like shutterstock) if you dont change rejections be friendly and informative with them. oh and I know people who find the whole concept of Judge Ross unprofessional and offensive (I dont look at it so dont care).
[Last Modified:
7/4/2009 12:18:19 PM]
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| | I uploaded 13 images quite a while ago. I have 163 sales from them and they earned me ~ just below $50 so far. Thats an average commission of less than $0.31/ download, far below the industry standard. I wish I could upload my other few hundred very well selling images to crestock. But I cannot convince myself to do this for such a low commission. The commission has to be at least 35 cents/ subscription download. |
| | I believe that this forum stream is an important one. I would think that Crestock would address these issues and do something, if possible, about the smoldering opinions of the contributors. If there is just one thing you do....please....eliminate the "Are you sure you are ready to submit the selected images? Please note that the quality standards at Crestock are higher than at other stock-sites and we only accept the best images"...pshaw....fffftttt....that's an awful way to treat serious contributors. Ask other photogs and see if they feel the same. Although I like the idea of having high standards it is a contradiction to be paying contributors the lowest rate in the industry. Please consider, at least, a small but good-faith raise for us artists. It would get some attention, have people talking in the forums and make some people a little more happy with Crestock.....thanks. |
| | Great thread with very valid posts. I'm not going to add much, I have written a lot in the past without getting the crew's attention. Crestock needs to treat its contributers respectfully and rethink their policy. I'm all for quality control and strictness, but it has to be done professionally and not in a pseudo and arrogant way. Reviewers have been wrong with their choices. In my case they have rejected my best images and taken the average ones, with rejection reasons that are simply not true and prove either their incompetence or their carelessness. Now no reviewers seem to be here, I wonder if they have all been fired. ;-) I have said it before and I stand by my prediction: either Crestock has to change completely or it will go down. Sorry folks, I know some of you might call me arrogant after reading this post, but it's been really frustrating, trying to argue and explain valid points in the forums, and once in a blue moon when someone from the crue does react it's as if they hadn't understood a word. By the way, like Keithpix says, this "Are you sure you want to submit the selected images? ..." is ridiculous, LOL! It shows the strange attitude everyone is complaining about. The first time I saw it, it was like a small slap in the face - fortunately after a few times you don't read it anymore. The Judge character is another bad thing: as long as you just read that stuff you may find it all well, but imagine you are the unlucky one whose image is picked as the worst. You wouldn't want your shot to be exhibited in that way. I don't agree with many of the best image choices either, not at all. So why does this judge behave as if he knows better than all the rest of us? Leave the judging to the people, they have their own eyes and taste.
I hope this current long and spooky silence means that things are being changed.
[Last Modified:
10/13/2009 10:06:36 AM]
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| | very good information/article!
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| | Wouldn't it be important for a site that claims such high standards to have a zoom feature so that the customers can judge the image quality for themselves? That would be a great improvement. |
| | Thanks for the shout-out, Smileus. It's good to know that others feel the same. |
| | Thank you too, keithpix. The Judge Ross section isn't visible on parts of the site anymore, but here in the forum it still is. I was actually going to say something positive, but here I'm still able to see it, LOL!  |
| | What's going on, Admin? There's been so little writing in the forums lately.....what do you make of that? |