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Messages - icefront

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 11
1
Mostphotos.com / Re: 0.1 received after mothly package sale ??
« on: February 03, 2015, 17:17 »
I contacted support and was told that it's a unique special offer for a client.
I have no idea how many clients received that special offer and/or how long was alive that offer, I hope that only a few purchased the offer in question so we will not have too much 0.1 sales... :-)

2
Mostphotos.com / Re: 0.1 received after mothly package sale ??
« on: February 03, 2015, 17:14 »
Its a bit of a lottery and I got lucky with a $150 sale last month.  I can ignore the low ones if I get the occasional big one like that.
I was thinking exactly the same.
With 3.80 monthly package revenues I calculate an average that's on the level of other agencies.
I was worrying about the increasing number of 0.1 sales and wanted to hear what others think about.

3
Mostphotos.com / 0.1 received after mothly package sale ??
« on: February 01, 2015, 20:36 »
I received 2 sales of this:
Amount received 0.10
Date 1/27/15 10:38 AM
Item High-res: 183370 (0983 Scale.jpg)
Purchase method Monthly package
Filename 0983 Scale.jpg

What kind of monthly package generates this sale? :-( Looking at their offers and prices at https://www.mostphotos.com/billing I see quite decent prices vs number of downloads included. Those numbers aren't supposed to generate such ridiculously low revenues (?)

4
Crestock.com / Re: Uploaded images pending for 2 months
« on: June 18, 2014, 17:04 »
Today I finally learned that Crestock is made to annoy contributors.

It's not so easy to remove my portfolio since I invested a lot of time and nerves to upload those images. And I still believe, somebody at Crestock has problems with the business model and just has a too closed mind to look around and observe, the world is changed and microstockers aren't just those stupid, still learning point-and-shooters.

Although a good site with a relatively long past, they are wasting their position...

5
Newbie Discussion / Re: Blurry background
« on: April 04, 2014, 17:11 »
Outside the computer-generated 3D-world, every photograph has a lot of defects such as blur, image noise, lens distortion and chromatic aberrations.
If you just started photography, keep in mind forever:
- bigger front lenses have smaller depth-of-field. Thus objects not in focus have much less clarity (blur)
- consider 50mm as a fixed point for the lens (regardless of full-frames and APS-C or other sensor dimensions) The angle of view under 50mm is wider, over 50mm is narrower (50mm being the human eye's angle of view). Wider angle of view has better depth of field (out of focus objects appear more clear) and closer angle of view has worse depth of field. Beside the angle there is the iris in the lens (aperture); closing the iris reduces the out-of-focus blur (but didn't eliminates).
- lenses have a quality factor. Everything under 1000 consider roughly a not-so-good lens (several exceptions apply such as 50mm primes and 100mm macros).
- stock is not about photography but about design. Think with a brain of a graphic artist/designer/architect and make a photo suitable for their needs.
- to do stock, photography is about 10%. The rest is converting raw images, retouching, noise reduction, corrections, keywording, file-management, uploading, analyzing the market, and the other 51325 tasks not mentioned here.

6
This site has a generic content, presumably it's disabled. (However it may have an ip-filtering engine, showing different content based on the visitor's location)

7
Image Sleuth / Re: Public Domain?
« on: March 17, 2014, 20:46 »
Once I offered an image on Crestock in the so called "winter wallpaper" gallery. It was supposed to be on-line for that season. Then the Crestock changes came and the blog-like post remained on-line for years. My image has escaped in the wild and now I'm practically unable to manage the removal from all wallpaper-related sites.
Lessons learned:
- never ever ever ever give (or permit) and image for free if it's sold or it's intended to be sold commercially
- once a high-resolution image escapes it cannot be recovered. Just forget about and shot another
- the majority of people doesn't give a tick to licenses, copyright infringements, etc. They just download what is downloadable
- the naming of "Royalty-Free" sucks. It means Free. No matter that 100% of the agencies use it, it's still wrong. It should be One-time Royalty.

8
iStockPhoto.com / Re: New keywording guide
« on: November 19, 2013, 04:32 »
Thanks for posting - received in the newsletter too.
The same old ahhh's ohhh's on the forum, but there is nothing new :-)
The wrong keyword abbreviation still isn't fixed, however I really expected that this system receives an update...
(Example: cutter - Cutting (Moving Activity) | Cutter Insect Repellant (Insect Repellant); How do I mean cutter = work tool?)

I've never heard about a cutter, []


Seems so... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_cutter
https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=cutter&tbs=imgo:1&sout=1

Do you call it "utility knife" in pure english?


