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1daatMedia · Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

I recently submitted 3 batches of photos and had 121 photos rejected, and received a warning. Here it is

Quote:

- We have noticed that a significant number of photos in your most recently submitted batch
are of poor quality when enlarged and appear to have been upsized. We must ask you in the
future to refrain from upsizing and carefully check the quality of each photo before
submitting. This will inevitably save time on both sides.

I am confused, thus I submitted questions to shutterstock support concerning the resizing. None of these images were upsized. I processed the latest batch in Photoshop and did unsharp mask enhancement and layout improvements, but none of them were upsized. Here are some of the rejected images.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/review_batch.mhtml?id=48346
http://submit.shutterstock.com/review_batch.mhtml?id=47795

Shutterstock support sent me this email.

Quote:

Hi! We really wish we had time to explain every rejection to you but we don't. We need to spend time accepting more images so wait times are low. We suggest you post your rejected image to the forums and get feedback from your peers. The folks on the forum are usually dead on with rejection explainations, and the reviewers often step in where needed as time alows.

Thank you!

The ShutterStock Team

So now I am here asking for some help to get better at this, and have a better understanding of why I received the warning.

Thanks
1daatmedia

StuartE · Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:05 pm

Only you and reviewers can see batches... we can only see our own batches... even if we could see them, the thumbnails wouldn't help - attach them to your post, along with some slices at 100%, so we can identify the problems...

Cheers,
Stuart

screenfx · Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 171 Location: Colorado

I haven't seen your images, but you really got to be careful with unsharp mask. Sharpening of anykind has the potential of leaving ghost-like halos around edges of things. The reviewers may have mistaken the ghosting for upsizing.

Just a shot in the dark
Bill

JaZilla · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 99 Location: Appalachia

I've had a few submissions rejected for upsizing when they were neither upsized nor filtered with the usharp mask. I've also had photos twice the minimum size required automatically rejected for being too small!
Anywho, I just keep trying to hone in on exactly what the upload program and reviewers want.

screenfx · Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 171 Location: Colorado

I'm new here, and I'm by no means a professional photographer. I just uploaded my first and only image, and it was approved. Beginners luck?

I do however have a lot of years of professional experience with Photoshop and my image was heavily edited. I took out distracting subject matter and cloned background imagery to replace these.

I enlarged the canvas size and then cloned around the edges to fill in the negative space. Not for the purpose of upsizing, but for the purpose of centering my subject without cropping. My camera is only 2.5 mp so I can't afford to crop.

I spent about an hour editing in Photoshop. The last thing I did was zoom in at a variety of zoom levels and examine every bit of it for cloned edges, noise, (or lack there of) to make sure it was seamless.

Maybe this mattered, maybe not. Maybe they just needed a picture of a bird on a bird feeder really bad. I guess I'll have to do a lot more uploading before I know.

Bill

JTeffects · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 294

sapsiwai · Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 298 Location: Mauritius

1daatMedia · Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

How can I post the image if the image posting is limited to smaller than my picture size ? I greatly appreciate all of the feedback in here. It looks like the unsharp mask is something to avoid. Trying to get a good feel for what I can do in Photoshop. Don't want to get another warning and get kicked out.

Here is a sample sheet of rejected images that where not upsized:

StuartE · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:24 pm

I see things in several of those shots that would make me suspicious of 'artistic' filtering which may well not be what the reviewers are after, but really, without a full size image to look at you're just wasting your, and my time in looking at them - get yourself some free space at a photo sharing site, put a shot or two up there and then give us a link, and we can offer useful comments...

