MicrostockGroup

Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Pickerell on April 25, 2012, 13:00

Title: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Pickerell on April 25, 2012, 13:00
Non-exclusive microstock photographers whose images sell frequently on the current microstock sites may want to take a hard look at PicturEngine’s new portal and marketing strategy.. (www.picturengine.comn (http://www.picturengine.comn))

This portal has five primary goals:
1 – To make it possible for customers to review, in a single search, all the images included in the major RM, RF and microstock collections as well as images from individual direct contributors to PicturEngine.
2 – To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once.
3 - To give individual contributors priority over distributors.
4 – To allow individual photographers to set the price for the use of their images.
5 – To pay photographers 100% of the fees collected for the use of their images.

For more information check out my Selling-Stock.com article (http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/picturengine-a-unique-portal-for-microstocker (http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/picturengine-a-unique-portal-for-microstocker)) which is available for free for microstockers to review.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: rimglow on April 25, 2012, 13:10
Well, the first red flag is that the link is broken. Probably should be .com (not .comn.) Not very professional.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Pixart on April 25, 2012, 13:15
Sounds like a sweet service, but it is way overpriced for small timers.  If I was in this full time I would seriously consider.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sgoodwin4813 on April 25, 2012, 13:20
The link worked for me.  The next paragraph says:
The disadvantage of participation is that instead of being able to post images for free as is the case on all microstock sites there is a $40 per month fee, plus $0.15 per gigabyte per month for image storage, to advertise an unlimited number of royalty free images. (The $40 is for those who sign up during the beta period and is locked in for life. Photographers will not actually be charged this fee until the project comes out of beta.)

So $480 per year plus storage fees for the possibility of getting a 100% commission.  I'll wait to see whether it leads to sales, but probably too rich for me as well.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on April 25, 2012, 13:38
Stock database is an interesting idea that nobody has hit a home run on yet. If you are looking for more images, here's my definitive library:

http://mystockvectors.com/ (http://mystockvectors.com/)

I have an affiliate program too:

http://mystockvectors.com/affiliate/index.php (http://mystockvectors.com/affiliate/index.php)

I did have a question though. How do you determine which agencies gets priority for an artist's image? I noticed some of my images from Shutterstock, but that wouldn't be my first choice to refer buyers too.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Mantis on April 25, 2012, 13:43
The link is wrong as Rimglow states.  It's .com.  The site is painfully slow and what is interesting is that it comes up with Depositphotos thumbnails during a search. I wonder if when you are all signed up the thumbs will be something custom to the site.  Would be silly if a competitive site was the default thumb.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on April 25, 2012, 13:49
Sounds like a sweet service, but it is way overpriced for small timers.  If I was in this full time I would seriously consider.

Hmmmm.....
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: RacePhoto on April 25, 2012, 14:00
The link is wrong as Rimglow states.  It's .com.  The site is painfully slow and what is interesting is that it comes up with Depositphotos thumbnails during a search. I wonder if when you are all signed up the thumbs will be something custom to the site.  Would be silly if a competitive site was the default thumb.

Odd when I searched my usual test subjects, I got mostly Corbis RM results?

I don't get it. I'm supposed to pay $40 a month so people can see my pictures on some search engine, instead of the site they buy from? Or maybe so those people can see the competition from many sites, and buy that, instead of my images? I really don't understand at all?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on April 25, 2012, 14:17
The attraction for a buyer is a one-stop shop for every image anywhere.  Hopefully your images are interesting enough to compete with 20 million images from all the micros.... Although, with a basic agency like interface, it's sort of just more of the same.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on April 25, 2012, 14:26
who is behind this "agency"?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Kenny on April 25, 2012, 15:46
PicturEngine is by Justin Brinson (http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson (http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson)).

He also owns:

1.  http://www.pornstockphoto.com (http://www.pornstockphoto.com) - Porn Stock Photo
2.  http://www.picturenginegroup.com (http://www.picturenginegroup.com) - PicturEngine group
3.  http://www.gstockphoto.com (http://www.gstockphoto.com) - G Stock Photo
4.  http://www.thebrinsongroup.com (http://www.thebrinsongroup.com) - The Brinson Group
5.  http://www.cornerhousestock.com (http://www.cornerhousestock.com) - Corner House Stock
6.  http://www.genericstockphoto.com (http://www.genericstockphoto.com)
7.  http://www.mybigfind.com (http://www.mybigfind.com) - My Big Find
8.  http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com (http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com) - Corner House Stock Photo
9.  http://www.picturesque.com/ (http://www.picturesque.com/) - Picturesque
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on April 25, 2012, 19:21
PicturEngine is by Justin Brinson ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url] ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url])).

He also owns:

1.  [url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url]) - Porn Stock Photo
2.  [url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url]) - PicturEngine group
3.  [url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url]) - G Stock Photo
4.  [url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url]) - The Brinson Group
5.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock
6.  [url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url])
7.  [url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url] ([url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url]) - My Big Find
8.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock Photo
9.  [url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url]) - Picturesque


nice job
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Ed on April 25, 2012, 20:07
The only thing I see this doing is driving prices lower.

You're listing microstock images next to non-micro images...you tell me which one the buyer is going to choose.  What happens when someone that has a micro image on Alamy (which they shouldn't, but they do anyway)?

It's revolutionizing, yes...but you're on the wrong side of the battle field and as an image supplier, or as an agency, I don't see any positives - the only thing it's going to do is give the lower priced agency an advantage...and you want ME to pay YOU to do this?   ??? ??? ???

You don't have my support.  Sorry.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on April 25, 2012, 20:22
The only thing I see this doing is driving prices lower.

You're listing microstock images next to non-micro images...you tell me which one the buyer is going to choose.  What happens when someone that has a micro image on Alamy (which they shouldn't, but they do anyway)?

It's revolutionizing, yes...but you're on the wrong side of the battle field and as an image supplier, or as an agency, I don't see any positives - the only thing it's going to do is give the lower priced agency an advantage...and you want ME to pay YOU to do this?   ??? ??? ???

You don't have my support.  Sorry.

So what's the cause? The people creating the technology to find low prices? Or the people supplying the cheap sites?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on April 25, 2012, 22:09
1.  [url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url]) - Porn Stock Photo


Disappointingly leads to picturengine...
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Ed on April 26, 2012, 07:09
The only thing I see this doing is driving prices lower.

You're listing microstock images next to non-micro images...you tell me which one the buyer is going to choose.  What happens when someone that has a micro image on Alamy (which they shouldn't, but they do anyway)?

It's revolutionizing, yes...but you're on the wrong side of the battle field and as an image supplier, or as an agency, I don't see any positives - the only thing it's going to do is give the lower priced agency an advantage...and you want ME to pay YOU to do this?   ??? ??? ???

You don't have my support.  Sorry.

So what's the cause? The people creating the technology to find low prices? Or the people supplying the cheap sites?
The point is - if I want a product like peanut butter....but I want something cheap, I go to the dollar store.  If I want something at regular prices, I go to the grocery store.  If I want something fancy, I go to the specialty store that has something organic.  If you have them all in one place, who will lose out? (Sorry, I saw walnuts and thought of peanut butter).  If you want to point the buyer somewhere - point them to the expense priced items first.  When you go to the grocery store, check out product placement (they teach this in basic marketing classes). The items that are the most expensive and have the higher profit margins are within easy grasp.  The less expensive, not as profitable items are the items you have to stand on your tip toes or bend over to pick up.  what this search engine is doing is making the cheap stuff easy to find among the expensive stuff.  Why would I pay to have someone promote my competitor like that?

With relation to the micros - no need to point fingers at me.  My micro portfolio is less than 1/4 of what my traditional portfolio is.  I work with just as many non-exclusive traditional agencies than I do with non-exclusive micro agencies (more if you count sub-distributors)....which will also show up as multiple images in the search engine.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: rimglow on April 26, 2012, 08:14
it"s been my experience that ad agencies pretty much stick with the one or two agencies they have accounts with. They don't spend a lot of time checking the whole microstock community only to find out that all agencies have pretty much the same stuff.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on April 26, 2012, 09:57
The only thing I see this doing is driving prices lower.

it haven´t started out.. how can you know that? are you only at Alamy?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Ed on April 26, 2012, 11:27
The only thing I see this doing is driving prices lower.

it haven´t started out.. how can you know that? are you only at Alamy?

I can know that because I see images from Shutterstock next to images from Corbis.

There are just as many non-exclusive traditional agencies out there as there are microstock agencies out there.  I've mentioned before, I can't see spending $150 plus to finance a photo shoot only to wait until I have 230+ downloads from that shoot just to cover model and MUA costs let alone overhead consisting of gear, studio, my time, etc.  There are other agencies out there that would love to work with contributors and that are much more cordial to work with than a few of the micros.

No, I am not only with Alamy.  No, I'm not going to let everyone and their brother know which agencies I am with and let them take away my business.  There are a TON of resources out there on the internet that give this information for free.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: louoates on April 26, 2012, 11:50
PicturEngine is by Justin Brinson ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url] ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url])).

He also owns:

1.  [url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url]) - Porn Stock Photo
2.  [url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url]) - PicturEngine group
3.  [url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url]) - G Stock Photo
4.  [url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url]) - The Brinson Group
5.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock
6.  [url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url])
7.  [url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url] ([url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url]) - My Big Find
8.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock Photo
9.  [url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url]) - Picturesque


The interesting thing here is the marketing of various stock categories as separate web sites. May do well (scoring higher) in finding specific images through Google searches.
Title: New Business Model
Post by: Beach Bum on May 13, 2012, 10:26
http://www.picturengine.com# (http://www.picturengine.com#)oid=1006_1

I believe, and hope, this is the future business model of stock photography.  Contributors pay a flat subscription rate and receive 100% of the royalties.  To me, this is much more preferable than agencies taking 80% or more of the sales.  Currently, Picturengine is in beta phase.  During this time the rate is $40 a month.  If you sign up during beta, that rate is locked in for life.  I find the site very user friendly, easy to navigate.  They are also very open to suggestions from contributors, something missing from many agencies. 
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: lisafx on May 13, 2012, 10:46
This is great.  I've been waiting for someone to come up with this.  Hope it is successful. :)
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: etienjones on May 13, 2012, 10:54
Might be a good idea but for the time being it is populated with some of my images from Depositphotos . . . . .  what's the connection?

And it breaks the rule for Art Galleries that says “never pay upfront for an exhibition because then the gallery has no incentive to go out and find clients”.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: wut on May 13, 2012, 11:44
At the moment it favouring macro photos a lot more than best match at IS did A/V files in the worst period for us indies last year. That's the first thing that should be sorted out before I'd join. I'm not sure I'm a big enough player for me to get payed off, unless the traffic would be similar to IS and SS. But wait a minute, what's the point anyway? We're seeing photos that are being sold on other agencies, how are we going to get 100% royalties then? Are we contributing to them directly as well? If so, they're an agency. And will they show only images hosted by them? It doesn't make sense otherwise
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: lagereek on May 13, 2012, 11:47
Yeah, give it 5 minutes and this system will have figured out a way to short change us :)
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: wut on May 13, 2012, 11:50
Yeah, give it 5 minutes and this system will have figured out a way to short change us :)

That was my initial thought as well ;) . It's confusing to say the least, just what the banks were doing and started this recession, the fall of the European countries etc ;)
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: disorderly on May 13, 2012, 12:10
Seems like a terrible deal to me.  At that rate, they would have to bring in more money than all but my top seven agencies before I'd see a dime of income.  And what's their incentive to market their site to buyers?  They make all their money whether I sell a lot or a little, so every dollar of advertising and promotion is an unrecovered cost to them.  No, I prefer an agency to have skin in the game; when something sells, we both make money.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: velocicarpo on May 13, 2012, 12:16
IMHO it is a great opportunity for us. I would even say we all waited for something like this. Everyone wants his own site or sales channel and be independent of the agencies. On the other hand, a single site of one contributor may have some sales but never the sales and attraction power of one of the big agencies.

This site could well be the future and with 100% royalty to just have to sell a handful of images every month to regain the cost and make it worthwile.

I will join.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on May 13, 2012, 12:46
Seems to be a decent idea but needs a lot more work.

Prices are all over the place. If I was a buyer I would want reasonably consistent pricing or at least a way to filter it.

I also think we need a new purchasing model but this isn't quite revolutionary.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: luissantos84 on May 13, 2012, 12:47
there is an open topic on the same matter from April 25th

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/check-out-picturengine/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/check-out-picturengine/)

too bad there is no feedback (YET) from "owners" here on MSG

sure 40$ doesn´t look much but I believe we need to hear more about it and perhaps a period of testing..
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: gbalex on May 13, 2012, 13:16
This is great.  I've been waiting for someone to come up with this.  Hope it is successful. :)


LOL, I posted a link to http://www.picturengine.com (http://www.picturengine.com) in another thread on MSG and got a much different response.

"Sounds like a loser all around for the artist.  The only engine I would be willing to pay for would be one that exclusively searched the artist's own sites, not the micro agencies."
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: etienjones on May 13, 2012, 13:20
there is an open topic on the same matter from April 25th

[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/check-out-picturengine/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/check-out-picturengine/[/url])

too bad there is no feedback (YET) from "owners" here on MSG

sure 40$ doesn´t look much but I believe we need to hear more about it and perhaps a period of testing..


Thanks Luis, I missed that . . . . . . .
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: leaf on May 13, 2012, 13:22
I've just merged the two threads
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: lisafx on May 13, 2012, 13:46
This is great.  I've been waiting for someone to come up with this.  Hope it is successful. :)


LOL, I posted a link to [url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url]) in another thread on MSG and got a much different response.

"Sounds like a loser all around for the artist.  The only engine I would be willing to pay for would be one that exclusively searched the artist's own sites, not the micro agencies."


Fair enough.  I didn't realize this was the same one that was searching the agencies.  The other thread gave a more detailed explanation of what was on offer.  

I've been waiting for somebody to come up with one that would ONLY search member artist's sites.  If this one isn't that, then I will have to sit back and wait for one that does that.  

Seems like it's always that way with new great things to revolutionize the stock industry - the Devil's in the details.  :P
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: gbalex on May 13, 2012, 14:23
This is great.  I've been waiting for someone to come up with this.  Hope it is successful. :)


LOL, I posted a link to [url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url]) in another thread on MSG and got a much different response.

"Sounds like a loser all around for the artist.  The only engine I would be willing to pay for would be one that exclusively searched the artist's own sites, not the micro agencies."


Fair enough.  I didn't realize this was the same one that was searching the agencies.  The other thread gave a more detailed explanation of what was on offer.  

I've been waiting for somebody to come up with one that would ONLY search member artist's sites.  If this one isn't that, then I will have to sit back and wait for one that does that.  

Seems like it's always that way with new great things to revolutionize the stock industry - the Devil's in the details.  :P


No worries, we would be much better off if we all questioned each bit of information served to us no matter who it comes from.  I would like to think that one day we will be mad as hell and decide to do something to end the greed. Forming a cooperative to develop or license similar technology would be a nice start.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: luissantos84 on May 13, 2012, 15:50
This is great.  I've been waiting for someone to come up with this.  Hope it is successful. :)


LOL, I posted a link to [url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturengine.com[/url]) in another thread on MSG and got a much different response.

"Sounds like a loser all around for the artist.  The only engine I would be willing to pay for would be one that exclusively searched the artist's own sites, not the micro agencies."


Fair enough.  I didn't realize this was the same one that was searching the agencies.  The other thread gave a more detailed explanation of what was on offer.  

I've been waiting for somebody to come up with one that would ONLY search member artist's sites.  If this one isn't that, then I will have to sit back and wait for one that does that.  

Seems like it's always that way with new great things to revolutionize the stock industry - the Devil's in the details.  :P


No worries, we would be much better off if we all questioned each bit of information served to us no matter who it comes from.  I would like to think that one day we will be mad as hell and decide to do something to end the greed. Forming a cooperative to develop or license similar technology would be a nice start.


the problem is that US (contributors) aren´t worried about others income, I bet if Yuri instead of openning his own "agency" would have openned a "union" that we all would join and perhaps do something out of it but again why would he or other do it? get our respect and appreciation? heck money is a lot more important and I do understand ;D
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: BaldricksTrousers on May 13, 2012, 16:02
The attraction for a buyer is a one-stop shop for every image anywhere.  Hopefully your images are interesting enough to compete with 20 million images from all the micros.... Although, with a basic agency like interface, it's sort of just more of the same.

But isn't that "every image everywhere (as long as the image owner has paid for the privilege)". If not, won't it mean that buyers are referred to our images without us paying anything? And if everybody has to pay $500 a year for the pleasure of being included, won't it put off 99.9% of us, so there will only be a measly 20,000 rather than 20m images?
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: grp_photo on May 14, 2012, 14:41
“never pay upfront for an exhibition because then the gallery has no incentive to go out and find clients”
I love the idea but you are right they need some funding to offer this service for free till they show success.
Maybe the first step to find an investor for this idea is that more photographers need their own selling-site.
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: cthoman on May 14, 2012, 14:50
I love the idea but you are right they need some funding to offer this service for free till they show success.
Maybe the first step to find an investor for this idea is that more photographers need their own selling-site.

I always assumed you could just run a site like this using affiliate codes built into the links. For example, my affiliate program pays more per sale than most sites pay their artists.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: antistock on May 15, 2012, 01:06
i understand it's just a photographer's beta but how are we supposed to trust a company that doesn't provide any info in their About page ? what's the company name ? who's is the owner ? where's their address ? which country ? payment gateways ? refund policy ? etc etc ...
Title: Re: New Business Model
Post by: antistock on May 15, 2012, 01:09
I always assumed you could just run a site like this using affiliate codes built into the links. For example, my affiliate program pays more per sale than most sites pay their artists.

oh c'mon, this project is interesting but as long as they can't invest tens of millions in advertising they are going nowhere and if they think it could get free viral marketing let me remind them the days of viral marketing are long gone, even some established authority web sites are struggling to get visitors nowadays.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: antistock on May 15, 2012, 01:13
PicturEngine is by Justin Brinson ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url] ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url])).

He also owns:

1.  [url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url]) - Porn Stock Photo


please notice that this link redirects to PicturEnginge web site ... very very professional to say the least ...as if the PE site wasn't already smelling of scam.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on May 15, 2012, 07:11
The attraction for a buyer is a one-stop shop for every image anywhere.  Hopefully your images are interesting enough to compete with 20 million images from all the micros.... Although, with a basic agency like interface, it's sort of just more of the same.

But isn't that "every image everywhere (as long as the image owner has paid for the privilege)". If not, won't it mean that buyers are referred to our images without us paying anything? And if everybody has to pay $500 a year for the pleasure of being included, won't it put off 99.9% of us, so there will only be a measly 20,000 rather than 20m images?

Everybody is included, whether they sign up or not.  The benefit of signing up is that when your images are viewed, it will be from the Picturengine platform, where you receive 100% royalties.   You set your own prices.   If you haven't signed up and your image is viewed, it will be from the agency that the image was uploaded to first.  There will be no duplicates. 
Title: PicturEngine Introduction
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 24, 2012, 15:53
Hello Microstock Group,
Some of you asked, “who is behind PicturEngine?”

My name is Justin Brinson, the founder and CEO of PicturEngine, Inc.  I am a photographer (Brooks grad), specializing in Architecture and Food, and a traditional stock photo agency owner of two niche agencies (Picturesque and Corner House Stock Photo).  I have participated in our industry from all perspectives; as a photographer, as an agency owner and manager, on the front lines helping clients, and working with submitting photographers.

Over four years ago, I set out to build the next generation platform for the stock photo industry, realizing that ALL the current models are broken and lacking regard for the very core of our industry: the image producer/photographer.  This platform had to be very different, thinking outside the tradition or norm.  First, it had to be informative, being the first to recognize industry searching and sales trends as they happen.  Next, it had to be simple, easy to use, with time-saving tools to get new images online and selling fast.  Additionally, an infinitely scalable platform, modular and accessible to all.  And last, but certainly not least, an indispensable tool, so unique that image buyers make it their FIRST stop when searching for images.  I studied other industries for a proven model and the search engine sales advertising model was a near perfect fit.

During this time I personally researched and polled thousands of photographers on the challenges they face and where they see the industry going.  I also surveyed my client base of more than 40,000 active image buyers, receiving over 16,000 returned surveys in the past 4 years.  From the photographer and client survey data, I built PicturEngine to solve the problems of photographer, photo buyer, and photo agency.  Some compromises were made to satisfy all parties, however, surprisingly, most everyone ultimately wanted the same thing; a time and money saving one-stop, high-tech yet simple to use, search, sales & delivery platform encompassing the entire industry, without duplication, in one quick search.

I would like to start answering your questions, but first let me remind you that we have an interactive FAQ support system at support.picturengine.com

Answers/comments to current questions I have seen on the Microstockgroup site:

@Kenny Great detective work!  Although, I have several hundred domains, all photo related.

@ED PicturEngine was designed and built to specifically direct image buyers to the photographer (who sets his/her own prices and receives 100% of the sale on the PicturEngine platform) or his/her home or original agency representing his/her work.  PicturEngine does NOT compare prices.  We do NOT refer buyers to the affiliate of the photographer's original agency (where the photographer gets only a fraction of a fraction of the original image sale).  We try to identify the originating agency.  PicturEngine looks out for image producers/photographers, period.  When agencies compete with each other, selling YOUR images, YOU are the only one who loses. Without producing photographers, we have no industry. 

@ ALL using our demo search:  The current PicturEngine search is limited, as the popup states:  “We're in OPEN PHOTOGRAPHER BETA.  Search results are for DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY.  The current results are LIMITED in both size and functionality.  At launch, we will open our industry wide search.”

What does this statement mean? 
Searching the entire industry of 300 million images while removing over ⅓ (one third) of the images as duplicates, all while pointing the image searcher/buyer to the home agency or photographer, is expensive!

It takes a cluster of servers to quickly search the industry data, a secondary cluster of servers to rate and rank images within the buyer’s search results, a third cluster to allow for visual and sim searches within the results, and finally a fourth cluster to analyze customer searching and buying habits to provide our PicturEngine photographers an edge and early lead on what's NEXT!

We are currently in open photographer beta.  We are allowing photographers on the search, sales, and delivery platform to fully test and prepare for our big launch.  During this time, we are offering Beta photographers a “locked in for life” discounted price to join and to help us complete the testing of the platform.

I hope this answers questions you may have about PicturEngine and its origin.  I welcome questions, however my time is limited, so I may not get to every question immediately, but with the help of my staff and photographers already using the platform, I believe we will be able to clarify any remaining questions.

Stay ahead of the curve,
JB

Justin Brinson
Founder, President and CEO
PicturEngine, Inc.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 24, 2012, 18:02
Thanks very much for coming in and posting Justin.  From your description, it does sound like what I have been hoping someone would come up with.  Would love to have a one-stop-shop that could direct buyers of my images to my own site.

I do have a question about the plans you offer.  I see there is a very reasonable "advertising only" plan for people with existing sales platforms (i.e. their own site), but also a more expensive plan where Picturengine does the sales and delivery part.   I only would need the advertising function, but my concern is that down the road there will be incentive for Picturengine to promote the images from more expensive plans in the search ahead of the lower cost plan.

What do you plan to do to keep your search fair and equitable among all your subscribers?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on May 24, 2012, 18:57
" And last, but certainly not least, an indispensable tool, so unique that image buyers make it their FIRST stop when searching for images.  "

What makes it unique?  It looks like any other stock search site.

"I studied other industries for a proven model and the search engine sales advertising model was a near perfect fit."

What is the 'search engine sales model'?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 24, 2012, 22:21
This is great!  Finally, something revolutionary!  It's a little pricey for the average contributor but it will help weed out the serious photogs from the hobbyists, who have been the ones driving down prices.  I can't help being excited about this.  I imagine Yuri taking full advantage of it.  Imagine the negative effect he'll have on the agents.  GOOD!  $40/month is nothing to him and he'll drive all the traffic to his website, undercutting all the agents.  This is the future of stock.  Something like this is what I've been waiting for.  It's probably not a perfect model but it has potential and what's to say other similar sites won't spring up charging photographers less than $40/month.

Finally, something new and positive to look forward to. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: drugal on May 25, 2012, 02:29
This is great!  Finally, something revolutionary!  It's a little pricey for the average contributor but it will help weed out the serious photogs from the hobbyists, who have been the ones driving down prices.  I can't help being excited about this.  I imagine Yuri taking full advantage of it.  Imagine the negative effect he'll have on the agents.  GOOD!  $40/month is nothing to him and he'll drive all the traffic to his website, undercutting all the agents.  This is the future of stock.  Something like this is what I've been waiting for.  It's probably not a perfect model but it has potential and what's to say other similar sites won't spring up charging photographers less than $40/month.

Finally, something new and positive to look forward to.  

