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forum => International forum for English speakers => General discussion => : Syates November 27, 2007, 12:06:12 AM

: crestock (international)
: Syates November 27, 2007, 12:06:12 AM
As they appeared on the market they were so bad (reviews/ sales) that I actually cancelled my account there, but I re-joined some months ago after Andresr encouraged me and sales are picking up, not stellar, but better, how is your experience, SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss November 27, 2007, 12:15:37 AM
Aaargh!!

One day when I have bandwidth to blow... I'll send them stuff again!
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: realdealphoto November 27, 2007, 11:03:13 AM
A handful of sales a day but nothing to write home about. Horribly picky about what they accept but I really don't worry to much about that, In this game every sale adds up and with no more effort then it take to upload there I just add them as I have a chance.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Syates November 28, 2007, 05:01:43 PM
Yes, it is true their upload system got really much better and easier to use, SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock November 28, 2007, 06:51:17 PM

Hi to you all,

Thanks Lev for the invitation. And, to the moderators of this board, all the best guys, hope your forum becomes a great place for open discussion.

For those of you who haven't had contact with me before, I'm the Director for Photographer Relations and Inspections at Crestock. This is since April this year. I'm here to encourage all photographers to get involved with Crestock and really help maintain its steady growth.

The future at Crestock is looking better and better (Yeah we had some growing pains.) Sales have doubled in almost a month, and from the experience of last January we expect it to double again in the first month of 2008. Anyone (Forgiss, you're the only microstocker here that I'm aware of who doesn't regularly upload to Crestock, not to mention names ;)) who would like to get on board in the next month or 2 with a larger portfolio, let me know. I can get the inspection team onto it, giving it priority.

The inspection team is one of the things that have changed at Crestock. We now use a mixture of in-house inspectors and also Crestock contributors (all fantastic photographers) from all around the globe. We're about 20 inspectors now, most of whom inspect every day. The inspectors are taught to maintain a high standard of quality (this is important for any stock site wishing to develop a solid customer base), but not too much at the expense of good stock images.

Theres a range of new developments on their way at Crestock, all of these will hopefully become apparent in the near future.

Look forward to getting to know you all, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Josh
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Syates November 28, 2007, 07:01:30 PM
Hello Josh, welcome from me also! I am always in favor that site admins/ owners/ managers/ creative directors etc join the forums and be active in them. It helps everybody to see "both of the sides of a coin" so to speak. I would also encourage you not only to write in this board but also be active in the other ones. We are all in the same business and the broader the group is that discusses this business the more information and understanding will everybody gain from it. Which, in the end will be beneficial to all, so again, welcome and let Lev or me know when we can help you with something! SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: khz November 29, 2007, 10:14:30 AM
Hi Josh,
welcome to the board,

i tried to ul when crestock first come out, i had big hopes when i started, then i was discouraged with the previous ul system and very low acceptance ratio. that's whey i get out from there, but since i do this micro stock business as my main job, it really annoys me to quit a stock site forever.

so if the things are going better for both photographers and crestock, may be i should give it a second try?
regards
bora
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss November 29, 2007, 12:31:05 PM
Hi Josh  ;D

Like I have mentioned before, business is business, and if a site is working, I will sell there. When I quite Crestock, I honestly did not have the bandwidth to waste on arbitrary rejections (I believe one of the forum posts said " ...we don't want images that sell elsewhere, we want exceptional images... "

All good and well, but if you can't supply the basics, why would visitors come? wouldn't they just go to the place that can supply them everything they need in one go? (well, that's my logic) Also, nobody on your team could give me any indication of what "exceptional" images are. The last point that drove me away was simply that everytime I asked a question, my comments were deleted from the forum...

So... if any of this has changed, then sure... I will upload there again...
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss November 29, 2007, 01:47:34 PM
Hi Josh...

Tried to upload a file, got this:

    *   couple211007-01.jpg: Out of memory.
      System.OutOfMemoryException: Out of memory. at System.Drawing.Graphics.CheckErrorStatus(Int32 status) at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(Image image, Rectangle destRect, Rectangle srcRect, GraphicsUnit srcUnit) at CustomToolsV2.ImageResizer.ConstrainProportions(Image imgPhoto, Int32 Size, Dimensions Dimension) at standard.LagreThumbnails(Int32 id, String path, Int32 typeid) at standard.ImportImages()   Delete
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock November 29, 2007, 02:07:35 PM
Thanks for the comments guys,

Its nice to be getting some constructive feedback, its unbelievably helpful.

First off, Forgiss, I agree with everything you said. Its already been proven to us over time that the more established microstock photographers can supply to basis to our collection and can in themselves attract a lot of customers. These photographers upload to a lot of different sites and have a good knowledge of the industry, so we don't want to waste too much of their time with arbitrary rejections or long pending times. I see it as being in our best interests to get those images up as quickly as possible, and to really promote the good ones.

Accepting only 'exceptional images', whilst, to me, is obviously unsustainable for a stock site starting off, it is typical of that we need to be offering a slightly different service to the rest of the industry. Since i've started, we've had relatively high approval rates, which I think we can afford to do while we continue to build our libraries up. Sales are increasing constantly and if we continue this way we might achieve sales comparative to a site like Dreamstime. To do better than this, though, somewhere along the line, we'll have to do something differently. We've got a few ideas though nothing set in concrete yet. Other sites just seem to make it more and more difficult to achieve approvals and to get exposure on queue results, I'm not convinced this is a real solution. Certainly not a good one for photographers.

