Forgive me for being naive, but I am going to have our developers start to build out the ability to buy different resolutions and dimensions of images at Cutcaster and was wondering what the general criteria is for determining the resize ratio of the image as you go from the highest to the lowest resolution. 

Do different agencies offer different resize options or do they follow a ratio like from XL to L you cut the resolutions in half?

What is the most file sizes that should be offered?  3-6?  Is there a ratio that the re-sizing of the image should follow i.e. divide by two each resolution down etc?

I am open to any ideas you guys can offer up on the best way to offer different sized images.  We have been getting more and more requests for it but since a lot of you are on multiple sites i would love to hear what you think are good ways to do this.

What I normally see is 400x300 (W or XS), 800x600 (S), 1600x1200 (M) then two or more sizes that vary between 3 and 5Mpix (L) and 8 to 12 MPix (XL).

It's curious that these sizes are in the compact cameras' 4:3 ratio, not the DSLRs' 3:2.  In IS the latter become 283x424pix (XS), 586x848pix (S) and 1132x1696pix (M).

I wouldn't think you would want to lock in both height and width dimensions, as that ratio is going to vary depending on the type of camera used to take the image (as madelaide said) and/or whether or not the image was cropped or whether its orientation is horizontal or vertical. 

I think I would just use "longest dimension" as in:
small-- longest dimension = 400px
medium -- longest dimension = 800px
large -- longest dimension = 1600 px
ex-large -- longest dimension = 3000 (native for 6mp cameras)
super-size = full width/height of picture if greater than 3000px

So, now CC becomes microstock site?

thats an interesting point astrocady and madelaide.  ill see what the developers say and post more in here.  anyone else have any ideas or suggestions.

milinz not becoming anything but broadening the offering to cater to more customers ;-)

Quote from: astrocady on May 22, 2009, 17:17
I wouldn't think you would want to lock in both height and width dimensions, as that ratio is going to vary depending on the type of camera used to take the image (as madelaide said) and/or whether or not the image was cropped or whether its orientation is horizontal or vertical. 

I think I would just use "longest dimension" as in:
small-- longest dimension = 400px
medium -- longest dimension = 800px
large -- longest dimension = 1600 px
ex-large -- longest dimension = 3000 (native for 6mp cameras)
super-size = full width/height of picture if greater than 3000px

I agree 100% with you! I believe it is the best way.
-Larry

I have a slight disagreement with the longest dimension strategy: what about panoramas?  Instead of 800x600 it may become 800x100....  I believe the pixel size is more coherent.

Quote from: Milinz on May 22, 2009, 17:21
So, now CC becomes microstock site?

They sell Royalty Free the same as the rest of the Micro Stock sites. Except you may set your own price the same as FeaturePics.
Was it RM (Rights Managed) before?

-Larry

Quote from: Lcjtripod on May 23, 2009, 16:35

Quote from: Milinz on May 22, 2009, 17:21
So, now CC becomes microstock site?

They sell Royalty Free the same as the rest of the Micro Stock sites. Except you may set your own price the same as FeaturePics.
Was it RM (Rights Managed) before?

-Larry

No Larry - mid-stock calling was somehow in connection to Cutcaster nitche... Before that they tried with selling videos and didn't succeed.

I just want to have some opt-out from resizing for some of my non-microstock images.

would people be interested in some kind of opt out of creating and offering different sizes of their images on a site?

Quote from: johngriffin on May 26, 2009, 18:14
would people be interested in some kind of opt out of creating and offering different sizes of their images on a site?

I believe many would like the option to opt out.

-Larry

Quote from: johngriffin on May 26, 2009, 18:14
would people be interested in some kind of opt out of creating and offering different sizes of their images on a site?

I'm sure that would depend on the price reduction offered for smaller sizes.  Personally, I wouldn't offer much of a break in price -- I'd think of it as a service offered.  Most small pix go onto blogs and the bloggers may not know how to resize.  Your doing them a favor even without any discount. (but I would off some discount, just not a lot.)

If you need to ask any of these questions then you need to hire people who know the business because you also have other issues to address.

Good luck.

Quote from: alias on May 26, 2009, 19:40
If you need to ask any of these questions then you need to hire people who know the business because you also have other issues to address.

Good luck.

Yes, and furthermore you should be posing this question to buyers, not suppliers. That being said, image size should be tied to use: XS & S are primarily for websites, M and above primarily for print. If you're averse to asking buyers, a good starting point might be to check the size of ad slots on a few publications/sites and develop your sizing from there. Or just assume that your competitors have already done this research and use one of their models.

iStock sizes are somewhat based on the typical print sizes like A3, A4, etc. at 300dpi.

Quote from: sjlocke on May 26, 2009, 22:15
iStock sizes are somewhat based on the typical print sizes like A3, A4, etc. at 300dpi.