How do the hobbyists drive down prices?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: drugal on May 25, 2012, 02:33
Btw this 'site' will have it's own stock library. That for independents is basically the same port as all other sites... but it removes duplicates. : )
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 25, 2012, 02:47
I don't quite get it.  Are we paying for better placement in the search?  What happens if we don't sign up?  My images are already in the search but they're all from DepositPhotos.  If I pay, does this change to a site that pays me a higher commission?  I still don't understand why buyers are going to register for lots of sites.  What we really need is a universal registration and payment system.  I'm not a buyer but I would probably be happy using sites like SS and alamy that have huge collections, without having to register for lots of smaller sites.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 03:33
I don't quite get it.  Are we paying for better placement in the search?  What happens if we don't sign up?  My images are already in the search but they're all from DepositPhotos.  If I pay, does this change to a site that pays me a higher commission?  I still don't understand why buyers are going to register for lots of sites.  What we really need is a universal registration and payment system.  I'm not a buyer but I would probably be happy using sites like SS and alamy that have huge collections, without having to register for lots of smaller sites.

You can sign up as a photographer in two ways.  Either using their platform which will cost you $40 a month for RF.  If a customer buys the image, you get 100% commission.  If you have your own site, you only pay $10 a month and your image on this site only appears once and redirects buyers to your site, again you receive 100% and you’re not competing with the agencies (for your own image). 

Why wouldn't buyers register to see all images available on one site?  It's free to use and designers want the best image for their project.  Many look through different sites looking for the perfect one and then they have to sift through most of the same images on the different sites just to see exclusive images.  Sure subscription buyers won't budge but who wants them anyway?  On this site the image only appears once.  What I would like to know is how do they decide which agent has preference over the other?  If there are no duplicates, which agency is selected when a photographer doesn't sign up?  

The good thing about this is that we, as direct sellers, are able to undercut the agents.  We can match the prices of the stock agents or undercut them since we don't have to pay any commissions.  For the agents to compete, they'll have to lower prices but to stay afloat, they'll have to reduce contributor commissions.  I don't think many contributors will put up with further commission cuts and if we can sell via this site, getting 100% commissions, it will force many to leave the cheap sites like Deposit Photos without losing anything.  

It's a fantastic idea and $10 a month is nothing.  For someone that doesn't have their own site, even $40/month is pretty fair if the site takes off.  How much do we currently pay our agents each month?  Even with a small portfolio, most photographers pays his agents way more than $40 a month.  I'm really liking this idea and believe it has the potential to take off and if it does, if photographers get involved, it could really stick it up the agents.  It will be interesting to see how it pans out.  
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 25, 2012, 03:55
...Why wouldn't buyers register to see all images available on one site?...
Buyers can see all the images available but what happens if they want 10 images from 10 peoples sites.  Wont they have to register an account and fill out all their details and payment information ten times?  Having seen how reluctant buyers have been to move from the big sites over the years, I see this as a big potential problem.  They might use this on the odd occasion when they can't find what they want on the big sites but is that going to cover my $40 a month fee?  I could get my own site but then there's costs involved with that and it also looks quite time consuming.

If they have a way for buyers to buy from lots of different sites by only registering their payment details once, it could be a great service but without that, I'm not so sure.

Are all the big sites going to allow this site to search their images when it could be diverting buyers to other sites?  Will they be able to stop this happening?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 04:52
...Why wouldn't buyers register to see all images available on one site?...
Buyers can see all the images available but what happens if they want 10 images from 10 peoples sites.  Wont they have to register an account and fill out all their details and payment information ten times? Having seen how reluctant buyers have been to move from the big sites over the years, I see this as a big potential problem.
 

Don't they do that now?  Designers will go to great lengths to look for that perfect image.  I'm not talking about a designer looking for a picture of an apple.  It won't matter where he looks for that, he'll find it everywhere, or snap it up with his camera.  But if he's looking for an image with a niche subject from a certain angle he will browse Google, Flickr, the free stock sites, microstock and trad sites.  They don't have much of a problem signing up to different sites.  Most are already signed up to different sites because at some point they had to buy an image they couldn't find elsewhere.  Also if they don't need the image immediately, they'll add it to their lightbox and purchase it sometime later with a bunch of others.  I think you're assuming buyers are loyal to one or two sites.  This is true for subscription buyers but not for those buying with credits.

Quote
They might use this on the odd occasion when they can't find what they want on the big sites but is that going to cover my $40 a month fee? I could get my own site but then there's costs involved with that and it also looks quite time consuming.

I can't really answer that.  How much of a risk it is depends on your portfolio, how much your earn at the other sites and how much the site is likey to take off.  For those that sell direct, $120 for the year shouldn't be too much of a risk.  I need some answers questioned questions answered (dyslexia!) but it seems like something I would like to be involved with.  

Quote
Are all the big sites going to) allow this site to search their images when it could be diverting buyers to other sites?  Will they be able to stop this happening?
I don't think they can stop them.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 25, 2012, 11:25
Thanks very much for coming in and posting Justin.  From your description, it does sound like what I have been hoping someone would come up with.  Would love to have a one-stop-shop that could direct buyers of my images to my own site.

I do have a question about the plans you offer.  I see there is a very reasonable "advertising only" plan for people with existing sales platforms (i.e. their own site), but also a more expensive plan where Picturengine does the sales and delivery part.   I only would need the advertising function, but my concern is that down the road there will be incentive for Picturengine to promote the images from more expensive plans in the search ahead of the lower cost plan.

What do you plan to do to keep your search fair and equitable among all your subscribers?

Hi Lisa,
Great question!  The Advertising Only plan is very affordable.  It is designed specifically for image producers/photographers who are representing themselves and already have an online sales and distribution platform. The Advertising Only plan imports your image database including your images’ searchable metadata, and a visual fingerprint into our industry wide search database.  The Advertising Only plan, however, does not include access to any of our exclusive tools offered to PicturEngine RM or RM/RF (platform) photographers. 

PicturEngine platform photographers gain access to these tools, providing them assistance every step of the way, including real time comparisons with information on how images are performing in the stock photo marketplace relative to visually similar, similarly priced and keyworded images.  These useful tools enable you to spend your time creating images that sell.

To answer your question, those on the PicturEngine platform will have the competitive edge (if they choose to use the provided tools), but NOT as a function of any bias in the search itself.

As far as a “fair search,” we do NOT allow and actually penalize anyone trying to trick the system to unfairly gain image ranking.  Our mission is to assist image buyers in finding the best images to suit their needs FAST, and not require them to sift through irrelevant images.

I hope I’ve answered your question.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 25, 2012, 11:52
thanks for showing up Justin, have emailed you before and no answer but I do appreciate your replies here to all questions, great job!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 12:19
Justin, I have a few questions that I couldn't find answers to on your support page.  If you don't mind, I'd appreciate if you could answer the following:


I see a lot of “image not available” thumbs in the search result which prompts me to ask – what happens if an image is pointing towards an agent that you leave?  How long before the relevant images are re-indexed and linked to a new site(s)?

How many agents have signed up so far? All I see is Corbis and Deposit Photos and I plan to leave DP.

How are search results sorted?  Will there be various options such as relevancy, popular, best selling, upload date?  If there's no further options, how are they sorted/ranked now?

When do we get to see how the ‘sim search’ works and how agents are compared?

Will the Advertising Only plan remain at $10 after the launch?

Roughly when do you plan to launch?  Is it when you have a certain number of stock agencies and photographers signed up?

Before this thread, I hadn't head of you before.  Will you be marketing to attract buyers?

Is the $40 lifetime plan (if you sign up before launch) fixed or is it capped?  If in future you decide to reduce the monthly charges (due to competition or if decide to start charging agencies), are we still locked into the $40? 


Sorry, I know it's a few questions but I'd want answers to these before signing up. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: velocicarpo on May 25, 2012, 12:26
I don't quite get it.  Are we paying for better placement in the search?  What happens if we don't sign up?  My images are already in the search but they're all from DepositPhotos.  If I pay, does this change to a site that pays me a higher commission?  I still don't understand why buyers are going to register for lots of sites.  What we really need is a universal registration and payment system.  I'm not a buyer but I would probably be happy using sites like SS and alamy that have huge collections, without having to register for lots of smaller sites.

As far as I understand that PE is crawling all sites and all files from everyone and you do not have to do anything for that.
If you sign up PE is like any other Agency, execpt that you keep 100% of the sales and pay them 10$, 20$, 40$ on a monthly basis for the storage.

This is at least how I understand the concept.

I am honestly excited about it. This could very well kill off some greedy agencies. It is like having your own site combined with all the other contributors at the same cost. Off course advertising remains a questionmark, but I am not too worried right now about it. In any case it seems like a good offer to me.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 25, 2012, 16:26
" And last, but certainly not least, an indispensable tool, so unique that image buyers make it their FIRST stop when searching for images.  "

What makes it unique?  It looks like any other stock search site.

"I studied other industries for a proven model and the search engine sales advertising model was a near perfect fit."

What is the 'search engine sales model'?


Hi Sean,

You asked:
“What makes it unique?  It looks like any other stock search site.”

PicturEngine is a search engine with 300 million images from the world’s largest stock photo agencies, alongside the best niche agencies and individual photographers.  We reduce these results by 1/3 after removing duplicate images, providing truly unique results and perspective on the entire stock photo industry.  Just as Google knows your location, searching habits, and what you click on and buy through its search, we serve image buyers the types of images that they like to see and buy, based upon past searching and buying behavior.

The agency “format” is familiar and comfortable to buyers.  We provide the “look and feel” of an agency with the direct to base supplier approach.  Image buyers who use our platform know they are seeing all that there is (readily available) of a subject, without duplication.  Knowing they are going directly to (or closest to) the image source, buyers can feel confident about getting a fair price and that the money they spend is NOT going through a labyrinth of intermediaries before paying the actual image producer.

You also asked:
What is the 'search engine sales model'?

http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/478866 (http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/478866)

PicturEngine shares the same business model as any other search engine, meaning advertisers pay for the search. The big difference is, our advertisers are unique image producers. We use this to our advantage by providing buyers with the best, most comprehensive search possible and without paid bias.  Just as Google records your search patterns and habits to better serve you targeted advertising, we do the same, but instead of side posted targeted advertising, we rearrange the user’s results according to what they like seeing, sharing and BUYING.  With our search, the BEST IMAGE wins, NOT an advertiser with the most money.  This promotes buyer loyalty.

I hope that answers your questions.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 25, 2012, 16:32
how will we collect the 100%? will we upload into PE?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 25, 2012, 16:41
Justin, thanks a lot for answering my questions above.  This all sounds quite promising.   I just have a couple more questions before making a final decision:

If you are representing agencies, as well as artists, do you delete the duplicates from the agencies when an artist signs up with their own site?    If I am paying to have my images searchable on the site, I don't want buyers to be finding and buying my images from the agencies instead. 

Also, if I were to sign up for the advertising function, at $10/month, but a year from now discover that you have brought in enough sales to justify upgrading to the $40/month account, would that rate still be locked in, or would I have to pay whatever the going rate is for the plan at that time?

Lastly, the concern I have is that if you are representing agencies, this might conflict with your representation of artists.  Agencies certainly have deep pockets and can pay more for premium placement, if you should decide to offer that type of service. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: louoates on May 25, 2012, 20:32
Anyone remember Lucky Oliver?
There have been no shortage of new entries into microstock, most with some new wrinkle or other that promises a better outcome for contributors. I confess I used to join the flock in wasting lots of time uploading images with the hope that this is the one that will really be a winner.
I've since learned to limit the wasted time by sitting on the sidelines and checking back here occasionally to see if anyone is actually selling anything on the new sites.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Mantis on May 25, 2012, 20:58
I find a site I like, I stick with it.  When/if climate changes I will change.  When they want $40 bucks, I poop.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cathyslife on May 26, 2012, 06:17
Anyone remember Lucky Oliver?
There have been no shortage of new entries into microstock, most with some new wrinkle or other that promises a better outcome for contributors. I confess I used to join the flock in wasting lots of time uploading images with the hope that this is the one that will really be a winner.
I've since learned to limit the wasted time by sitting on the sidelines and checking back here occasionally to see if anyone is actually selling anything on the new sites.

yeah its kind of like the day new software comes out. i sit back and wait for everyone to find the bugs, wait for a couple of updates, then buy it.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Equus on May 26, 2012, 14:54
There's a couple of things I don't understand, having read everything here and the FAQs on the site.

You say you have 300 million images from the world's top stock agencies. You also say that agencies with over 1 million files can join for free. Does that mean that many top agencies have already joined? Can you give us some examples? Someone in this thread said you would be crawling all the sites, that suggests without any permission from them, but if that is the case, why would they need to "join"?

If I don't have my own site to sell from, how do I get my images onto PE? That doesn't seem to be addressed in the FAQs.

On the surface, this sounds wonderful, and what we've all been waiting for, but you know what they say...

Thanks for any help you can give.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 26, 2012, 16:52
Hi grafix04,
Thanks for helping answer questions here on the forum.  You are making my job easier.  Find your answers below in bold.

Justin, I have a few questions that I couldn't find answers to on your support page.  If you don't mind, I'd appreciate if you could answer the following:

I see a lot of “image not available” thumbs in the search result which prompts me to ask – what happens if an image is pointing towards an agent that you leave?  How long before the relevant images are re-indexed and linked to a new site(s)?

As stated previously, the current search is for demonstration purposes only and is static (some of the thumb links are broken).  The search is indexing constantly, and will be updating the results every 2 hours (when we go live out of the Photographer Beta).

How many agents have signed up so far? All I see is Corbis and Deposit Photos and I plan to leave DP.

Agencies over a million images don’t “sign up,” we index them.  We currently index over 60 agencies.

How are search results sorted?  Will there be various options such as relevancy, popular, best selling, upload date?  If there's no further options, how are they sorted/ranked now?

The search results are sorted based upon the individual image buyer’s past searching and buying habits.  The more a user searches, the better their results are targeted to their preferences.  Yes, we have many advanced search options and filters available on the PicturEngine search platform (many of these and more will be live when we launch).

When do we get to see how the ‘sim search’ works and how agents are compared?

The sim search (visual sim search) link under each image will be activated when we go live out of the Photographer Beta.  Know that we do NOT allow price comparisons (period).  When agencies compete selling the same image, the photographer loses.  When exact matches (duplicate images) are identified, we show only the originating agency (usually this is the first agency to receive the uploaded image) or the photographer (if they are on our platform).

Will the Advertising Only plan remain at $10 after the launch?

All prices are subject to increase after the beta.  Beta prices are locked-in for life for those who subscribe during the beta as a “thank you” for helping us test and perfect the platform before the official launch.

Roughly when do you plan to launch?  Is it when you have a certain number of stock agencies and photographers signed up?

We would like to launch ASAP!  Our launch sequence depends upon actual testers.  We have a lot of photographers and agencies (under a million images) currently “signed up,” however not enough of those registered are actually testing the platform on a regular basis, we need more active beta testers sending us feedback.

Before this thread, I hadn't head of you before.  Will you be marketing to attract buyers?

PicturEngine quietly opened the Photographer Beta last month.  Yes, we will start our advertising campaign for PicturEngine when we launch from the Photographer Beta. 

Is the $40 lifetime plan (if you sign up before launch) fixed or is it capped?  If in future you decide to reduce the monthly charges (due to competition or if decide to start charging agencies), are we still locked into the $40? 

If you register during the Beta, you are guaranteed our lowest price locked-in for life.  If we ever offer a lower price, your subscription will be moved to that lower price.  This will ensure that our beta testers receive the best deal possible for helping with the beta.

Sorry, I know it's a few questions but I'd want answers to these before signing up.

I don't mind answering questions.  I will have more answers for the rest of you on Monday.

Stay ahead of the curve!
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: MicrostockExp on May 26, 2012, 22:57
Hello Justin

I tried to sign up for the advertising only but the platform Smugmug I use is not available to choose from. How should I proceed?
Cheers
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 01:10
To Justin, thanks for being thorough answering those questions.  Your site seems promising and it's very likely I'll be signing up under the Advertising Only plan.  I need to make a few changes to my site plus switch hosting sites soon.  When everything is running smoothly, I'm there!


To everyone else.  I have say I'm getting really exciting about this site.  Not only will it effect us directly if we sign up but it will effect us indirectly even if we don't, assuming it kicks off. It will give us another way to influence the market.  We should first upload our content to the agent that give us the best deal, and then upload to the rest of them.  This way the image on this site links to the agent we prefer.  When I say 'best deal' I don't mean the highest commission.  I mean the best return. Eg. 123rf gives us a high  commission of 50% but their prices are way below average and they discount heavily.  That's one I'll push in the back of the queue when uploading. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 27, 2012, 02:31
People seem to be presuming that buyers will use this.  I'm still not convinced that they will use it other than occasionally.  It's hard to know how useful this will be until we see the full search in action.  As I don't have my own site, I presume the advertising only option would be of no use to me and I still don't really understand what the other options do for people that don't sell direct at the moment.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: qwerty on May 27, 2012, 03:56
Spiderpic never seemed to take off with buyers and it has an advantage for the buyer of highlighting the cheapest site.

My photos struggle with search order against 15million on various sites, how are they going to go at a site that searches 300 million ?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 05:03
Spiderpic never seemed to take off with buyers and it has an advantage for the buyer of highlighting the cheapest site.

My photos struggle with search order against 15million on various sites, how are they going to go at a site that searches 300 million ?

Have you tried to use Spiderpic?  It's a piece of crap and is still in beta.  It never took off with buyers because: 

1. you can’t compare prices between agents with different pricing structures and that feature doesn’t work anyway.
2. the site is painfully slow and times out all the time.
3. it doesn’t include all agencies.
4. it doesn’t pick up all images from the agents it does have.

As to finding our images.  I don't know about you but I have no problem finding most of my images on Google, among the billions of other images that aren't even stock.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: qwerty on May 27, 2012, 05:25
I hadn't looked at spiderpic since the "beta launch",  must have been a couple of years ago. Yes it hopeless.

Of course I can find my own images in google if I look for them, doesn't mean that buyers are going to find them before they find someone elses.

People are forever complaining and best match sorts, my files at the back of the search, my hottest file just died, etc.

Do you think it will be better with 300 million in the mixer ?

Some images will be at the front some not.

Personally I can't see the big benefits for buyers
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 05:50
I hadn't looked at spiderpic since the "beta launch",  must have been a couple of years ago. Yes it hopeless.

Of course I can find my own images in google if I look for them, doesn't mean that buyers are going to find them before they find someone elses.

People are forever complaining and best match sorts, my files at the back of the search, my hottest file just died, etc.

Do you think it will be better with 300 million in the mixer ?

Some images will be at the front some not.

Personally I can't see the big benefits for buyers

I didn't mean finding my images in Google if I look for them.  I meant finding them immediately on the first page.  Sure some will get buried like they do on other sites but there should be a few that shine.

If the site search works as it's been described, taking into account buyer behavior and a list of other sort options, then yes I believe buyers will benefit from it.  From the buyers point of view, it seems that it would be better than the agents with their Best Match searches that keep shifting.  On the agents, there are so many factors that effect search ranking that buyers just don't care about.  They don't care about exclusives being ranked first and the acceptance ratio of the contributor, the size of their portfolio, the length of time they've contributed, the total number of downloads and a whole lot of other factors irrelevant to them.  On this site (if it works as it's been described) the search results will be effected by the merits of each individual image that buyers themselves set through their buying behavior.  The is no agent tweaking it.  Buyers are the ones who decide which images will be the stars and which will flop.  That's how it should be.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: qwerty on May 27, 2012, 06:15
I just did a Google searching for keywords on my best selling area. It comes up with a number of my images in the first couple of pages. Interestingly they are all either photos in use or from 123rf or shutterstock. Maybe someone can explain why other agencies don't place as highly.

If the PicturEngine search provides customers with what they want quickly, based on some great best match algorithm that is superior to the search they can do on a site then some people will use it.

I can see that there are issue however with buyers who will be confronted with images at microstock prices, mid level prices and some at much higher. If I was on a budget (or cheap) I wouldn't want to wade through looking at images above my price range. Maybe this is aimed at the higher end of the market. 

This site may be of great benefit to some contributors but I can't see it being worth $40+ per month for me at the moment.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 07:19
I just did a Google searching for keywords on my best selling area. It comes up with a number of my images in the first couple of pages. Interestingly they are all either photos in use or from 123rf or shutterstock. Maybe someone can explain why other agencies don't place as highly.

Mine are varied pretty evenly.  Some are 123, some are DT, some are GL, some are SS.  I suppose it depends how popular my image is on each individual site and how it's ranked against competing images.

Quote
If the PicturEngine search provides customers with what they want quickly, based on some great best match algorithm that is superior to the search they can do on a site then some people will use it.

I can see that there are issue however with buyers who will be confronted with images at microstock prices, mid level prices and some at much higher. If I was on a budget (or cheap) I wouldn't want to wade through looking at images above my price range. Maybe this is aimed at the higher end of the market.  

This site may be of great benefit to some contributors but I can't see it being worth $40+ per month for me at the moment.

Buyers have the same pricing issues even now when trying to find an image, particularly niche images.  All this site will do is save them some time on the actual search without having to jump from one site to the next.  Price sensitive buyers will probably still look for the bargains but most by now know what an image costs on most sites without having to check it out everytime.  Other buyers however, don't care too much about the price, provided they get the image they're looking for.  

I don't believe this site will be a hit overnight but I do believe it has potential to take off with aggressive marketing.  For those who sign up, It will be in our best interest to promote it.  

I see what you're saying about the $40.  You obviously don't have your own site or aren't thinking about setting one up.  $40 a month is a little steep for some contributors so I can't blame people for not wanting to get involved, or not right away.  Most contributors will wait around to see how it pans out but there'll be photographers with their own sites who would sign up for only $120 a year.  I've wasted way more than that on a night out on the town, several times a year.  Risking that amount on my business isn't a problem.  It buys me one year of hope instead of one night of drinking and a chronic hangover the next day.

If you're not going to sign up, though, as I mentioned above, it might be worth strategically uploading first to the site that pays better to ensure your images display and link to the site you prefer.  As I understand it, your images won't be penalized in the search just because you haven't signed up as a photographer.  If the site gets going, it will benefit many.  I'm at the point where I'm considering throwing in the towel on RF in the future so I'm hoping this model succeeds.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on May 27, 2012, 07:22
How many agents have signed up so far? All I see is Corbis and Deposit Photos and I plan to leave DP.

Agencies over a million images don’t “sign up,” we index them.  We currently index over 60 agencies.


So you scrape the sites?  What do they all think about that?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cathyslife on May 27, 2012, 07:32
Quote
Quote from: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 12:19
When do we get to see how the ‘sim search’ works and how agents are compared?

The sim search (visual sim search) link under each image will be activated when we go live out of the Photographer Beta.  Know that we do NOT allow price comparisons (period).  When agencies compete selling the same image, the photographer loses.  When exact matches (duplicate images) are identified, we show only the originating agency (usually this is the first agency to receive the uploaded image) or the photographer (if they are on our platform).

So if buyers can't price compare, that means they have to click on an image, go to the selling site, check the price, then go back to PicturEngine, click on another, etc. I think that a buyer might do that a couple of times, but once they started finding images in their price range, they would just stay on the selling site and search. Maybe if a buyer can't find anything, and wants to see what's available everywhere, they would use PicturEngine. I think I would have to see how it all works to see if it's worth using (as a buyer), and to see if it would be worth it for me to put my personal site back up to sell my photos.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 07:35
How many agents have signed up so far? All I see is Corbis and Deposit Photos and I plan to leave DP.

Agencies over a million images don’t “sign up,” we index them.  We currently index over 60 agencies.


So you scrape the sites?  What do they all think about that?

I would think they would only need to index the image without scraping the site, just like most search engines.  I wouldn't mind getting an answer to your question though.  DT, 123rf and DP shouldn't care as they have the 'Pin-it' button.  

Here's another question for Justin.  How do you feel about Pinterest? :)  I hope you won't be adding a button under each image.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 07:46
Quote
Quote from: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 12:19
When do we get to see how the ‘sim search’ works and how agents are compared?

The sim search (visual sim search) link under each image will be activated when we go live out of the Photographer Beta.  Know that we do NOT allow price comparisons (period).  When agencies compete selling the same image, the photographer loses.  When exact matches (duplicate images) are identified, we show only the originating agency (usually this is the first agency to receive the uploaded image) or the photographer (if they are on our platform).

So if buyers can't price compare, that means they have to click on an image, go to the selling site, check the price, then go back to PicturEngine, click on another, etc. I think that a buyer might do that a couple of times, but once they started finding images in their price range, they would just stay on the selling site and search. Maybe if a buyer can't find anything, and wants to see what's available everywhere, they would use PicturEngine. I think I would have to see how it all works to see if it's worth using (as a buyer), and to see if it would be worth it for me to put my personal site back up to sell my photos.

But Cathy, it's still a lot quicker than what they do now which is go to iStock, do a search, click on the image, check out the pricing, add to their lightbox, go to DT, do the same search, click on some images, check out the pricing, add to their lightbox, and so on.  At least on this site they can see all the images on one site, without duplicates, save on a few clicks and add them all to one lightbox.

