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Messages - Elenathewise

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176
Got my notice.  Overpayment of $1571.00.  Monthly recoupment $261. 

It's going to hurt.

Lisa, mine is
Over Payment Total=$1,570.50
Monthly Recoup Amount=$261.75

The numbers are just way too close. What's your portfolio size on istock? I wonder if this is all bullsh*t and they are just taking money back according to portfoilo size... may have nothing to with actual "overpayment".

Interesting.  Almost the exact same figure.  My Istock port is arond 6400.  I dont know if it is based on port size or perhaps sales volume.  Either criteria seems fishy.  Who is to say that this bug or issue should necessarily follow either port size or sales volume?  Feels a bit shady.

  I agree with the posts calling for an itemized accounting of the overpayments.  As awful as the fraud clawback a couple of years ago was, there was an itemized list sent of the fraudulent sales.

Same here. The other thing - I looked at my totals for Sept/Oct 2013 and they are actually LOWER than for the other months of the year. And based on previous years sales are usually HIGHER during this time. So there was no unusual spike in earnings, just the opposite. It looks to me they have no clue who was overpaid and how much and just randomly distributing the pain. 

177
Got my notice.  Overpayment of $1571.00.  Monthly recoupment $261. 

It's going to hurt.

Lisa, mine is
Over Payment Total=$1,570.50
Monthly Recoup Amount=$261.75

The numbers are just way too close. What's your portfolio size on istock? I wonder if this is all bullsh*t and they are just taking money back according to portfoilo size... may have nothing to with actual "overpayment".

178
I have sales on FAA, but I also didn't just upload my regular stock. Most images I had to re-process to be suitable for Fine Art. Some of my stock images do work without re-processing, like this one - sold a couple of times:
http://elena-elisseeva.artistwebsites.com/featured/4-wooden-dock-on-autumn-lake-elena-elisseeva.html

179
I think Veer and Crestock are the saddest looking ones. To me it seems that they're managed by people who don't know how to make money in micro sector and don't even think it can be done. Wouldn't delete the port, but no new uploads for sure.

180
Stocksy / Re: Received my Invitation!
« on: December 02, 2013, 14:56 »
Wow Pete, nice portfolio! I can't comment on Stocksy since I am not submitting to them, but to me your images look like they should be sold as Right-Managed...

181
Wow I didn't realize they take percentage of sales on top of the hosting fee! This seems like a reap-off considering they don't do any advertising to drive traffic to the images. I think I'll pass for now. Might as well host my RM collection on my own site.

182
We've closed our Photoshelter sites. Their Google presence is poor, and the internal search is overloaded with news and event photography. It's not a good place for general stock.

For RM, the Photoquote engine is just too optimistic about prices. We've put our efforts into our Symbiostock site and linked the RM out to Alamy for now. The returns are certainly better for RF.

Thank you Travelling-light for thorough and helpful response! By the way, your Symbiostock site is very nice, and your New Zealand images just make me want to jump on the plane and go there tomorrow:)

183
I was wondering if anyone is using Photoshelter to sell stock photos, particularly Rights-Managed, and what is your experience?
Thanks in advance!
Elena.

184
Photoshop Discussion / Re: Text in jpeg files
« on: November 17, 2013, 13:04 »
...But I am downloading a JPEG - how does the text layer get preserved there?? I thought JPEGs were supposed to be flat... Can someone please enlighten me? :-)


JPEGs can have clipping paths - and I think most agencies preserve those for buyers in the files they download. I just did an experiment to add a path - made from the selection of a text phrase I added to a photo - and that gets saved in the JPEG. So, I guess we could fairly easily give buyers a vector outline of text to go with the visible sample if we wanted to:

http://www.digitalbristles.com/temp/Vector-text-outlines.jpg

I didn't edit the path in any way - just used Photoshop's built in selection to path conversion.


Ah... now the mystery is getting solved...:) I should try that - thanks Jo Ann!

185
Photoshop Discussion / Re: Text in jpeg files
« on: November 15, 2013, 20:50 »
This one: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-93251311/stock-photo-holiday-card-heart-from-paper-valentines-day-look-through-my-portfolio-to-find-more-images-of.html?src=8wOPX4iQrkMGhn9ssicisA-8-58


That doesn't actually look too hard to remove using clone stamp and patch tool. Or you could just use content aware fill if you have a newer version of PS.

(edit to add image)


Yeah it should be easy enough to remove - but why make the customer do the work?

186
Photoshop Discussion / Re: Text in jpeg files
« on: November 15, 2013, 20:35 »
Can you give us some examples? Sometimes I forget and upload a jpg version of my illustrations with text on them, and they're rejected because the text is too hard to remove. I'm not sure there's any way to make a jpg with a separate text layer.