Best Regards,

Josh

: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock November 29, 2007, 02:11:45 PM
In regards to the error message:

There are isolated cases of this happening and I believe its due to hardware upgrades that are happening over the next week or so. A few people say that they've tried a second time and then it has worked. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience and that I can't give you a better solution than that.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss November 29, 2007, 03:38:39 PM
Accepting only 'exceptional images', whilst, to me, is obviously unsustainable for a stock site starting off, it is typical of that we need to be offering a slightly different service to the rest of the industry. Since i've started, we've had relatively high approval rates, which I think we can afford to do while we continue to build our libraries up. Sales are increasing constantly and if we continue this way we might achieve sales comparative to a site like Dreamstime. To do better than this, though, somewhere along the line, we'll have to do something differently.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. and on a micro level (inside a "micro" industry) I try and do just that in my own portfolio to create sustainability, so even though my "business" type images are more than 25% of my gallery, it compromises less than 4% of my earnings. And my focus is on other image types where gaps exist

I do, however, maintain, that unless you are a "niche market" site, you will have to supply both the rudimentary images as well as the "exceptional" because that is the demand. Sure, my stapeler images is nothing special, but... the client that is paying the money needs one today, and if they miss it on one stock site, they will search on another, so if they allready have one transaction on another site, why not simply see if the rest isn't also available there...

The new buyers are fickle, brand loyalty is something that is fast disolving. Buyers that is e-commerce savy will not think twice to switch between sites to get what they need today (and that is also why I will never go exclusive either)

As I mentioned before, I defended Crestock's rejections and (as I still am) feel that a site has the right to accept and reject images according to their business strategy, but what I would like is for the business to respect me as well and at least give me a guideline according to submit. I do this for a living, and don't have time or resources to waste on the whim of a reviewer who reviews without definite guidelines. (case in point: tourist related images of London rejected when Crestock had only 5 images with a "london" keyword, of which one was a photograph of a map)

At Crestock (a year or so ago) Technical quality flew out the window and acceptance/rejection was on the "gut feel" of the reviewer. And the only reason I left was because nobody could give me those guidelines. If they are in place today, I will gladly move all my images up.

: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Syates November 29, 2007, 04:32:03 PM
As somebody that submits, again, regularly to Crestock, I must say, reviews are far more consistent these days and Josh is always approachable if you feel a reviewer made a mistake. Sales wise it is also picking up as I said before, SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss November 29, 2007, 05:00:00 PM
Yep. I do not wish to hash old problems, so I will try and submit again, and see where it goes.

Will wait until next week though and see if the upload problems can be sorted
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: sshaw75 December 03, 2007, 05:54:10 AM
Hmm hadn't heard of this site before, signed up an account tonight, now the pain of uploading lol.  Hopefully it'll pan out as well as some of the others.
: Does anybody participate in the contest?
: Syates December 03, 2007, 04:36:55 PM
Crestock has an interesting PhotoShop Contest (http://www.crestock.com/blog/design/the-crestock-photoshop-contest-2007-101.aspx) going on, does anybody participate, if yes, please post your entry + link here so that people that like your entry can vote for it! SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 03, 2007, 06:18:41 PM

Welcome sshaw75! I hope it will pan out better than the others. (That will take a little time though ;))

Has anybody encountered upload errors this week? The hardware upgrades should just about be carried out by now.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 03, 2007, 08:31:36 PM
Ok we left Crestock about 3 months (i guess) ago because of really horrible rejects were every one of our other 11 agencies had no problem with it. Our own special way of knowing that if ShutterStock and Istock and Dreamstime are accepting it must be a good file since they al have dseem te seek different submissions and ways to inspect them.
We are willing to give it another try though (for sales sake) but we do need some help since we are talking about a bunch of about 1500 files and bandwidth in belgium is, sadly enough, not cheap.
Josh, if you can help us bring them all up soon we will give it a go. Maybe we should send you the DVD's to your office directly? You may contact us at info@dnf-style.com and, if you want a sample look at: http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-83289p1.html for our pf there.

regards,
Frenk.
: Crestock rejections - how to see them?
: Syates December 03, 2007, 09:52:33 PM
I looked something up on Crestock and noticed that I still had some not-submitted files lurking around in my submission area and hit the necessary button to submit them. Surprise!, two hours later there were already reviewed. BUT, I forgot to note down my previous "images in portfolio" number so I have no idea how may of them were approved. Is there any easy way to see a list of your rejected/ approved images with reasons for rejection or do I have to click on each one? SY
: Re: Crestock rejections - how to see them?
: sshaw75 December 04, 2007, 12:16:07 AM
I was just looking,. if you go into upload images, there is a rejections tab on the end of the right hand side.  You do have to click 1 image at a time to get the rejection reason
: Re: Crestock rejections - how to see them?
: Syates December 04, 2007, 12:24:28 AM
I was just looking,. if you go into upload images, there is a rejections tab on the end of the right hand side.  You do have to click 1 image at a time to get the rejection reason
Yes, and they are not sorted in any way, or at least I can't discover it, *sigh*, thanks any way, SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: sshaw75 December 04, 2007, 03:32:36 PM

Welcome sshaw75! I hope it will pan out better than the others. (That will take a little time though ;))

Has anybody encountered upload errors this week? The hardware upgrades should just about be carried out by now.