It seems so...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_cutter

9
iStockPhoto.com / Re: New keywording guide
« on: November 18, 2013, 18:50 »
Thanks for posting - received in the newsletter too.
The same old ahhh's ohhh's on the forum, but there is nothing new :-)
The wrong keyword abbreviation still isn't fixed, however I really expected that this system receives an update...
(Example: cutter - Cutting (Moving Activity) | Cutter Insect Repellant (Insect Repellant); How do I mean cutter = work tool?)

10
Envato / Re: Envato uploading & support
« on: October 31, 2013, 12:17 »
Sure it's easy to deal with one model. But 100+ shots made with 3 or more models where the number of models changes from shot to shot, means a lot more work.

Actually, it doesn't.  They don't require you to associate specific releases to each image.  Just upload the 100+ images, upload the releases that apply to any of those images and submit the whole lot.  Fast and easy.

This is new for me... Other agencies always reject photos if more MR's are attached than needed...
So you tell me if I upload mixed images with 2 children and an adult, regardless of the fact that not all models are present on every single image, it's good and it's working with PhotoDune?
(In excess that would allow uploading 1000 files and the needed 25 releases [?])

11
Envato / Re: Envato uploading & support
« on: October 31, 2013, 11:47 »
I don't want them to change a thing.  Most sites have to individually attaching releasign to every image (very time consuming).  At photodune you just upload the entire shoot to the Photos folder, upload all releases into the releases folder and click process and you're done.  No individual file and releases picking needed.
Sure it's easy to deal with one model. But 100+ shots made with 3 or more models where the number of models changes from shot to shot, means a lot more work.
There is the so called 'batch editing' technology which works best at almost every site (SS, BigStock, CanStockPhoto, DP, 123rf, Alamy, etc.) - sadly FL and DT have no batch editing yet.

OK, I may accept the way PhotoDune upload is working, but the lack of the most basic information over the uploaded files is still highly annoying... It's too nerve consuming to keep track...

12
Envato / Re: Envato uploading & support
« on: October 30, 2013, 18:54 »
I see a lot of ranting, but not much description of the problem you're having.
True, I haven't said much good words... I'm really sad, such a good site has this kind of uploading system, not helping the contributors at all. I really miss some pages displaying the stats of "what is actually happening with the files"
As a developer I have a feeling that the upload system is a beta version 0... I almost can't believe, 4,373,866 files have been uploaded via this system.

I wanted to start uploading some files at PhotoDune, but what made me upset was the fact that I wasn't able to verify which photos have model releases attached. The site took away 2 times automatically the uploaded files from ftp and I wasn't able to figure out, in that moment, the model_releases folder contained or not the MR files (?)

Then I sent letters to support.

I really feel, contributors must complain about the current upload system, otherwise the folks at Envato think, that way is fine...

13
Thank you for your responses. These are really helpful.

I really like the "stuffed plastic baggies" and the "recognizable hands". - another example of coded rules that `can't be done in an another way`. So an another example why to go self-hosted.

14
Envato / Envato uploading & support
« on: October 29, 2013, 19:37 »
So Envato is the other example of a mindless support who responds to your e-mails kindly but without any sense.

I'm asking a thing about uploading via ftp, the support answers twice they can't figure out what is the problem uploading via http. (?)

Also the new phenomenon along web services, of answering support tickets, the original (my) message isn't included. So support answers something and after the 2nd answer I don't know what was the thread of our conversation...
Adobe added to this group, I hardly feel, today the fresh software isn't tested... If it works at the first glance, it's OK.

The original topic was the archaic and figure-out ftp upload of Envato. It's a piece of cake to code a decent upload system. With 2 photos they may subscribe to any agency to see, what's the industry standard of uploading...

15
Alamy.com / Alamy: how to submit photo of unrecognizable people
« on: October 28, 2013, 17:33 »
I can't find anything related to this when googling: how to submit an image that has 2 people on the image who are practically unrecognizable???
Here is the photo I'm talking about:
If I select '2 people' and 'no model release', the license is grayed out. If I select 'no people', it's incorrect. Due to the fact that these people wear masks and the same protective wear during the event, they are practically unrecognizable.
I was thinking about a dummy release that may have no luck during the review, or some random releases assigned...

16
Photo Critique / Re: DT refused files, kindly please critique.
« on: October 25, 2013, 17:59 »
Isn't it weird?: buyers ask for more 'airy' compositions so that they can choose the crop to suit their projects (which makes sense - our images may not be the final design, but sites don't like 'airy' compositions (and it seems that tighter crops sell better).
As 'art', I'd certianly crop the minaret much tighter (like your cropped example); but maybe DT don't like charging customers for a plain sky they could add in themselves (?).

Although the 'airy' composition rule is 100% true, I hardly believe, perfect compositions and also tightly cropped shots do sell better due to the simple fact that these stand out on a page with 200 search results.
Also, the good compositions act like an out-of-the-box image, these are immediately ready to illustrate any given article or other stuff.