This one: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-93251311/stock-photo-holiday-card-heart-from-paper-valentines-day-look-through-my-portfolio-to-find-more-images-of.html?src=8wOPX4iQrkMGhn9ssicisA-8-58

187
Photoshop Discussion / Re: Text in jpeg files
« on: November 15, 2013, 20:02 »
Yes white copy space is obvious, but I see a lot of similar text overlaid on image itself. If I do that and save an image in JPEG format I can't edit the text later. So, I am wondering what the trick is to preserve the text in JPEG? Just for education purposes:)

188
Photoshop Discussion / Text in jpeg files
« on: November 15, 2013, 19:32 »
While browsing some files on stock agencies, especially on Shutterstock, I noticed that many contributors have "Sample text" or "Your text here" text in their images... which I presume means that I am supposed to be able to modify that text after downloading the file. But I am downloading a JPEG - how does the text layer get preserved there?? I thought JPEGs were supposed to be flat... Can someone please enlighten me? :-)

189
You're doing something wrong.

When I type "woman real estate agent" I get 2118 results, and they look like a pretty good result to me.

It does disambiguate to "woman" and "real estate agent" but that seems appropriate enough...


Nope, I did not do anything wrong. When I did my first search I got no results - I copied and pasted the message I got. When I tried to search for exactly the same word combination again just now, I got 1968 results. Which is different from my first time searching and from the other results that were posted here. All the settings were default.
What it means the site and the search is incredibly flaky, but if I was a customer, I'd be gone after the first "no results found" and never came back, since other sites provided me with plenty to choose from. I spent less than a minute to search all 4 sites. If I was a buyer, I'd go with the site that served me best relevant results, fast, and had a simple way to pay.

190
Ah, see, that's where the 13 testers had their problem.
You need to understand that their system requires you to search on woman real "estate agent". You then get 398, very few of whom look like real estate agents, as they don't on the other sites.

I understand that I need to understand but why should I understand?:-) I don't want to. I want to type in search terms, simple as in Google, and get my results. Their disambiguation system -  in my opinion - was introduced by a person (or for people) who had trouble learning how to use a search engine. Getty is so behind on many fronts it really is a wonder they are still in business. Giants usually take a while to die since they have a lot of inertia and money and also somewhat inert customer base, but eventually they do kick the bucket.  Unless some miracle saves them like a  visionary CEO... which they are sooo far from having at this point:)

191
"No content" comment about SS is just a simple put-down.
Actually, I agree with Gostwyk that it's probably a mistake on the part of the reporter which wasn't picked up, and he meant, "no exclusive content" or some qualifier of that sort.
Saying 'no content' wou'dn't be a put-down, it would just be nonsensical.
Trust me, I'm the Typo Queen. I've made far worse mistakes.

Sure could be a typo. Although in my opinion having exclusive content is another irrelevant for the buyer thing. Many said - it's about how fast and easy I can find and buy relevant content. So what matters is search engine and the order of search results. I just did an experiment - searched for the following phrase: "woman real estate agent"
On SS, I got 3,882 results
On FT - 3,600
On DT - 2,099
All 3 agencies are showing different files on their first page sorted by relevance (with a little overlap mostly of new images). Effectively, I am looking pretty much on different content on all 3, at least on first few pages.
You know what's funny though? I put those words in Istock search and it told me - "Sorry, no results were found." !!! :-)
No wonder they have trouble keeping buyers;-)

192
"No content" comment about SS is just a simple put-down. SS has great content, better actually that they themselves realize. It simply amazes me how after all these years some people still see microstock as low-level crowd-sourcing amateurish collection of images. They say "real" photographers don't sell on microstock ... how can someone be so blind? Even if you don't count so many extremely talented newcomers, look at Blend Images  - they sell on SS. When they admit that SS is doing extremely well while pointing out they have no content in one sentence it tells you one thing - badmouthing SS is the only thing they have left, they don't get how and why SS is successful, which means they don't get the business. The only hope right now for them is drastic change of the leadership and strategy, but this doesn't seem to be happening. Instead, they decide that a garage sale will get them out of their financial trouble!

193
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: September 10, 2013, 14:39 »
If that theory is correct why not just sell on the one site that gives you the best returns?  I think it's clear that buyers switching  isn't going to make up the difference in lost sales. Look at how nearly 100% of this forum said nothing would happen when Yuri left all those agencies, no buyers would follow.

That's what we all SHOULD do... only sell at the agency with the highest royalty. Then the agencies would have to compete by raising the roaylty and give us other benefits to get any contributors to join them. It would be our market.