Thanks for the welcome. Been busy uploading the last few days.  Turn around time has been very quick!  Have a touch over 90 files in the port so far. Good Stuff
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: sshaw75 December 05, 2007, 07:05:56 AM
Has anybody encountered upload errors this week? The hardware upgrades should just about be carried out by now.

Hey Josh,
I've been having a few issues tonight.  3 or 4 times I have uploaded batches and have had 2 of the thumbnails showing up as red X's each time.  Not quite sure what's causing it
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: dolgachov December 05, 2007, 08:02:58 AM
bunch of errors with uploads again ;(


Out of memory.
System.OutOfMemoryException: Out of memory. at System.Drawing.Graphics.CheckErrorStatus(Int32 status) at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(Image image, Rectangle destRect, Rectangle srcRect, GraphicsUnit srcUnit) at CustomToolsV2.ImageResizer.ConstrainProportions(Image imgPhoto, Int32 Size, Dimensions Dimension) at standard.LagreThumbnails(Int32 id, String path, Int32 typeid) at standard.ImportImages()   Delete
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: khz December 05, 2007, 11:52:57 AM
oh man,
i ul'ded 220 images last night,
and nearly 1/3 of them are not showing :S
please tell me, they will be saved by the system and i wont need to re-upload them :(
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 05, 2007, 11:54:14 AM
Our apologies for any difficulties, its only happening in isolated cases its seems, and randomly too. I believe its due to the hardware upgrades to the server that are still happening for about a week.

You should be able to upload fine, in most cases. Upload statistics are way up this week, so not too many people are having a problem.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 05, 2007, 11:57:36 AM
khz,

Unfortunately, I think the 1/3 need to be uploaded again. Maybe someone else knows better, as i've never used the upload system. But, I'll meet with the tech team today and hear whats going on.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: khz December 05, 2007, 12:14:39 PM
it will be great if y can inform us about this issue :S
may be big batches in the ftp are effected more,
because i have been ul'ing batches via ftp of 50-70 before and never had a problem with it,
but 220 images killed 1/3 of the uploads,
thanks for the fast reply,
regards
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss December 05, 2007, 01:28:06 PM
the isolated incidents is happening to almost everybody here...

I thought the updates and hardware was sorted by the 3rd? Maybe let us know when it's done, then we can wait and upload then, and not be frustrated by errors

: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 05, 2007, 01:59:35 PM
After a nice personal mail from Josh (Thank you for that) we had our account re-activated this morning.
What I can tell so far is that you have to keep your FTP batches small (around 100 Mb at a time).
We also got the out of memory errors but still a lot went through.

The system said 5 out of 32 but there were 16 passed to the next step.
A second try for the remaining 16 gave us errors again on 2 files but all 16 got through.
It seems there are indeed some internal glitches but if the next batch (uploading now) gos the same way it is something we can deal with for now.

: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 05, 2007, 03:40:25 PM
I talked with the techies this morning about it. They seem to think they know what the problem is, and are hopefully going to fix it today.

In theory, uploading smaller batches will work. That would also explain why its only the heavier uploaders complaining about it.

Will keep you posted on this.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 05, 2007, 10:40:22 PM
The tech team tell me they have reached a solution on this, and it should be working as normal. I hope this is the case, but please notify us asap if its not working.

Happy uploading!
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Forgiss December 05, 2007, 10:55:32 PM
I talked with the techies this morning about it. They seem to think they know what the problem is, and are hopefully going to fix it today.

In theory, uploading smaller batches will work. That would also explain why its only the heavier uploaders complaining about it.

Will keep you posted on this.

I got the same error as dolgachov with a single image???
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 06, 2007, 12:41:38 AM
have you tried it in the past few hours??
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: dolgachov December 06, 2007, 04:34:06 AM
ok so far.

let's hope it's fixed.

Josh, i'm really impressed with reviewing speed last days. you're doing so very great and sales are boosting too. feels really good and smooth.

: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 06, 2007, 09:57:33 AM
Yep uploads are fine. Respect to Josh and the CS IT team for acting so fast.
Very lucky for me since DNF is bombing CS with loads of pics each day now (untill the Belgium bandwidth runs dry)
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: khz December 06, 2007, 11:30:13 AM
high review times are great for me like you,
and fast responses make me feel to upload more asap,
thanks Josh,
:)
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 06, 2007, 12:38:42 PM
Over 168 files in review que and over 500 Mb on it's way. Hell of a job guys ;-)
Ultimate test now on big batches.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 06, 2007, 06:12:18 PM
Thanks guys.

