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Thanks to all from this forum who became members at The3dStudio.com in 2009. Thanks also for all the suggestions and advice when we entered the stock photo arena. 

We hope 2010 brings many sales to all of you, at our site and all the venues where you sell your work.

We have been working on tweaking the licensing language, have added more stock photo categories and sub-categories, and continuing the website design update.

[email protected]

The same to you 
If we talk about sales... Im waiting my first one... 

One of our members at The3dStudio.com recently indicated they were not aware we only entered the stock photo/image arena in June 2009--they thought we had been selling stock since the beginning and wondered at their lack of sales.

So I just want to emphasize that we are still very new to this area--which I think most of you here on the forum know. We have not done much yet to advertise stock because we have been concentrating on finding photographers.

Per our plan we will be promoting the stock photo and image category in 2010.

I am not sure if you photographers use the reports on our site to the same extent as our modelers. Just a reminder that you can look at reports of the last 100 searches if you are interested in what buyers are looking for when they come to The3dStudio.com, which may indicate some unfilled needs.

And for those who want to get a little extra exposure for their products on our site, remember that your 15 most recently created products are displayed alongside each blog post, so consider blogging with us.

Please email us whenever you have any suggestions, questions, etc.

[email protected]

Hi Lisa,
Happy New Year to you and The Studio!
I have a question regarding textures.
What is the best way to submit textures?
I saw some as PSD files, others as PNG files, JPEGS and even Zip.
What's the best way to do it?
Thank you,

Happy New Year to all at The3DStudio, as someone that is firmly behind The3DStudio and the business model that gives a 60% commission, and where the website is new to Stock Photography but it does have an existing customer base, and allows contributors to set their own prices.

After the push in 2009 to get more images on the website I saw my sales fall away, but today I am pleased to see 2 sales in 2010, my royalties from 2 sales is $12.00.

So here's to a good 2010 at The3dStudio.com, my affiliate link is in my signature below if you are thinking of joining up

David  

Hi everyone and Happy New Year to you all! Lisa mentioned that a few questions were posted here so I figured I would drop by and see what I can answer...

Adeptris (and others)...we really appreciate your support and the support so many in the community here are giving us. It's truly great to see that and we are confident that our business model will be great for everyone involved in the long run. This part of the business is new as Lisa mentioned so we always like to make sure everyone understands that it's a marathon and not a sprint for us but we think that our 60% commissions (70% with our loyalty program http://www.the3dstudio.com/help.aspx?id_help=23) will help turn the entire industry around and really put the money were it belongs...your pockets! I've had many people here email us about their growing sales recently and we're all really glad to see it start to pan out.

PixelBitch...I think the screen flashing you see is the ajax kicking in as you see the "please wait". It Does this rather than flashing the entire screen but I imagine that if you had a slower connection (it would be more noticeable there) and clicked the categories it could end up being a bit much on the flashing. I'll look into that on our end, we can probably remove the gray color and just leave the "please wait" message which would fix that. Good feedback, these are things we don't always see in our testing.

Eireann...submitting textures can be done in any image format. BUT...and this is a BIG one...it's important to understand what a texture is and isn't on The3dStudio.com. Since we were originally a 3D site we get a lot of photogs that have a different idea what a texture is. A texture (to be allowed on T3DS) is usually either a "cutout" type image (picture of a plant with the background cut out on a transparent layer) or a "seamless" texture. These seamless textures are the most common and are used in 3D software. Here is a great example of a texture...

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=74123

...and they are usually in JPG format. If they contain transparency then PNG is usually preferred. But, I know that some photos take pictures of items that aren't then adjusted to be seamless, cutout, etc. So, a regular photo (regardless of the subject matter) shouldn't be posted as a texture...only a photo or drawing specifically manipulated to be a texture should be posted there. I hope something in there made some sense, I'm not so sure I explained that very well.

PERSEUS...while it seems completely logical to say "get customers" it's far more complex than that. Since this is new to us we first have to get photos online...after all, what good do customers do if they have nothing to buy? That's why our focus for the end of 2009 when we started this was mainly on contributors and even that is a costly undertaking (in time and money) but went better than we had planned. At the same time, we had to learn the industry as we jumped in which meant a lot of tweaking to our site, search features, advertising campaigns, etc. After all, there's no point in having customers and products if they can't find what they need. It's all a process and there is no simple "on" switch to make it happen overnight. So, right now our main focus is on buyers and it is working...but it won't happen overnight, this is a long term business for us and it will take many months, if not the better part of 2010, to grow it like we want. The good news is that we've done this before in many other categories of our site so it's a proven model for us. The bad news is that some contributors only upload if they know they will match sales from the "big 6" and so they'll miss out in the long run.

