We appreciate the input, and both perspectives are valid.  Our goal is to ensure we are putting out the best product for our users and to appeal to the widest range of buyers possible, while continuing to maintain a very high level of quality in our marketplace.  This change that we are making will enable our sellers to price their images in a way that will appeal to the small, medium, or large budget buyers that they are targeting in the creation of their images. 

For those of you who are skeptical that adjusting your prices will result in less sales, you are not required to make any changes.

The idea behind these changes is to transpose GL from where it was to where it has the potential to be.  We do not want to be another company that dictates the value of our sellers' images.  Instead, we want to give our hard working sellers more control over their image pricing.  By enabling our sellers to control the pricing for their high quality images, not only will this help their profitability, it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site. 

" it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site."

You'd better be ready to add some filters for pricing.  Buyers tend to get annoyed when they have to waste time looking at things they can't afford.

Indeed we are including that in the upcoming release.  Please keep in mind, we understand there are features 'missing' from the technology.  We have developers working on this so that given some time, our users will see a multitude of improvements.  We are excited about new features that we are working on, both for the front end user, as well as the admin panel which will give us the ability to do much more with the site, and much more for our users.

Thank you!

I never really understood the whole 'one size fits all' thing. iStock implemented it, and it pissed off small-size buyers who left in flocks.

As a buyer myself, I like to have the option to get a smaller size for a lower price. Otherwise, I could just get the maximum size since it makes no difference in terms of price, making the smaller sizes redundant.

So in order to keep small-size buyers attached, please leave the choice for smaller sizes with proportional prices.

chasing away buyers adds up to nothing

Would it be possible to make a license model that require buyers to link to the photo on graphicleftovers.com when it is used on the web? For instance, all photos on blogs and articles (text-rich pages) must have credits below and the photographer's name must be a link to the photo. The sell page on GL should offer similar photos from the photographer.

This will have the following benefits:
 - The photographer will have more traffic (and hopefully more sale) for the photo and his/hers related portfolio.
 - graphicleftovers.com will have higher page rank on google as many pages will be linking to it.

Some buyers may of course not like this and they should be offered the photo at a higher price (or those linking should have a small discount).

fotolia, i recall when i was with them from their inception, had something like what you wanted,
in that we were given the names of the buyers with each download.
unfortunately, some contributors went out of their effing heads to contact these buyers directly
and fotolia decided this was not a good idea...

so, once again, whenever we get a good thing with certain agencies going in the right direction,
some of us eff it up for the rest.

Quote from: jazz42 on August 13, 2016, 03:23

Would it be possible to make a license model that require buyers to link to the photo on graphicleftovers.com when it is used on the web? For instance, all photos on blogs and articles (text-rich pages) must have credits below and the photographer's name must be a link to the photo. The sell page on GL should offer similar photos from the photographer.

This will have the following benefits:
 - The photographer will have more traffic (and hopefully more sale) for the photo and his/hers related portfolio.
 - graphicleftovers.com will have higher page rank on google as many pages will be linking to it.

Some buyers may of course not like this and they should be offered the photo at a higher price (or those linking should have a small discount).

fotolia, i recall when i was with them from their inception, had something like what you wanted,
in that we were given the names of the buyers with each download.
unfortunately, some contributors went out of their effing heads to contact these buyers directly
and fotolia decided this was not a good idea...

so, once again, whenever we get a good thing with certain agencies going in the right direction,
some of us eff it up for the rest.

Ahh, there should be ways around that problem, e.g., making it a reason for closing the contributor's account if the buyer complains or (less severe) subtract a penalty from the contributor's account (e.g 20% of the average monthly payment).

Nowadays you can find your buyers with google image search - I've done it a few times and it is quite interesting to see where your work is being used.

@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure.  We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.

@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure.  We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.

That wasn't the point.  Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections.  When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image.   I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.

Quote from: GraphicLeftovers on August 13, 2016, 12:42

@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure.  We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.

That wasn't the point.  Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections.  When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image.   I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.

The problem with many sizes will also increase the database extremely which is not cost-effective.

Quote from: GraphicLeftovers on August 13, 2016, 12:42

@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure.  We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.

That wasn't the point.  Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections.  When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image.   I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.

Your point is understood, but you are also making the assumption that all sellers are going to raise their pricing significantly.  Many sellers are going to see value in keeping their price points lower.  A buyer is purchasing the rights to an image, the size in which you download the image doesn't change the license that you purchased.   

To speak to the contrary of the point you are making: Many buyers will be happy to be able to get full sized images at cheaper prices.   If sellers select $1 - $7 for their images, buyers who would normally be discouraged from buying the large sized images who have settled on buying small or medium sized images, will now be able to purchase larger images at a lower cost. 

@trek, Yes we currently do have the option for extended licenses and will continue to do so.

@hellou, the resizing of images is done automatically when the images are purchased.  There are costs associated with this process on our end of course, but there are various ways to maximize cost efficiency, many of which we have done already on our end.  As for uploading, our interface is relatively easy to use, however FTP access is still inactive until further notice.  This is something we are working towards, but we do not have an ETA yet.  We will keep you updated.

To speak to the contrary of the point you are making: Many buyers will be happy to be able to get full sized images at cheaper prices.   If sellers select $1 - $7 for their images, buyers who would normally be discouraged from buying the large sized images who have settled on buying small or medium sized images, will now be able to purchase larger images at a lower cost. 

Sellers could already price their images at $3, right?  Or was it $5?  Either way, the only way to go "cheaper" is to sell a full res image for a buck.  Do we really want to encourage market pricing to go lower?

Anyways, I'm just speaking as a small time buyer.  I'm sure you did studies on what the effect of the changes were as far as contributor pricing and buyers licensing and it was beneficial.

GL is a very, very low earner. I will keep uploading my pictures there as long as the process is simple. Certainly, I cannot afford to spend my time to tune prices of individual images in the GL portfolio or upload selected images only. Simply, I am uploading all images with the same setup or nothing at all.

I agree with Sean about pricing and image size. Almost all of my current sales are at the lowest price and size.

I think the idea that a small 'web' sized image should cost less is just another unfortunate buyer expectation created by existing microstocks.   The photographer and the agency see the same costs.  The large 'print' image might be seen by 1000 people, the small 'web' image by 10,000.   So why the discount - are we selling content, or pixels?

When you buy music, you get the full fidelity tracks, maybe 192kbs or 256 kbs. You don't the option to pay a lower price for a scratchy 32kbs version just because you're only going to play it through cheap earbuds.   

Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes.  They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images.

The comparison with music doesn't work because that's not being used for business purposes, like most of out images are.  I doubt someone making a 5 second music clip for an advert would charge the same as a 1 minute clip.