We're working really hard on getting things tip-top before January (biggest month of the year)

Thanks for your input here, too. It helped us get things fixed up yesterday
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: shadow216 December 07, 2007, 08:53:27 PM
@Josh,
hi, i've been having problems with attaching model release.. any advise?
thanks,
vince
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Talya December 08, 2007, 02:54:15 AM
I thought I will be mad but this is so ridiculous that I can not even get mad.  4 out of 5 my SS bestsellers (fifth was accepted earlier) were rejected,  2 out of 5  IS bestsellers (the rest was accepoted earlier) etc.  This is ok, you can have their own view, I understand. And I do not produce outstanding images. I understand rejection for composition, stockability, custom, even DOF and color.  But "out of focus", "lens flare on the right", ISO noise for photos accepted by all other stocks are beyond my understanding. Did I get all possible rejection reason or you have some more? My favorite cristmas image was accepted although. It does not sell anywhere but who cares  ;D

For clarification: I'm not complaining and not asking for double check. This tread sounded too good for me to be true and here we are.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Syates December 08, 2007, 03:03:26 AM
I thought I will be mad but this is so ridiculous that I can not even get mad.  4 out of 5 my SS bestsellers (fifth was accepted earlier) were rejected,  2 out of 5  IS bestsellers (the rest was accepoted earlier) etc.  This is ok, you can have their own view, I understand. And I do not produce outstanding images. I understand rejection for composition, stockability, custom, even DOF and color.  But "out of focus", "lens flare on the right", ISO noise for photos accepted by all other stocks are beyond my understanding. Did I get all possible rejection reason or you have some more? My favorite cristmas image was accepted although. It does not sell anywhere but who cares  ;D

For clarification: I'm not complaining and not asking for double check. This tread sounded too good for me to be true and here we are.

Welcome to the club, Talya! I am in the same boat, best selling images rejected and not selling images accepted! Enjoy the sales nevertheless, Crestock is at the same level as BSP for me so far... Grace God the upload process is easier now... SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: josh_crestock December 08, 2007, 07:59:33 PM
@shadow216: I'm sorry, but attaching model releases and anything related to the uploading process is not something i'm familar with. I'd suggest going onto the Crestock forum, and posting the question there. Thousands of those guys have done it before, so there must be someone who can help.

@Talya: Out of interest, I had a look at your recent rejections and I need to have a second look through these because I think a couple of mistakes have been made. I can't respond to every complaint on every forum, and, for the sake of my mental well-being I won't try.  However, in regards to your bestselling images being rejected (in this case I believe it, as i saw a couple that could really sell), although, in general, I hear this very often. Crestock, though admittedly not always getting it right, has emphasised the inspection process as an essential cornerstone in building a quality collection, from the start. I've had personal insight into the inspection process on other sites (Dreamstime, SS, SnapVillage) and I know in some of those cases there is, at times, very little inspection going on at all. I was really surprised by this, that there was so little method to their inspections. We're aiming to have a community-based team of inspectors that follows very easy-to-follow standards. These same standards will also be provided to the photographers, there is a need for this type of clarity in the process.

At the moment, growth is so fast, and images are coming in that, its a job for 10 people just to monitor and control the inspections. We're not 10, more like 3 on this, and we are going to miss some from time to time, while inspectors are getting the feel for things.

Finally, when thinking about standards, not so much technical, but more creative and conceptual standards... We can't be following other sites. We can't even think so much about them. It seems to me personally, that most of the other sites are on their way down. Its important that we focus on what will sell on Crestock, considering our market, and to satisfy the needs of customers, by providing quality images that they will purchase. Most importantly though, this isn't an excuse to reject images, good stock will be good stock, and unless we're making it ourselves, we rely on input from contributors.

In the near future, Crestock will have very clear standards, which both inspectors and photographers will read from.

Please direct unfair inspections to myself, or to helpdesk@crestock.com Unfortunalely, I don't have time to respond to every complaint from forum postings. Thanks!
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 08, 2007, 08:19:02 PM
@shadow216:
Try the following:
Use tfp.crestock.com to upload your images (not in maps but all in the same map)
Use your login and password as provided by crestock to access your account.
When upload has finished go to your account and then uploads.
You will see how many photo's are seen on your FTP account click process these files and wait till it's done.
Next you go to the describe tab and finish the files of with keywords title and descriptions.
If done so go to review and submit

Finally you have come to the place where you can attach your model releases. So you could have gone there immediately if the above steps were already taken. Nobody has ever dead from being complete (other way around is more likely) so I'd thought I'd better describe the whole process for you.

Good, let's presume you have not uploaded your model release of this series.
To do so click Register new model
which will bring you to a form where you have to name it, tell the country , the Ethnicity, age category and other stuff. Also there you browse towards the model release on your hard drive and a photo of the model to make it visible.
Click save and wait till you are automatically get returned to the main page of the review and submit tab.

Good now you see the photo of the appropriate model release and the photo taken from the FTP.
Click the appropriate model release and tick all photo's it should be attached to.
Next click the button that says: attach model releases to selected

When done select all photo's you which to submit and press the button [i[submit selected[/i]
This will transfer your selected photo's to the pending tab

I guess when uploading using the upload feature of crestock the only difference is the process to get your files from you FTP account.

Hope this will enlighten things for you.
I have no bounds with Crestock whatsoever. I just like to help.

Frenk
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: shadow216 December 09, 2007, 04:57:59 PM
thanks Frenk,
I have done it that way but my images still gets rejected for missing MR's. have no problem with other images though.. thanks.
regards,
vince
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: sshaw75 December 09, 2007, 07:49:08 PM
hehe I am getting rejections for similarities with 2 photos from 1 set.  Getting a few rejections for composition, flat colors or too much saturation, all of files that have been accepted and sell at multiple other sites, including a RM/RF UK site Ah well.
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 10, 2007, 10:10:48 AM
Vince, are the rejections because of absence of MR or of errors in the MR?