PS.  Sorry for hogging the thread lol I'm just really pumped about something new and promising entering the market, instead of another new microstock, begging us to invest our time for a carbon copy model of most of the other sites.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on May 27, 2012, 07:49
I would think they would only need to index the image without scraping the site, just like most search engines.  I wouldn't mind getting an answer to your question though.  DT, 123rf and DP shouldn't care as they have the 'Pin-it' button.  

Here's another question for Justin.  How do you feel about Pinterest? :)  I hope you won't be adding a button under each image.

Well, they have to scrape the page to get the keywords and other info.  The IS terms of use state:
"You are specifically prohibited from: (a) downloading, copying, or re-transmitting any or all of the Web site or the Content without, or in violation of, a written license or agreement with iStockphoto; (b) using any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods;"
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 08:03
I would think they would only need to index the image without scraping the site, just like most search engines.  I wouldn't mind getting an answer to your question though.  DT, 123rf and DP shouldn't care as they have the 'Pin-it' button.  

Here's another question for Justin.  How do you feel about Pinterest? :)  I hope you won't be adding a button under each image.

Well, they have to scrape the page to get the keywords and other info.  The IS terms of use state:
"You are specifically prohibited from: (a) downloading, copying, or re-transmitting any or all of the Web site or the Content without, or in violation of, a written license or agreement with iStockphoto; (b) using any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods;"

I'm no expert but as I understand it, scraping a site is when html data is extracted and then converted to something else.  What this site is doing (I think) is crawling, indexing and displaying thumbs linking to the website, which Google, Yahoo and all the rest of them do.  That's 'fair use' isn't it?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on May 27, 2012, 08:44
I just did a Google searching for keywords on my best selling area. It comes up with a number of my images in the first couple of pages. Interestingly they are all either photos in use or from 123rf or shutterstock. Maybe someone can explain why other agencies don't place as highly.

If the PicturEngine search provides customers with what they want quickly, based on some great best match algorithm that is superior to the search they can do on a site then some people will use it.

I can see that there are issue however with buyers who will be confronted with images at microstock prices, mid level prices and some at much higher. If I was on a budget (or cheap) I wouldn't want to wade through looking at images above my price range. Maybe this is aimed at the higher end of the market. 

This site may be of great benefit to some contributors but I can't see it being worth $40+ per month for me at the moment.

I understand that $40 a month seems a little steep for an unproven site, but this is totally different from anything else we've had.  We do a lot of complaining about the agencies squeezing the life out of contributors and now we have something new that could revolutionize the industry.  For 100% commissions, I'm more than willing to pay $40 a month.  Besides, aren't we paying each agency much more than $40 a month?  If you make $200 a month at an agency that pays 20% commission, then you are, in essence, paying that agency $800 a month.  And that's just one agency!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 08:50
from the OP:
"To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once. "
How do they decide the 'one' source of the image to show (if someone hasn't forked out the big bucks, but is independent and has their pics on several agencies which re apparently being scraped)?
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on May 27, 2012, 09:00
from the OP:
"To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once. "
How do they decide the 'one' source of the image to show (if someone hasn't forked out the big bucks, but is independent and has their pics on several agencies which re apparently being scraped)?
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 27, 2012, 09:05
Quote
Quote from: grafix04 on May 25, 2012, 12:19
When do we get to see how the ‘sim search’ works and how agents are compared?

The sim search (visual sim search) link under each image will be activated when we go live out of the Photographer Beta.  Know that we do NOT allow price comparisons (period).  When agencies compete selling the same image, the photographer loses.  When exact matches (duplicate images) are identified, we show only the originating agency (usually this is the first agency to receive the uploaded image) or the photographer (if they are on our platform).

So if buyers can't price compare, that means they have to click on an image, go to the selling site, check the price, then go back to PicturEngine, click on another, etc. I think that a buyer might do that a couple of times, but once they started finding images in their price range, they would just stay on the selling site and search. Maybe if a buyer can't find anything, and wants to see what's available everywhere, they would use PicturEngine. I think I would have to see how it all works to see if it's worth using (as a buyer), and to see if it would be worth it for me to put my personal site back up to sell my photos.

But Cathy, it's still a lot quicker than what they do now which is go to iStock, do a search, click on the image, check out the pricing, add to their lightbox, go to DT, do the same search, click on some images, check out the pricing, add to their lightbox, and so on.  At least on this site they can see all the images on one site, without duplicates, save on a few clicks and add them all to one lightbox.

PS.  Sorry for hogging the thread lol I'm just really pumped about something new and promising entering the market, instead of another new microstock, begging us to invest our time for a carbon copy model of most of the other sites.
If you have 10 images from 10 different contributors, they could be on 10 different sites.  Some of those sites are going to look amateurish and wont be familiar because they are run on a budget by contributors.  So I presume the buyer will have to sign up and give financial details to 10 different sites?  Over a year, how many different sites are they going to have to register with and give their financial info?

Then there's the quality issue.  Can any contributor use this to sell from their own sites with no quality control?  Stock sites reject a big percentage of the images they review.  I've seen how bad it can get on some sites that don't have reviews.  They don't have many buyers.

Buyers might use it occasionally but are they really going to change their current buying habits to use this instead of the one or two site they use now?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cathyslife on May 27, 2012, 09:28
If you have 10 images from 10 different contributors, they could be on 10 different sites.  Some of those sites are going to look amateurish and wont be familiar because they are run on a budget by contributors.  So I presume the buyer will have to sign up and give financial details to 10 different sites?  Over a year, how many different sites are they going to have to register with and give their financial info?

Then there's the quality issue.  Can any contributor use this to sell from their own sites with no quality control?  Stock sites reject a big percentage of the images they review.  I've seen how bad it can get on some sites that don't have reviews.  They don't have many buyers.

Buyers might use it occasionally but are they really going to change their current buying habits to use this instead of the one or two site they use now?

I have a tendency to say no. I can see a use for it if I've done my own search and can't seem to find anything. I could gather images from all over with this search and maybe find what I need. But I think 95%+ of the time, I would use 1. the site I am already registered at and buy from, because I find most everything I need from there and 2. go to my second backup site that I use if I can't find what I need on site 1. In other words, I might use PicturEngine as a last resort.

But again, I will wait and see how the site works out for some. I am happy to see people coming up with new ideas for the microstock industry, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the idea is a good one, or one that will work.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 09:41

If you have 10 images from 10 different contributors, they could be on 10 different sites.  Some of those sites are going to look amateurish and wont be familiar because they are run on a budget by contributors.  So I presume the buyer will have to sign up and give financial details to 10 different sites?  Over a year, how many different sites are they going to have to register with and give their financial info?

Sorry, I don't quite follow what your point is.  So a buyer wants 10 images and will sign up to 10 different sites if he REALLY wants them.  There's no difference to how it is now.  This site will allow the buyer to compare them all on one site.  If he has to have those specific images, he'll buy them.  If not, he'll browse and select the images from the sites he's already registered in.  The point of this site is to browse images on one site without duplicates.  It saves the buyer who currently wants to browse different sites a lot of time.

Quote
Then there's the quality issue.  Can any contributor use this to sell from their own sites with no quality control?  Stock sites reject a big percentage of the images they review.  I've seen how bad it can get on some sites that don't have reviews.  They don't have many buyers.

I don't see a problem here either.  Buyers won't click on or buy the crappy images so they will sink to the bottom just like they do on any other search engine.

Quote
Buyers might use it occasionally but are they really going to change their current buying habits to use this instead of the one or two site they use now?

How do you know their buying habits?  Have you surveyed them or something?  From what I've experienced, when buyers really want an image, or when their client really wants an image, they buy it from wherever they can.  Before I set up my site, I used to have buyers contacting me asking if I can sell the images direct.  Other times they'd ask me if I can upload it to a particular agent because they dropped the agent I was selling it on, for whatever reason.  I got enough of these requests that motivated me to set up my own site.  My experience doesn't count for much but this site was created as a result of buyers who were surveyed.  Of course I don't know how true that is but I can't image a site like this being set up without some investigation on buyer behavior, can you?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: WarrenPrice on May 27, 2012, 09:52

If you have 10 images from 10 different contributors, they could be on 10 different sites.  Some of those sites are going to look amateurish and wont be familiar because they are run on a budget by contributors.  So I presume the buyer will have to sign up and give financial details to 10 different sites?  Over a year, how many different sites are they going to have to register with and give their financial info?

Sorry, I don't quite follow what your point is.  So a buyer wants 10 images and will sign up to 10 different sites if he REALLY wants them.  There's no difference to how it is now.  This site will allow the buyer to compare them all on one site.  If he has to have those specific images, he'll buy them.  If not, he'll browse and select the images from the sites he's already registered in.  The point of this site is to browse images on one site without duplicates.  It saves the buyer who currently wants to browse different sites a lot of time.

Quote
Then there's the quality issue.  Can any contributor use this to sell from their own sites with no quality control?  Stock sites reject a big percentage of the images they review.  I've seen how bad it can get on some sites that don't have reviews.  They don't have many buyers.

I don't see a problem here either.  Buyers won't click on or buy the crappy images so they will sink to the bottom just like they do on any other search engine.

Quote
Buyers might use it occasionally but are they really going to change their current buying habits to use this instead of the one or two site they use now?

How do you know their buying habits?  Have you surveyed them or something?  From what I've experienced, when buyers really want an image, or when their client really wants an image, they buy it from wherever they can.  Before I set up my site, I used to have buyers contacting me asking if I can sell the images direct.  Other times they'd ask me if I can upload it to a particular agent because they dropped the agent I was selling it on, for whatever reason.  I got enough of these requests that motivated me to set up my own site.  My experience doesn't count for much but this site was created as a result of buyers who were surveyed.  Of course I don't know how true that is but I can't image a site like this being set up without some investigation on buyer behavior, can you?

@grafix and sharpshot -- enjoying the debate.  And learning.  This is the kind of respectful exchange that I can respect.
Good example, guys.  Thanks.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 10:05
Thanks Warren.  I agree, I'm enjoying this too.  I welcome other opinions as I don't want to miss anything I haven't thought of before signing up.

I was just doing a search on Google for similar sites and found this one:

http://shotspy.com (http://shotspy.com)

Interesting.  I've never seen or heard of it before.  Has anyone else?  I see it's limitations.  It has duplicate images, the site is slow and 123rf images aren't populating for me.  What I do like about it is that they have the check boxes so buyers can tick the sites they want to see and ignore the ones they dont. 

Justin, will you be doing something similar to your site?  That would be helpful for buyers that don't want to sign up with certain agencies.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Equus on May 27, 2012, 11:01
Thanks Warren.  I agree, I'm enjoying this too.  I welcome other opinions as I don't want to miss anything I haven't thought of before signing up.

I was just doing a search on Google for similar sites and found this one:

[url]http://shotspy.com[/url] ([url]http://shotspy.com[/url])

Interesting.  I've never seen or heard of it before.  Has anyone else?  I see it's limitations.  It has duplicate images, the site is slow and 123rf images aren't populating for me.  What I do like about it is that they have the check boxes so buyers can tick the sites they want to see and ignore the ones they dont. 

Justin, will you be doing something similar to your site?  That would be helpful for buyers that don't want to sign up with certain agencies.


There would be disadvantages in this,  with no duplicates on the site.  They could search say DT and SS, but of you had uploaded to IS first, they wouldn't see your image, even if it was there.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 11:02
from the OP:
"To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once. "
How do they decide the 'one' source of the image to show (if someone hasn't forked out the big bucks, but is independent and has their pics on several agencies which re apparently being scraped)?
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.

That makes no logical sense. Plus it will punish those who submitted to the easy-to-get-into, low paying sites first.

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: MicrostockExp on May 27, 2012, 11:03
I think shotspy was not updated for a while, they still have Isyndica and Fotomind links...
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 11:06
Thanks Warren.  I agree, I'm enjoying this too.  I welcome other opinions as I don't want to miss anything I haven't thought of before signing up.

I was just doing a search on Google for similar sites and found this one:

[url]http://shotspy.com[/url] ([url]http://shotspy.com[/url])

Interesting.  I've never seen or heard of it before.  Has anyone else? 


I don't recognise the name or the design, but I do remember something like that from a couple of years back who were required to remove iStock and SS files - and there are none there.
Again, what is the payback to Shotspy? They can't be doing it for love.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 11:27
Thanks Warren.  I agree, I'm enjoying this too.  I welcome other opinions as I don't want to miss anything I haven't thought of before signing up.

I was just doing a search on Google for similar sites and found this one:

[url]http://shotspy.com[/url] ([url]http://shotspy.com[/url])

Interesting.  I've never seen or heard of it before.  Has anyone else?  I see it's limitations.  It has duplicate images, the site is slow and 123rf images aren't populating for me.  What I do like about it is that they have the check boxes so buyers can tick the sites they want to see and ignore the ones they dont. 

Justin, will you be doing something similar to your site?  That would be helpful for buyers that don't want to sign up with certain agencies.


There would be disadvantages in this,  with no duplicates on the site.  They could search say DT and SS, but of you had uploaded to IS first, they wouldn't see your image, even if it was there.


You're right, good point.  It would be a disadvantage to the buyer too because even if the image linked to IS, it would still compare the image on the different sites, somehow.  I hope we get a sneak peak on how this will work before they launch.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 11:29
from the OP:
"To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once. "
How do they decide the 'one' source of the image to show (if someone hasn't forked out the big bucks, but is independent and has their pics on several agencies which re apparently being scraped)?
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.

That makes no logical sense. Plus it will punish those who submitted to the easy-to-get-into, low paying sites first.

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Nothing.  They make their money from us only.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 11:34
I think shotspy was not updated for a while, they still have Isyndica and Fotomind links...

I just looked them up on Wayback Machine.  They went live late 2009 and last updated the site July 2011.  Looks like they've abandoned it. 
Title: Re: Check Out
Post by: sharpshot on May 27, 2012, 11:35
...How do you know their buying habits?  Have you surveyed them or something?  From what I've experienced, when buyers really want an image, or when their client really wants an image, they buy it from wherever they can.  Before I set up my site, I used to have buyers contacting me asking if I can sell the images direct.  Other times they'd ask me if I can upload it to a particular agent because they dropped the agent I was selling it on, for whatever reason.  I got enough of these requests that motivated me to set up my own site.  My experience doesn't count for much but this site was created as a result of buyers who were surveyed.  Of course I don't know how true that is but I can't image a site like this being set up without some investigation on buyer behavior, can you?
I think the monthly earnings polls here are a good way to see buyers habits.  The top few sites haven't changed much in years.  There's been several great new sites that buyers have been reluctant to use.  There's also several threads here with people that have started their own sites and most people don't seem to be selling a lot from them.  Am I really going to cover the expense of my own site plus a $120 annual fee for PictureEngine and make a reasonable profit?  I'm sure some buyers will go to extremes to find what they want and will have no problem registering with lots of sites but I don't think the majority are like that.  If most of them are still happy to buy the vast majority of their images from SS, istock, FT and DT after all these years, I think it's going to take a lot to make them interested in looking and purchasing elsewhere.

Perhaps PictureEngine could be good for people that sell a lot more than me but I'm not convinced that it would work for me.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 11:37
Thanks Warren.  I agree, I'm enjoying this too.  I welcome other opinions as I don't want to miss anything I haven't thought of before signing up.

I was just doing a search on Google for similar sites and found this one:

[url]http://shotspy.com[/url] ([url]http://shotspy.com[/url])

Interesting.  I've never seen or heard of it before.  Has anyone else? 


I don't recognise the name or the design, but I do remember something like that from a couple of years back who were required to remove iStock and SS files - and there are none there.
Again, what is the payback to Shotspy? They can't be doing it for love.


Looks like it was for love.  That's why it flopped lol.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 27, 2012, 11:41
Another thought, wont most of the images in the PictureEngine search be from traditional agencies and at a price that's too high for the average microstock buyer?  If they can filter by price, they will end up with what's already on SS and istock.  If they can't filter by price, isn't there going to be around 180 million non-microstock images to wade through?  I really don't see the advantages for microstock buyers.
Title: Re: Check Out
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 11:51
...How do you know their buying habits?  Have you surveyed them or something?  From what I've experienced, when buyers really want an image, or when their client really wants an image, they buy it from wherever they can.  Before I set up my site, I used to have buyers contacting me asking if I can sell the images direct.  Other times they'd ask me if I can upload it to a particular agent because they dropped the agent I was selling it on, for whatever reason.  I got enough of these requests that motivated me to set up my own site.  My experience doesn't count for much but this site was created as a result of buyers who were surveyed.  Of course I don't know how true that is but I can't image a site like this being set up without some investigation on buyer behavior, can you?
I think the monthly earnings polls here are a good way to see buyers habits.  The top few sites haven't changed much in years.  There's been several great new sites that buyers have been reluctant to use.  There's also several threads here with people that have started their own sites and most people don't seem to be selling a lot from them.  Am I really going to cover the expense of my own site plus a $120 annual fee for PictureEngine and make a reasonable profit?  I'm sure some buyers will go to extremes to find what they want and will have no problem registering with lots of sites but I don't think the majority are like that.  If most of them are still happy to buy the vast majority of their images from SS, istock, FT and DT after all these years, I think it's going to take a lot to make them interested in looking and purchasing elsewhere.

Perhaps PictureEngine could be good for people that sell a lot more than me but I'm not convinced that it would work for me.

Some do reasonably well selling direct.  As for buyers' behavior, how can you tell using the poll on the right?  That poll says nothing of buyers buying between sites.  Shutterstock has been leading the industry for a while because it's a subscription site.  Those buyers won't budge for sure unless they switch to a better plan on another agent.  There may not have been much that has changed for years but years ago there weren't this many real options for buyers.  It's a smorgasbord out there and buyers aren't loyal, especially now that agents screw them around as much as they do us. Those buying credits can switch easily or buy across the industry without any problems.  Once they're registered at a site, purchasing isn't much of an inconvenience, I don't believe.  It would be interesting if we could survey buyers ourselves.

As for you paying $120 plus the costs of setting up and hosting your sites.  It's probably not worth it for you.  But for those who already have a site it might me.  $10 a month isn't too hard to part with.  If I was in your position, I'd probably wait to see how the site performs and then I'd go with the $40 plan when it picked up some speed, without creating my own site.  

Okay well I've hogged the thread again, sorry folks.  I'm going now :)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 12:14

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Nothing.  They make their money from us only.

So you pay your commission to the agency you chose to upload to, and PictureEngine creams off it's percentage, even though we did not opt to be included there?
People who choose to use this, fair enough, but our files shouldn't be hijacked without our permission.

(Oh, but that probably already happens on those weird iStock 'associate sites'.  >:( )
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 27, 2012, 12:27

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Nothing.  They make their money from us only.

So you pay your commission to the agency you chose to upload to, and PictureEngine creams off it's percentage, even though we did not opt to be included there?
People who choose to use this, fair enough, but our files shouldn't be hijacked without our permission.

(Oh, but that probably already happens on those weird iStock 'associate sites'.  >:( )

I agree, they must follow agencies rules
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 27, 2012, 16:08
(snip)
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.

That makes no logical sense. Plus it will punish those who submitted to the easy-to-get-into, low paying sites first.

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Yes, I would like a clear answer to this.  I asked on the last page:  If you pay the $120/year for advertising, will the only images displayed be the ones from your own website, rather than the agencies?  Regardless of where you uploaded first, which sites were indexed first by PicturEngine, etc?  
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on May 27, 2012, 17:43
(snip)
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.

That makes no logical sense. Plus it will punish those who submitted to the easy-to-get-into, low paying sites first.

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Yes, I would like a clear answer to this.  I asked on the last page:  If you pay the $120/year for advertising, will the only images displayed be the ones from your own website, rather than the agencies?  Regardless of where you uploaded first, which sites were indexed first by PicturEngine, etc?  

The following is from the Picturengine FAQ page. 

"I have my own searchable stock photo sales and distribution website, how can I be included?
Last Updated: Mar 11, 2012 09:58PM CDT

Depending upon your platform, we offer an “Advertising Only” package, which includes all of your keyworded images within our search results.  When a buyer clicks on your image, they are redirected to your website for licensing, as we do for agencies."
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 22:23

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Nothing.  They make their money from us only.

So you pay your commission to the agency you chose to upload to, and PictureEngine creams off it's percentage, even though we did not opt to be included there?
People who choose to use this, fair enough, but our files shouldn't be hijacked without our permission.

(Oh, but that probably already happens on those weird iStock 'associate sites'.  >:( )

I don't see an issue.  It's no different to a Google query, say if you google "businessman royalty free".  Only here it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers, without any duplicates.  I can't see how they're 'hijacking' our images.  You don't have to sign up and upload your images if you don't want to but your images will be searchable and a thumb will display there with link to the micro site just like it does on any other search engine.  I don't see anyone making such a fuss because our images appear on Google.  They won't be hosting your images unless you sign up.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 22:39
(snip)
AIUI, if you pay, you get the version on your personal site included, not those from agencies.
Do they have some mega-sophisticated way of blocking out identicals?

The image that is shown is from the agency that it was uploaded to first.

That makes no logical sense. Plus it will punish those who submitted to the easy-to-get-into, low paying sites first.

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Yes, I would like a clear answer to this.  I asked on the last page:  If you pay the $120/year for advertising, will the only images displayed be the ones from your own website, rather than the agencies?  Regardless of where you uploaded first, which sites were indexed first by PicturEngine, etc?  

The following is from the Picturengine FAQ page. 

"I have my own searchable stock photo sales and distribution website, how can I be included?
Last Updated: Mar 11, 2012 09:58PM CDT

Depending upon your platform, we offer an “Advertising Only” package, which includes all of your keyworded images within our search results.  When a buyer clicks on your image, they are redirected to your website for licensing, as we do for agencies."

dehooks, that doesn't really answer Lisa's question and I'd like to know this as well.  All it says there is that the image will display and link to the image from our own websites, just like it does when it displays and links to the micro we first upload to if we don't sign up.  What I'd like to know is more about this 'sim search' where they compare agents.  If we pay for the 'Advertising Only' plan, will the buyer be able to compare our images with the micros on that little button underneath the image (the one that doesn't work in beta).  I won't sign up if that was the case. 

Unless we're able to see more of how the site will function in all its glory, I've decided to wait till they launch.  I want to know how user friendly it will be for the buyer, the speed it will run, the bugs that we'll find, the perks to photographer when they sign up paying the $40 and all the other things we won't know till the site launches.  There's no point investing in it just yet.  Not for me anyway.  For all I know it might end up being an unusable piece of crap like Spiderpic and ShotSpy.  Or it may be fantastic and I might want the perks and sign up for the $40 plan.  My webhosting is up for renewal later this year so I'd like to see whether it's worth ditching my own site and selling directly through here.  There are too many unknowns, making it difficult to make any decisions.

I'm still excited about the idea and it's great that someone like Justin took the initiative to come up with a model that's so different to anything else.  I'm looking forward to finding out more about it.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 27, 2012, 22:42
Another thought, wont most of the images in the PictureEngine search be from traditional agencies and at a price that's too high for the average microstock buyer?  If they can filter by price, they will end up with what's already on SS and istock.  If they can't filter by price, isn't there going to be around 180 million non-microstock images to wade through?  I really don't see the advantages for microstock buyers.

If you have a look at the site, you will see that buyers can filter our RM, RF, Microstock and Subscriptions.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 28, 2012, 02:13
If they filter out for only microstock, what's the advantage over using SS and istock?  Buyers only have to have two places to search almost all the microstock images available and it will be much easier to buy from two sites rather than hundreds of them.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 28, 2012, 02:22

What is the payback to PicturEngine if someone buys a photo from an agency rather than from a paying user?

Nothing.  They make their money from us only.

So you pay your commission to the agency you chose to upload to, and PictureEngine creams off it's percentage, even though we did not opt to be included there?
People who choose to use this, fair enough, but our files shouldn't be hijacked without our permission.

(Oh, but that probably already happens on those weird iStock 'associate sites'.  >:( )

I don't see an issue.  It's no different to a Google query, say if you google "businessman royalty free".  Only here it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers, without any duplicates.  I can't see how they're 'hijacking' our images.  You don't have to sign up and upload your images if you don't want to but your images will be searchable and a thumb will display there with link to the micro site just like it does on any other search engine.  I don't see anyone making such a fuss because our images appear on Google.  They won't be hosting your images unless you sign up.

From the OP:
This portal has five primary goals:
1 – To make it possible for customers to review, in a single search, all the images included in the major RM, RF and microstock collections as well as images from individual direct contributors to PicturEngine.

Does Google cream off some of our money if someone buys our image from an agency based on an original Google search?

I'm also not convinced about "it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers," - GIGO, so spam results in poor results, just like on the agencies and GIS.  >:(
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 28, 2012, 02:55
...Does Google cream off some of our money if someone buys our image from an agency based on an original Google search?