As always, you can contact us at The3dStudio.com at any time about anything, most of the time I am the one will reply to you as well

Thanks for saying so, we really do appreciate that and everyone here tries to stay in touch with the community. I wish I had more time to read the posts here, I usually get sucked into a few every time I come back to respond

What about FTP?

I've decided to try and upload my portfolio to a few more sites besides the big ones, and The3dStudio may be one - the other one is ScanStockPhoto - don't know why but after reading many many forum posts I feel like trusting these two sites.

But the absence of FTP puts me off.

Happy new year!

I found your system can be faster than FTP...uploaded over 600 images quickly with no issues at all...it's very good indeed.

Have you thought of allowing uploads through iSyndica?

Hi Lisa & Matt,
Add another look at the withholding tax for treaty countries to the wish list, if you have been following the other threads here you will see a lot of talk about other US sites not requiring the ITIN.

I filled out the W-8BEN but have not applied for the ITIN as for me the tax at source and off setting is not a problem, but if you read the other threads many from treaty countries do not like the withholding tax so may not sign up, and the other sites have an arrangement with the IRS that requires the W-8BEN but not the ITIN to get the treaty tax %.


Regards

David

the only thing that is consistent re Tax Treaty and who's right or wrongly applying the rules is that not a single one site has actually got the correct interpretation from the horse's mouth. ie. an official from the IRS.
tax consultants and accountants only make their interpretation as far as they can interprete it.
i feel all this will continue until we all get a representative from the IRS coming in to tell us his/her OFFICIAL INTERPRETATION on this.

failing that, we will all continue to fudge within our capacity to INTERPRETE.

i am surprised with so many sites now applying this that no one from the IRS actually appear from their cubicle to help us with getting it straight from the horse's mouth.

i wait for this enlightening visit from one of the IRS , hopefully here, or any other stock forums.  maybe then we can all really know what to do.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Years ago I actually had talked to several parties on this subject and that's how we originally learned how it needs to be done. One of the places I spoke with was the IRS and they made it very clear to us that we need the ITIN on the W8BEN if tax treaty benefits are being claimed.

We only reinvestigated this now as people asked because of how shutter decided to do it and we were hoping that maybe something in the law had changed. Now, from what I have found out (and maybe this isn't right but this is what all of my research concluded) shutter (etc) only recently started doing the royalty tax stuff at all (past couple of years?). In the beginning they didn't do any tax stuff (from what I could gather) so something must have led to them to suddenly start doing it so it's very plausible that they are simply doing it incorrectly (that's the nature of doing something new).

So, what is correct? Check out...

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=96438,00.html

And read this part...

A reduced rate of withholding applies to a foreign person that provides a Form W-8BEN claiming a reduced rate of withholding under an income tax treaty only if the foreign person provides a U.S. Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) (except for certain marketable securities) and certifies that:

It is a resident of a treaty country
It is the beneficial owner of the income
If it is an entity, it derives the income within the meaning of Section 894 of the Internal Revenue Code (it is not fiscally transparent)
It meets any limitation on benefits provision contained in the treaty, if applicable

...right there they make it very clear as to what is required to claim the benefits of a reduced or removed rate. When you call the IRS they will actually confirm that as well. There are more articles and pubs that point to that information as well and when every tax pro we've ever talked to on this tells us the same thing it makes sense to listen. Tax laws are so complex here that is ALWAYS makes sense to have a tax pro give you advice beyond just what the IRS says...just getting a hold of them is a chore and even when you do chances are good you aren't getting somebody that knows your exact answer and even then they will ALWAYS cop out with the old "consult your tax pro" line. They're not about to put their neck on the line for anyone

If somebody knows of something, in writing, on the irs.gov website that explains the exceptions that shutter (etc) are making then I would love to have some links. I'd happily pay more tax pros more money to confirm it if it is there (the paperwork headache it would remove alone is worth a fortune to me!).

Finally, in most countries each person has to file some sort of yearly (or monthly) tax information and when you do that in your country it is likely that any tax you paid to the US Gov is deductible on your taxable income in your country. I am not giving out tax advice here so be sure to check with your own tax pros for your situation but for so many people I know that is the case. It's not as good as not having the tax in the first place but maybe better than nothing.

this may be a stupid question, but is this a stock site or just 3d or both??? I got stock but no 3d