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Messages - Gannet77

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1
Shutterstock.com / Re: No Payment
« on: September 06, 2023, 04:04 »
Hi, I wanted to start a topic, but I don't know how :C  I have similar problem, but I have never been paid yet. I know that minimum payout was recently changed from 35 to 25$, but since when exactly? I've earned more than 25 many months ago (few years even), but less than 35 and I wonder if I receive payment after 35 or something else is wrong? My tax form is approved and actual, payment method is paypal 25$. Any help please?
(sorry for grammar mistakes, English is not my first language)

Shutterstock Terms of Service changed as of this month - threshold reduced to $25 but payments will be processed on the 15th.  So you should be paid then.

There was an email... see terms of service section 8.

2
iStockPhoto.com / Re: DeepMeta question
« on: September 21, 2022, 02:12 »
Go to the Tutorial at https://www.deepmeta.com/userguide/statements-and-sales and follow the step by step guide.

Basically, you have to download the sales data from ESP and import it to Deepmeta.

Prior to version 3.23 it could do that itself but this capability was removed from the API.

3
iStockPhoto.com / Re: May statements are in
« on: June 19, 2022, 10:05 »
Why they are not visible in deepmeta?

Sync is no longer available within DeepMeta, you have to download files from ESP and import from the "Statements" page.

See https://www.deepmeta.com/blog/new-login-procedure-in-v3.23

4
I have found that istock and shutterstock is less interesting for me.
Stock photography is a hobby for me. I have a day job and never had enough time or motivation to upload hundreds of images a month.
So its normal that i upload some months more images, some month less.
I will retire in about 5 years. Probably i will put more effort in stock photography then. Just to keep a meaningful day routine.

That was my position some 8 years ago, when I retired the day job - stock had never paid me a living wage, but it's been a useful income stream over the years and still is. 

And although, as you say, it's become less interesting, I still enjoy it enough to carry on.

Of course things could be different in 5 years - but hopefully your portfolio will continue to provide some passive income, you don't have to keep working at it.

5
Newbie Discussion / Re: Stock footage newbie
« on: March 23, 2021, 12:15 »
Dear all,

I am new or very very new to stock footage, Could you please suggest 1 site for stock?
Did some photos earlier on is, ss, fotolia, dt and 123rf.
Closed account on ss and closing on 123rf.

In my mind is Storyblock or Pond 5, anyone of you experienced seniors could aide some light? Thank you.

Regards
SK
If you want only 1 go istock exclusive. They have their upload/submit/keywording tool (deepmeta) and this will be easier.
But if you want go professional and earn more   upload to major 5: shutterstock, adobe, pond5, istock, videohive. You can also try storyblocks. But, as I know, they don't accept new contributors. And, from professional perspective, don't accept scam advises about blackbox or wirestock. Better go iStock exclusive if you want easier way.

Be aware though that iStock don't accept editorial/unreleased footage, so being exclusive there might restrict what you can upload, depending what sort of material you produce, as you can't then upload it elsewhere either - although recently they did offer to take unreleased editorial footage on Getty, which would be good, though I've not done any yet.  But I don't know if that offer extends to new contributors;  I've been on iStock a long time.

I upload to Pond5, Shutterstock and Adobe, plus some to iStock.

6
I guess I should change my vote then??

Change the amounts in the poll first ;)

Yes, should be higher... my best image currently at over $2000 and still regularly tops my monthly sales.  But it's been there since 2009.  So not quite as long as this thread...

7
Conversely, I'm having a good month on Alamy - 4 sales so far, over $200 gross.  Not my best month ever, but definitely well above average for me.

8
iStockPhoto.com / Re: July stats disappeared?
« on: August 20, 2020, 04:12 »
I'd downloaded my July stats yesterday but now I log in again (after enforced password change) I see it is indeed back to June.

9
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock password reset
« on: August 20, 2020, 04:09 »
Correction - I tried to login today and it won't let me.  So I went to "Forgot Password" and made a new one.  OK now.

So I'm thinking the email was genuine...

10
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock password reset
« on: August 20, 2020, 03:42 »
I got the email, went to the site and could not log-in. Clicked link in the email and changed password, returned to the site and could log-in.

There seems to be a delay posting the 1st July 2020 earnings statement.

No, the earnings reports are posted - at least, mine is.

11
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock password reset
« on: August 19, 2020, 17:23 »
Dont click any link in an email. Go to the site and see if it asks you for a new password. Sounds like a phishing scam.