I'm also not convinced about "it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers," - GIGO, so spam results in poor results, just like on the agencies and GIS.  >:(
They aren't creaming off some of our money.  They make money by us paying them a monthly fee, if we want to.

The results are going to be interesting.  I presume they'll have all the appalling stuff from Mostphotos that's been uploaded with no reviews.  And lots of individuals sites that have no QC.  I'm sure most people don't upload junk but there will be lots of exceptions.  How will they sort out the different ways sites use keywords?  It might be OK to search images but wont they need to use the keywords on the sites?  Istock do them differently, will that make their images harder to find in the search.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 28, 2012, 03:00
...Does Google cream off some of our money if someone buys our image from an agency based on an original Google search?

I'm also not convinced about "it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers," - GIGO, so spam results in poor results, just like on the agencies and GIS.  >:(
They aren't creaming off some of our money.  They make money by us paying them a monthly fee, if we want to.
So if someone buys a file we have with an agency, but we haven't opted to pay them anything, they get nothing?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 28, 2012, 03:15
That's how I see it.  They will make money if people sign up and pay them every month, otherwise they will have to think of another way to monetize it.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 28, 2012, 03:24
I assume these 'associates' of e.g. iStock monetise by referral fees?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 28, 2012, 05:50
...Does Google cream off some of our money if someone buys our image from an agency based on an original Google search?

I'm also not convinced about "it will be more efficient, indexed and sorted in a meaningful way for buyers," - GIGO, so spam results in poor results, just like on the agencies and GIS.  >:(
They aren't creaming off some of our money.  They make money by us paying them a monthly fee, if we want to.
So if someone buys a file we have with an agency, but we haven't opted to pay them anything, they get nothing?

I already replied to you on #93 telling you they get nothing.  They only earn the yearly fees from us - the ones who sign up.  You must have missed the post so I couldn't understand why you were still hammering on about it.  And to answer your next post, no they're not associates and won't be earning referrals.  They are just a search engine with a few extra features that should benefit buyers, plus they allow photographers a chance to be included in the search among the big boys for a fee.  That's all.  They don't host our images.  They just index them the same way that Google does and host only the images from photographers who sign up.  There's nothing sinister about it.  It's not illegal to create a search engine and display thumbs.  The only question is whether they're likely to be successful with buyers and none of us on this forum are really in a position to know or even guess. 

Sharpshot, it's clear that you're not interested in this site.  That's okay, you don't have to be.  So don't sign up.  I and others are interested and will probably take the risk and sign up.  I don't see why you have to keep trying to look for reasons why I or others shouldn't sign up when you've made your decision not to.  Good luck with whatever you do.  I like the site and I believe it has potential to be a hit with buyers eventually.  I'm looking forward to finding out more about how it works.  You can keep going on about 'buyers this' and 'buyers that' but you're just guessing like anyone else.  It's clear that you're the type that likes to play it safe and won't join a site like this no matter what.  I'm a risk taker and I don't consider risking $120 for a year much of a big deal.  I've betted way more than that on a horse race.  Betting it on my business is worth it to me.  If it doesn't pan out, well at least I gave it a go. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 28, 2012, 08:13
Sharpshot, it's clear that you're not interested in this site.  That's okay, you don't have to be.  So don't sign up.  I and others are interested and will probably take the risk and sign up.  I don't see why you have to keep trying to look for reasons why I or others shouldn't sign up when you've made your decision not to.  Good luck with whatever you do.  I like the site and I believe it has potential to be a hit with buyers eventually.  I'm looking forward to finding out more about how it works.  You can keep going on about 'buyers this' and 'buyers that' but you're just guessing like anyone else.  It's clear that you're the type that likes to play it safe and won't join a site like this no matter what.  I'm a risk taker and I don't consider risking $120 for a year much of a big deal.  I've betted way more than that on a horse race.  Betting it on my business is worth it to me.  If it doesn't pan out, well at least I gave it a go. 
You've got me wrong.  I can be a big risk taker.  I gave up my steady well paid job back in 2001 for a £20 bet, when someone told me I wouldn't dare do it  I've not had a proper job since.  Spent a few years gambling on the stock market before finding microstock.  It's lucky I don't need a lot of money to live on :)  I'm interested in PicturEngine or I would ignore this thread but I really don't like losing money.  I can do that on poker and horses.  If I think they're going to increase my earnings by more than $40 a month, I might sign up but there's lots of potential problems I can see that are putting me off at the moment.  If they come back with some good answers to some of the things discussed here, I might be taking a risk on them.  $480 is much less than I have risked on a daily basis for many years.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 28, 2012, 20:42
Sharpshot, it's clear that you're not interested in this site.  That's okay, you don't have to be.  So don't sign up.  I and others are interested and will probably take the risk and sign up.  I don't see why you have to keep trying to look for reasons why I or others shouldn't sign up when you've made your decision not to.  Good luck with whatever you do.  I like the site and I believe it has potential to be a hit with buyers eventually.  I'm looking forward to finding out more about how it works.  You can keep going on about 'buyers this' and 'buyers that' but you're just guessing like anyone else.  It's clear that you're the type that likes to play it safe and won't join a site like this no matter what.  I'm a risk taker and I don't consider risking $120 for a year much of a big deal.  I've betted way more than that on a horse race.  Betting it on my business is worth it to me.  If it doesn't pan out, well at least I gave it a go. 
You've got me wrong.  I can be a big risk taker.  I gave up my steady well paid job back in 2001 for a £20 bet, when someone told me I wouldn't dare do it  I've not had a proper job since.  Spent a few years gambling on the stock market before finding microstock.  It's lucky I don't need a lot of money to live on :)  I'm interested in PicturEngine or I would ignore this thread but I really don't like losing money.  I can do that on poker and horses.  If I think they're going to increase my earnings by more than $40 a month, I might sign up but there's lots of potential problems I can see that are putting me off at the moment.  If they come back with some good answers to some of the things discussed here, I might be taking a risk on them.  $480 is much less than I have risked on a daily basis for many years.

The risk is different for different people.  I have no idea about your income or your standards of living so risking $480 might be way more than 4 times riskier than me risking $120.  That's fair enough and I understand people will be reluctant to sign up.  I'm excited about this because with all the negatives surrounding Microstock lately, I'm thinking of throwing in the towel on all of them eventually but I'd like to replace that income somehow by selling direct only.  I see this as an huge opportunity for me to do that in the future, as it will allow me to compete with the big guns. 

You and others have mentioned that you wanted a direct only site or a site for direct only with a universal system.  That's what I wanted initially but this is very limiting for buyers who will only see images from photographers selling direct.  They'll lose interest so it wouldn't work unless all photographers were selling direct.  This model (PicturEngine) could potentially work for buyers so it gives me great hope that either I can eventually let go of the microstock industry entirely or that this will keep the micros in check and stop them reducing our commissions.  If the site takes off, even if contributors don't participate, it will force them to think about where they upload their stock to.  If their images on this site are all linking to Deposit Photos, they might leave them or stop uploading to them and only upload on the sites that give them a better return. 

I appreciate your concerns over the site but most of your questions are based around what buyers will do.  We'll never get that answered unless the site is up and running.  Even then, buyers won't flock to the site right away no matter how good it is.  I'm willing to stick it out and support it even if it means being out of pocket.  The hope of this model replacing the current one is good enough for me for now. 

There are a few things with the site that I'd like changed.  For instance, I'd like to see page numbers.  When I do a search and scroll down the page, as the images load, the page keep flickering and moving up which is very frustrating.  Page numbers will sort that out.  I'd like to see how the sim search will work as well. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 29, 2012, 02:01
$480 isn't much but if it isn't going to make me a profit, I would rather spend it on a lens.  I want to see PicturEngine work because I'm slowly building a big portfolio of photos that are only on alamy.  This could be a good way for more buyers to find my photos there.  But I don't need to pay anything for that.  I would make a higher commission selling direct but I'm not going to start doing that just yet.  When ktools has PhotoStore 4 available,  I'll have a look at it.  $120 is less of a punt but I would still like to get a return on my money.  I still feel bad at wasting £10 on another site.

I don't see anything wrong in taking an educated guess about how buyers will look at PicturEngine.  Having done this for almost 6 years, I like to try and think like I'm an image buyer.  I might not be able to make accurate forecasts all the time but most successful business people asses things and go with their gut instinct.  I'm not one of them or I wouldn't be here but I don't think it's a bad thing to do.  It would be much better if buyers came here and told us what they think but unfortunately that doesn't happen often enough.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: qwerty on May 29, 2012, 02:36
It would be better of instead of picture engine linking to the site where the image is uploaded to first that it was linked to a site that you could nominate the site that you want to be displayed. i.e the one that gives you the most money per sale (or % if you want to direct your sales that way)

 (how does linking to the "first site" work anyway if I upload to all sites on the same day, first site to approve, first to index ?)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 29, 2012, 05:37
$480 isn't much but if it isn't going to make me a profit, I would rather spend it on a lens.  I want to see PicturEngine work because I'm slowly building a big portfolio of photos that are only on alamy.  This could be a good way for more buyers to find my photos there.  But I don't need to pay anything for that.  I would make a higher commission selling direct but I'm not going to start doing that just yet.  When ktools has PhotoStore 4 available,  I'll have a look at it.  $120 is less of a punt but I would still like to get a return on my money.  I still feel bad at wasting £10 on another site.

I don't see anything wrong in taking an educated guess about how buyers will look at PicturEngine.  Having done this for almost 6 years, I like to try and think like I'm an image buyer.  I might not be able to make accurate forecasts all the time but most successful business people asses things and go with their gut instinct.  I'm not one of them or I wouldn't be here but I don't think it's a bad thing to do.  It would be much better if buyers came here and told us what they think but unfortunately that doesn't happen often enough.

Well you can go by your gut instinct but I'm going to go by his claim of surveying 40,000 buyers ;)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 29, 2012, 05:40
It would be better of instead of picture engine linking to the site where the image is uploaded to first that it was linked to a site that you could nominate the site that you want to be displayed. i.e the one that gives you the most money per sale (or % if you want to direct your sales that way)

 (how does linking to the "first site" work anyway if I upload to all sites on the same day, first site to approve, first to index ?)

That's a great idea! Maybe they could introduce that as another way a photographer can sign up for a smaller monthly fee.  They'll get more support that way.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 29, 2012, 14:12
Hi Lisa,
Please find your answers in bold below.

Justin, thanks a lot for answering my questions above.  This all sounds quite promising.   I just have a couple more questions before making a final decision:

If you are representing agencies, as well as artists, do you delete the duplicates from the agencies when an artist signs up with their own site?    If I am paying to have my images searchable on the site, I don't want buyers to be finding and buying my images from the agencies instead. 

We use a visual comparison algorithm to identify when you upload an image that is also located at an agency (other non visual considerations are also taken into account to verify the match).  Once confirmed that you are the originating photographer, we remove the image from agency record in the active search and direct the end user directly to your image.  Duplicate images was the biggest complaint we received from image buyers during our market research, and it is fundamental to what makes PicturEngine unique.

Also, if I were to sign up for the advertising function, at $10/month, but a year from now discover that you have brought in enough sales to justify upgrading to the $40/month account, would that rate still be locked in, or would I have to pay whatever the going rate is for the plan at that time?

We are offering the beta discount for those helping with and participating in our beta.  The Advertising Only subscription does not really “do” anything to help with the beta.  You supply a link to your platform and we pull the images, that's it.  The Advertising Only subscription is very simple (and affordable).
If you had a RM subscription and participated in the beta, then wanted to up upgrade to a RM/RF subscription we could definitely extend the beta price down the road, but not with the Advertising Only subscription.


Lastly, the concern I have is that if you are representing agencies, this might conflict with your representation of artists.  Agencies certainly have deep pockets and can pay more for premium placement, if you should decide to offer that type of service. 

You cannot pay to gain a higher ranking in the PicturEngine search, period.  There is NO premium/paid placement.  These are my core values and the values of the platform I built.  Image buyers will NOT use the platform if it has a biased search.

Stay ahead of the curve,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 29, 2012, 14:17
Here's another question for Justin.  How do you feel about Pinterest? :)  I hope you won't be adding a button under each image.

Hi grafix04,
I think Pinterest still needs some work before it has applications in our industry.

JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Equus on May 29, 2012, 15:16
Justin, thanks for answering some of our questions, but I feel that you still haven't answered my main question, which is what do I get for my $40? Presumably, you would be hosting my images on your site, but I would like a clear answer on that. Do you have FTP? Would I need to categorise? Just knowing a bit more would be helpful.
I think this is a great idea and would love to be involved from the beginning, but I'm a cautious person. If I could pay monthly, I'd be much keener to join than if I had to pay $480 up front. Is that a possibility?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 29, 2012, 15:57
Hello Justin

I tried to sign up for the advertising only but the platform Smugmug I use is not available to choose from. How should I proceed?
Cheers

MicrostockExp,
Please email photographer_relations at PicturEngine dot com with the suggestion of adding Smugmug.  If enough people on the platform want to be included, we will add it to the Advertising Only options. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 29, 2012, 16:01
So if someone buys a file we have with an agency, but we haven't opted to pay them anything, they get nothing?

Hi ShadySue,
You are correct.  Just like Google, PicturEngine has options for both buyer and seller.  We use the same (or very similar) business model:

1. You can search for free on Google and PicturEngine,  and when you login to the search on Google and PicturEngine, your search results are tailored to your searching preferences, the more you search the better your results become.

2. Just like Google, if you have an established company (an agency over a million images), you will show up in the “organic” results and pay nothing.

3. If you are a smaller agency (under a million images) or a photographer with a sales platform, you can pay for Advertising Only and be included alongside the organic results.  Unlike Google, your results are mixed in and not posted on the side, PicturEngine has NO paid placement.  Your images are ranked just like all of the others in the organic results.

4. Similar to selling on Amazon or using the Google cart, you can opt to use our sales and distribution platform to skip the steps of making and maintaining your own sales platform.  Our sales and distribution platform has many options to help you get your images online and selling fast. 

We are not reinventing the wheel here.  You can look around and see other industries are very successful with this model.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 29, 2012, 17:23
Justin, thank you again for your thorough answers to our questions.  I, for one, will be signing up for the advertising plan.  Hopefully it will return much more than the nominal $120 fee over the next year.  :)

ETA:  Okay, I'm confused.  The only "platforms" listed are photoshelter, stockpipeline, licensestream, rightspro, and photodeck.  Don't you have functionality to sign up with my own, self-hosted site?  (Ktools)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 29, 2012, 17:35
Justin pretty impressive actually, thanks for showing us more PE, when do you think it will launch? what will be the price after? the 40$ starts in which month? where do we upload? thanks again for all your effort
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 29, 2012, 21:27
I just did a Google searching for keywords on my best selling area. It comes up with a number of my images in the first couple of pages. Interestingly they are all either photos in use or from 123rf or shutterstock. Maybe someone can explain why other agencies don't place as highly.

If the PicturEngine search provides customers with what they want quickly, based on some great best match algorithm that is superior to the search they can do on a site then some people will use it.

I can see that there are issue however with buyers who will be confronted with images at microstock prices, mid level prices and some at much higher. If I was on a budget (or cheap) I wouldn't want to wade through looking at images above my price range. Maybe this is aimed at the higher end of the market. 

This site may be of great benefit to some contributors but I can't see it being worth $40+ per month for me at the moment.

I understand that $40 a month seems a little steep for an unproven site, but this is totally different from anything else we've had.  We do a lot of complaining about the agencies squeezing the life out of contributors and now we have something new that could revolutionize the industry.  For 100% commissions, I'm more than willing to pay $40 a month.  Besides, aren't we paying each agency much more than $40 a month?  If you make $200 a month at an agency that pays 20% commission, then you are, in essence, paying that agency $800 a month.  And that's just one agency!

Danny,
You make a great point!  This is exactly what our photographer surveys have shown.  PicturEngine is very affordable when you look at the numbers. 

You are already ahead of the curve!
JB

I will get to more of these tomorrow my time is limited.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on May 30, 2012, 01:47
....PicturEngine is very affordable when you look at the numbers.  
Perhaps when you're established but not for a new site.  If I pay $40 a month, you need to sell at least $80 a month or you aren't beating the commission percentage I get with sites like alamy, Stockfresh and Graphic Leftovers.  I haven't seen a new site that hasn't spent a lot of money on marketing generate anywhere near $40 a month from my portfolio.  Most of them take years generating sales and they are unlikely to ever reach $40 a month.

If you really think this is going to take off, why are contributors having to fund the start up of the site?  Waive the fees until there are enough sales to pay for them.  Have a temporary 50% commission for the first year.  You'll get lots more interest from contributors who will recommend the site to buyers.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 30, 2012, 10:34
If you really think this is going to take off, why are contributors having to fund the start up of the site?  Waive the fees until there are enough sales to pay for them.  Have a temporary 50% commission for the first year.  You'll get lots more interest from contributors who will recommend the site to buyers.

I agree! this has never happened before, in a different way CreativeWarehouse is asking for funds to build a website too, for us contributors is very unusual and in a certain way we think its dodgy, sure PE ain´t
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 30, 2012, 10:36
It would be better of instead of picture engine linking to the site where the image is uploaded to first that it was linked to a site that you could nominate the site that you want to be displayed. i.e the one that gives you the most money per sale (or % if you want to direct your sales that way)

 (how does linking to the "first site" work anyway if I upload to all sites on the same day, first site to approve, first to index ?)

Qwerty,
That is a good idea.  I see that becoming an option for the Advertising Only subscription.  You could choose an agency to which you want us to direct buyers, however any agency you choose will still take a commission, whereas we do not take any commission and only charge a flat fee.

Note to others on how we choose where to send the buyers:
We all know the current system of searching for images is flawed and broken.  Buyers have told us (via 16,000+ returned surveys) that on average they search 12 agencies to find a single image to use for a project.  They need to be thorough to make sure they find the best image for the job, so they first try to search a base set of agencies to make sure they see “everything.”  Buyers most often complain that "the same images are at all of the agencies."  Now, we all know that's not possible, as some agencies are exclusive, BUT “the client is always right” and their perception is just as real as the facts.  They see the same (or very similar) images everywhere so that's the first problem we solved. 

With that said, we set out to eliminate the "duplication factor.”  You should know first, PicturEngine does NOT compare prices.  If the SAME image is unfortunately located at 10 different agencies, we only give the buyer 1 choice.  To make the decision on which images to send the buyer, we attempt to discern where the image was uploaded FIRST and serve that location to the buyer.  If the image was uploaded the same day to multiple agencies, then we use a random calculation to choose the winner.  We make this determination when image records enter our database, not within our search results as the user is searching, which speeds the searching process. The only exception is, when the seller is one of our PicturEngine photographers and has listed the exact same image in his/her PicturEngine account.  In this case, we believe that both the buyer and the seller are benefitting by directing the buyer directly to the PicturEngine seller on PicturEngine, as we take no commission.  We do take care of our own in this case.   I'm not saying there is any bias in the search, I am ONLY referring to duplicates at multiple agencies and when the exact same image is uploaded to our platform.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 30, 2012, 10:40
Justin, thanks for answering some of our questions, but I feel that you still haven't answered my main question, which is what do I get for my $40? Presumably, you would be hosting my images on your site, but I would like a clear answer on that. Do you have FTP?
Would I need to categorise? Just knowing a bit more would be helpful.  I think this is a great idea and would love to be involved from the beginning, but I'm a cautious person.  If I could pay monthly, I'd be much keener to join than if I had to pay $480 up front. Is that a possibility?


Hi Equus,
All of these questions are answered in our interactive FAQ section, support.picturengine.com
I will attach some links below for your reference.
“what do I get for my $40?”
http://j.mp/zJkWt4 (http://j.mp/zJkWt4) - What do you get?
http://j.mp/HMtFAv (http://j.mp/HMtFAv) - Will you help me keyword?
http://j.mp/Az3MdA (http://j.mp/Az3MdA) - Can I set my own pricing?

“Presumably, you would be hosting my images on your site, but I would like a clear answer on that. Do you have FTP?”
http://j.mp/A5DYQ2 (http://j.mp/A5DYQ2) - Image storage?
http://j.mp/H7ifvr (http://j.mp/H7ifvr) -  How do I upload images?
http://j.mp/HvVD40 (http://j.mp/HvVD40) - What size photos do I need to upload?

“If I could pay monthly, I'd be much keener to join than if I had to pay $480 up front. Is that a possibility?”

Absolutely, after the photographer beta, you will have the option to spread out the payments, but at a higher overall cost (annual payments will be discounted).  Our beta photographers are receiving the “best deal” we will ever offer.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 30, 2012, 10:41
Justin, thank you again for your thorough answers to our questions.  I, for one, will be signing up for the advertising plan.  Hopefully it will return much more than the nominal $120 fee over the next year.  :)

ETA:  Okay, I'm confused.  The only "platforms" listed are photoshelter, stockpipeline, licensestream, rightspro, and photodeck.  Don't you have functionality to sign up with my own, self-hosted site?  (Ktools)

Lisa,
Correct, if you have your own custom site or platform, currently not listed as one of our supported platforms, you will need to go the agency route (register as an agency) and we will provide an estimate for making a data importer for your site.  We won’t know the cost until we look at your site and its database, structure, etc.

We cover the cost for the major platforms initial implementations because we can distribute the up front cost over many users (we had more than 10 users per platform ask to be included on the ones currently listed).  If you know of more users with Ktools (10+), please ask them to join you when registering.  This will bring your costs down and we will include your platform in our Advertising Only plan. 

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 30, 2012, 10:45
ETA:  Okay, I'm confused.  The only "platforms" listed are photoshelter, stockpipeline, licensestream, rightspro, and photodeck.  Don't you have functionality to sign up with my own, self-hosted site?  (Ktools)

Justin, you must have been answering me the same time I was posting this.  
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 30, 2012, 10:55
Justin pretty impressive actually, thanks for showing us more PE, when do you think it will launch? what will be the price after? the 40$ starts in which month? where do we upload? thanks again for all your effort


luissantos84
Please check out the FAQs http://support.picturengine.com/ (http://support.picturengine.com/) :
http://j.mp/HDEl6s (http://j.mp/HDEl6s) - When will the site be "live?"
http://j.mp/I4XfUk (http://j.mp/I4XfUk) - When does my 1 year subscription begin?
http://j.mp/A5DYQ2 (http://j.mp/A5DYQ2) -  “where do we upload?”

I think I am caught up on questions, please let me know if I have missed any.  Please check the FAQs first :)

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on May 30, 2012, 11:04
Buyers most often complain that "the same images are at all of the agencies."  Now, we all know that's not possible, as some agencies are exclusive, BUT “the client is always right” and their perception is just as real as the facts.  They see the same (or very similar) images everywhere so that's the first problem we solved. 
So if you're solving the 'very similar' issue, how are you going to decide whose 'isolated red apple against white' (gazillions within each and between all the agencies) is going to be featured?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on May 30, 2012, 11:19
Justin, thank you again for your thorough answers to our questions.  I, for one, will be signing up for the advertising plan.  Hopefully it will return much more than the nominal $120 fee over the next year.  :)

ETA:  Okay, I'm confused.  The only "platforms" listed are photoshelter, stockpipeline, licensestream, rightspro, and photodeck.  Don't you have functionality to sign up with my own, self-hosted site?  (Ktools)

Lisa,
Correct, if you have your own custom site or platform, currently not listed as one of our supported platforms, you will need to go the agency route (register as an agency) and we will provide an estimate for making a data importer for your site.  We won’t know the cost until we look at your site and its database, structure, etc.

We cover the cost for the major platforms initial implementations because we can distribute the up front cost over many users (we had more than 10 users per platform ask to be included on the ones currently listed).  If you know of more users with Ktools (10+), please ask them to join you when registering.  This will bring your costs down and we will include your platform in our Advertising Only plan. 

Best,
JB

Wait, what?  Why would we sign up as agents, we're photographers.  On the support page is says to sign up as 'Photographer Advertising Only and now you say to sign up as Agents.  I'm not so sure you know what you're doing.  So it's not $10 a month now?  Now it's whatever you quote us on an individual basis?  hmmm, I'm losing interest.

A lot of people here use ktools.  If you had done your homework, you would have known that and prepared for that platform.  I'm afraid that just threw my confidence in you and your site out the window.  I'm definitely not signing up during beta.  As someone else mentioned, you should be begging us to sign up for free on a trial basis for the first year till you get the system working and until you attract buyers.  If you had us on board, we would promote the site and you'd get your buyers faster.  There are too many unknowns.  

I'll take my chances and wait for the site to launch.  Who knows, you might be desperate for photographers by then and drop your prices.  Which are definitely too high for an unknown, unproven system.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on May 30, 2012, 11:47
Justin, thank you again for your thorough answers to our questions.  I, for one, will be signing up for the advertising plan.  Hopefully it will return much more than the nominal $120 fee over the next year.  :)

ETA:  Okay, I'm confused.  The only "platforms" listed are photoshelter, stockpipeline, licensestream, rightspro, and photodeck.  Don't you have functionality to sign up with my own, self-hosted site?  (Ktools)

Lisa,
Correct, if you have your own custom site or platform, currently not listed as one of our supported platforms, you will need to go the agency route (register as an agency) and we will provide an estimate for making a data importer for your site.  We won’t know the cost until we look at your site and its database, structure, etc.