But of course, that's just a dream... it'll never happen.

Ok, I am going to start an agency tomorrow and offer 90% royalties. Everyone would join me and .... I don't have any money or skills to advertise. So what good would my agency be if I can't deliver any sales? Istock pays 15% but they provide a lot of sales, and the numbers add up. So it's not that simple. And didn't Yuri just did exactly same thing - went exclusive with the agency that gave him highest royalty? :-)

194
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: September 10, 2013, 14:28 »

that is what most do, keep on waiting for a change (years of patience) while still feeding them but always with a foot more inside than outside, wonderful life of a stock contributor!

Luis, it's not about waiting for a change - it's about "is it worth my time and effort" at this point in time. It is very subjective, and the answer is different for everyone, since it depends on so many factors like size and content of your portfolio, whether or not you do this for a living, how much is your cost of living, etc. For someone in Eastern Europe for example getting the money that Istock pays is still very lucrative, and there are a lot of talented people there. For me in Canada it may end up not being worth my effort anymore pretty soon, so I'd have to switch to other things. But the business we're in is global, and we're competing with talented people for whom 1000 USD a month is very good money. Stock companies know that, so they're balancing their royalty payments taking this into account. With global business like this, you just can't form a union and "force" the company to pay more - you can only decide if this works for you personally or not.

195
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: September 10, 2013, 13:56 »
Removing images from iStock will increase sales on other agencies, I have no doubt about that. I am waiting to see the totals for the next couple of months (September/November) to make a decision, which would be purely business. If the totals are meager, and it looks like they will be right now, removing files would make sense, since I'd have nothing much to lose and a little to gain. It's simple arithmetic.
Even since Istock introduced exclusivity, I thought - the day will come when they start pushing out non-exclusives. And that's what they're doing right now, by practically giving away our work.

curiously you have uploaded 467 pictures this year

Why curiously? At this point it still makes (made?) financial sense. Other issues like GGD (don't want to open that can of worms here) were at least addressed, so for the time being I feel that my content is relatively safe there. As I said in my post, I'll wait and see what my monthly totals are going to be, and if the income would be worth the time and trouble of dealing with their medieval upload system. I will also keep a close look on sales on other agencies and see if lowering the prices on Istock affects my sales there.

196
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: September 10, 2013, 13:40 »
Removing images from iStock will increase sales on other agencies, I have no doubt about that.

Elena, I put a lot of stock in what you say about the industry because I know you are smart, observant, and cautious. 

Can you share why you are certain that removing photos from istock will definitely increase sales at other sites?

Thank you Lisa:)  I know from speaking to buyers that many search for images across several agencies. If they're looking for something on iStock and don't find it there they'd get it from others. Of course someone may argue that instead of your image they can get a "substitute" from someone else's portfolio, but if you have fairly unique style and content that wouldn't be an issue.
Another factor to consider is that many buyers are also looking for better price, I've had enough feedback on that. If Istock undersells other agencies, your content there will be sold for less and your royalties will be the lowest possible. If you don't have your image on Istock and the buyer still wants it they'd go for the next best deal, including buying from your own site (happened to me many times).
My interactions with buyers also tell me that many don't mind paying up to 50 USD per image for high quality content, so lowering the prices on agencies like Istock and Fotolia seems to be purely due to competitive price wars, not reflecting actual buying potential.

197
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: September 10, 2013, 11:08 »
Removing images from iStock will increase sales on other agencies, I have no doubt about that. I am waiting to see the totals for the next couple of months (September/November) to make a decision, which would be purely business. If the totals are meager, and it looks like they will be right now, removing files would make sense, since I'd have nothing much to lose and a little to gain. It's simple arithmetic.
Even since Istock introduced exclusivity, I thought - the day will come when they start pushing out non-exclusives. And that's what they're doing right now, by practically giving away our work.

198
Mostphotos.com / Re: How to contact Mostphotos support?
« on: August 02, 2013, 13:27 »
I also tried to call but I think I am getting an answering machine in the language I don't understand :(

199
Mostphotos.com / Re: How to contact Mostphotos support?
« on: August 02, 2013, 10:18 »
I had emails from them over the last few days... they always return my emails :)

I used to have pretty good communication with them too - which email address do you use to contact them? Maybe I am using the wrong one...

200
Mostphotos.com / How to contact Mostphotos support?
« on: August 01, 2013, 16:20 »
Anyone had success contacting Mostphoto's support recently? I've been trying to contact them since May about a financial issue, and didn't get any reply whatsoever. I used [email protected] and [email protected] email addressed, their web form, tried to reach Arian through LinkedIn - nothing. Any help would be appreciated.

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