I received a similar email purporting to be from Getty - it has my name correct too.

But I can still log in normally so I'm ignoring it.  As Cathy says, don't click on email links, although it does seem to go to the valid forgot password page as far as I can tell.

12
Alamy.com / Re: Is Alamy down?
« on: August 19, 2020, 04:42 »
Can anyone access "My Alamy"? I can go into Image Manager but not the Dashboard

I found that I could get the dashboard by using FireFox (my usual browser) in private mode... or by using another browser that I don't normally run.

I would guess it's a cacheing issue of some sort.

13
General Stock Discussion / Re: Photo4me--Good or bad?
« on: July 27, 2020, 18:45 »
I've been on there about 4 years - I get maybe 3 or 4 sales a year.  As Oscar says, mostly one particular print that sells. 

So not a great place for me, but worth the effort;  I already have the images, so why not?

14
It varies.  Ignoring Connect sales, which get $0.01, I've had regular sales between $0.11 and $108.17, the latter presumably an extended license of some kind.  Don't expect many of those.

But then, I don't bother to upload videos there unless they've not sold elsewhere, as the return is so low - although strangely, I've occasionally found that some that don't sell elsewhere have been quite successful, at least in terms of downloads, on iStock.  But don't expect much in revenue.

15
Actually, $149 (and it's tax deductible) isn't much to pay for such a tool even if it doesn't translate iStock controlled vocabulary to general terms - I am retired and have plenty spare time (especially under lockdown!), but I would happily pay that just to avoid the tedium of locating the jpgs and copying the keywords into the metadata, which it apparently does, even if I still need to tweak them afterwards as I suspect I would have to.

However, I'm not looking to cancel exclusivity just at the moment so I have no need of it just now.

If anyone does try it though, please let us know how you get on!

16
iStock exclusivity was never a thing I did consider for myself as I was with other agencies before iStock even existed. But I don't think that is really that bad. I do think you get a huge bump in search results if you are exclusive.
People hate iStock for valid reasons but the other agencies are not better.
Someone announced a software a couple a weeks ago that can read out the keywords at iStock and put them into your files automatically I think it was in this forum try a search for it. I'm 100% sure I read about it so there is a solution for your problem.

I take it you mean this - https://www.microstockgroup.com/software/stocktool-save-your-keywords-backup-your-online-stock-data/

It's not free though, and it doesn't say that it translates the disambiguated keywords; unless it does, the problem would still remain as explained by Jo Ann.  Unless someone has access to the iStock dictionary so they could write something to reverse the controlled vocabulary terms to more general terms, e.g. Residential Structure back to "House", etc., you'd still need to go through the keywords yourself.

So yes, it might be of some use but you'd have to decide for yourself if it was really worth it to you.

17
"- What is the best way to scrape my own keywords off of iStock? Preferably non qdisambiguated ones if possible? That would save me a ton of time as I put a lot of thought and research into metadata..."

There is no way to get non-disambiguated keywords from iStock as far as I know - in fact, I doubt they would even have been stored there in the first place, why would they?  But if you are using DeepMeta you can export any or all of the fields from there into a CSV file, so you can get titles, descriptions and disambiguated keywords into Excel or whatever.

I suppose if you had coding skills you could code some sort of re-ambiguation (I just invented that word!) to convert common istock-dictionary words to something that works elsewhere but I doubt it would be worth the effort - I think you just have to bite the bullet and re-do them!

18
iStockPhoto.com / Re: March stats are in (istock)
« on: April 23, 2020, 14:53 »
Where did you see the statement? I checked DM and ESP website and could not find the data.

Thanks.
ESP > Royalties, as usual.
AFAIK, DM doesn't show your new figures automatically, you have to perform a sync to bring the new month's stats onboard.

The latest DM version (3.17.2) now has an "Auto-start" checkbox option under "Sync" which automatically runs a sync when it logs in, so it will fetch the latest stats as soon as they are available.
Thanks for the info: is that Mac-only? I just downloaded DM from Franky's site and I got 3.16.8, whereas I had been at 3.16.7. Or are you a beta tester - I see they have newer beta versions.

Yes, I am set for beta test.  I guess it must be that!

But it is the Windows version, I don't know about Mac.

19
iStockPhoto.com / Re: March stats are in (istock)
« on: April 22, 2020, 03:08 »
Where did you see the statement? I checked DM and ESP website and could not find the data.