There is no doubt that CS is upholding a stricter policy then most others. A lot of times it seems even stricter then Istockphoto/Getty. It is good and understandable that they do. One has to differentiate oneself from others in order to attract and hold buyers. I think, from my side, that if buyers want only the tip of the top they will move to the maxistcock and pay lots more. But that is just my opinion. There is nothing wrong with high standards unless the word too comes in mind. But I can relate to their thinking. (IF I'm thinking correct ;-) )
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: Talya December 13, 2007, 07:59:11 PM
John, I really appreciate your respond but I honestly did not intent to complain.  Anyway, most of those images are christmas related so that does not make much sense to bother now.

I know a lot of people say "you rejected my bestseller", I always thought this is exaggeration in most part and never expected to find myself in this position. Sorry, I could not help myself.

I do not think (admins will correct me if I'm wrong) that this forum was established as another place for complains. Talk about standards - yes. complains - no. As you mention standards, CS did not reject all my images, but those you took definitely were not the best (well, same of them) and I could not really find a pattern in what you took and what you did not. You took the most of my first batch I upload a couple of months ago, and I need to find time to delete a good half of them because of my own current standards, would not even think to upload them now.

Any stock may have different standards, I do not have any problem with that. But those standards have to be clear and consistent. I believe that will be win-win situation.

Again, Thank you very much for your respond.
: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 14, 2007, 12:17:11 AM
Yes their new upload system is great
Yes their new modelrelease system is great
Yes their new design is great

The new inspectors? I am sorry to say but they suck big time.
No I'm not just complaining because we got some rejections.
With 12 agencies we submit to we know better then to complain about every image.

BUT
fact: our average approval rate at ANY agency is 85%
at Crestock we have an approval rate is 67%
Ok no problem they are a bit stricter and the want only the top rated quality.
What the problem is that about 10% of the rejections are with very clueless reasons.

Most of them are out of focus rejection with many crisp clear images.
Even files where no eyes are visible we get eyes out of focus reasons
some say fingers while it is a head shot.
Low key images are being rejected because of under exposure.
Did any ever attempted a low key without under exposure?
Same with high key stuff rejected because of over exposure (be aware no 255 values in the image)

even our best selling image ever
(http://www.crestock.com/images/490000-499999/491555-xs.jpg)
gets an out of focus
here's a 100% crop out of this full body pic and yes it could be better but it is a full body and I see much worse in their portfolio
(http://www.dnf-style.com/recent/d/10639-1/csprincess.jpg)

another 100% crops with out of focus rejection
(http://www.dnf-style.com/recent/d/10631-1/cs01.jpg)

Of course we don't want a bash Crestock topic. If we would we would have not rejoined them.
Of course we mailed Josh at dec 6 dec 10 and just now. No answers so far.
The reason we are giving Crestock a second try is Joshes mail:
The best I can do is make it so that when your pictures are uploaded, they will get processed as quickly as possible, with as few rejections as possible. I can see you have a quality portfolio, so we'd like to help get it through and give it good exposure.

We uploaded 1000 files in 9 days. All re-keyed and all with new subscriptions and titles.
( days of an average of 4 hours a day work. The review time is absolutely fabulous 
But as said the inspectors seem to not look to precise and reject without proper inspection.

Is this just us or do more of you have this problem?
We know Josh visits this forum and Crestock does not seem to have a inspections forum. Since we got no answers by mail no more let's try here.

I am sorry Josh to do it like this but I need to know that it's not me that is wrong here and would like to know from the top that resides here at Sybilles and Dolgachovs little hideout.

Frenk and Danielle
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style December 14, 2007, 12:22:20 AM
Since I do not want to crosspost or make this into a CS rejection forum I wrote a new topic here (http://photographicfreedom.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=316.new#new)
But I do share your beliefs a bit Talya

Frenk
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: Syates December 14, 2007, 05:55:47 AM
I can't say much - only this: Crestock still seems to have the old problem of un-realistic rejections, Josh, that is really something you should look into! SY
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 14, 2007, 12:19:05 PM
Thats what I mean since that was the reason why we left last time and we thought had changed.
It has, believe me, it has. A little but not much I am sorry to say.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: Forgiss December 14, 2007, 01:59:13 PM
Thanx for this post...

It seems that in the last year nothing has changed?
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 14, 2007, 02:08:51 PM
It did change. It is not as bad as last ye4ar but still not good either.
They also seem to be open for criticism  so I hope it will all work out in the end.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: khz December 14, 2007, 04:19:41 PM
i started to upload there lateley after several months, and yes i agree somethings have changed,
inspection process is much faster now, acceptance ratio is better, most importantly sales are better,
but still a lot of things need to be fixed imo too,
especially `similarities` rejection,
i cant understand how can a micro site can reject an image with no artifacts or fault (top selling everywhere), when they have only 500k images online?
i know they are not looking for quantity, but some of my top selling images everywhere rejected at crestock for similar reasons, and i hope they will look into that policy again asap :S

do they have link for re-submitting rejected images for second opinion by an admin or something?
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: Elnur December 14, 2007, 05:42:57 PM
The first 100% crop does seem very soft to me - eyelashes, in particular. Where is the focus on the photo?
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: josh_crestock December 15, 2007, 07:00:47 PM
DNF,

I'm more than a little disappointed to see you quoting emails that I send to you on an open forum. Please understand the ramifications before doing this. It also gives me little incentive to reply to your frequent emails, either. Just because this industry is based on the internet, i don't believe that means we should forget our professionalism or basic courtesy. I would encourage you to pass on your further complaints to Crestock Helpdesk.

