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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: jjneff on January 15, 2013, 10:59
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O.K. I am a lone business like all of you, when my files are pulled from iStock I am looking for a place with a higher price point then SS. It makes no business sense for me to just deactivate files with no place to put them just because I am pissed. I am looking at GL and thinking lets start this New Site with one that is already up and running. I think Kelly will work with us and this will add a one two punch to iStock at the same time. We can launch a massive campaign for GL and feel great about where our images are. I think its a win win for us
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I'm nobody's fanboy but the logical place to move within those parameters is DT as it's the only one in the same ballpark that does a reasonable price / RPD
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GL is a really fantastic site in many points, for the model release it's like a dream: just need to upload them one time and no need to attach them to each files! The site is fast, reliable, modern and very easy to use, the staff is very friendly and efficient. I think it's a very good choice, it needs only more contributors and customers.
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Dreamstime is lowering prices each 6 months and sell almost only sub sales >:(
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Good luck with this. I've been down this road before, trying to lobby for a contributor-supported push to help build a good up-and-comer into top tier status. It doesn't work because no one agrees on what the right site should be.
Case in point, heywoody would support DT, while I disagree with that. I don't like DT's high prices and variable pricing. I support more modest pricing and simple pricing structures. StockFresh would be my first choice.
You'll get a lot of different opinions on which site is best, and ultimately no consensus, thus no way to move forward.
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I'm nobody's fanboy but the logical place to move within those parameters is DT as it's the only one in the same ballpark that does a reasonable price / RPD
I disagree. There's far too many subs now, they've followed the istock policy of cutting commissions and will probably do it again. The similars policy is a nightmare for me and I'm sure it would be worse for people dropping exclusivity and having to upload their entire portfolio.
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O.K. I am a lone business like all of you, when my files are pulled from iStock I am looking for a place with a higher price point then SS. It makes no business sense for me to just deactivate files with no place to put them just because I am pissed. I am looking at GL and thinking lets start this New Site with one that is already up and running. I think Kelly will work with us and this will add a one two punch to iStock at the same time. We can launch a massive campaign for GL and feel great about where our images are. I think its a win win for us
It could work as long as buyers move to GL as well. That's the only fault I find with the site, they don't sell enough yet. And if they suddenly did get a lot more buyers, they need to be able to cope with it. I'd love to see it if they can.
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Like Mike said, you won't get a consensus. Everybody has different ideals of what they are looking for. You might as well promote what you think is right and not worry about what everyone else is doing.
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I'm nobody's fanboy but the logical place to move within those parameters is DT as it's the only one in the same ballpark that does a reasonable price / RPD
<Sigh> The only important thing about 'RPD' in microstock is the 'R' __ the REVENUE. Exclusives at IS have a terrific RPD but that's been clearly shown to be a weakness, not a strength, to their income.
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I will do my own thing, it would still be better to rally around something new then to not. To bad we can't all agree to at least try :-\
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I will do my own thing, it would still be better to rally around something new then to not. To bad we can't all agree to at least try :-\
Well, my vote would be that everyone promote my site, but I don't think there is going to be a big rallying cry for that. ;D
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<Sigh>
[rolls eyes at your sigh]
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I'm nobody's fanboy but the logical place to move within those parameters is DT as it's the only one in the same ballpark that does a reasonable price / RPD
<Sigh> The only important thing about 'RPD' in microstock is the 'R' __ the REVENUE. Exclusives at IS have a terrific RPD but that's been clearly shown to be a weakness, not a strength, to their income.
<Sigh> It never ceases to amaze me how people react to what they think the point being made is instead of reading the actual words :o OF COURSE revenue is more important than RPD but within the parameters the OP mentioned (higher price point than SS) DT is a more logical choice - DT is a player and GL really is not in the sense that it will never produce the income IS did for the vast majority of contributors assuming they can even get a substantial proportion of their material accepted.
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I would get behind a push to GL if it comes to that. A critical mass of heavy hitters moving to a site with a fair royalty, clean interface, and streamlined upload process could be a winning ticket. Designers would like more of their purchase price to go to photographers rather than a middleman, especially Getty who has rubbed them the wrong way for some time.
With a presence around the world, and social media to help get the word out (and keep the word circulating), it has lots of potential. We are legion :)
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Dreamstime is lowering prices each 6 months and sell almost only sub sales >:(
Also be sure to investigate how DT puts your images on pinterest. IMHO, that is almost as bad as what getty is doing, except DT is promoting the use of your watermarked images to be pinned and repinned many hundreds of times...with no compensation to you of course.
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I already have all my photos on GL. The pricing makes sense and submission is a streamlined process. I make only an occasional sale, so it really represents just a hope for the future. Hope it takes off someday.
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GL has been a no go for me. They rejected a lot (even files that were accepted and selling well at other sites including Istock, SS, DT etc etc - I'm on 10+ stock sites). I just found it waste of time to upload content to them and have lots of it rejected. Then someone on another thread commented that GL was probably more into vectors, illustrations etc as against photographs - which if correct could be the reason for their rejecting so many of my good images. If all this is true then GL is not really for contributors like me who just do photography work.
