Hi guys,

Some of you might remember that I posted in here months back about some questions regarding a self-hosted platform. Today we are launching our new self-hosted platform. But more importantly, we are also announcing a new product that we are planning to make available to all photographers out there that can change the way you showcase and sell your images.

To give you a bit of perspective, I�m going to take you back in time to about a year ago when I started looking for a solution to a problem: How could I license my images directly to my clients?

I felt like I needed a platform where I had 100% control. A place where I could curate my own work and make sure that my clients would see the pictures I felt best represented us. Also, when clients emailed me directly to purchase images, I felt frustrated when I had to then send them on to agencies who would take 70-85% of the royalties.

So I started researching different solutions to build a self-hosted platform. I wanted a site that looked great and was effective whilst easy to use and maintain. Plus, with a portfolio of more than 20 000 images, I needed something that made it super easy to upload and manage all these assets.

I quickly found that there wasn�t really any perfect platform out there that could do this. 

During my research, I stumbled upon Shopify. For those of you who don�t know, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that offers tons of customisation options. Shopify would provide me with the control that I was looking for, but it didn�t really seem to be built for handling thousands of digital products - and that was a big problem.

In our tests, we found out that to put our products on Shopify would take about 10-15 minutes per item. After a few calculations I realised that it would take me about 173 days of non-stop work to get my entire portfolio online. No thanks! I quickly but reluctantly abandoned this idea and went back to looking for another option. None of them felt right. I guess I had fallen in love with all the possibilities of Shopify.

One of the things that�s so great about Shopify is that it has its own app store that lets third-party developers make all kinds of features that you can install on your shop. This made me realise that there might be a way to make it work after all. What if we could make a tool that could automate the uploading process that would otherwise take me 173 days to do?

I met with a friend of mine who�s a super talented programmer just to get an idea of what it would take. He made it clear that it was no easy task. Something that looks so simple isn�t actually that simple when you have to make a computer do it. After some consideration, we decided to give it a try. We started building an app.

At the same time, there were other challenges. Shopify�s built-in themes were simply not made for browsing thousands of stock photos. By now I�d also looked through 100s of third-party themes out there with no luck in finding something that was just right.  So we also needed a storefront design built from scratch. I started asking around for talented Shopify designers and luckily found one who had previously created some of the most stunning Shopify shops that I�d seen. We teamed up and he started building the storefront design.

Fast forward to January 2019. It�s now been more than half a year since we began the process. A process that clearly proved to be more complicated than we anticipated at the beginning. But I believe we have created something really good. Something that enables photographers to use the power of the world�s leading ecommerce platform.

Our new store (http://store.jacoblund.com) was made possible entirely because of the app. We are not fully there yet - the app still needs tweaks and there are additional features we are planning to add. Soon we�ll invite a few people in for a beta testing program, so we can get more user feedback from other photographers.

If you are interested in the app or the beta testing program please visit http://pixify.landen.co.

Very best,
Jacob

at shutterstock they don't understand Depth of field. I have a lot of images refused for the out of focus. must send only clear images on all plans. Here is another rule to make mediocre photos, without relief !!
"The main subject is out of focus or is not in focus due to camera shake, blah blah blah ..." I work with Nikon D700, D750 at often high speeds etc etc and I know how to use photoshop, even some images made with a tripod are refused with this excuse. Poorly adjusted AI or incompetent examiners is in any case a bit depressing. after several returns the image is accepted and even sometimes sold

I have been with SS a while and have earned a few hundred, but it is just accumulating in my SS account and never gets paid out to me.   I have my payout settings set to pay at $50.  I have everything set up correctly, but I never get a payout for SS.  What is going on?

Hello everybody!

I have been a freelance photographer for over 8 years and have accumulated over 15GB worth of images which are all mostly stored on external hard-drives.  A few months ago I had an issue with a failing external hard-drive and I now need to look into storing all of my back-catalogue of images onto cloud storage. I therefore need a cloud storage company that would enable me to have unlimited storage.  I will then continue to use the cloud storage to upload all the new images that I take over the coming years.

Can anybody reccommend a good storage company that they use themselves?  How do you all store your back-catalogue of images? 

Thank you in advance for you input and I look forward to reading and responding to your replies!

Thanks,
Chris.

Quote from: Tk113 on October 14, 2019, 15:48

Quote from: candidcruiser on October 14, 2019, 15:39

Quote from: stockman11 on October 14, 2019, 09:57

Pard my French, but I just have to let it out.

They reject left and right even images with good selling potential for being "similar", and when something gets rejected, there is no use to resubmit because 100% of rejected images just keep getting rejected for the same reason.

I don't think this is that much due to SS's policy itself, I think it's more about incompetent reviewers. They are not just incompetent, they are f*cking idiots.

I feel better now, but these idiots will remain being idiots and they'll just keep rejecting left and right without using their brain even a little.

I could not agree with you more and you are not the only one feeling this way.   Just today I sent a series of three views of a interesting boating locks.  One closed, one half way and one fully open to show the operation.  One was accepted and the other two rejected for similar content.  Is the reviewer blind and does not read the title.  Others have been rejected for Out of focus (not) and after submitting them elsewhere, they sold instantly.  I don't know what has happened to reviewers at SS but it very annoying since I hardly even had a rejection in the past couple years and now it is common.

Just had one rejected because Title didn�t match photo. The title �Wooden fishing pier� photo wooden fishing pier. Same photo was excepted by 4 other agencies. Something fishy going on at SS.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just had to add this one more example.  I sent a close up of a turret from a British castle, nothing identifiable, could belong to any castle and rejected for No Property Release.  Seriously, for a corner of roof?

Pard my French, but I just have to let it out.

They reject left and right even images with good selling potential for being "similar", and when something gets rejected, there is no use to resubmit because 100% of rejected images just keep getting rejected for the same reason.

I don't think this is that much due to SS's policy itself, I think it's more about incompetent reviewers. They are not just incompetent, they are f*cking idiots.

I feel better now, but these idiots will remain being idiots and they'll just keep rejecting left and right without using their brain even a little.

So I am wondering if it is a good or bad thing to upload all the same images to several agencies?

For me--No downloads from Shutterstock in six days straight. I don't know why this is happening.  Anyone else having less downloads?  Thanks.

I'm trying to upload an image on AS and I receive a red alert message like about this: Impossible upload because some errors. What is it? Never see before... 
The same image was upload without problems in all other library.

Quote from: Tk113 on July 18, 2019, 11:26

Quote from: cathyslife on July 18, 2019, 10:58

It never matters what has been approved before. That said, unless Disney now has the legal right to forbid all licensing, you likely just got a bad reviewer. Have you tried resubmitting? It�s possible Disney has changed the legalities.

No haven�t tried resubmitting. Testing the waters on Disney shots. SS is the only one that rejected. Passed on Alamy, DT, ESP


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I can't comment on DT or ESP, but I can say that Alamy do not inspect images on upload for possible intellectual property issues. They only inspect for technical quality and regard other aspects of the upload (captions, keywords, releases) as the responsibility of the contributor. Microstockers who are used to having their hands held by inspectors at other agencies should beware when uploading to Alamy and take care to ensure that they are not infringing model or property rights.

Disney are very litigious Shutterstock are very risk averse  so its likely that their rules have tightened. Whether legally they are in the right is academic - their site their rules.

Pretty much no, unless something new has been added in the last year.  I asked this same question a year ago and was told that news outlets rarely go to stock agencies for breaking news, and that stock agencies do nothing to court them.