We cover the cost for the major platforms initial implementations because we can distribute the up front cost over many users (we had more than 10 users per platform ask to be included on the ones currently listed).  If you know of more users with Ktools (10+), please ask them to join you when registering.  This will bring your costs down and we will include your platform in our Advertising Only plan.  

Best,
JB

Wait, what?  Why would we sign up as agents, we're photographers.  On the support page is says to sign up as 'Photographer Advertising Only and now you say to sign up as Agents.  I'm not so sure you know what you're doing.  So it's not $10 a month now?  Now it's whatever you quote us on an individual basis?  hmmm, I'm losing interest.

A lot of people here use ktools.  If you had done your homework, you would have known that and prepared for that platform.  I'm afraid that just threw my confidence in you and your site out the window.  I'm definitely not signing up during beta.  As someone else mentioned, you should be begging us to sign up for free on a trial basis for the first year till you get the system working and until you attract buyers.  If you had us on board, we would promote the site and you'd get your buyers faster.  There are too many unknowns.  

I'll take my chances and wait for the site to launch.  Who knows, you might be desperate for photographers by then and drop your prices.  Which are definitely too high for an unknown, unproven system.

Well put Grafix 04.

Looks like it is a non-starter for me too.  I am not an agency.  I am an individual photographer - not even a microstock factory.  Paying agency rates to be included in your search engine is not feasible.  

I suspect you will find that may of us have designed our own self-hosted sites using Ktools.  Unless you find a way to include our sites in your advertising plan, you will be missing out on a large segment of the market.  

Please let us know when you decide to incorporate the functionality to include photographers who have their own sites, or include Ktools as one of your platforms.

  
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: niserin on May 31, 2012, 08:07
I am reposting it because it is sooo well put. There should a "like" option on this forum ;).

Quote
I'm definitely not signing up during beta.  As someone else mentioned, you should be begging us to sign up for free on a trial basis for the first year till you get the system working and until you attract buyers.  If you had us on board, we would promote the site and you'd get your buyers faster.  There are too many unknowns. 

I'll take my chances and wait for the site to launch.  Who knows, you might be desperate for photographers by then and drop your prices.  Which are definitely too high for an unknown, unproven system.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: velocicarpo on May 31, 2012, 09:38
As soon as the search is stable I will sign up.

I like the possibility too to sign up as a agency. Since some time I think about setting up a Ktools site or something similar and this is another marketing opportunity. The site alone would be useless without lots of money for Ads etc. but incorporated into a site like this may bring traffic.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Lagereek on May 31, 2012, 11:10
With due respect, etc, etc. The idea is great but not solid, to me this is at the moment,  just another search-engine, another best match?, and as You yourself said earlier, all agencies searches are totally messed up. So hows this one holding up, in future I mean?
I have yet, after 25 years in this business, to see just a "good" search, perfect, will never happen.

Its also true, we are not agents, but represented by agents,  thats a big differance indeed. Have in mind, as a commercial, dayrate photographer the commission I pay to a sole, exclusive gaent is between 15-25%  and then we are talking thousands of dollars generated by a sole agent.

best.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on May 31, 2012, 11:25
Seems to me that the service will have an incentive to "feature" more prominently those entities that pay it the highest monthly fees. That isn't going to get the buyers the best images or help an individual photographer with great images but which pays a low fee.

And none of this says (I may have skipped as I did skim this) how this service is going to attract eyeballs. As we know, that costs money and if you don't spend any you get StockFresh - great site with no buyers.

The model I can get my head around is where both the agency/service and the contributor make money out of the same thing. With this model, it appears that the service makes money by attracting more punters to pay more fees, not by selling more of my images.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on May 31, 2012, 19:57
The model I can get my head around is where both the agency/service and the contributor make money out of the same thing. With this model, it appears that the service makes money by attracting more punters to pay more fees, not by selling more of my images.

I would love not to agree but without having it live it will be very hard to have other thoughts, I can easily think that perhaps 5 to 10 sales / month would pay the 40$ but actually we need to pay 480$ at once, it doesn´t motivate us unless we have somekind of integration/beta period to see if it works or not

that said I believe this could be a very nice idea (which could have been "done" by Yuri, but why would he?)

honestly I don´t understand why PE doesn´t even want 1% of the sales, its too good to be true..
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 31, 2012, 22:29
Buyers most often complain that "the same images are at all of the agencies."  Now, we all know that's not possible, as some agencies are exclusive, BUT “the client is always right” and their perception is just as real as the facts.  They see the same (or very similar) images everywhere so that's the first problem we solved. 
So if you're solving the 'very similar' issue, how are you going to decide whose 'isolated red apple against white' (gazillions within each and between all the agencies) is going to be featured?

Hi Sue,
The search order is determined by the image buyer’s interactions with their search and results.  Just like traditional search engines (NOT photo agencies), we pay special attention to the way users interact with our search and results.  Some traditional photo agencies sort results by various means giving extra weight to such things as image age, amount of clicks or previews, number of downloads or purchases; while other agencies rely solely on keywords, captions etc.  PicturEngine takes everything into consideration.  We have learned from the search giants like Google, that not all users searching our platform are the same.  Some are very simple and to the point and rarely stray off course, while others start a search with a general concept and end up purchasing something entirely different, therefore all of these factors and more are considered when producing our search results.  For some, searching for images is a journey and for others it is a destination, therefore one search cannot fit all as it currently does in the traditional stock photo world.  The PicturEngine search includes, but is not limited to, traditional embedded metadata (captions, keywords, etc), visual comparisons / components / concepts, color, image size and orientation, direct and passive user input, and ranking (plus a lot more).  I am not here to give away the secrets of providing a great search, but I will say that it is not easy and it took years of testing and trials to develop, and we are always making improvements.

For PicturEngine, search is not just a “term,” but a journey and destination in one.  We are dealing with very creative minds and often times a project ends before it begins with a simple discovery search.  For instance, using your example, a client may say to a creative (art buyer) that they want an 'isolated red apple against white' and that may truly be where the journey begins, but often times, as you so delicately pointed out, there are “gazillions” of these images at agencies.  It is our job as a search engine (NOT an agency) to minimize the clutter and duplication and focus on the uniqueness and separateness of those images that are in fact different and not focus so much on those that are the same.  We do utilize sim matching technology and photographers’ images that are unfortunately uploaded to multiple agencies are consolidated and only shown once.  We also consolidate images from the same photographer that are very near sims (from the same shoot, etc.), by stacking the results in groups (a simple hover over the stack unstacks them to display to the user), thus giving the one on the journey, the creative, an uncluttered view of the world of stock photography.  PicturEngine is unique and will fast become the place to search for stock photography.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on May 31, 2012, 22:34
Hi everyone using Ktools, 
We are talking with Ktools and asking them to build a data exporter for the PicturEngine platform.  If you are using Ktools, please send them an email letting them know you are interested in this plugin and to please accelerate the development process.  This will allow us to easily add Ktools to our Advertising Only platform.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on June 01, 2012, 07:05
Hi everyone using Ktools, 
We are talking with Ktools and asking them to build a data exporter for the PicturEngine platform.  If you are using Ktools, please send them an email letting them know you are interested in this plugin and to please accelerate the development process.  This will allow us to easily add Ktools to our Advertising Only platform.

Best,
JB

You've been working on this project for four years?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ShadySue on June 01, 2012, 07:19
...
 We do utilize sim matching technology and photographers’ images that are unfortunately uploaded to multiple agencies are consolidated and only shown once.  We also consolidate images from the same photographer that are very near sims (from the same shoot, etc.), by stacking the results in groups (a simple hover over the stack unstacks them to display to the user), thus giving the one on the journey, the creative, an uncluttered view of the world of stock photography.  PicturEngine is unique and will fast become the place to search for stock photography.

Best,
JB

At what stage are the above going to be implemented?
On a simple search for apple currently, there are three 'near similars' by the same photographer (girl in white coat holding apple) not stacked, and two virtual identicals (same photo of green apple with water drops close up against white, but with a slightly different colour balance) both showing, next to each other.

I'm not sure who this search is benefitting.
Buyers? Get a much wider range of images, but should only see one version of each photo, so don't know if they could get the same pic elsewhere at a better deal (which is impossible to quantify anyway).
Sellers? Could be beneficial to togs who sell independently as they could otherwise find it difficult to get traffic unless they already have a good fan base. But not so advantageous for someone who only sells through distributor/s: now their hypothetical 'red apple against white' is competing against all the others from every agency + independents rather than just those on the agency/ies they chose to upload to. More competition, harder to get sales if all buyers switched to your system.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on June 01, 2012, 18:25
Hi everyone using Ktools, 
We are talking with Ktools and asking them to build a data exporter for the PicturEngine platform.  If you are using Ktools, please send them an email letting them know you are interested in this plugin and to please accelerate the development process.  This will allow us to easily add Ktools to our Advertising Only platform.

Best,
JB

Sounds good.  If this comes through I would still be interested in trying it out. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on June 11, 2012, 08:03
I just had another peak at the site to see if there's been any progress and noticed a couple of photographers have signed up.  I also noticed a big problem with their images.

When you right-click on an image from a photographer – one that has paid $40/month - you can access the image that's larger than the thumb without a watermark.  Here’s one as an example:

http://c328791.r91.cf1.rackcdn.com/Kae0110363416.jpg (http://c328791.r91.cf1.rackcdn.com/Kae0110363416.jpg)

The right-click should link to the small thumb the same way it does on micro agents.  Check Shutterstock and hover over an image, then right-click, grab the image URL and you'll see that it links back to the small thumb and the hover image is watermarked.  What picturengine is displaying isn't protecting the photographers' images.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on June 11, 2012, 09:36
That's because he isn't hosting the images.  They're using the thumbs from the peoples' sites, and resizing them in the browser with the html, which is why they look bad when displayed on PE.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on June 11, 2012, 10:31
That's because he isn't hosting the images.  They're using the thumbs from the peoples' sites, and resizing them in the browser with the html, which is why they look bad when displayed on PE.


Sean, that's for the advertising only plan.  The $40/month plan is for those photographers who don't have their own site and want to sell directly through PicturEngine.  The images are uploaded through the PE website and hosted at a third party.

I'll walk you (or others) through my previous example.  For the image I mentioned above, here is the link to it with the watermark.

http://www.picturengine.com/beta/stock_photo_detail/image/image-Kae0110363416.html (http://www.picturengine.com/beta/stock_photo_detail/image/image-Kae0110363416.html)

If you right-click and grab the image URL, it has the watermark and it is all good here:

http://c328792.r92.cf1.rackcdn.com/Kae0110363416.jpg (http://c328792.r92.cf1.rackcdn.com/Kae0110363416.jpg)

However when you find the image during a search as I've done here (http://www.picturengine.com/search?query=venice%20door). If you right-click on it and grab the image URL, you get the a larger image without a watermark.  It's not as large as the watermarked image above but I believe it's way too large to be displayed without a watermark.  When you right-click on an image on the micros during a search, you get the tiny thumbnail.  It should be the same here.  The buyers should only be able to see the larger watermarked version of the image on the page where they are asked to pay for it.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on June 11, 2012, 11:57
Sorry - I was in a hurry and didn't read the post thoroughly...
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on June 11, 2012, 17:19
No problems :)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on August 02, 2012, 12:34
Hi All,
If there’s a question I have not sufficiently answered, please ask it again.   I don’t “answer” rhetorical questions and I haven’t the time to answer questions that I’ve already answered, or ones easily found within our FAQ support center.

Thanks for your support!
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on August 02, 2012, 13:31
[DELETED] Whoops. Old post. Anyway...

Yeah, I was reading through the FAQ. Sounds interesting and the prices seem reasonable. Do you have an ETA for when the site will go out of beta?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on August 03, 2012, 10:32
[DELETED] Whoops. Old post. Anyway...

Yeah, I was reading through the FAQ. Sounds interesting and the prices seem reasonable. Do you have an ETA for when the site will go out of beta?


Hi cthoman,
Here is the link answering the question on our FAQs -
When will the site be "live?" http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/478852-when-will-the-site-be-%22live-%22 (http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/478852-when-will-the-site-be-%22live-%22)

Here is our FAQ Support center - http://support.picturengine.com/ (http://support.picturengine.com/)

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: wordplanet on August 03, 2012, 12:43
Justin:

This sounds very interesting. I read through all the posts here and the FAQs on your site and just have a couple very specific questions that I think others might have as well, so I'm asking them here. I'm pretty convinced that it's worth signing up during your beta period but want to be sure I understand exactly how this will work.

My site is with Photoshelter. I have portfolio images on there that are not available for licensing as well as stock images available  for licensing - some RM and some RF. I also license photos through various traditional and microstock agencies. If I sign up for the $10/month plan, am I correct that the only photos from my site that you will index are those available as RM, and obviously priced for licensing? Do I need to switch to the $40 plan if I want to offer my RF images from my site directly rather than from the agencies even though I have my own sales platform? 

You said you've been doing a lot of testing/polling. Are most of those you've polled traditional RM buyers or are they primarily microstock buyers - or, better yet, what's the percentage of each? I know many buyers purchase both trad and micro - but I'm just wondering which side of the business you'll be pulling most of your buyers from. 

Sounds like this could be a great way to get more traffic on my site, so looking forward to your response. Thanks.

-Marianne
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: wordplanet on August 03, 2012, 13:01
Here's another article I found about picturengine:
http://timmcguireimages.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/picturengine-com-will-disrupt-status-quo/#comment-263 (http://timmcguireimages.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/picturengine-com-will-disrupt-status-quo/#comment-263)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on August 03, 2012, 15:08
Hi Marianne,
The Advertising Only platform is not license specific.  When a buyer clicks your image within the PicturEngine search results, they are sent directly to your platform to license the image, regardless of license type. 

See our FAQs for the Advertising Only platform:
http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/topics/189995-photographer-advertising-only/articles (http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/topics/189995-photographer-advertising-only/articles)

All buyers surveyed were active image buyers from my traditional RM agencies, Corner House Stock Photo and Picturesque.  Many of our buyers actively license all types of images for different clients with various needs.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: leaf on August 03, 2012, 18:09
One post removed (and user banned for a week) for unnecessary rude language and personal attacks.  As always, disagreeing is fine (and welcomed) but posts should still be respectful.  Crude language and personal attacks are simply unnecessary.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on August 03, 2012, 18:12
Justin, still waiting for word of if/when Ktools compatibility will be added.  Until then, a no go for me. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sc on August 03, 2012, 19:20
Justin, still waiting for word of if/when Ktools compatibility will be added.  Until then, a no go for me. 

Also SmugMug.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: leaf on August 04, 2012, 00:37
Justin, still waiting for word of if/when Ktools compatibility will be added.  Until then, a no go for me. 

agreed.  I think that would be a big selling point for both you and ktools
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: wordplanet on August 06, 2012, 14:17
Hi Marianne,
The Advertising Only platform is not license specific.  When a buyer clicks your image within the PicturEngine search results, they are sent directly to your platform to license the image, regardless of license type. 
All buyers surveyed were active image buyers from my traditional RM agencies, Corner House Stock Photo and Picturesque.  Many of our buyers actively license all types of images for different clients with various needs.

Best,
JB

Thanks. I just signed up.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on August 10, 2012, 11:06
Hi MSG,
Until now we’ve focused primarily on the Photographer RM and RM/RF advertising, sales, and distribution platform.  The photographer platform is nearing completion and we are now beginning to focus on the Advertising Only.  Each step through our Beta brings us one step closer to launching. 

If you are interested in advertising your current distribution platform with our Advertising Only solution and do not see your platform listed when registering, please email [email protected] including the platform name in the title of the email, such as “AO List KTools,”  “AO List SmugMug,” etc.  (Please do NOT send any other correspondence to this email address.)  This type of participation is vital to speed up development of your platform and encourage swift action from the various platforms we are implementing.

If your platform is currently listed, I encourage you to register now and show your support, as well as lock-in your Beta rate for the future.  At this time, there is NO CHARGE to register for Advertising Only, until we are ready to launch and actually advertise PicturEngine.  Those who have registered for Advertising Only will receive a PayPal subscription link via email shortly prior to launch.  Once the subscription link is paid, your images will be included, and your rate is locked in.  If you choose not to activate your account, your account will be deleted the day we go live and you can register at a higher price after we launch.

We are looking forward to a big launch soon and many successful years ahead.

Stay ahead of the curve!
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Lagereek on August 10, 2012, 11:20
Frankly Justin,  you could really be on to something here. Since its a collective pool I cant see why buyers should not use it, saves them going through a heck of a lot of irrelevant stuff. Having said that, I presume theres no editing or anything on your part, so in practice, any port is welcome as long as they pay their fee? The problem is then that after some time lots of second rate material and bad keywordings could yet again take up the space? have I got this right BTW? and in the long run it could be a pool of everything and yet nothing. One of the problems in a large micro-agency, is to constantly flaunt good, commercial and saleable images.

best.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on August 10, 2012, 13:34
Sounds good Justin.  Glad you are looking into supporting Ktools.  I just sent in my AO Ktools e-mail :)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on August 13, 2012, 09:49
Frankly Justin,  you could really be on to something here. Since its a collective pool I cant see why buyers should not use it, saves them going through a heck of a lot of irrelevant stuff. Having said that, I presume theres no editing or anything on your part, so in practice, any port is welcome as long as they pay their fee? The problem is then that after some time lots of second rate material and bad keywordings could yet again take up the space? have I got this right BTW? and in the long run it could be a pool of everything and yet nothing. One of the problems in a large micro-agency, is to constantly flaunt good, commercial and saleable images.

best.


You’re asking a great question here!  A search engine for the industry is exactly what our image buyers asked for, one that is unbiased and free of duplication and clutter.  The process of creating a search engine for the stock photo industry has been challenging, a learning experience. When we initially spidered the world's top agencies, gathering over 300 million search results, we noticed a ton of duplication (just as image buyers were saying, the same images are everywhere), and about 1/3 of the images were exact duplicates.  These duplicates were easily removed using an algorithm to find the base agency for each image(oldest upload). The search results after duplicates are removed yields a more reasonable 180.2 million images, yet still a staggering quantity.  We then focused on the enormous number of sims of the same images / photographer / shoot, etc.  Using visual image recognition, we “stack” these sims to reduce the result count even further, making the search more manageable.  The “stacked” sims are displayed to the user with a special icon, and a simple mouseover “unstacks” and displays all of the visual sims in an appealing way, thus eliminating the user’s need to see the photographer’s whole unedited shoot within their search results.  We’re currently in the process of perfecting the visual sim image stacking.  I roughly estimate that the sim stacking will further reduce the result count by about another 1/3 or more.

After removing the exact duplicates and stacking the visual sims, we initially sort the results using several proprietary algorithms.  We specifically target and suppress images that use stuffed, irrelevant, or inaccurate keywords, and/or any other method of artificially gaining rank within the search results.  We use technology in addition to good old-fashioned humans to tell us the images they like seeing, based upon images added to lightboxes, licensed, etc.  We complete ALL of the above prior to sending the results through our image ranking, learning “suggestion” engine.  Once all of our search features are enabled, you’ll notice the “best” images rising to the top of the search, and the “junk” people aren’t interested in seeing falling to the bottom.  It’s also important to understand that our search and suggestion engine is both site-wide and user specific.  When our individual users search, click, view, add to lightbox and license images, these images will float higher within their individual search results, but not necessarily within the site-wide search results, however when enough users “like” the same types of images, those images will see a rise within the overall results.

So to answer your question, you are correct that technically we don’t do a human edit on directly uploaded images or on images from agencies around the world.  We instead rely on current search engine technology, along with tracking our users’ habits, to make the search the best it can be.  Furthermore, we provide our platform photographers with vital live analytics showing them how their images rank individually and overall, hence assisting their decision making in adjustments to their keywording or removing their lower grade images to help their best images rank higher within the search.

Here is an FAQ that may help too.
http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415614-what-about-editing-and-image-quality-standards- (http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415614-what-about-editing-and-image-quality-standards-)

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cr8tivguy on October 19, 2012, 19:10
Non-exclusive microstock photographers whose images sell frequently on the current microstock sites may want to take a hard look at PicturEngine’s new portal and marketing strategy.. ([url=http://www.picturengine.com]www.picturengine.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturengine.comn[/url]))

This portal has five primary goals:
1 – To make it possible for customers to review, in a single search, all the images included in the major RM, RF and microstock collections as well as images from individual direct contributors to PicturEngine.
2 – To answer customer complaints about finding the same images on multiple sites. To accomplish this they remove all duplicates from every search and only showing each unique image once.
3 - To give individual contributors priority over distributors.
4 – To allow individual photographers to set the price for the use of their images.
5 – To pay photographers 100% of the fees collected for the use of their images.

For more information check out my Selling-Stock.com article ([url]http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/picturengine-a-unique-portal-for-microstocker[/url] ([url]http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/picturengine-a-unique-portal-for-microstocker[/url])) which is available for free for microstockers to review.


Just Checked out www.PictureEngine.com (http://www.PictureEngine.com)
They seem like exactly what I've been talking about. Or something very similar.
Now what we need is to get EVERYONE on board and leave their Agencies!
If this isn't what were talking about then please elaborate.
Thanks
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on October 19, 2012, 21:29
Already on board!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on October 20, 2012, 02:20
How much are people making from PictureEngine.com?  Are they covering their costs?  Are their images being found by buyers?  There's been so little feedback and I wasn't convinced that this was worth using.  It would be great to be proved wrong.  I know this has just started up and its unlikely that people will be making much money from it yet but I didn't want to be paying $40 a month for something that might never make me money.  If they had made it free for the first 6 months, or only taken a commission from sales, most of us would be using it.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on October 20, 2012, 03:29
The site is really slow. Also seems its not for small fish.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on October 20, 2012, 07:55
The site's never been slow for me.  The reason for lack of feedback is it hasn't fully launched yet.  Still in beta phase. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on October 20, 2012, 07:59
This FAQ doesnt make sense:

Quote
When will my Advertising Only images go live on PicturEngine?
Last Updated: Aug 16, 2012 07:36PM CDT
No, with an Advertising Only account you only need to provide PicturEngine with your unique URL or ID to your sales system/platform. 

To qualify for an Advertising Only account, your images MUST be properly keyworded and searchable online, you MUST have production-ready high resolution images available for instant download, and your images MUST have an online pricing calculator.  If you meet all of these criteria, we will create a feed from your sales platform and include your images within our industrywide search results.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cr8tivguy on October 22, 2012, 12:10
After doing a little research on Picture Engine, my first impression is...This is EXACTLY what I'm looking for in regards for ALL of us to leave our Agencies and list our own images, and take back control of our images.

Now migrating all your images to Picture Engine is easy. You set up your own Web site, which is great, because you know all of us our picky and want total control of everything...LOL
So you can be creative and make your own, or like I chose to use PhotoShelter from me. You can use KTools or whom ever you'd like. Price your images your own way, and make 100% of the money owed to you!!!

NOW is the time to JOIN, and LEAVE your AGENCY!!!

OK I know most of you need money, and are scared! I am too, but WE NEED TO STICK TOGETHER if we want to have maximum impact on the market.

Here's my idea!
Set up your website... List it with PictureEngine...If your exclusive with anyone, make sure you change your Agreement with them. Get everything ready to leave your Agency...When Picture Engine has all of the bugs worked out and is ready to launch... Everyone at the same time puts in their 30 day notice to the Agencies all at once...A MASSIVE exit all at the same time.... Now the Agencies have to remove your images from their Library or be liable to be sued! Picture Engine will now be the ONE source for Art Buyers world wide to find images...OUR images that we have 100% control over..

Look we've got to do something... Stock Agencies are treating us worse and worse every year! Their taking more and more of our share of our sales. Enough is enough!!! Let's show them who the BOSS is and fight back and tell them where to stick it!!!

I encourage you to look at your industry, and ask yourself has it gotten better or worse? Are you making more money or less? Are you happy with your Stock Agency?

I think you know the answers, and our only option is to STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK...TAKE CONTROL YOUR IMAGES AND WIN THIS FIGHT!!!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: ClaridgeJ on October 22, 2012, 12:19
Well? dont know really, from 8 this morning up to now, I ve made, 420 bucks. Can picture engine beat that, if I leave all agencies?  doubt it. SS alone stands for 35%.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cr8tivguy on October 22, 2012, 12:28
Well? dont know really, from 8 this morning up to now, I ve made, 420 bucks. Can picture engine beat that, if I leave all agencies?  doubt it. SS alone stands for 35%.