So, given I can't comment on the quality, let's see what I can see in these thumbnails... Now, from left to right and then down a line, the flower looks really odd on the right hand side - have you tried to blur/smooth out the foliage over there? The kettle - I take it that's an abstract impression of a kettle? They seem to reject anything that's had filters applied, no matter how many of them you've mixed with blending layers and actions, despite the fact they sell... shot three, the wall/door - I can see some detail, some blurry nothing spaces, which suggests artifacting, and I can see some clear oversharpening fringes down the 'string/thread' from the doorknob... shot 4, or wobbly blurry long exposure of an eye as I've come to call it, may just be too abstract, and definitely has way too much exposure - all that blown white area on the left side... the drummer, the hand that looks sharp still looks pretty soft, and also looks to have some fringing... I'd almost say 'snapshot' from the thumbnail... shot six, if it was four 'stained' frames of glass it might work better, but it looks a little 'bitsa' to me, bitsa this, bitsa that - I'd either centre the cross, or put it way off centre, not kinda central... try and make the shot look like a little thought was put into it, rather than just grabbed, and you'll get more acceptances... shot 7, well, that's abstract - no idea what I'm looking at, or if you warped the bottom or it looked like that, but again there looks to be a white fringe dividing the purple from the blue... number eight, have you moved the camera round while exposing to get this shot? is anything in it sharp? I can't really say anything else on such a small shot... number nine, the old camera - these look a lot more interesting from a bit of an angle, the side on's neither here nor there, but your graduated background would be better plain for easier usage... there could well be issues with your edges or isolation in that one at full size... number ten, the cow, looks like it suffers from harsh light, heavy black shadow and over bright highlight areas - the cross light isn't attractive compared to something more 'set up' - looks a little snapshotty, all in all... guitar number one, the whole lot looks way soft - where was your focus in that?? (bearing in mind the smaller the image, the sharper it looks compared to full size, it's bad if they look blurry as a thumbnail/contact sheet...) shot 12, yep, basket in a corner on a small table with a doily and cross shadows and bright plain wall and a blown out area and some fresco on the wall behind it - lots of things to keyword but not necessarily a strong stock image, looks like the stained glass lighthouse is pretty blurry too - stained glass is deceptive, it looks bright, but often isn't, so you need a tripod... shot 14 - obviously a non blurred/spun/rotated copy of the shot at number 8 - still not sure what it is or it's potential for stock, and finally number 15, guitar number two, you do know that whole shot is blurred from camera shake or out of focus, don't you??

Again, try one or two shots, bigger - then you might get comments from more people than the one with enough stamina to look at the lot... :-)

Cheers,
Stuart

JTeffects · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 294

screenfx · Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 171 Location: Colorado

Some of these shots like the cow and stained glass are technically shots of other peoples art/creations. They might have been rejected for fear of copyright infringment. It would be like taking a picture of a coke can.

1daatMedia · Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

First of all,

Thanks to all who have responded to my post and been patient with me. Thanks ! I appreciate all of the feedback and all of the critique !

Here is the link to the full size rejected images.

http://www.1daat.com/ssrejected/

Check them out and give me your feedback !

Thanks again
1daatmedia

JTeffects · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 294

its still hard to see the whole thing since the full size version doesnt fit on the screen and the thumbnail is too small. Its easiest to resize it to about 400-500 pixles across and post it here. it also makes them easy to steal by posting them like that....
anyway....

Critique:

http://www.1daat.com/ssrejected/pages/P1010025a.htm and its counterpart P1010025
there is obvious noise on the dark part of vers a. the composition could be improved for stock purpouses by including the handel. and the artistic thing done to it (both of them) isnt good for stock. good lighting though.

http://www.1daat.com/ssrejected/pages/P1010027.htm
there is some light grain in the darker areas. I wouldnt reject it on that if I were a reviewer (but I am not). Its also a little crooked. I also would have cloned out the blue part in the white area. I really dont see that much of a problem with it.....

http://www.1daat.com/ssrejected/pages/P1010007%20copy.htm
sorry, but the composition is poor, as well as the overlay (double exposure type thing). I dont like the "blah"ness of the colours either. but it is nice and straight.

overall they have lots of artisitc filters on them which won't be accepted.

whooper · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Bolton, Ontario

StuartE · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:37 am

I can see why the reviewer rejected that, pretty easily...

Yep, either Neat image that, or use Digital Gem, or either Noise Ninja, or a lower ISO - because I can see the noise quite clearly... and at 100% it's soft and not that well focussed - was this shot handheld at a really high ISO or something? (I ask, because I cropped you a small section to show you the difference, and even trying to clean the noise doesn't help that much...

Bottom left is the original noisy image, top right is the cleaner version...

Cheers,
Stuart