Thanks.
ESP > Royalties, as usual.
AFAIK, DM doesn't show your new figures automatically, you have to perform a sync to bring the new month's stats onboard.

The latest DM version (3.17.2) now has an "Auto-start" checkbox option under "Sync" which automatically runs a sync when it logs in, so it will fetch the latest stats as soon as they are available.

20
General - Stock Video / Re: Should I submit or not?
« on: January 20, 2020, 07:00 »
Have you tried using MPEG Streamclip?  If you just need to cut the start and end or make minor adjustments, it's a lightweight clip editor that usually works even on low power PCs.  And it will do 4K or reduce to HD if you want.

21
Wow, so in a time when downloads per contributor have in general been trending down....they are increasing targets?!

Actually, for me at least, the number of downloads - both actual and "recorded" (where a Getty download counts as two)  - have been trending up, for actual by about 4% and for recorded by about 7%;  what's going down is revenue.

I looked at my stats and this is apparently because the number of downloads at 20% royalty (Getty) has gone up at the expense of the number of iStock downloads at 30% (my rate).

Now I don't work very hard at it so it's no surprise to me that I'm never likely to reach the 35% rate again - but I really can't see how anyone could possibly increase their downloads by 30% a year anyway, unless perhaps they've only just started.

So it would seem that the trend is for sales to move from the iStock platform to the Getty platform, where they may sell for more but only earn a flat 20% for the contributor.  As an Exclusive, I'm never likely to drop to 25% on iStock - at least, not for some time yet - but my revenue will continue to decrease even as downloads increase.

So not much to look forward to there.

22
General - Stock Video / Re: RPD for video
« on: November 20, 2019, 10:57 »
For me, RPD for video is:

P5       : $26.47
SS       : $21.49
Adobe : $19.51
iStock  :   $5.19

Almost all of mine are HD - in fact I don't think I've ever sold a 4K clip.*

I find that, although iStock pays only a pittance, they do sometimes sell things that haven't sold elsewhere, and once in a while they even sell what must be an extended license of some sort and I actually get a decent amount - but I don't upload anything to them anymore unless it's been on the other sites for about a year without selling at all.  I figure if I already have it but it's not selling then it may just as well not sell on there too!

I'm a little surprised at the OP's RPD being so low as $6.90 when they're exclusive.  Thought it would be higher.

As an aside, another good reason to drop video exclusivity is that iStock don't accept editorial video (unless that's changed since I joined).  You can put a lot more clips on sites that do.

* ETA - Actually I think I may have sold one 4K clip recently on SS.  Got $35.53 for it.

23
General Stock Discussion / Re: Alamy - is it worth it?
« on: August 30, 2019, 09:33 »
Quote
Back to the OP question though - is Alamy worth it? Of course we would say yes, but it works better for some than for others. We'll offer you 50% commission for images exclusive to us and 40% for non-exclusive. Our average licence price is $35, although as others have mentioned, it's not uncommon to get much higher and sometimes lower.

Sometimes? try most of the times, sometimes higher and rarely much higher.

My last 3 sales were $3.72, $3.53 and $5.09 and that's without their cut (so at least half of these figures)
If you ask me Alamy isn't worth it, they are no better and most of the times even worse then Microstock.

My 2c


Well, everybody's results will differ of course, and three sales does not a representative sample make - but for my part, my last three sales were $55.99, $41.99 and $3.62, so fairly close to what the Alamy rep says, on average.

And I'm not a big seller, but if I total all my sales over my time with Alamy (that's 10 years) the average license price comes to about $43.

So from my point of view, it's hardly a living wage, but in answer to the OP - yes, it's worth it.

24
iStockPhoto.com / Re: July stats
« on: August 20, 2019, 14:10 »
Ok, I can see how many video clips were sold, but which one?

Thanks again!

If you've clicked on the bit of the circle for the videos (you can also click on the "Creative Video" text in the middle of the circle), then scroll down to below the bar charts and it will be showing thumbnails for all clips sold during whatever period you selected.

25
iStockPhoto.com / Re: July stats
« on: August 20, 2019, 02:55 »
I am surprised that July was the best month for 2019.

Could someone please tell me how I can tell which video clips were sold through DM? Thanks!

Go to the "Statistics", then click on the appropriate colour (on mine it's pink) in the second circle which by default is "File Type".

Then scroll down to see the videos sold.

If you want a specific month, click on the month you want in the list on the left.

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