I did reply your emails, yesterday. And, also assigned a specific inspector to inspect your images, giving that inspector special instructions. We have gone very far out of our way to please.

Crestock has THE most professional team of inspectors. I know because most other sites employ network technicians or people with very little experience at all. Crestock inspectors are a mixture of some of our best contributors and professional full-time inspectors either with a background with Getty or trained by one of the highest selling photographers in the world. One of the inspectors that rejected one of your submissions has over 25 years experience in commercial photography, I believe that inspector when they say an image is out of focus.

If you submitted these images to one of the larger agencies, SS or IStock, today, most would be rejected.

@khz:

We don't have that link for gaining a second opnion. It could be an ok idea, but i think it would get used by everyone that ever gets a rejection.

We reject similarities in your uploads, if you upload 2 or more images that are similar.   We do not, and cannot, reject images just because they are similar to what we already have. We reject similarities so that your portfolio will be as diverse and interesting as possible for customers, i do not believe this would affect your overall sales.

I am in holiday mode now, though the rest of the Crestock staff should still be around over christmas. If you need further help, please direct it to the Crestock Forum, or helpdesk@crestock.com
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: Forgiss December 16, 2007, 12:34:06 AM
We reject similarities in your uploads, if you upload 2 or more images that are similar.   We do not, and cannot, reject images just because they are similar to what we already have. We reject similarities so that your portfolio will be as diverse and interesting as possible for customers, i do not believe this would affect your overall sales.

Josh,

I read this response, and I am a bit baffled...

Exactly what is your process for deciding which two of 5 images are the ones you clients might need? How do you figure out which images will fit the design best? I personally would love to know, because then we would all just shoot those images. I am not sure how removing choice is adding diversity...



: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: josh_crestock December 16, 2007, 04:13:57 PM
The inspectors are instructed not to use the similarity rejection reason, except in some cases where its necessary. If, for example, some happy photographer goes to the Grand Canyon and takes 400 pictures from one viewpoints, then uploads them all to Crestock, then we can take a few of the good ones and reject the rest. No customer wants to see 400 similar pictures in one search result from the same photographer.

Extreme example, perhaps, but this has happened a lot in the past.

If your worried about studio model shots getting rejected for similarities, that shouldn't happen. We let the customer differentiate between good pictures. Unless you're uploading duplicates.

I've just reminded all the inspectors about how to use the similarity rejection on our forum for inspectors, there should be not too much confusion about this.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: dolgachov December 16, 2007, 05:10:43 PM
i must admit there's lot of major GOOD chenges in reviewing on Crestock now and i feel Josh is really setting things up more and more professional and business way. for last two months i feel completely satisfied with the way crestock reviews me, speed crestock reviews me and especially the way crestock sells me.

if it will continue this way we'll see crestock getting much higher in "stocksites ranking table" wich makes me feel good. i'm in touch with the team from very beginning and despite all problems we had with reviewing i always kept talking i love these people.

so Sean and Frenk, i think you'll be happy with Crestock sooner or later. maybe it will need some private negotiations (please don't publish personal mails here or elsewhere, friends), but at the end of day it will all be ok.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: Forgiss December 16, 2007, 05:29:43 PM

I am sure there were a lot of good changes at Crestock, but I find it hard to consolidate this image of Josh upset about how "unprofessional" it is to quote the e-mail, and then in right the next breath, slams other stock sites' reviewers... without a second thought that some of them might be reading his posts as well...
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: dolgachov December 16, 2007, 05:54:47 PM
angels are perfect. people not. i've got used to it as long as i'm maybe least perfect person here considering "being polite" issues. so i maybe don't pay that much attention to how upset we sometimes are. anyway i believe it will all be ok for all of us.

here's a christmas angel from me for anyone who's participating this discussion.

from Crestock ;]

(http://www.crestock.com/images/400000-409999/408449-xs.jpg)
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 16, 2007, 06:24:34 PM
DNF,

I'm more than a little disappointed to see you quoting emails that I send to you on an open forum. Please understand the ramifications before doing this. It also gives me little incentive to reply to your frequent emails, either. Just because this industry is based on the internet, i don't believe that means we should forget our professionalism or basic courtesy. I would encourage you to pass on your further complaints to Crestock Help desk.
Josh, I'm sorry you feel that way and you  also feel that our post is not following the general courtesy regulations. We never meant to be mean or whatever but on the other hand it is because of this forum that you contacted us telling us we would get full co-orporation when rejoining Crestock. We also feel that there were several promises not being kept by CS and simply pointed them out on the forum where it all started. So please let's quit on talking about what is right and what is wrong since we will simply start to throw mud at each other which has never been our intention.
I did reply your emails, yesterday. And, also assigned a specific inspector to inspect your images, giving that inspector special instructions. We have gone very far out of our way to please.
Thank you very much. Please accept our appologies concerning your feeling and please do understand ours when we did not get any of our mails answered asking you what was wrong. If we feel that we do not get heard we try to open up the conversations where it all started, right here.
You also know that we even tried to help you by explaining what exactly went wrong at the programming site
by infroming you of programm failures. We did not got those answered also.
Crestock has THE most professional team of inspectors. I know because most other sites employ network technicians or people with very little experience at all. Crestock inspectors are a mixture of some of our best contributors and professional full-time inspectors either with a background with Getty or trained by one of the highest selling photographers in the world. One of the inspectors that rejected one of your submissions has over 25 years experience in commercial photography, I believe that inspector when they say an image is out of focus.
Again apologies that you feel that way. We hear the phrase 25 or so many years experience more often from crap photographers or see photographers that make a living out of modelportfolios and bridal photography that is really bad. So years of experience is not always a source of being good. I hope you also believe that EVEN an Inspector with years of experience or other proof that he is a good inspector IS always able to make mistakes. We are all human after all.
If you submitted these images to one of the larger agencies, SS or IStock, today, most would be rejected.
Please do not make this into a contest since this one you loose. Every last mentioned image is on our portfolio on ShutterStock. On Istock there is only one of them that has been refused. The first one mentioned here is our second best selling photo at IS.
Maybe if we submitted them today they would but like said, they are already in our pf's so no way of proofing and no use to get into this any further.