Maybe not today... But ask yourself how much would you have made if you got 100% of the sales!!!
Then you'd be even happier. Yes, I know it's hard... But really 10 years ago, it wasn't possible for us to have our own websites combined on a search engine. We relied on the Stock Agencies to do that. But now it is possible. So 10 years from now ask yourself this question..Where do you think Stock photography will be? I think we will all be in control of our images making more money than we have before. Call me a dreamer...I call myself a visionary!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Equus on October 22, 2012, 12:36
PicturEngine - we first heard about it in April, and at that time it was supposed to launch in 30 - 90 days. It's now 6 months - regular updates from Justin would help keep people interested, I for one am beginning to think it will never happen.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on October 22, 2012, 12:40
NOW is the time to JOIN, and LEAVE your AGENCY!!!

I've already left several agencies, so I'm definitely not against leaving places if I think I'm not getting the best deal or best representation at. That said, I have a few sites that I'm really happy with, so I don't mind paying them for the hard work they do. It's hard to find equitable partners in this business, so I have no desire to cast off the ones that do their job well.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on October 22, 2012, 12:41
oops
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on October 22, 2012, 12:48
After doing a little research on Picture Engine, my first impression is...This is EXACTLY what I'm looking for in regards for ALL of us to leave our Agencies and list our own images, and take back control of our images.

Now migrating all your images to Picture Engine is easy. You set up your own Web site, which is great, because you know all of us our picky and want total control of everything...LOL
So you can be creative and make your own, or like I chose to use PhotoShelter from me. You can use KTools or whom ever you'd like. Price your images your own way, and make 100% of the money owed to you!!!

NOW is the time to JOIN, and LEAVE your AGENCY!!!

OK I know most of you need money, and are scared! I am too, but WE NEED TO STICK TOGETHER if we want to have maximum impact on the market.

Here's my idea!
Set up your website... List it with PictureEngine...If your exclusive with anyone, make sure you change your Agreement with them. Get everything ready to leave your Agency...When Picture Engine has all of the bugs worked out and is ready to launch... Everyone at the same time puts in their 30 day notice to the Agencies all at once...A MASSIVE exit all at the same time.... Now the Agencies have to remove your images from their Library or be liable to be sued! Picture Engine will now be the ONE source for Art Buyers world wide to find images...OUR images that we have 100% control over..

Look we've got to do something... Stock Agencies are treating us worse and worse every year! Their taking more and more of our share of our sales. Enough is enough!!! Let's show them who the BOSS is and fight back and tell them where to stick it!!!

I encourage you to look at your industry, and ask yourself has it gotten better or worse? Are you making more money or less? Are you happy with your Stock Agency?

I think you know the answers, and our only option is to STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK...TAKE CONTROL YOUR IMAGES AND WIN THIS FIGHT!!!
I still don't see why I should be paying Picture Engine when there's no way of telling if it will work or not.  We take all the risk and they make money if the site works or not.  If it's really such a great idea, they should be taking all the risk, knowing they're going to make billions by cornering the stock images market.

If they ever do sort out all the problems and launch the site properly, I'll try uploading to a site with relatively low sales like GLStockImages first.  That wont cost me anything and will be listed free in Picture Engine.  If there's a big boost to my GLStockImages earnings, I'll know Picture Engine is working and can either get my own site, or it might be more sensible for a bunch of us to run one together.  I'm not tempted to leave the other sites, as I know from previous experience that very few others will.  I might as well learn from expensive previous mistakes, instead of doing them again.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: RacePhoto on October 22, 2012, 13:10
oops

Don't slip on the fish guts.  ;)

But there really is a question. If the picture engine puts only one image first and hypothetically (so it won't get answered?) someone has images on 25 different agencies, and they all have subscriptions to the service, which one gets listed? If I was agency X and everything from agency A came up, why would I pay for being included?

As for private inclusion, sounds like a good plan. Hope it works. This would be a way to be weaned off the smaller agencies and drop some that don't pay fair rates or that have been somewhat abusive towards contributors.

All the site needs is people to use it! It turns out to be in simple terms, a unified, simple, search. If I was a buyer, I'd want that.

I might actually start a KTools site just because of this, and I can put all the "CrapStock" up for sale. (agency rejects in other words)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: chromaco on October 22, 2012, 13:49
As far as I understand it, if you don't have your own site PictureEngine directs to the site that had the image first. Based on this information I have been staggering my uploading with priority going to the sites that pay the best rpd. Sites with sub sales get my images last (even though that may only be 30 days later).  If PictureEngine really does take off they will be directing my images to the best paying sites (for me). If it doesn't take off, at least these sites have a bit of a head start on SEO. Either way it doesn't do me much harm (and possibly has a large benefit) to upload to my preferred sites first.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on October 22, 2012, 14:10
As far as I understand it, if you don't have your own site PictureEngine directs to the site that had the image first. Based on this information I have been staggering my uploading with priority going to the sites that pay the best rpd. Sites with sub sales get my images last (even though that may only be 30 days later).  If PictureEngine really does take off they will be directing my images to the best paying sites (for me). If it doesn't take off, at least these sites have a bit of a head start on SEO. Either way it doesn't do me much harm (and possibly has a large benefit) to upload to my preferred sites first.

I got the impression you could still pay and promote your portfolio on a particular agency, but it's been a while since I looked it over. I kind of lost interest when they said they weren't launching (when or if they launch) with illustrations.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: chromaco on October 22, 2012, 15:13
I missed the 'no illustrations part". However, eventually if they ever amount to anything significant, illustrations are very likely to be added. If they do actually make this work, setting up a K-tools site would easily be worth the expense. Not sure about the $40 per month to start, however. Either way it feels like this is a step in the right direction.

Just thinking out loud... I wonder how much impact would it have if everyone with a K-tools account was somehow able to join together in a single search engine?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on October 22, 2012, 18:32
I missed the 'no illustrations part". However, eventually if they ever amount to anything significant, illustrations are very likely to be added. If they do actually make this work, setting up a K-tools site would easily be worth the expense. Not sure about the $40 per month to start, however. Either way it feels like this is a step in the right direction.

Just thinking out loud... I wonder how much impact would it have if everyone with a K-tools account was somehow able to join together in a single search engine?

Have I missed something?  Last I heard PictureEngine doesn't work with the Ktools platform.  If that changes then I would consider signing up. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: chromaco on October 22, 2012, 18:44
Sorry. That was an assumption on my part. Seemed like accepting k-tools sites would be obvious. I don't have my own site yet so I didn't pay as much attention as  I should have. I didn't mean to send out false information. My apologies
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: RacePhoto on October 23, 2012, 11:33
Sorry. That was an assumption on my part. Seemed like accepting k-tools sites would be obvious. I don't have my own site yet so I didn't pay as much attention as  I should have. I didn't mean to send out false information. My apologies

Me too and I just followed the obvious idea that they would support the most popular self-marketing software, since they are trying to appeal to individuals with the 100% proposition.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on October 24, 2012, 11:43
Hi MSG,
PicturEngine is in public beta, meaning that we, along with beta participants, are working out the bugs before we fully launch the platform and start an advertising campaign.  The photographer sales and delivery platform is fully operational.  We are implementing new features weekly.  I am not content with building a partial solution that can't keep up with our evolving marketplace, so instead, we are building a base platform to be built upon by future generations of photographers. Parts of the platform are taking longer to develop than anticipated, and we are working through the issues, solving the problems as they arise, and getting it done one bite at a time. 

I encourage each of you to find out for yourself what PicturEngine is all about before drawing premature conclusions or judgement on what others have speculated to be accurate.  Visit support.picturengine.com and do your own research and ask questions as any arise.

To clear the air on a few topics:

Will PicturEngine work with your distribution platform? 
The short answer is YES.  We are implementing Advertising Only platforms NOW on a demand basis, and some take longer than others.  If we have to take extra costly steps to implement your platform, you may need to pay a little more.  For this reason, not all platforms are currently listed on the registration page.
Also note that our Advertising Only registration is fully operational and you are NOT billed until we go live with the full search.

A note on Ktools and demand... I asked that if your platform is NOT on our current development list when you register, that you send us an email to show your support for your platform and get it a place in line. So far we have received only four emails for Ktools implementation while others already on the list have hundreds.  Feel free to email us at [email protected] with the subject Ktools (or your platform if it is not listed).  Please do not email any other correspondence to this email address, as it is only for keeping lists.

A note for those who expressed a plan to upload “Crapstock” (defined as “agency rejects in other words”) to PicturEngine... you are going to be disappointed.  Agencies usually have a reason for rejecting an image if it is indeed “Crapstock.”  HOWEVER, sometimes agencies just have too many of one subject.  These are OK to send to PicturEngine, as we have the capability to properly rank, rate, sort and display these images that others simply can’t.  While there is no formal “edit” process on PicturEngine, your images are rated, ranked, and sorted by those searching on the platform, utilizing sophisticated metrics never before used in our industry (in other words, the “Crapstock” sinks). 

Great photographers, great images, and great keywords are, as always, what sells and makes the most money in our industry.  That reality does not change on our platform, and it’s just the nature of our business. 
If you are using the PicturEngine sales and delivery platform (RM or RM/RF), you not only keep 100% of your license fees, you also get to see in depth image, keyword, search and sales analytics that could very well improve the way you shoot, submit, keyword, price, and ultimately license your images.  Many of you have mentioned our $40/month plan for RM/RF.  With this plan you get access to our full platform and have no need for a secondary sales and distribution platform. 

If you already have a sales and distribution platform, the Advertising Only plan is very affordable at only $10/month for up to 10,000 images.  We import your data and we send the buyer directly to your site when a buyer clicks on your image within our results.  This is a basic account without access to things like help with pricing or keywording or site analytics, etc., although access to these features will be added later at an additional a la carte cost.  We take your data and import it into our engine, sending you traffic.  With Advertising Only, you will need to optimize your own images, whereas if you are on our platform, we give you the tools to do that.

We are building the platform for our future and appreciate your support.

Stay ahead of the curve.
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on October 24, 2012, 13:14

If we have to take extra costly steps to implement your platform, you may need to pay a little more.  For this reason, not all platforms are currently listed on the registration page.
Also note that our Advertising Only registration is fully operational and you are NOT billed until we go live with the full search.

A note on Ktools and demand... I asked that if your platform is NOT on our current development list when you register, that you send us an email to show your support for your platform and get it a place in line. So far we have received only four emails for Ktools implementation while others already on the list have hundreds.  Feel free to email us at [email protected] with the subject Ktools (or your platform if it is not listed).  Please do not email any other correspondence to this email address, as it is only for keeping lists.


Justin, I already wrote about Ktools.  Do I need to write again, or will my first e-mail suffice?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on October 24, 2012, 13:50
Justin, I already wrote about Ktools.  Do I need to write again, or will my first e-mail suffice?

I'm not sure if I'm one of those four either. I wrote them an email asking about Ktools, but learned they weren't supporting illustrations in their initial launch.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on October 24, 2012, 14:00
...A note on Ktools and demand... I asked that if your platform is NOT on our current development list when you register, that you send us an email to show your support for your platform and get it a place in line. So far we have received only four emails for Ktools implementation while others already on the list have hundreds.

So what are the platforms that have hundreds of requests? If there's some platform out there better than kTools, can you share what that is?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: jeancliclac on October 24, 2012, 14:03
Justin, I also asked for compatibility with Ktool for two sites; shall I write again?
Jean
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sc on October 24, 2012, 14:14
So far the only platforms I see supported are:
PhotoShelter
LicenseStream
StockPipeline
RightsPro
PhotoDeck
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on October 24, 2012, 16:08
We have on the list for Ktools:  Lisa, Jean, Tyler, and Cory

If anyone else wants Ktools on the PicturEngine platform, please send an email with the subject “AO List Ktools” to [email protected]  Please do not email any other correspondence to this email address, as it is only for keeping lists.

We must use our time wisely to keep ahead.  We are working through all of the platforms in the order of demand.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on October 24, 2012, 16:58
We have on the list for Ktools:  Lisa, Jean, Tyler, and Cory

Thanks for confirming you got our requests.  Hope others who are interested will write in. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on October 24, 2012, 17:51
 support coming for smugmug?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 01, 2012, 16:50
So what are the platforms that have hundreds of requests? If there's some platform out there better than kTools, can you share what that is?

Hi Jo Ann,

The external “Advertising Only” platform that we have the most requests and registrations for is by far PhotoShelter.

If you’re not currently using a platform and want my opinion on the best platform to use with PicturEngine, it is the one I built for photographers: the RM or RM/RF PicturEngine platform.  I couldn’t find a platform to perform all of the functions that photographers need, so I built one and included it as an option for those without a current sales and distribution platform.  If you currently have a platform, great, use what you already have with our Advertising Only plan.  Sign up NOW, it’s free until we launch, and only $10/mo for up to 10,000 images if you register during our beta.  There’s really nothing for you to do for our Advertising Only other than to point us to your content, and we do the rest.

The PicturEngine RM or RM/RF sales and delivery platform is a monthly subscription with advertising included. We keep it affordable and within reach for those who have an established library.  Our platform service includes all of the features photographers have been asking for and none of the fluff.  We’re building a solution that can keep up with our ever changing industry.

The platform is progressing and getting closer to launch every day.  I invite you take a look at what we’ve built and send us your feedback. 

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: rimglow on November 01, 2012, 17:17
Put me down as another request for Smugmug.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on November 02, 2012, 09:24
If you currently have a platform, great, use what you already have with our Advertising Only plan.  Sign up NOW, it’s free until we launch, and only $10/mo for up to 10,000 images if you register during our beta.  There’s really nothing for you to do for our Advertising Only other than to point us to your content, and we do the rest.


But this still isn't possible with Ktools, right?  I think there should be some sort of grandfathering.  Several of us with Ktools sites are waiting to sign up and would be happy to sign up during BETA if you carried our platform.  If you get the Ktools functionality working but it is after the initial period and the price goes way up, that would hardly be fair. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: KuriousKat on November 03, 2012, 05:39
Justin,

Hmmmm, I'm interested enough to be asking a few questions but these will be deal makers or breakers for me:

1: Functionality is coming soon for illustrations and vectors - will this be in the beta period or will I have to part with my $480 and hope it turns up soon?

2: If I take the risk and part with $480, I will be doing so because I don't currently have my own website but would like to sell directly, and not pay as much as 85% to some stock sites selling my work. As I don't have my own website, I don't have any personal EULA in place and, as I am not legally trained, I'm not sure I am qualified to write one. You say that we have the freedom to set our own prices but I can't find anything with regard to licensing agreements so can you enlighten me please?

3: You mention a cost of $40 per month, (which is a little misleading if you have to pay it all upfront and can't actually pay it monthly without being charged extra), and there are additional cloud storage charges on top of this. Will I have separate access to this storage and be able to effectively use this as a cloud back-up for my own files?

4: As I am looking into the possibilities of having my own website in the not-too-distant future, I may wish to drop from the $40 plan to the $10 plan. Will that be possible, or will I be locked into the $40 plan for a full year?

5: If I proceed, and you host portfolio so that I can benefit from %100 of the sale price, who collects the money? You mention PayPal fitting with your system, so are you collecting money on my behalf or will I be paid directly by the customer?

Thanks,

very KuriousKat
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on November 03, 2012, 06:36
I can't help thinking that if there's 100 of us paying $480 a year for this, that's $48,000.  Wouldn't we be better of running our own site?  I'm sure we could do that for much less, get over 1 million images in it and get it listed for free with PicturEngine.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 08, 2012, 16:07
Justin,
1: Functionality is coming soon for illustrations and vectors - will this be in the beta period or will I have to part with my $480 and hope it turns up soon?

Hi Kat,
Illustrations are on the site now, both from agencies and from PicturEngine platform photographers and can be uploaded within your account.  They are NOT, however, separated from the main image search, as they will be once we turn on the visual search and sorting.  We discouraged just one individual, who has 100% illustrations, from registering right now because the current search may not show his illustrations properly and in the correct order.  Also, our current image processor only accepts and processes Jpegs.  We are adding functionality every week. Our initial focus is photos and illustrations in Jpeg format, and we will then move to support footage after launch, and then vectors. 

2: If I take the risk and part with $480, I will be doing so because I don't currently have my own website but would like to sell directly, and not pay as much as 85% to some stock sites selling my work. As I don't have my own website, I don't have any personal EULA in place and, as I am not legally trained, I'm not sure I am qualified to write one. You say that we have the freedom to set our own prices but I can't find anything with regard to licensing agreements so can you enlighten me please?


PicturEngine utilizes the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) Standards for image licensing.  Each image license and its usage terms are defined during the licensing process and agreed to when purchasing an image license.  Furthermore, the PLUS “LDF” (License Data Format) is embedded in each licensed image’s metadata and is specific to the usage rights granted to that client for that specific license.  Clients can take the “PLUS Media Summary Code” embedded in their licensed images’ metadata and decode their specific license using the PLUS Decoder.
Organizations such as PLUS are here to make our lives easier, as we aren’t all lawyers. I recommend PLUS if you are making a go at it on your own.  I would definitely take full advantage of what the PLUS system offers.  http://www.useplus.com (http://www.useplus.com) 

3: You mention a cost of $40 per month, (which is a little misleading if you have to pay it all upfront and can't actually pay it monthly without being charged extra), and there are additional cloud storage charges on top of this. Will I have separate access to this storage and be able to effectively use this as a cloud back-up for my own files?


This answer has several parts:
A. Our registration page clearly states “$40/mo billed annually.”  Monthly payment options will be available after launching the platform, but discount pricing will still be reserved for annual billing.  Please note that the Beta pricing gets you the best price we will ever offer and we start your 1 year clock the day we launch.  Beta users (who register before we launch) will always get the best price offered (period).

B. On the same registration page, we state “Unlimited Images*” and provide the definition and storage cost as you hover over the line item.  When you rent a car with “unlimited miles,” you get the car to drive as much as you like, but you still have to pay for the gas.  We are very clear that this is a pay ONLY for what you use system.  http://www.picturengine.com/beta/register_p.php (http://www.picturengine.com/beta/register_p.php)

C. You register for storage on your own, and it’s your storage account.  We only gain access to your storage provider when you grant it to us via a secure API key.  You can use your cloud storage account any way you like, as it is yours.  We only ask that you not modify or change permissions on any of the folders we create for you, as that would break your image links on our platform.

D. If you are interested in a long-term image backup solution, I recommend taking a look at AWS Glacier.  Amazon Glacier is an extremely low cost (1 penny per GB/month for delayed retrieval offline storage vs. 10 cents per GB/month for instant access) storage service that provides secure and durable storage for data archiving and backup.  We are currently testing and configuring Glacier as one of our backup solutions and may soon offer it to our photographers as a secondary backup (and possibly a storage solution for images that don’t sell as often, however, the downside is an average of a 3 hour delay for image retrieval so this is not ideal for all images).  Glacier does involve and require a substantial knowledge of coding to implement correctly, and we hope to soon build an app to streamline these processes for you.  I am very excited about the advances in technology and availability of solutions like Glacier, lowering our expenses and making your lives easier.

4: As I am looking into the possibilities of having my own website in the not-too-distant future, I may wish to drop from the $40 plan to the $10 plan. Will that be possible, or will I be locked into the $40 plan for a full year?


If you register during the Beta for the RM/RF plan, you’re paying for a full year, locking in that price for life.  If you want to change to the Advertising Only plan, we can transfer the unused balance to your new account on a case by case basis.

If you want your own site with a search, you may like to know that we have options for our RM and RM/RF platform photographers to display a search of only your images on our site or (embedded results) on your site.  We will not build you a website, but we will however, offer the search capabilities of PicturEngine in an embedded private search link (PicturEngine branded for free or non-branded for an additional fee).  Here is the current photographer search link on PicturEngine to a couple of MSG members.  We have not yet enabled the embed site code, as this is just a test link with limited functionality.  When searching from these links, you’re searching through that photographer's images ONLY.

http://www.picturengine.com/p/Lao01 (http://www.picturengine.com/p/Lao01)
http://www.picturengine.com/p/Hoo01 (http://www.picturengine.com/p/Hoo01)

You may also add a /{keyword} at the end of the URL to search for a particular keyword within a specific photographer’s image collection.  This is useful when sending a link to a buyer for a specific keyword search.

http://www.picturengine.com/p/Lao01/business (http://www.picturengine.com/p/Lao01/business)

5: If I proceed, and you host portfolio so that I can benefit from %100 of the sale price, who collects the money? You mention PayPal fitting with your system, so are you collecting money on my behalf or will I be paid directly by the customer?


We use PayPal Parallel Payments to pay multiple users from a single transaction.  The buyer performs only one transaction for images (from many photographers on the PicturEngine platform) and pays the PayPal transaction fees (about 2.9%), ensuring you receive 100% of the sale.  We only facilitate the sale through our platform and don’t receive any monies from the transaction.  Other payment methods are currently being tested as well.

PicturEngine is a platform to be built upon.  Many businesses and developers have already expressed interest in building modules or apps for the platform, everything from uploaders to pricing and payment gateways, and more.  This API / app process will be as “open” as possible to allow others to build upon the base platform.  If you’re a developer interested in building onto the PicturEngine platform, email [email protected] with the title “SDK list” to receive our Software Development Kit and Submission Guidelines when they’re released. 

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on November 08, 2012, 16:29
I believe I have understood how PE works and so on but when will it actually be online selling pictures/illustrations etc?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 08, 2012, 17:24
snip......

5: If I proceed, and you host portfolio so that I can benefit from %100 of the sale price, who collects the money? You mention PayPal fitting with your system, so are you collecting money on my behalf or will I be paid directly by the customer?

We use PayPal Parallel Payments to pay multiple users from a single transaction.  The buyer performs only one transaction for images (from many photographers on the PicturEngine platform) and pays the PayPal transaction fees (about 2.9%), ensuring you receive 100% of the sale.  We only facilitate the sale through our platform and don’t receive any monies from the transaction.  Other payment methods are currently being tested as well.



So you are going to surcharge buyers for using paypal? The merchant normally pays the fees, you cant change that. So you are going to increase the prices by 2.9% to compensate for that? How are you planning on doing that? Better make sure you accept credit card payments as well,  the buyers wont use paypal when its surcharged. Wonder how you sort the adaptive payments then, because with paypal they do it for you.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 08, 2012, 17:55
I believe I have understood how PE works and so on but when will it actually be online selling pictures/illustrations etc?

PicturEngine is online and currently licensing pictures/illustrations etc...   The photographer sales and delivery platform is fully operational.


Hi MSG,
PicturEngine is in public beta, meaning that we, along with beta participants, are working out the bugs before we fully launch the platform and start an advertising campaign.  The photographer sales and delivery platform is fully operational.  We are implementing new features weekly.  I am not content with building a partial solution that can't keep up with our evolving marketplace, so instead, we are building a base platform to be built upon by future generations of photographers. Parts of the platform are taking longer to develop than anticipated, and we are working through the issues, solving the problems as they arise, and getting it done one bite at a time. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 09, 2012, 15:47
I can't help thinking that if there's 100 of us paying $480 a year for this, that's $48,000.  Wouldn't we be better of running our own site?  I'm sure we could do that for much less, get over 1 million images in it and get it listed for free with PicturEngine.

Hi Sharpshot,
First off, we will be happy to include your collection for FREE once you reach 1 million unique images.  Finding 100 great photographers with at least 10,000 good saleable images each, should be a snap.  ;)  We are looking forward to hosting your collaborative collection!

As an experienced business person in this industry, I caution you on your estimate of how far $48,000/year will take you.  In my experience, this is not even enough to cover your server expenses and bandwidth representing a million images for a year. 

We represent 872 photographers with just under 900,000 images between my two agencies (Corner House Stock Photo and Picturesque).  I am very familiar with the daily operating expenses of running a stock photo business.  I know the day-to-day costs involved and we have priced the PicturEngine platform appropriately, all while providing photographers 100% of their image licenses. 

PicturEngine offers photographers an excellent platform at the best possible price, all while including the other platforms providing services in the marketplace.  If you are already on one, there is no need to change, just add our Advertising Only plan.  If your platform is not on our list, it will be soon.

I have made this promise to our Beta photographers:  Your price as a Beta photographer will NEVER go up and will always be the LOWEST we ever offer (period).  When we hit critical mass and are able to offer a lower price for our services, our Beta users will be the first to be lowered.

I am not trying to be (too) condescending here.  It is very frustrating to read a post like yours and not respond.  I recommend you get onboard and actively help make changes to the way our industry does business, or stop complaining about your current situation.  The future is bright and possibilities are endless if you choose to make the steps toward it.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on November 09, 2012, 17:47
You aren't trying hard enough to not be condescending :)  It might be funny but it's not going to make me warm to you.

Your sales pitch doesn't make me want to get onboard now.  I don't like the "get it now before the price goes up" strategy.  Can't remember the last time I missed out on one of those opportunities.  I usually think it was a wise move to wait and see before throwing my money away.