That makes sense. Considering anything digital would fit on an A3,A4, format, but not the other way.
Another way would be a size range of MP that entails the digital format and the standard print format.

Quote from: sharply_done on May 26, 2009, 21:49

Quote from: alias on May 26, 2009, 19:40
If you need to ask any of these questions then you need to hire people who know the business because you also have other issues to address.

Good luck.

Yes, and furthermore you should be posing this question to buyers, not suppliers. That being said, image size should be tied to use: XS & S are primarily for websites, M and above primarily for print. If you're averse to asking buyers, a good starting point might be to check the size of ad slots on a few publications/sites and develop your sizing from there. Or just assume that your competitors have already done this research and use one of their models.[/b]

That has been my question all along, John;  why are you trying to reinvent the wheel?

yeah i have researched what other sites are doing and their sizes.  in addition i have been asking buyers what sizes they typically buy which varies obviously by industry and use. 

i like the idea of opting in or out of having your images resized and wonder if people would want that feature.  when i ask the buyers they say they want all the images to be offered in different sizes but want to hear what you guys think too bc you are half the equation and its your content. 

astrocady i think what you said is what we can do and will do.

thank you alias and sharply done too. 

Quote from: johngriffin on May 28, 2009, 02:12
i like the idea of opting in or out of having your images resized and wonder if people would want that feature.  when i ask the buyers they say they want all the images to be offered in different sizes but want to hear what you guys think too bc you are half the equation and its your content. 

FeaturePics has this option already.

do people like that option?  i wonder how many people opt out of having their images resized?

I'm not sure what buyers would like, but from a technical perspective, I'd probably look into allowing a buyer to choose whatever size they like.
Not only based on size-bands, but since I'm guessing you store the original, and produce the bought-size on purchase (otherwise you'd be wasting cash on AWS storage and transfer fees).

So why not allow contribs to state the minimum size at which they'd like to sell their images, and a percentage-price for that size. Then allow buyers to specify they size they need at point of purchase.

Example:

I upload a 2000x3000 (6mp) image to CC, set $40 sale price and minimum size of 1000x1500 (1.5mp) at say 75% of $40 ($30). (Ofc this could/would be globally defaulted first site-wide, then profile-wide, not sure whether it'd be worth the effort to set per-image (maybe your auto-pricing thing could account for this too?))

Buyers can then buy my image at max res for 40$, at min-res for $30 OR at 1500x2250 (3.375mp) for $35. (or 1800x2700 or 1727xHmmSize or WhateverXwhatever -- basicially per-pixel-pricing)

Either as a linear scale, or on a curve it offers maximum flexibility for everyone, and if resizing at PoP should save u server costs too as instead of storing resized version of image file, just resize-on-download.

It's late here so that might sound a bit mental, but maybe Just an idea anyway
Bob

johngriffin, very nice to meet you. We've been discussing the multiple sizes for multiple price points over here at ClusterShot for a little while. The jury is still out on whether or not we'd ever implement it but here are a few of our thoughts:

- It seems weird to us to artificially create price points. We would actually be doing work (processor time to resize) to create "new" images to sell.

- At the core of the transaction we're not sure enough people really care.  Granted, this may be us being naive and sticking our heads in the sand.  We feel that when someone is looking for a photo they are just looking for a photo that will work (it does have to be big enough). If the price of the photo is right they buy it. For the photographer they just want to sell their photo for a certain price-point.

- Our bet, and it's a long one, is that most of the photos being taken today (literally) are by people who don't care about getting a certain amount per size (they also don't care about a lot of other things). They would just be happy to sell any image for any amount. This isn't referring to the dedicated group of photographers here, this is referencing the world at large. Surely there are a million monkeys with a million cameras out there. One of them is going to take the photo a buyer is looking for.

Off-topic: John you are some sort of internet superhero. The amount of honest communication you do on here is astounding. Keep up the good work.

Quote from: clustershot on May 28, 2009, 14:03
Surely there are a million monkeys with a million cameras out there.

Wow.  So now we are monkeys?   

GeoPappas,
To carry the Shakespeare/Typewriter analogy to its completion: No, you're not the monkeys, you are the Shakespeares who are bettering their craft. John Doe with his brand new Christmas gift Canon Rebel SLR who has no aspiration to become a photographer and snaps 3,000 photos while on vacation is the hypothetical monkey hammering on the typewriter.

My point is, to be very clear, that with so many people taking so many pictures there are bound to great marketetable photos being taken by not-so-great photographers. How you bring that into the market is one of the things we're experimenting with at ClusterShot. Our understanding is that those producers don't care much about resolution/price levels. They just see it as a nice bonus to sell a photo.

As with all metaphors and analogies they never apply 100% correctly .  Sorry if you read my previous post as calling you a monkey!

Realistically speaking if I would be a buyer I am already in dollar bin store anyway. Things are so cheap so I wonder if anybody is buying smaller sizes?