We hope you understand that we also feel bad about promises not being kept and mails not being answered.

let's hope things are settled now. Like said we wish to keep an open mind and an open conversation possible. That conversation started here where you made some statements on how CS had changed. I think it is only fair to also point out the stuff that might be a little off. You were thankful for the help you got here from others that helped solving the upload issues. We only knew that CS had hired new contributors very recently so I think that our thinking about the latest rejections were very plausible. We thought this might also help to retain an open feel towards all. Never meant any harm and do not feel that any harm has been done either.  ;)

Shake hands or depart? What do you think?
We feel like staying for a while  ;D

HoHoHo to all.

Frenk

: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: sshaw75 December 17, 2007, 07:39:01 PM
A little off of the current discussion, but holy crap.  The review times are blazing right now, last batch reviewed in less than an hour. Good stuff, now if the consistency issue can be resolved.. lol
: Crestock will go offline 27th. smart time.
: dolgachov December 20, 2007, 03:19:32 AM
Crestock.com will be off-line 27 Dec. 8:00-16:00 GMT/00:00-08:00 PST

"This is because we have reached full capacity with our current setup and are moving our servers to a bigger, better home at Rackspace - the world leader in reliable web hosting."

that's what i call smart scheduling. dead days are always best time for making a move if you don't want to lose sales. 

: Re: Crestock will go offline 27th. smart time.
: josh_crestock December 28, 2007, 02:28:49 AM
Crestock is back online, and seemingly without a hitch.

All the best in the new year,

Josh
The Crestock Team
: Re: Crestock will go offline 27th. smart time.
: Syates December 28, 2007, 02:51:48 AM
Crestock is back online, and seemingly without a hitch.

All the best in the new year,

Josh
The Crestock Team

Thank you, Josh! I updated our news section accordingly! All the best to you and the Crestock team also and to many more sales in 2008  ;D SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: domencolja December 28, 2007, 02:18:45 PM
So is it a good time to join them?

p.s.: Judging by the income I get from the other "small players", I'm not really spending a day of uploading and get 5 dollars in half a year. Or am I full of prejudices?
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 28, 2007, 09:04:10 PM
I must say Josh did a good job. We had some issues with a few rejections and he picked it up really good. I was afraid DNF would be seen as a complaining costumers but luckily enough CS saw that we were not comp0laining about every single rejection (especially where it concerned older files from the beginning of DNF) He took the time to re-evaluate and approved every single one of them without trying to hide the mistakes the inspector made.
That I applaud. Since most of the times no answers are given or stock agencies hold their hands above their inspectors. We are glad CS is not among them.
And we are glad he is always a big enough man to see and correct mistakes.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: domencolja December 30, 2007, 03:41:51 PM
Love the "by-step" submission process, but I find it rather slow when I want to change individual keywords for uploaded images when they're automatically read via the IPTC info. I have to click on each and every one of the images and check them (to remove keywords, adjurn them and such). It is a pain in the ass that if the image has IPTC data, it gets transferred to stage 3 directly.

So I miss an option to kick some images back to stage 2 or an option to edit them all-in-one on stage 3. Other than that the site looks awesome, nice design, intuitive solutions and I hope it will get at least the sales I'm not getting at the "last of the class" BSP and Fotolia.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: domencolja December 30, 2007, 03:42:52 PM
Oh, yeah: and it takes ages to load individual images to edit them. Might be the server today, thought. Uploading 350 images isn't really poppycock;)
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 30, 2007, 03:47:35 PM
Love the "by-step" submission process, but I find it rather slow when I want to change individual keywords for uploaded images when they're automatically read via the IPTC info. I have to click on each and every one of the images and check them (to remove keywords, adjurn them and such). It is a pain in the ass that if the image has IPTC data, it gets transferred to stage 3 directly.

So I miss an option to kick some images back to stage 2 or an option to edit them all-in-one on stage 3. Other than that the site looks awesome, nice design, intuitive solutions and I hope it will get at least the sales I'm not getting at the "last of the class" BSP and Fotolia.
Well then you should get your data correct before upload I guess. I think it is a great asset for people who do upload with IPTC data to simply pass this step instead of having to acknowledge a step that obviously is unnecessary. On the other hand an option to kick files back one step would not be that miserable ;-)
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: domencolja December 30, 2007, 04:18:40 PM
DNF, you're right. Actually I noticed this "problem" because I have some older files thate have iStock keywords copy/pasted in the IPTC repository. This means that many of them are "disambiguated" and faulty by my own standards, but iStock likes to keep it that way so I don't complain. I realized one should never copy iStock keywords to other stock sites, cause elsewhere they're just crap.