I still hope you're successful but I've got to go with my gut feeling that it isn't worth getting involved this early on.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: stockmn on November 20, 2012, 20:20
My first thought on reading the Alamy news this morning was that it is time to sign up at Picturengine.  It seems to me when even Alamy is comfortable cutting rates, the long term writing is on the wall.  Dollar amounts for traditional licenses have fallen so low the only way I can see this being sustainable for the photographer long term is if we are keeping 70% or more of the license.  I can live with the new reality of lower prices but I can't live with the reality of giving most of it away to the "agencies" who represent us.  Let's make technology work for us for a change.  Is a place like Picturengine the answer?  I don't know if it will be them or someone else who makes a difference in the end but I'm inclined to to support the organizations that are trying to make our lives as image creators better.

I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is.

P.S. I have absolutely no affiliation with Picturengine
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 23, 2012, 10:26
Hi,
We’re joining the Black Friday frenzy with a special offer!

90 day (3 Month) FREE trial on the PicturEngine RM or RM/RF platform!

Register before midnight Cyber Monday using the link on our front page. http://www.picturengine.com/ (http://www.picturengine.com/)

The full platform will launch very soon so here’s your chance to get started before our official public launch.  I am so very excited for the future of our industry and what we can do together. 

Stay ahead of the curve,
JB

ps. Tell your friends!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Mantis on November 24, 2012, 19:07
I am keeping an open mind but ................

what is your "basic" marketing plan and budget for year one, two and three?

What hidden expenses do you have (Paypal fees, gigabyte storage, etc)

How does the system determine image cost?

Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Les on November 25, 2012, 01:22
Justin,

if we register now for the advertised Black Friday-Cyber Monday trial RM/RF version, can we later switch to our own platform (i.e. ktools or Photoshelter) and still retain the "BetaRegistered" status?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Mantis on November 25, 2012, 18:02
PicturEngine is by Justin Brinson ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url] ([url]http://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbrinson[/url])).

He also owns:

1.  [url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.pornstockphoto.com[/url]) - Porn Stock Photo
2.  [url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.picturenginegroup.com[/url]) - PicturEngine group
3.  [url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.gstockphoto.com[/url]) - G Stock Photo
4.  [url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.thebrinsongroup.com[/url]) - The Brinson Group
5.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestock.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock
6.  [url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.genericstockphoto.com[/url])
7.  [url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url] ([url]http://www.mybigfind.com[/url]) - My Big Find
8.  [url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://www.cornerhousestockphoto.com[/url]) - Corner House Stock Photo
9.  [url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.picturesque.com/[/url]) - Picturesque


This also really bothers me.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 26, 2012, 10:38
@ Les - Yes, you can downgrade and keep your status, although I think when you see what we have to offer you will stick with it.

@ Mantis - Please read my old posts, I address this.
@Kenny Great detective work!  Although, I have several hundred domains, all photo related.

Most of my domains point to www.picturengine.com (http://www.picturengine.com) cornerhousestock.com or picturesque.com depending on the specialty, I find this great for SEO:)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 26, 2012, 10:42
Mantis,

what is your "basic" marketing plan and budget for year one, two and three?
Without going into excessive detail, I will say this... I am not new to the stock photo industry.  I have been here since the days of printed catalogs, FedExing film to clients, when research was done in house, when we (agencies) provided customers REAL “service.”  Most of you know I own two traditional stock photo agencies, Picturesque and Corner House Stock Photo.  Both have grown and evolved with our ever-changing industry.  Four years ago, after the housing market crash, I knew it was time for a change, and that’s when I started building the PicturEngine model.  We utilized polling and surveys from our more than 40k active image buying clients to truly understand the essential elements of what clients and photographers need to succeed.  Over 16k active image buyers returned surveys, and most surveys were completed directly after an image sale to ensure the feedback provided represents actual buying clients’ opinions and needs.  Our client research shaped the concept behind PicturEngine into what you see today.  The stock photo industry will continue to evolve and change, and PicturEngine is designed to evolve and change rapidly with the industry, as it is a platform to be built upon, not an agency. 

We’re living in a fast paced, connected, get everything instantly and get everything cheap society.   We built this platform to benefit both image buyer and photographer, providing a direct pathway, saving the money in the middle. 

As for marketing/advertising the search engine, we’ll use any and every means possible to get the word out about the PicturEngine industry-wide search engine.   Advertising mediums are changing just as fast as our industry, and there is a direct link between the two.  I personally embrace change and am excited to try new things.  Our goal is to get as many photographers, platform users, and smaller agencies on the PicturEngine platform as possible before we launch, to make our launch a huge success!  I hope all of you decide to join in your own way.

What hidden expenses do you have (Paypal fees, gigabyte storage, etc)
--Paypal sales fees are passed onto the buyer. There will be other payment gateways added later, however PayPal is doing a great job and gives us everything we asked for.
--Storage fees are clearly defined on the site (we are currently using Rackspace Cloud files - 10 cents per GB per month, that’s about $1 a month per 1,000 10MB Jpeg images).  This is listed several places on PicturEngine.  More storage providers will be added later, but Rackspace checks off all of the boxes we were looking for in regards to security, price, speed, service, and overall usability.
-- We have other options available on a credit use system.  (You receive 100 free credits to use per month as a beta photographer.)  Some options for credit use include:
Front page advertising - Provides you an opportunity to be seen on our front page and directly link to your image on PicturEngine.
Keywording Tool - We help you keyword your images using our proprietary process.  (Our visual keywording technology will be switched on when the visual search goes live on the site after our launch.)
Image and pricing analytics -  We show you live and historical search analytics on the platform to help you submit, price, and keyword images, making the most of your efforts.

How does the system determine image cost?
You set your own prices.  We show you crowdsourced pricing from other photographers on the PicturEngine platform (high, low, and average prices) when you click on the “Need Help Pricing?” link in your image pricing area.  Also, after launch we will enable active sales pricing, where you can see crowdsourced data on the (high, low, and average) actual current selling prices on the platform. 

PicturEngine is a platform to be built upon.  We already have several developers asking for our SDK (Software Development Kit) to get started on new tools.

I hope this helps explain some more about PicturEngine.  Looking forward to getting more of you registered before the end of our Cyber Monday sale!

Stay ahead of the curve!
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: RacePhoto on November 26, 2012, 14:30
I was willing to try the site, but when something pops up that says $240 for PayPal billing for the beta test, I'm not sure I want to go through 90 days of trial followed by 90 days of trying to get the billing stopped. (potential problems, not accusing)

What would be nice is a real 90 days trial, that doesn't sign me up and doesn't charge to my PayPal account IN ADVANCE... just saying, it's a little more user friendly and not having to worry about potential money problems, contracts, information sharing, and whatever else, just for a Free Trial.

Good luck with the program and the site, it looks like it has potential. I'm sitting at the station, waiting for the train.  ;)



Hi,
We’re joining the Black Friday frenzy with a special offer!

90 day (3 Month) FREE trial on the PicturEngine RM or RM/RF platform!

Register before midnight Cyber Monday using the link on our front page. [url]http://www.picturengine.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.picturengine.com/[/url])

The full platform will launch very soon so here’s your chance to get started before our official public launch.  I am so very excited for the future of our industry and what we can do together. 

Stay ahead of the curve,
JB

ps. Tell your friends!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 26, 2012, 14:40
Paypal fees are with the seller not the buyer. You can only pass on the fees to the buyer on a personal paypal account and if they cop on you are using a personal account for business they lock you down.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 26, 2012, 15:09
I was willing to try the site, but when something pops up that says $240 for PayPal billing for the beta test, I'm not sure I want to go through 90 days of trial followed by 90 days of trying to get the billing stopped. (potential problems, not accusing)

What would be nice is a real 90 days trial, that doesn't sign me up and doesn't charge to my PayPal account IN ADVANCE...

Hi RacePhoto,
The 90 day trial charges your PayPal account 1 (one) penny if you signup today.  I think PayPal does that to make sure your account is working and has a payment source attached.  So it is not actually "free" it is a penny for the first 90 days. If you are not happy, you can cancel anytime before the trial period ends via your PayPal subscriptions area, PayPal makes it pretty easy. 

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 26, 2012, 15:35
You either going to have the surcharge the buyers for using paypal, or pay the fees yourself.

If you surcharge by upping the prices, buyers will walk. They dont want to pay for using paypal.
If you pay the fees yourself, the photographers will not get the full 100% for their image.

If you sell single photos for under 10 dollar, the regular fees will be too high. You need to apply for micro payments to get lower rates for these low priced items.

Also your merchant rate will vary and is based on how well you did in the previous month. How are you going to apply that fluctuating fee to the image pricing?

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees (https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees)

YOUR MONTHLY SALES     YOUR FEE PER TRANSACTION      EXAMPLES
 
$0 to $3,000                       2.9% + $0.30                       $3.20 fee on a $100 sale
$3,000+ to $10,000            2.5% + $0.30                       $2.80 fee on a $100 sale
$10,000+                             2.2% + $0.30                       $2.50 fee on a $100 sale
$100,000+                         Call 1-888-818-3928

https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/ (https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/)

Merchant Rate                                     Micropayments 5% + $0.05    Regular 2.9% +$0.30
Payment size                                              $2                                               $2
Cost to receive payment                           $0.15                                        $0.36
Total cost to receive 100 payments            $15                                             $36
 
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full#8.%20Fees%20and%20Currency%20Conversion. (https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full#8.%20Fees%20and%20Currency%20Conversion.)

Fees are based on whether you are making a Purchase Payment, a Personal Payment or a PayPal Business Payment. Some fees are expressed as a percentage of the payment amount. All Fees are in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise stated.

For Purchase Payments, the recipient of the payment will always pay the Fee. Unless a personal account, which you are not allowed to use for business.

I keep pointing this out because I think its important to know for your contributors on how you are going to apply the fees, and if you get the lowest fees possible.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: luissantos84 on November 26, 2012, 18:03
thanks for adding that Poncke, well written!
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on November 26, 2012, 18:33
Still no Ktools support? 

I keep clicking on these threads hoping for some progress on this and always being disappointed.  I feel like Charlie Brown, tricked into kicking Lucy's football once again...
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on November 26, 2012, 19:02
Still no Ktools support? 

I keep clicking on these threads hoping for some progress on this and always being disappointed.  I feel like Charlie Brown, tricked into kicking Lucy's football once again...

LOL. I'm going with Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, but I feel like that a lot.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 26, 2012, 19:08
Poncke,

The PayPal fees go through the PicturEngine PayPal account as a group or “cumulatively” to get the best rate.  We use PayPal parallel payments to process and pay multiple photographers at once.

As stated previously, photographers keep 100% of the price they set.  If you set an image price for $100, you receive $100 when your image is licensed.  The cost of the transaction is paid by the buyer and is included in the license fee they pay.  The buyer simply pays the price you set, plus the PayPal transaction cost as the image license fee.  The PayPal processing percentage fee decreases as our sales volume increases.  Buyers will not know the price you set, as they only see one price and that includes the transaction fee from PayPal and we add NOTHING else.  We’ve been working on the system to make sure it updates accurately with the current percentage as sales and subscriptions increase.  This process will be fully automated before we go live.

Our whole “goal” is to stay OUT of the “middle,” and out of your business and sales!  By doing business transactions this way, we eliminate any “accounting” on our end, for “your” image sales, thus keeping our expenses lower and passing the savings to you as a flat fee platform.  Buyers get a great price (you can afford to give them a great price and still be competitive when you keep 100%).  It’s a winning formula.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 26, 2012, 19:17
Poncke,

The PayPal fees go through the PicturEngine PayPal account as a group or “cumulatively” to get the best rate.  We use PayPal parallel payments to process and pay multiple photographers at once.

As stated previously, photographers keep 100% of the price they set.  If you set an image price for $100, you receive $100 when your image is licensed.  The cost of the transaction is paid by the buyer and is included in the license fee they pay.  The buyer simply pays the price you set, plus the PayPal transaction cost as the image license fee.  The PayPal processing percentage fee decreases as our sales volume increases.  Buyers will not know the price you set, as they only see one price and that includes the transaction fee from PayPal and we add NOTHING else.  We’ve been working on the system to make sure it updates accurately with the current percentage as sales and subscriptions increase.  This process will be fully automated before we go live.

Our whole “goal” is to stay OUT of the “middle,” and out of your business and sales!  By doing business transactions this way, we eliminate any “accounting” on our end, for “your” image sales, thus keeping our expenses lower and passing the savings to you as a flat fee platform.  Buyers get a great price (you can afford to give them a great price and still be competitive when you keep 100%).  It’s a winning formula.

Thats a hidden surcharge.  Right, thanks for letting me know. Thats not cool. Also wonder what the buyer will do when they find out about hidden fees and surcharges. I also wonder what they will think when the image prices fluctuate month over month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#Hidden_fees_and_surcharges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#Hidden_fees_and_surcharges)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 26, 2012, 19:37
Our whole “goal” is to stay OUT of the “middle,” and out of your business and sales!  By doing business transactions this way, we eliminate any “accounting” on our end, for “your” image sales, thus keeping our expenses lower and passing the savings to you as a flat fee platform.  Buyers get a great price (you can afford to give them a great price and still be competitive when you keep 100%).  It’s a winning formula.

Without going into excessive detail, I will say this... I am not new to the stock photo industry.  I have been here since the days of printed catalogs, FedExing film to clients, when research was done in house, when we (agencies) provided customers REAL “service.”  Most of you know I own two traditional stock photo agencies, Picturesque and Corner House Stock Photo.  Both have grown and evolved with our ever-changing industry.  Four years ago, after the housing market crash, I knew it was time for a change, and that’s when I started building the PicturEngine model.  We utilized polling and surveys from our more than 40k active image buying clients to truly understand the essential elements of what clients and photographers need to succeed.  Over 16k active image buyers returned surveys, and most surveys were completed directly after an image sale to ensure the feedback provided represents actual buying clients’ opinions and needs.  Our client research shaped the concept behind PicturEngine into what you see today.  The stock photo industry will continue to evolve and change, and PicturEngine is designed to evolve and change rapidly with the industry, as it is a platform to be built upon, not an agency. 

We’re living in a fast paced, connected, get everything instantly and get everything cheap society.   We built this platform to benefit both image buyer and photographer, providing a direct pathway, saving the money in the middle. 

...

What hidden expenses do you have (Paypal fees, gigabyte storage, etc)
--Paypal sales fees are passed onto the buyer. There will be other payment gateways added later, however PayPal is doing a great job and gives us everything we asked for.
--Storage fees are clearly defined on the site (we are currently using Rackspace Cloud files - 10 cents per GB per month, that’s about $1 a month per 1,000 10MB Jpeg images).  This is listed several places on PicturEngine.  More storage providers will be added later, but Rackspace checks off all of the boxes we were looking for in regards to security, price, speed, service, and overall usability.
...
How does the system determine image cost?
You set your own prices.  We show you crowdsourced pricing from other photographers on the PicturEngine platform (high, low, and average prices) when you click on the “Need Help Pricing?” link in your image pricing area.  Also, after launch we will enable active sales pricing, where you can see crowdsourced data on the (high, low, and average) actual current selling prices on the platform. 


Please read my posts over again.  We are building this platform with both Image buyers and photographers in mind, to adapt and change with the ever changing stock photo marketplace.  Prices in our marketplace change daily.  We can just agree to disagree.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Monty-m-gue on November 26, 2012, 19:51
Hi Justin,
I took the plunge and have signed up for the free trial. I got my Rackspace account and have been redirected back to Picturengine where I've tested the cloud. So far, so good. Now I've found myself on a page to set RM prices....but I can't see anywhere to set RF prices at all. I definitely clicked on the RM and RF option at sign-up.

Any advice...?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Monty-m-gue on November 26, 2012, 20:05
Received a very rapid PM from Justin and have responded accordingly.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: RacePhoto on November 27, 2012, 03:04
I was willing to try the site, but when something pops up that says $240 for PayPal billing for the beta test, I'm not sure I want to go through 90 days of trial followed by 90 days of trying to get the billing stopped. (potential problems, not accusing)

What would be nice is a real 90 days trial, that doesn't sign me up and doesn't charge to my PayPal account IN ADVANCE...

Hi RacePhoto,
The 90 day trial charges your PayPal account 1 (one) penny if you signup today.  I think PayPal does that to make sure your account is working and has a payment source attached.  So it is not actually "free" it is a penny for the first 90 days. If you are not happy, you can cancel anytime before the trial period ends via your PayPal subscriptions area, PayPal makes it pretty easy. 

Best,
JB

Thanks that $240 bill was kind of a shock.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 27, 2012, 09:08
You cant ignore your role as middle man Justin. You also cant ignore that hidden fees are false advertising. Passing on fees to the buyer has to be paid by someone, either by hidden charges or by the photographer.

What if the buyer files a chargeback? What if a fraudster buys a portfolio worth of images and then files a chargeback. What if a customer is not happy with the product and files a SNAD case?

We as contributors cannot interact with paypal, only you can, because its your account. You have to be middle man.

Also what will images prices look like when you add the fee for paypal to the price we set? Will we have photos with prices like  i.e. 10.59 or 15.64 instead of 10 and 15?

Anyhoo, doesnt matter, I am not signing up for now. I am going to see what happens and decide. Good luck, hope it works out for all involved.

Forgot to add: You are selling digital goods, so you dont have seller protection with paypal. Good luck dealing with complaints, snads and chargebacks. I think you are underestimating the powers of unhappy buyers and contributors and the work involved. As said before, its your paypal account, you are the only one who can deal with these cases, not the contributors.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Monty-m-gue on November 27, 2012, 09:12
Ponke, I think you'd struggle to sign up now. PicturEngine has been off line for the last 4 hours or so....
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on November 27, 2012, 11:24
Justin, you have posted several replies since I asked about the progress on Ktools assimilation.  I am assuming from your totally IGNORING the question that you still haven't managed it.   However, as a professional, I would expect you to at least give the inquiry the courtesy of a reply, and an update on when, if ever, we might expect this. 

If you have no plans to integrate Ktools then I would like to know so I can pursue other advertising avenues and stop wasting my time with your sales pitch. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 27, 2012, 12:45
@ Poncke - We have been working with PayPal as a merchant card processor on Corner House Stock Photo and Picturesque since 2006, and before then we used a standard bank merchant account.  PayPal is very easy to work with compared to bank merchant accounts.  As for charge backs, they will happen, and the PayPal system is equipped to deal with it smoothly and efficiently. 
Again, we stay OUT of the middle and OUT of your business.  The transaction is between you and your buyer.

Also, if it makes you "feel" better, we can easily make a selection option within your admin account which charges you for the merchant fee instead of including it in the price.  The percent rate will be based on overall PicturEngine subscriptions and sales, so the fee will be lower than you get anywhere else as an individual.  PicturEngine was built as a platform, therefore implementing something like this is no problem.  The goal is, as a group we are better off and all save more, collectively banding together resources.

@ Monty - Our servers came down for a brief maintenance this morning.  We are back up now, but without the search function for the moment.  This weekend we had more images made live by more photographers than ever before on our system.  It was a great stress test!  We have mountains of data and logs now, so we know where to allocate more resources in the future.

Also, we’ve received a large volume of emails this morning asking if registration is still open for the 90 day trial offer.  We’ve added the link back, for now.

@ Lisa - I will try to call Jon back tomorrow to get that ball rolling.  We’ve been extremely busy and YES they are still on the list to implement along with SmugMug and others.  Feel free to start “bugging” them too.  Let them know that you want PicturEngine implementation asap.  That may garner a faster response. :)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 27, 2012, 12:52
You are the middle man Justin, I have explained before why, but you seem to ignore that. Its your paypal account, noone else's

If you get a chargeback, you wont get your money back from paypal. You do NOT have seller protection on digital goods and credit card companies will always judge in favor of THEIR customers.

Never mind. Good luck.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on November 27, 2012, 13:11
We can easily make a selection option within your admin account which charges you for the merchant fee instead of including it in the price.  The percent rate will be based on overall PicturEngine subscriptions and sales, so the fee will be lower than you get anywhere else as an individual.  PicturEngine was built as a platform, therefore implementing something like this is no problem.  The goal is, as a group we are better off and all save more, collectively banding together resources.

let me know your thoughts on this option as a group, it is an easy option to implement.
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on November 27, 2012, 14:22

@ Lisa - I will try to call Jon back tomorrow to get that ball rolling.  We’ve been extremely busy and YES they are still on the list to implement along with SmugMug and others.  Feel free to start “bugging” them too.  Let them know that you want PicturEngine implementation asap.  That may garner a faster response. :)

I will certainly do so.  Thank you. 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on November 27, 2012, 19:17
how is the buyer notified [if at all] that the paypal fees are part of the price they're paying?  is paypal the only payment method a buyer can use?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 28, 2012, 02:33
how is the buyer notified [if at all] that the paypal fees are part of the price they're paying?  is paypal the only payment method a buyer can use?
he said somewhere the buyer would never know there are fees. Hidden fees, I wouldnt touch that timebomb with a 50 foot pole
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Beach Bum on November 28, 2012, 07:25
I don't understand the obsession with Paypal fees.  The buyer should know that there are fees associated with a Paypal transaction, as there are with credit card transactions.  He should also know that he's paying those fees, one way or another.  Simply a business expense passed on to the customer.  No big deal.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: leaf on November 28, 2012, 07:34
I don't understand the obsession with Paypal fees.  The buyer should know that there are fees associated with a Paypal transaction, as there are with credit card transactions.  He should also know that he's paying those fees, one way or another.  Simply a business expense passed on to the customer.  No big deal.

ditto.  I feel you are making a bigger deal of this than it really is Poncke
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on November 28, 2012, 14:25
You are both missing the point, buyers do not pay fees using paypal. When you let the buyer pay the fee, its surcharging the buyer for using paypal. Paypal is free for buyers, thats my whole point. When I use paypal with my credit card linked and pay using the CC, I do not pay any fees either.

Paypal doesnt want their customers to be surcharged for using paypal. Thats why merchants pay fees and not the buyer.

If I am on a website to buy photos and see that I will pay a fee to use paypal, I will go elsewhere  where I wont be surcharged.

And if you dont tell the buyer the fees are included in the price, hence its called hidden fees, then its false advertising and I dont want to piss off my own customers.

Furthermore, when a buyer files a chargeback, you  cant open a dispute as the chargeback happens on the paypal account of PE.

I am just trying to help you guys.

Anyhoo, I wish you and PE all the best and I hope it all works out so I can join too. For now, no thank you.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on November 28, 2012, 18:30
I don't understand the obsession with Paypal fees.  The buyer should know that there are fees associated with a Paypal transaction, as there are with credit card transactions.  He should also know that he's paying those fees, one way or another.  Simply a business expense passed on to the customer.  No big deal.

if paypal is the ONLY payment method, then no problem, but if buyers can also pay in a way that doesnt encur paypal fees, then it's a violation of the paypal terms to have the buyer pay a surcharge
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Les on November 29, 2012, 02:22
Quote
if paypal is the ONLY payment method, then no problem, but if buyers can also pay in a way that doesnt encur paypal fees, then it's a violation of the paypal terms to have the buyer pay a surcharge
You may be confusing Paypal with eBay. eBay indeed forces the sellers to absorb the Paypal fees.
On the other hand, sellers who advertise their goods on other platforms, such Craigslist, Photography Forums Buy&Sell sections, etc. are routinely adding 3% for Paypal processing fees.
 
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 04, 2012, 21:45
nope - read your paypal terms of service:

4.6 No Surcharges. You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as a payment method. You may charge a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge and is not higher than the handling fee you charge for non-PayPal transactions.

4.1 Receiving Personal Payments. If you are selling goods or services, you may not ask the buyer to send you a Personal Payment for the purchase. If you do so, PayPal may remove your ability to accept Personal Payments.

paypal's been pretty forceful in freezing accounts in general, so i wou;ldnt want to get caught in such obvious violation
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Les on December 05, 2012, 01:57
Personally, I wouldn't call it "surcharge".
Processing or handling fee sounds just fine and that's what it is.

Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 05, 2012, 02:51
Personally, I wouldn't call it "surcharge".
Processing or handling fee sounds just fine and that's what it is.

whatever you call it, it's a violation of your paypal agreement - someone selling on craigslist might get away with it once or twice, but would you risk your business over a 2% charge on $1 at a time?   that's why it's important to know how PE intends to handle this, for anyone considering working with them.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on December 05, 2012, 11:27
Several of you are getting the point of PicturEngine and seeing that the forest extends beyond the trees.  It’s very difficult to start a “new” agency/platform (or whatever) without breaking through the critical mass barrier first.  Before reaching critical mass, it’s not worth the time and money advertising (for 100 niche photographers or even 500,000 niche images) because the biggest “bang for the buck” in advertising is NOT niche, it’s general, its everyone, and it’s BIG!  PicturEngine solves this critical mass problem, from day ONE.  With PicturEngine there is no need to target advertising to a highly specific group or niche, such as home related or travel related buyers, as we do with my other two agencies.  Every image buyer is a prospective client to use PicturEngine.  PicturEngine just makes image buying easier.  Many who are asking about our advertising/marketing plan need to remember we already have a sizable image buying client base (over 40k confirmed image buyers and growing daily) from our established agencies.  Many of our image buyers do specialize in houses/home lifestyle or travel/scenic, however, most of our buyers work for advertising agencies and have multiple clients.  We’ve been doing this long enough to know what effectively generates traffic and licenses images, and are also smart enough not to share our knowledge with potential competition (that is surely monitoring these forums).

