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Author Topic: Science Photo Library  (Read 4616 times)

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« on: June 28, 2013, 08:09 »
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I am looking into producing images for submission to Science Photo Library and was wondering if there are any contributors here who work with this agency.

In particular I am interested in what kind of (annual) RPI is typical and what kind of portfolio size is needed to achieve sizeable returns (i.e. $1,000 per month). I will of course need to upgrade my camera as I believe they require images to be at least 12 megapixels uninterpolated.

I have a background in science so have some idea of the types of images that could be submitted.


« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2013, 08:43 »
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it's distributed by Getty but i've no idea about RPI, however the BBC site for instance is using SPL/Getty *every day* in its scientific articles, mostly extra small web size (2-300px ?)

i think most of the best images are made with 3D softwares and then with photoshop they make a whole illustration using other layers, take a look at the images of molecules or DNA for instance, there's some very nice stuff and concepts, a few ones could even be "fine art" and great for book covers or posters.

so i guess to be over the top you need to invest a lot of time on it, production costs will be higher than for normal stock but probably there's also less competition.





« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2013, 08:53 »
+1
Isn't (or wasn't) SPL some sort of BBC enterprise from their nature/science output?

It's a trad library where you should get a good return when you sell something but sales may be few and far between. But I think it is the market leader in its niche, which is good.

« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2013, 13:14 »
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I have some salable science-themed photos, so I just took a brief look at sciencephoto.com.  Their inventory includes plenty of quite ordinary stock photos:  "teenagers using cell phone outdoors" doesn't set the bar too high.

But they want 60-100 images for an initial submission, which I probably don't have.

And this is from their submission guidelines:

File format we need uncompressed TIFF files in 24-bit (8 bits per channel)
RGB colour and in the Adobe (1998) colour space. Set resolution to 300 pixels
per inch (ppi).

File size photographs: a minimum of 36MB when open. Illustrations:
preferably 60MB when open. Do not resize your images to reach this level.

« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2013, 05:42 »
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If I'm not mistaken they only do Exclusive representation (check the contract PDF on their site).

« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2016, 08:10 »
+1
Hi ScottishPhotographer,
I am looking into producing images for submission to Science Photo Library and was wondering if there are any contributors here who work with this agency.

In particular I am interested in what kind of (annual) RPI is typical and what kind of portfolio size is needed to achieve sizeable returns (i.e. $1,000 per month). I will of course need to upgrade my camera as I believe they require images to be at least 12 megapixels uninterpolated.

I have a background in science so have some idea of the types of images that could be submitted.

Do you have now any impressions from work with Science Photo Library?

« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2016, 09:22 »
+1
Okay guys, I will describe my own short experience of work with Science Photo Library, may be it will be useful for somebody. I like to draw 3D illustrations of microbes. Mainly I sell my images and video clips through Shutterstock and Fotolia. I also tried 123rf and Depositphotos but they gave so low earning that finally I stopped spending time on them. At the end of last year I decided to try SPL too (thanks to this forum!). I was ready to draw some exclusive images and although I did not have many, I decided to try.
They proposed two types of contracts - exclusive for new images (according to it I will get 50% from sales) and non-exclusive for my old images (with 40%). With video clips the same. They wanted that I upload all my Shutterstock portfolio as soon as possible but the main limiation for me was the size of images - I made 3000*2000 px for Shutterstock but they wanted 4 times bigger (6000*4000 or 5000*5000) and I had to rerender them, so uploaded overall near 40 exclusive and 70 non-exclusive.
I was given my own photo editor and video editor, they check now my submissions and guide me. At beginning all my submission were very fastly uploaded on-site (I was really impressed because Shutterstock takes 2 weeks to upload my clips). But then they started to work rather slow, and I am not so happy with this. My latest submissions from beginning of February are still not uploaded to site.

To summarise, what I like:
1) I can sell there my non-exclusive images from Shutterstock also,
2) my photo and video editors give me useful suggestions regarding what else is good to draw,
3) images/clips of other artists are really interesting and studying them gives me lot of new ideas,
4) they send my works also to Alamy and other agencies.

What I don't like:
1) they work too slow, when submissions are checked for several months I really loose interest,
2) for the first 2 months my earnings are rather low. Only few my exclusive images were sold at the lowest resolution, so I even don't know whether there is a sence to spend time on sending non-exclusive images,
3) my computor is not so potent and large size of images which they request slow down all my work.
At beginning I was so impressed and excited that was going to spend all my next efforts on SPL but now, I am still going to continue to submit some images and clips, however, main my efforts I am again directing on Shutterstock and Fotolia.

I will keep posting my next impressions as well  :)


« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2016, 10:37 »
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Okay guys, I will describe my own short experience of work with Science Photo Library, may be it will be useful for somebody.

I will keep posting my next impressions as well  :)

Thanks. It's always good to hear about other agencies besides the big micros.


 

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