And I did that on around 30 images when I started "microstocking", submitted them to iStock, recopied the keywords to my files and, yeah, they got messy. That's why I have to recheck each one of them and an option to change them altogether would be nice. But I don't complain, just writing it down somewhere (diary-style, I guess);)

p.s.: Nevertheless the editing is slow anyways. Sometimes it takes more than a minute to open a damn keywording panel (for individual photos). That IS a problem. But I'm sure it's just temporary server issues.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 30, 2007, 04:30:56 PM
Yep IS stays the stupid duck in the pond (or are al these others?)
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: domencolja December 30, 2007, 04:34:27 PM
;)) I would rather not answer (but you know my answer already);)

p.s.: Anyways: I think I got the slowdown issue solved. Using the Opera browser messes up with the connection. At least so it seems. With IE the thing keeps spitting out "secure/unsecure content" warning, but with Firefox everything works smoothly. Every image loads fast enough.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 30, 2007, 04:43:24 PM
Solving issues is always a good thing. MSIE is the first thing I don't use. best is if I would use Mac but I'm to affraid to step over and to get my processes smoothened again.
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: domencolja December 30, 2007, 04:52:49 PM
Exactly. The time spent "smoothing" a workflow is like any other time investment, either perfecting the photography skills or fastening the "routines" they follow. I would never go any other "alien" route unless it was highly necessary.

p.s.: But since we're in the Crestock thread: I never knew their "old" uploading system, but this one seems fairly intuitive and optimized. There's no such thing as "perfect", but they're probably at the top. Gotta love the choice of no categories (and many other things - strictly uploading-process related, of course).
: Re: Did anything changed at Crestock the past 6 months?
: DNF-Style December 30, 2007, 04:57:29 PM
The question remains: will they be able providing the buyers with sufficient methods in finding the correct image.
: Crestock reviewers DO have sense of humour ;-)
: Syates January 03, 2008, 04:07:06 AM
Just got my last batch on Crestock reviewed, spectacular outcome, 10/11 approved! But what really made my day was the rejection reason for the one that didn't make it:

"Tree branch in top right corner is an UFO (Unfinished Frame Object)"

That was really one of the best rejections I ever received and send me rofl, and yes, I found it justified to reject this image, so no complains at all  ;D SY
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: sshaw75 January 06, 2008, 09:55:07 AM
Well I have 219 files up there now and have had a whole 5 downloads....... It seems pretty weak ..
: Free Image of the day
: nicemonkey January 23, 2008, 02:28:50 PM
I have been experimenting with different sites to see if offering a free image increases your sales. Yesterday my image appeared on Crestock and for the first time for a while I sold no images! I hope that was just because the buying public was spell bound by the beauty and quality of my work that they forgot to buy any! LOL
: Re: Free Image of the day
: Syates January 23, 2008, 02:53:09 PM
How do you offer a free image on Crestock? SY
: Re: Free Image of the day
: josh_crestock January 24, 2008, 12:14:50 PM
Hi Sybille,

If you contact Lars (lars@crestock.com), he should be able to help arrange one or more of your images to become available as the free image of the day.

Josh
The Crestock Team
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style January 27, 2008, 04:02:50 PM
Yesterday we have our first best day on crestock. 12 sells in one day!
: Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
: DNF-Style January 28, 2008, 12:55:51 PM
and one day later 10 again.
It won't be long for Lucky Oliver to fall behind.
Oh yeah SY? I did not get the bouncer job because they thaught my english was not good enough.
: What is your subscription:credit sale ratio?
: Syates January 28, 2008, 01:29:09 PM
What is your subscription:credit sale ratio? Mine is 17:1 in favor of subscription sales  >:( SY
: Re: What is your subscription:credit sale ratio?
: sshaw75 January 28, 2008, 05:34:11 PM
All Subscription
: Re: What is your subscription:credit sale ratio?
: domencolja January 28, 2008, 07:31:35 PM
16:1 here too. The subscription customers seem plenty, too bad "plenty" applies to ratio only;)
: Wanna' laugh?
: Syates January 31, 2008, 07:03:51 PM
Description: fractal illustration resembling a galactic scene, stardust or horizon like in one of the old science fiction films

The image was rejected for the following reason(s):

    * Out of focus

Here the "photo",  ::) SY

(http://albumo.com/photos2//medium/2008/01/25/04/476363.jpg)
: Re: Wanna' laugh?
: RolMat February 02, 2008, 02:55:01 AM
LOL....
Guess you can expect everything from Albumo.com
(well, actually, nothing... lol)
;-)

PS: Maybe it was reviewed by the cleaning lady :P
: Re: Wanna' laugh?
: josh_crestock February 09, 2008, 01:30:20 PM
(http://www.crestock.com/forum/Attachment157.aspx)

A 100% crop shows that the lack of sharpness could disappoint customers when they pay for and download it at full size. I think rejections should be analyzed and questioned, not just laughed at.

We might give that cleaning lady a job full time ;)

Josh Hodge
The Crestock Team
: crestock
: dolgachov March 02, 2008, 05:40:33 PM
everything about crestock goes here