Sometimes I followed the 'airy' composition rule in parallel with the tight/strict composition rule and the statistics showed, yes, the cropped/composed versions has more downloads.

17
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT now accepting videos
« on: October 25, 2013, 17:47 »
Although H.264 is not specified, anybody tried to upload H.264-encoded videos?

18
I must be a black sheep @PS because I didn't received the above e-mail.
Anyway, I thought I will support an agency that offers 40% revenue. So far no sales.
I really can't offer exclusive images. With the energy and work involved in exclusive material, I would build my own site and offer these exclusives there...

19
Software - General / Re: Adobe Hack
« on: October 14, 2013, 14:49 »
Last week I've received a call from the bank that possibly my card has been compromised. I recently purchased a LR5 license via Adobe, so I told them (to bank employee) that very possibly via Adobe. Regardless, I received the standard, canned e-mail from Adobe, regarding the password reset.
There are too many lies around this Adobe hack. I'm a web developer and programmer. Come on, one who hacks and gains access to the users table at any site it's clever enough to figure out e-mails, passwords and credit card numbers. This is the point. Adobe says in mst of the cases, that "your credit card data MAY not been compromised" (??).
But you know what? They deserve. With prices in Europe becoming very fast from dollars to euros+VAT, this is a nasty business, despite the fact that they sell an electronic product (and the paid money goes directly to the US destination via the electronic payment). Regardless of the support and doing business areas. So the $50 price becomes 50*1.24(VAT) meaning a totally another price.

20
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock submission question
« on: October 14, 2013, 14:37 »
This is true story. I've often ask my friends about sales and some of them even if they don't upload, sales remain constant or even increasing.
Also I've heard many folks saying that new files doesn't sell. Regardless, I have sales of the new files, but a kind of one time sales, no more downloads after that.
I agree of the "too many factors" regarding the sale patterns but there must be a foggy formula...

21
Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock submission question
« on: October 14, 2013, 14:21 »
Hi all!
I would know your experience @SS regarding the uploads vs. sales based on the upload style as follows. Which is better nowadays?
1. Uploading and submitting 2 or 3 times a week, uploading as many as possible and wait until all batches have been reviewed (Example: upload 300 files in 10 batches)
2. Uploading each day a certain amount of files and submitting these, providing a more constant upload flow (Example: upload 300 files in 30 batches)
Regarding the content, let's say, 300 files covering 10 topics, so 30 files per topic.

Thank you!

22
Pond5 / Re: Pond5: What should we improve?
« on: October 03, 2013, 16:29 »
Thank you icefront for a nice summary. Some things are being fixed, others would hopefully be fixed soon. I'll comment each request below.

...


I really appreciate your responses. And I believe many other users here also do so!
Thank you!
I look forward to have the above issues fixed. Regardless of the list of issues, everything else works quite well on the site!

23
Pond5 / Re: Pond5: What should we improve?
« on: October 01, 2013, 21:42 »
Several suggestions/bug reports here.
Although I've contacted p5 via "Contact us" about every topic, I still post these here also, maybe the old ones will get fixed...

1. Show the original filename.
When editing the file, please show the original filename. In the old p5 design this was visible. Why is hidden now???
Please understand, it's more easy to identify a wav file or video after it's filename than listening to/looking at. In the case of similar files of course.

2. Discover and eliminate the missing title/description bug. Some uploads has no title or description, although I use the same software to embed IPTC metadata into files. In the latest times, around 90% of the files had no description after uploading. Manually adding is waste of time when this info is present in the file. A "reload IPTC data" button would be fine for the start...

3. Please stop lowercasing everything. From a coder's or database's point of view it looks the same. But it looks REALLY ugly and unprofessional.

4. Please put back the "show normal textarea" option for the keywords. The new keyword container it's really nice but the entered words cannot be edited (or at least I wasn't able to figure out how)

5. Refresh the list of files when releases has been attached. So the actual MR count will be visible

Thank you

24
You will find all answers you need about the IS audio talent release here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=72201&page=1

Myself I just write 'Various sound effects' in the description and use it for every sfx file I upload. You yourself as the recorder are the 'talent 1' for sfx.


Thanks for all the info you provided! For sure it will be helpful for others too...

25
Crestock.com / Re: Uploaded images pending for 2 months
« on: September 11, 2013, 11:36 »
I have a batch of uploaded images pending there for TWO whole months. Ridiculous. Are they even alive?

I've uploaded several batches in the last months but yes, the pending time is very very long.
I thought, the staff was on vacation but being in September the things must be back to normal...
They may have a very few reviewers.

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