I'm finally learning first hand, what I've been reading here since the first day. The different sites, appear to like or dislike, different styles and photos. The reasons for rejection can be informative or mystic. Most are helpful for improving the quality and not wasting my time or theirs by submitting marginal photos or junk.
Since I'm a small time player, I only have seven sites active right now, but one photo that's been accepted at most, just got rejected at my newest addition. "too light or too dark" :-D OK what is it?
Another one with good acceptance until now came back as heavy shadows.
Meanwhile the above site accepted two photos that were rejected at two other sites because of noise or not being sharp enough.
In every case, I can see why the reviewer was justified in their reasoning. But it's still amusing that what does get accepted, varies so much.
I'd expect that photo "A" which is potentially not stock material at one site, would also be the same at the rest. But it's accepted at all but one. Another photo that's not accepted at all the rest, is accepted at that one site.
I attribute the assorted rejection reasons, to a choice of flaws, and that reviewer decided that whatever they clicked, stood out as the most glaring flaw, while the image may have had others that could have applied.
Rejections are educational! I finally picked up on viewing everything full size, (right after my first batch of rejections at LO in July, and people drumming it into my head here) and looking for artifacts. Oh look at that spot, where I did some spot sharpening or removed a speck in the background. Yikes, it looks like crap!
Looks fine printed, looks fine on the screen, but full size, it's horrible.
Tidbit that amused me. One site, the first photo of the 14, uploaded on Sunday, was accepted at 7pm last night. The second photo was accepted at 11am this morning. It makes me wonder how the work flow is handled by reviewers there. It can't be by order of submission, or by artist, with a 16 hour gap?
All the rest of the sites, came through in one email, done in a batch.
Probably the best feedback that I can learn from, is when 3 images are universally accepted at all the sites they were submitted to. Instead of looking at the negative, or disparity, I need to look at why these are meeting the criteria better than the rest. What makes these "good" and keep doing some more of that.