I have images with Getty via their "Moments" collection which, if you don't know, used to be the "Flickr" collection. So financially Getty does a lot better for me than all my micro sites combined, in terms of return per image. The caveat is I don't have a lot of images with them, so the bulk of my money still comes from the micros. Getty Moments fairly recently started allowing 50 uploads per month, whereas before it was like 10 per month, then they actually stopped allowing submissions for over a year one time, and six months another time. I know some of you know all this. I had given up on them until lately. Anyway�

So here is my question: I would be submitting all my images to Getty and none to the micros but the problem I'm running into is that when I'm doing a photo shoot I usually get a whole series of images from that shoot. Getty will pick only one or two images from the series, leaving me with a half dozen similar images that can't be submitted anywhere else because they are to similar. I look at photographers work from other Getty collections such as stone or the image bank and see many, many similar's from photo shoots from other photographers but I'm guessing the editing is different for the Moments collection? And then, if they select only one or two images, then there is no option to cancel those uploads. Once Getty selects them, you're stuck with those images on Getty, as far as i know. So it's a risk for me to submit my images to Getty unless I have one or two random shots, but a series of images I just can't risk submitting.

Anyone else running into this problem?

"Once Getty selects them, you're stuck with those images on Getty, as far as i know."

Yep.  It's really not fair that you can't disable images from there.  Very draconian.

One option to look into is if you can work with one of the getty partners that allow you to remove files after a while. For instance any images that are accepted via eyeem into the getty smartphone/eyeem collection, can be removed from both the eyeem marketplace and getty images after 6 months. That is something that I found very attractive and one of the reasons, why I then went ahead and tried them.

Of course eyeem is still in beta and their own marketplace hasn�t opened yet and I haven�t yet tried to remove any files from getty/eyeem to see if it actually does work as promised. But at least this is what I agreed to, when accepting that chosen files move to Getty.

Then of course I am sharing revenue with eyeem, so I might only be getting 10% instead of 20, if something is sold via Getty. However, so far the lowest return was 5 dollars, the highest 42 dollars, so they seem to have negotiated a contract that is not as bad as I feared, even if they don�t disclose it and you have no insight into what to expect.

eyeem in priniciple should be a self publishing market or at least they should take a much larger batch of images from a series, than a normal macro house.

But Getty has many different partners, so I would suggest looking around these to find someone who will take more from a series and then give you a better distribution options via getty and maybe other sites. Westend61 does that, but they are a German macro house, not sure if that would be the right fit.

However, eyeem is the only agency I have heard of so far that is a Getty partner, but where you have the option to remove individual files. But there might be others, so this is certainly worth looking into.

Nothing is perfect, I can also understand that some agencies that are mainly distributors make it difficult to remove individual files or exclusive series, because they again distribute over a very large network of perhaps hundreds of partners. And we all know how difficult it is to get files reliably removed from all partner sites. If you are working with thousands of artists, the cost of staff dealing with this will add up.

Longterm though, agencies that do offer the option to remove individual files will have an advantage when  working with good quality stock media providers.

Well, these are my returns from the first three months and the real marketplace isn�t open yet. But will it stay like that? Or will the ultralow downloads come later? I have no idea...this is the problem when you don�t know what you have signed up for. All I know is I am getting 50% of what eyeem gets.

But I was very pleasantly surprised, so at least right now it looks like a more interesting opportunity than I thought.

I wasn�t really expecting money from the getty deal, like you said, my experience from Getty house was that returns were often much,much lower than over on istock, which is why I stopped uploading to Getty.

So, this is a good start for eyeem, now let�s see what they do with their own marketplace and if they know how to sell.

There are many, many Getty partners or simply macrostock agencies out there. Unfortunately we don�t have a public list with their terms and earnings prospects, so it will be difficult to find out which partner is the right fit for a given style.

if you are a directly contributing getty artist wither a house or pc contract you can ask in their forums or write to admins, like any other agency. i think some people also had personal editors, but i wasn�t good enough for that if your work gets distributed from a partner into getty, then you obviously only talk to your partner.

getty really has what looks like a million collections, I have no idea which collection is currently favored and presented to customers first.

but "premium collections" is probably a good start into what style they want. otherwise watch their blog or facebook page or whatever social media they use.

http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection

Have you applied with the other macro agencies? 50 dollars a file is completely crazy.

Yea, I assisted a Digital Vision / Getty photographer about 12 years ago and she had a personal editor in Getty, she had done some advertising prior so that is how she got in with Digital Vision. If I remember Getty bought Digital Vision slightly before I assisted her. Then, she was hired by Getty once or twice to shoot stock for Getty, which she got paid directly, no royalties.

So this Moments collection is turning out to be such a frustration, I see so much potential but I can't spend the time and money putting together a shoot only to have one or two (if I'm lucky) images selected out of possibly 12 or more.  I've asked to get into Getty's other collections but they've said no. I'm also part of the Photographers choice collection but I've only paid to have a few images in that collection and have just broken even so, not worth it. $50 per image is too much, maybe $25 I would consider it, but nothing more.

They aren't charging for PC, it's free.

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They aren't charging for PC, it's free.

Since when? I never got that memo.

I think it's been a year now.

Yea, I just looked that up, you are right. Well there's a lesson for ya, get lazy, don't pay attention and you miss something important. You'd think though that Getty would send a freakin' email to their photographers letting them know about something like that. Anyway, that's 200 royalty free images this last year I could have been submitting. My fault.

Thanks for pointing that out to me.

They had an announcement and sent out emails a while back.