Hello guys. I used to submit photos to the microstock websites before, but stopped doing so for many months, probably submitting an image or two once in a while. However, I want to get much of my photography collection submitted to the sites now. I sent two photos to shutterstock, preparing them to pretty high standards, but they were rejected (one on the basis of noise, another because the photo was of a skyline with logos and was rejected as not being editorial.) Now, I'm kinda confused as to what currently are the standards now for microstock photography, since I went to Istockphoto and I examined some of the photos that were sent as late as last year and I found quite a bunch of noise in photos at 100%!

I would like to know what currently are the standards of microstock websites like Istockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, etc.... and tolerance levels for such, if you can describe please or show examples (especially for things like noise, chromatic abberation, signs and logos, sharpness level, and gradient banding) . Also, what are shutterstock's standards currently for accepting editorial photos? Thanks.

Sorry my friend, After 6000 posts on SS I just cant say this again. The forums at SS contain everything you could possiby know or want to know. I Beg you to do the work yourself. I/We have answered these questions thousands of times. YOU are going to have to put in the time. I cant type another quick answer about this. There is NO quick answer except hard work, Shoot what they want, Learn the business and your equipment. Then Maybe, Just hopefully Maybe you can answer someone else down the road.Good Luck

The reason I'm asking this is that different agencies may have different standards, and some others could be willing to share. I don't frequent these forums, so I can't really respond to what else you said.

I don't do a lot of editorial photos for micro, but there are plenty of skylines that are considered editorial shots (and many not in editorial)- mainly because of the buildings contained in the shot. You are best to clone away any names on buildings and logos where they are readily visible - also any billboards or ads on buildings - and if there are no buildings considered trademarked you can submit it without the editorial tag. If there are buildings that are trademarked, they shouldn't be the main component of the shot, just part of the overall skyline, and those should be editorial.

Noise - well that hasn't changed much over the past six months - on SS the standards are still 0% noise. The same for things like artefacting and fringing (C/A) - there seems to be very little tolerance. Sharpness levels - well I'll admit that I've seen a lot of stuff accepted lately that doesn't look very sharp to me, yet it's accepted - much of it I wouldn't even have submitted if it were mine. It's really very hard to say because it is dependent on the reviewer - what gets rejected one time may get accepted a week later by another reviewer.

In submitting photos I follow my own standards - is it sharp enough to suit me? If not, it doesn't get submitted. I guess for me it's not about what they'll accept...I am more concerned about the quality that has my name on it.

I'm afraid I can only give you the info for SS; I don't submit to the others you asked about.

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