PicturEngine is a brand, just as Google is a brand. We go to a search engine to find what we need.  We are not “new,” as I personally come from the background of both creating and licensing stock, and know the holes that need to be filled.  We have studied other platforms, where they succeed and where they have failed, and are bringing PicturEngine to the market with eyes wide open knowing what needs to be done to succeed.   

The purpose of our recent push for the PicturEngine photographer platform is to get content onboard that is NOT currently at agencies, bringing our image buying audience truly unique content, right alongside the “same ol’ stuff” they can find repeatedly at agencies, but with duplicates removed to make the search faster, easier, and just better.  Our advertising campaign will be unique and insightful, not only advertising for the same agencies people already use, but image buyers will regularly return to see what new and wonderful things our photographers and smaller agencies are adding to the mix.

The PicturEngine photographer platform is not for everyone, just as stock photography is not for everyone.  Studying years of hard data tells us PicturEngine becomes “cost effective” with collections of over 1,000 unique images.  If you don’t yet have 1,000 unique images in your portfolio or collection, keep us on your radar for when you do.  Some of you mentioned image storage as a factor.  Storing 1,000 10MB Jpegs at Rackspace is about a dollar ($1.00 USD) per month.  For the speed and peace of mind, $1/ month is not a high price to pay.

One last point I want to clarify, PicturEngine is NOT an agency.  I am posting on this forum because some microstock photographers showed an interest and registered for the platform early on.  They were tired of the current direction of the microstock industry and decided to do something positive about it.  That’s what PicturEngine is all about.

JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 05, 2012, 12:49

first, it would be appreciated if you answered the paypal question --who is going to pay the surcharge & how is it explained?




.  It’s very difficult to start a “new” agency/platform (or whatever) without breaking through the critical mass barrier first.  Before reaching critical mass, it’s not worth the time and money advertising (for 100 niche photographers or even 500,000 niche images) because the biggest “bang for the buck” in advertising is NOT niche, it’s general, its everyone, and it’s BIG!  PicturEngine solves this critical mass problem, from day ONE. ......  Many who are asking about our advertising/marketing plan need to remember we already have a sizable image buying client base (over 40k confirmed image buyers and growing daily) from our established agencies.  ...... We’ve been doing this long enough to know what effectively generates traffic and licenses images, and are also smart enough not to share our knowledge with potential competition (that is surely monitoring these forums).



sorry, but secret plans for victory sound too much like nixon's plan to end the vietnam war - invoking the need for security & secrecy just covers up the basic idea that you are asking us to PAY for a claim that has yet to be proven!  you have no proof, or even a beta testrun that "PicturEngine solves this critical mass problem, from day ONE. "  -- instead you're asking us to fund your research, investing time, and possibly significant cash.  what are your projections for the first 3 months?  will the average portfolio achieve $50/mo in that short time when today there are NO buyers using the system?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on December 06, 2012, 11:26
first, it would be appreciated if you answered the paypal question --who is going to pay the surcharge & how is it explained?

This has been answered (many times over).  We have been using PayPal for many years and are not violating any of the PayPal or credit card terms. 

Anyone, buying anything online, fully, totally, and completely understands, that businesses have to cover processing costs when selling items online.  Furthermore, they (buyers of online content) understand that transactional costs (of doing business online, such as digital monetary transactions) are built into the price of goods purchased online.  This is not spelled out, as it is understood as simply doing business online. 

PayPal and credit card companies take issue when brick and mortar businesses give the option to use PayPal or a credit card at the register (as a convenience to the customer) instead of cash, and then charge the customer an additional processing fee for that “convenience.”  We have ONE price (the license fee you set, plus the fee to process it, and you keep 100% of that license fee).  We do not offer cash as a payment option.

From PayPal:
“Parallel payments enable a sender to send a single payment to multiple receivers. For example, your application might be a shopping cart that enables a buyer to pay for items from several merchants with one payment. Your shopping cart allocates the payment to merchants that actually provided the items. PayPal then deducts money from the sender's account and deposits it in the receivers' accounts. “

I hope this helps you better understand the platform.
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on December 06, 2012, 12:23
Quote
This is not spelled out, as it is understood as simply doing business online. 

Thats a load of rubbish
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on December 06, 2012, 12:39
Quote
This is not spelled out, as it is understood as simply doing business online. 

Thats a load of rubbish

Yeah, I don't understand your fixation here.  The buyer buys an image, the amount covers the licensing and costs of transaction.  Do you think the seller is supposed to have two wallets?  One for incoming payments, and some other wallet that holds money he made from mowing lawns, to pay the transaction fees?  It's all the same bucket.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on December 06, 2012, 12:49
Quote
This is not spelled out, as it is understood as simply doing business online. 

Thats a load of rubbish

Yeah, I don't understand your fixation here.  The buyer buys an image, the amount covers the licensing and costs of transaction.  Do you think the seller is supposed to have two wallets?  One for incoming payments, and some other wallet that holds money he made from mowing lawns, to pay the transaction fees?  It's all the same bucket.

Where did I say that? You are making stuff up.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cthoman on December 06, 2012, 12:50
Yeah, I don't understand your fixation here.  The buyer buys an image, the amount covers the licensing and costs of transaction.  Do you think the seller is supposed to have two wallets?  One for incoming payments, and some other wallet that holds money he made from mowing lawns, to pay the transaction fees?  It's all the same bucket.

I don't understand a lot of what happened in this thread. It seems like some people are really digging to find some nefarious scheme. It's cool if you have some doubts about the company. I know I do. That's healthy, but this conspiracy stuff is kind of annoying.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on December 06, 2012, 13:02
Where did I say that? You are making stuff up.

Well, where do you supposed the money for the transaction fee comes from?  There are two sources of income.  Buyer payments and contributor payments.  They all go into the same wallet.  The transaction fees come out of that wallet.  Ergo, the buyer "pays" the transaction fees.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 06, 2012, 14:31


first, it would be appreciated if you answered the paypal question --who is going to pay the surcharge & how is it explained?



This has been answered (many times over).  We have been using PayPal for many years and are not violating any of the PayPal or credit card terms....   




  We have ONE price (the license fee you set, plus the fee to process it, and you keep 100% of that license fee).  We do not offer cash as a payment option.

From PayPal:
“Parallel payments enable a sender to send a single payment to multiple receivers. For example, your application might be a shopping cart that enables a buyer to pay for items from several merchants with one payment. Your shopping cart allocates the payment to merchants that actually provided the items. PayPal then deducts money from the sender's account and deposits it in the receivers' accounts. 

first, how do you set any prices at all when you dont require a login? nowhere does it say that paypal is the ONLY payment method

parallel paymemts isn't the problem -- but adding a surcharge for paypal payments is and THAT, as quoted earlier, is a direct violation of paypal terms --
so to repeat the question that you havent answered- is the surcharge paid by the buyer or by the seller?and how do you calculate the paypal fee without knowing the seller's arrangements with paypal, since that affects the fees?





Anyone, buying anything online, fully, totally, and completely understands, that businesses have to cover processing costs when selling items online.
 
peripheral but absolute nonsense anyone who's done e commerce knows that you can never underestimate the ignorance/understanding of buyers.  these are some of the most common annoyances of working on ebay or amazon
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 06, 2012, 14:39
Where did I say that? You are making stuff up.

Well, where do you supposed the money for the transaction fee comes from?  There are two sources of income.  Buyer payments and contributor payments.  They all go into the same wallet.  The transaction fees come out of that wallet.  Ergo, the buyer "pays" the transaction fees.

that's the key point -- paypal does not allow a surcharge in which buyers pay the fees.

it's all pretty fuzzy - PE says they dont take cash, but they dont require buyers to login, so it's unclear how they can even  come up with a cost - and how do they deal with agencies that take multiple forms of payment?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: cascoly on December 06, 2012, 14:44
I don't understand the obsession with Paypal fees.  The buyer should know that there are fees associated with a Paypal transaction, as there are with credit card transactions.  He should also know that he's paying those fees, one way or another.  Simply a business expense passed on to the customer.  No big deal.


it's not a minor point - as a seller you can have your paypal account frozen or even closed if paypal decides you're in violation of their rules

if you doubt this, check this recent NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/technology/paypal-antifraud-measures-are-extreme-some-users-say.html?pagewanted=all (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/technology/paypal-antifraud-measures-are-extreme-some-users-say.html?pagewanted=all)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on December 06, 2012, 15:12
I'm copying over cascoly's post from the other thread.  It needs to be read.  Scary!

it appears that buyers & sellers are being told 2 different things - sellers are told we can direct the search to our preferred site or agency, but buyers are told " Image buyers get the best image at the best price with access to all outlets from which the image can be licensed."

here are extracts from the PE website :

=======================
picturengine to buyers:

Search, find and license images.  It’s that simple!  The world's stock photos consolidated into ONE search!  Some images are exclusive to a single stock photo agency, some are listed with multiple agencies and some are available directly from the photographer.  Image buyers get the best image at the best price with access to all outlets from which the image can be licensed.

....,.
The option to choose not only which image to license, but also from whom to license it, assures images buyers the best image at the best price.  We include all representatives licensing a particular image and allow the image buyer to make an informed purchasing decision.

Once you find and image, we show you all available sources to license that image
============================
picturengine to photographers:

Does PicturEngine compare prices?

Last Updated: Aug 17, 2012 10:58AM CDT

 NO.  PicturEngine does NOT compare prices.
 
We know buyers demand good prices.  The only way to get the best price on ANY good or service, is to reduce the distance from the producer to the buyer.  We DO NOT compare prices, instead we send the buyer to the base agency (where the image was uploaded FIRST) or directly to the photographer (if they are on the PicturEngine platform).  Sending the buyer directly to the base agency or photographer, effectively removes unnecessary expenses added to the sale.  Our goal is to help both photographers and image buyers get the most out of each transaction.



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Am I competing with my agencies?

Last Updated: May 05, 2012 10:34PM CDT

 No.  If an image is listed with an agency, and the photographer lists the same image on the PicturEngine platform, buyers see only the image listed by the photographer on the PicturEngine platform.




http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283338/?topicseen#new (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283338/?topicseen#new)
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on December 06, 2012, 15:30
it's not a minor point - as a seller you can have your paypal account frozen or even closed if paypal decides you're in violation of their rules

if you doubt this, check this recent NYTimes article:
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/technology/paypal-antifraud-measures-are-extreme-some-users-say.html?pagewanted=all[/url] ([url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/technology/paypal-antifraud-measures-are-extreme-some-users-say.html?pagewanted=all[/url])


I've already addressed this above.  Thanks.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: lisafx on December 06, 2012, 15:45
Wow.  If I am interpreting this correctly they are going to charge us a fee to advertise our own sites on their search engine (or more to upload to them directly) and then provide the customer with multiple options so they can choose the cheapest?  W_T_F?

Thanks for posting that.

I'm copying over cascoly's post from the other thread.  It needs to be read.  Scary!

it appears that buyers & sellers are being told 2 different things - sellers are told we can direct the search to our preferred site or agency, but buyers are told " Image buyers get the best image at the best price with access to all outlets from which the image can be licensed."

here are extracts from the PE website :

=======================
picturengine to buyers:

Search, find and license images.  It’s that simple!  The world's stock photos consolidated into ONE search!  Some images are exclusive to a single stock photo agency, some are listed with multiple agencies and some are available directly from the photographer.  Image buyers get the best image at the best price with access to all outlets from which the image can be licensed.

....,.
The option to choose not only which image to license, but also from whom to license it, assures images buyers the best image at the best price.  We include all representatives licensing a particular image and allow the image buyer to make an informed purchasing decision.

Once you find and image, we show you all available sources to license that image
============================
picturengine to photographers:

Does PicturEngine compare prices?

Last Updated: Aug 17, 2012 10:58AM CDT

 NO.  PicturEngine does NOT compare prices.
 
We know buyers demand good prices.  The only way to get the best price on ANY good or service, is to reduce the distance from the producer to the buyer.  We DO NOT compare prices, instead we send the buyer to the base agency (where the image was uploaded FIRST) or directly to the photographer (if they are on the PicturEngine platform).  Sending the buyer directly to the base agency or photographer, effectively removes unnecessary expenses added to the sale.  Our goal is to help both photographers and image buyers get the most out of each transaction.



---------------------
Am I competing with my agencies?

Last Updated: May 05, 2012 10:34PM CDT

 No.  If an image is listed with an agency, and the photographer lists the same image on the PicturEngine platform, buyers see only the image listed by the photographer on the PicturEngine platform.




[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283338/?topicseen#new[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283338/?topicseen#new[/url])
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on December 06, 2012, 16:25


first, it would be appreciated if you answered the paypal question --who is going to pay the surcharge & how is it explained?



This has been answered (many times over).  We have been using PayPal for many years and are not violating any of the PayPal or credit card terms....   




  We have ONE price (the license fee you set, plus the fee to process it, and you keep 100% of that license fee).  We do not offer cash as a payment option.

From PayPal:
“Parallel payments enable a sender to send a single payment to multiple receivers. For example, your application might be a shopping cart that enables a buyer to pay for items from several merchants with one payment. Your shopping cart allocates the payment to merchants that actually provided the items. PayPal then deducts money from the sender's account and deposits it in the receivers' accounts. 

first, how do you set any prices at all when you dont require a login? nowhere does it say that paypal is the ONLY payment method

parallel paymemts isn't the problem -- but adding a surcharge for paypal payments is and THAT, as quoted earlier, is a direct violation of paypal terms --
so to repeat the question that you havent answered- is the surcharge paid by the buyer or by the seller?and how do you calculate the paypal fee without knowing the seller's arrangements with paypal, since that affects the fees?





Anyone, buying anything online, fully, totally, and completely understands, that businesses have to cover processing costs when selling items online.
 
peripheral but absolute nonsense anyone who's done e commerce knows that you can never underestimate the ignorance/understanding of buyers.  these are some of the most common annoyances of working on ebay or amazon
Thats exactly the point I wanted to make when I said it was rubbish to assume people always know fees are included when buying online.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: PicturEngine-JustinB on December 06, 2012, 22:10
As stated previously in post :
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283239/#msg283239 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283239/#msg283239)
...
My statements are clear when taken “in” context.  (Anyone can change the meaning of a statement when taking text “out” of context.)
....
I will try to stay out of “your” conversations on this thread unless asked a direct question.  I will need to respond, however, if misquoted.
Best,
JB

Does Justin and PE really believe that contributors will be willing to pay to be part of a service that effectively sends buyers to the cheapest source of their images? Is that what PE will offer for buyers? I've been convinced by Justin thus far, but my confidence is seriously shaken by this revelation. Justin, I'd really like to hear your explanation...?

Monty’s answer:  Sadly, some users of this forum appear to be on a witch hunt, taking my old posts, removing a word here and there until my words (out of context, of course) say what they want them to say.  It’s called libel.
We are and always have been crystal clear regarding price comparisons.  Let me spell it out, W-E  D-O-N-’-T!  Furthermore, buyers see only ONE place to license an image.  Please, please review the PicturEngine support center.

Look, I love this industry.  I love photography.  I have profound appreciation for photographers.  It’s what I’ve wanted to do all my life.  I want this industry to survive.  I want this industry to succeed!  Every day I get up motivated to do everything I possibly can do to save, and ultimately reinvent this dying industry before it’s dead.  I’m simply offering an alternative, a fantastic alternative, to the status quo.  If you’re not looking for an option to constantly decreasing commissions, lower image prices, buyers frustrated by image duplication and marketplace chaos, and on and on, then don’t join PicturEngine, it’s that simple.  I understand skepticism and questions.  Hey, I’m skeptical and ask tons of questions every day of my life, and that’s simply being smart and savvy.  But outright libelous accusations, are just not productive to our common goal.  May I ask that we keep the discussion based in reality by first reviewing the PicturEngine support center resources, and secondly by reading original posts rather than concocted and false misquotes.  If after reviewing these resources, something remains unclear, please PLEASE, by all means, ask me!!

Please try to keep in mind that I’m a photographer, I think like a photographer, I know what it’s like to be a photographer.  We’re on the same team.  Your success is our success.  Please join me on this positive journey.  Together we CAN create a bright future for the stock photo industry.

Best,
JB
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on December 06, 2012, 23:48
As stated previously in post :
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283239/#msg283239[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/msg283239/#msg283239[/url])
...
My statements are clear when taken “in” context.  (Anyone can change the meaning of a statement when taking text “out” of context.)
....
I will try to stay out of “your” conversations on this thread unless asked a direct question.  I will need to respond, however, if misquoted.
Best,
JB

Does Justin and PE really believe that contributors will be willing to pay to be part of a service that effectively sends buyers to the cheapest source of their images? Is that what PE will offer for buyers? I've been convinced by Justin thus far, but my confidence is seriously shaken by this revelation. Justin, I'd really like to hear your explanation...?

Monty’s answer:  Sadly, some users of this forum appear to be on a witch hunt, taking my old posts, removing a word here and there until my words (out of context, of course) say what they want them to say.  It’s called libel.
We are and always have been crystal clear regarding price comparisons.  Let me spell it out, W-E  D-O-N-’-T!  Furthermore, buyers see only ONE place to license an image.  Please, please review the PicturEngine support center.

Look, I love this industry.  I love photography.  I have profound appreciation for photographers.  It’s what I’ve wanted to do all my life.  I want this industry to survive.  I want this industry to succeed!  Every day I get up motivated to do everything I possibly can do to save, and ultimately reinvent this dying industry before it’s dead.  I’m simply offering an alternative, a fantastic alternative, to the status quo.  If you’re not looking for an option to constantly decreasing commissions, lower image prices, buyers frustrated by image duplication and marketplace chaos, and on and on, then don’t join PicturEngine, it’s that simple.  I understand skepticism and questions.  Hey, I’m skeptical and ask tons of questions every day of my life, and that’s simply being smart and savvy.  But outright libelous accusations, are just not productive to our common goal.  May I ask that we keep the discussion based in reality by first reviewing the PicturEngine support center resources, and secondly by reading original posts rather than concocted and false misquotes.  If after reviewing these resources, something remains unclear, please PLEASE, by all means, ask me!!

Please try to keep in mind that I’m a photographer, I think like a photographer, I know what it’s like to be a photographer.  We’re on the same team.  Your success is our success.  Please join me on this positive journey.  Together we CAN create a bright future for the stock photo industry.

Best,
JB


Why would anyone quote you from this thread or from anywhere and then change words?  Are you saying Cascoly's quote is fabricated?  What quote did they change?  Where is the original? I can't see it on your site?  Did you change it?

And I think you're being paranoid about there being a 'witchhunt'.  You're asking for $480 on a site that's not even live, we're entitled to pick it apart and figure it out for ourselves, especially since you've been known to sugarcoat answers, or avoid them completely for weeks.  How many times did we ask about your advertising plans before we got a real answer from you?  How many times did we ask about ktools and in the end you expect Lisa to chase them up on your behalf?  It's your business.  Lisa or anyone else shouldn't be dealing with ktools to get ktools working on YOUR site.  Asking Lisa to chase it is pretty unprofessional if you ask me.  Do you want us there or not?  And forgive us if we don't believe a single word you say when you've failed to  keep your promises.  You were supposed to go live, you still haven't.  You were supposed to have ktools and other platforms set up, you haven't.  For months you said nothing of the 1000 unique images that are 'NOT' on any of the microstock, that we need to have to be eligible to sign up, saying you don't want 'same old' content as the micros.  Then you have the nerve to tell us we're taking you out of context.  No we're not, we're interpreting you by the LITERAL meanings of the words you use.  Perhaps you should choose your words more carefully next time.  You're also very patronizing and that's hardly going to get anyone on your side, let alone get us to hand over $480, for probably not much in return until the site gets going.  And who know when that will be - if ever.

Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: sharpshot on December 07, 2012, 03:35
Straight from the PE site:-
"Image buyers get the best image at the best price with access to direct outlets from which the image can be licensed."
http://www.picturengine.com/beta/static.php?page=link2&type=buyer (http://www.picturengine.com/beta/static.php?page=link2&type=buyer)

Perhaps the best price isn't supposed to mean the cheapest price but how else can you define it?  If we're putting our images on a site that gives us a good commission, it's unlikely to be the best price for the buyer.  The cheapest subs site is going to give buyers the best price but I don't think we would want PE to send buyers there.
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: qwerty on December 07, 2012, 03:41
I couldn't find the bit about the "cheapest" 

From the FAQ

"Buyers also demand good prices.  There is only one way to get the best price on ANY good or service, and that is to reduce the distance from the producer to the buyer.  We DO NOT compare prices, instead we send the buyer to the base agency (where the image was uploaded first) or directly to the photographer (if they are on the PicturEngine platform) to get the best possible price. "
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Microbius on December 07, 2012, 04:01
I think the explanation from Justin has been pretty clear. It doesn't give buyers the option of multiple outlets to chose from and doesn't do a price comparison. Some statements could have been misread if you wished to misread them, but they have now been clarified. Can we move on?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on December 07, 2012, 05:38
"Can we move on?"

No, not just yet.  I'd like to know where Cascoly got that 'extract' from.  It had to have come from somewhere.  If it's come from the site and it's buried somewhere, I'd like to know.  If it's come from his imagination, I'd like to know that too so I can ignore anything else he types.  I can't imagine anyone becoming vindictive and making that stuff up just because of a PayPal fee debate, but who knows.  I want to see what he has to say.  Justin did imply that the extract does exist and a 'few' words were changed and taken out of context so I'm leaning towards believing there's an area on the site that we're missing and need to see.

Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Microbius on December 07, 2012, 06:00
"Can we move on?"

No, not just yet.  I'd like to know where Cascoly got that 'extract' from.  It had to have come from somewhere.  If it's come from the site and it's buried somewhere, I'd like to know.  If it's come from his imagination, I'd like to know that too so I can ignore anything else he types.  I can't imagine anyone becoming vindictive and making that stuff up just because of a PayPal fee debate, but who knows.  I want to see what he has to say.  Justin did imply that the extract does exist and a 'few' words were changed and taken out of context so I'm leaning towards believing there's an area on the site that we're missing and need to see.

Sorry I skimmed the post by Cascoly. This part does seem to contradict what Justin has been saying on this forum, so it would be good to see where it came from:


"The option to choose not only which image to license, but also from whom to license it, assures images buyers the best image at the best price.  We include all representatives licensing a particular image and allow the image buyer to make an informed purchasing decision.

Once you find and image, we show you all available sources to license that image"
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Microbius on December 07, 2012, 06:06
Found it with advanced Google search. They've removed it,  here's the Google cached version, better get some grabs if you want it before the cache goes:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MEQb7BTJQtgJ:support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415464-how-does-picturengine-work# (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MEQb7BTJQtgJ:support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415464-how-does-picturengine-work#)

I guess this is the new edited version with the "show you all of the available sources to license that image" bits removed.
http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415524-how-does-it-work- (http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415524-how-does-it-work-)

It now seems a bit harsh to have accused someone of libel on the strength of quite accurate quotes, could you not have just said you have changed the way Picturengine was supposed to work (if that is what has happened)?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Poncke on December 07, 2012, 06:15
Found it with advanced Google search. They've removed it,  here's the Google cached version, better get some grabs if you want it before the cache goes:

[url]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MEQb7BTJQtgJ:support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415464-how-does-picturengine-work#[/url] ([url]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MEQb7BTJQtgJ:support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415464-how-does-picturengine-work#[/url])

I guess this is the new edited version with the "show you all of the available sources to license that image" bits removed.
[url]http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415524-how-does-it-work-[/url] ([url]http://support.picturengine.com/customer/portal/articles/415524-how-does-it-work-[/url])

It now seems a bit harsh to have accused someone of libel on the strength of quite accurate quotes, could you not have just said you have changed the way Picturengine was supposed to work (if that is what has happened)?


I have a screenshot. Cheers. Will upload when I am home
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: grafix04 on December 07, 2012, 06:20
Wow, good job Microbius.  That was cached as recently as Nov 26.  I'm uploading it in case it disappears. 

I tried to have a look at the site using Wayback Machine but they've blocked the web crawlers.  Are they hiding anything else I wonder? 


Edit.  Ponke, you posted as I was posting.  Spared you the trouble :D
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: Monty-m-gue on December 07, 2012, 07:55
Oh dear, it's not looking good, is it?
Title: Re: Check Out PicturEngine
Post by: leaf on December 07, 2012, 09:24
Ok, this is getting confusing with 2 threads.  I'm locking this thread so we can keep everything together.  Further conversation can go in this thread
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/picturengine-some-thoughts/)