But moreover, on top of all those rejections GL manages to get me very little sales.
So for the time being - till it becomes clear what kind of content they want - and till they can get somewhere near decent sales, I think its just waste of time to upload to them. I would rather support DT or another site more at this time.
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They have accepted 99,9% of my photos files.
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only 75% Acceptance Rate for me on GL photos- but I am a newbie so cut me some slack - someday I will hit 99.99% someday...
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I already have all my photos on GL. The pricing makes sense and submission is a streamlined process. I make only an occasional sale, so it really represents just a hope for the future. Hope it takes off someday.
This, of course, is the point. SS is the obvious one to move to but, if RPD is an issue, it makes sense to use the site that is ranked 20 rather than the one ranked 2.4.
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While it's frustrating to have good photos rejected, I think we'd be better off if some of these sites specialized a bit, instead of everyone trying to sell everything to everyone, and competing only on price. So maybe the answer is more agencies, not necessarily large, but having some degree of specialization - people, or objects, or travel, or something else... which could help buyers too, to some extent.
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more places would be confusing to buyers- a super walmart has everything under one roof thus Shutter hits the mark on this concept...
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GL doesn't accept any people images or property released shots. I'm out. Not worth it unless I can promote my entire port.
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^^^Haven't they been accepting people photos for a few years now?
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^^^Haven't they been accepting people photos for a few years now?
To be honest I didn't get past their application, which stated that as part of their upload terms DO NOT UPLOAD MODEL RELEASED PEOPLE IMAGES. So I just clicked "X" and took another swallow of beer.
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^^^Haven't they been accepting people photos for a few years now?
To be honest I didn't get past their application, which stated that as part of their upload terms DO NOT UPLOAD MODEL RELEASED PEOPLE IMAGES. So I just clicked "X" and took another swallow of beer.
I've been uploading model released images to them for some time now
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When they initially started accepting images with people I think it was by invitation only. I don't know if they lifted that restriction or if it is still a select group that can upload model-released images.
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What is the site of GL ?
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What is the site of GL ?
http://graphicleftovers.com/ (http://graphicleftovers.com/)
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Hi All,
We do accept people images!
In the application process we ask that you not upload people images because there is no way to add releases until after you are accepted. To ensure that each applicant is legitimate, we do background checks to make sure the images presented belong to them. In this process, if we see that their portfolio contains MR images, then we activate the MR uploader in their dashboard.
Sorry if this was confusing and not very clear.
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Seemed clear to me. I just looked at the Seller Agreement where it says:
"The Seller acknowledges that GL will not accept any Images that infringe on any copyright, trademark, property- or any other applicable rights. You are solely responsible for the legal status of your Images. You warrant that for each Image You own all the proprietary rights and that You obtained all the necessary releases which You must provide for each submission."
http://graphicleftovers.com/seller-agreement (http://graphicleftovers.com/seller-agreement)
Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
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Seemed clear to me. I just looked at the Seller Agreement where it says:
"The Seller acknowledges that GL will not accept any Images that infringe on any copyright, trademark, property- or any other applicable rights. You are solely responsible for the legal status of your Images. You warrant that for each Image You own all the proprietary rights and that You obtained all the necessary releases which You must provide for each submission."
[url]http://graphicleftovers.com/seller-agreement[/url] ([url]http://graphicleftovers.com/seller-agreement[/url])
Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
Correct, we do not offer an editorial license at this time.
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Will you offer video in the future? Might be a good time to reach out to all exclusives at iStock Kelly. Great site and I will be submitting there in the future.
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i'm sorry I also was under the impression of no people images.
if 123 hadn't pissed everyone off they may have been a better choice.
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Well, i just my first submission. After i do it i saw all images must be exif data....so...i think only half will have! Lets see...
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Will you offer video in the future? Might be a good time to reach out to all exclusives at iStock Kelly. Great site and I will be submitting there in the future.
Video is very popular and would be a great addition to our site. Yes, maybe in the future. We look forward to you joining us!
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While it's frustrating to have good photos rejected, I think we'd be better off if some of these sites specialized a bit, instead of everyone trying to sell everything to everyone, and competing only on price. So maybe the answer is more agencies, not necessarily large, but having some degree of specialization - people, or objects, or travel, or something else... which could help buyers too, to some extent.
I couldn't agree more :). Over this Christmas period I uploaded 24 files (all photographs) to GL and they accepted SIX. That's an acceptance rate of 25%. Funnily enough pretty much all those other images got accepted at the other sites (I'm on 10+ stock sites) - and some of those rejected by GL have already started to sell well. So go figure their strategy! On other side GL sells VERY LITTLE despite all those high handed rejections (at least in my case). Someone on another thread suggested that they are pressing more into illustrations, vectors etc which sounds fine to me. That could be sound business strategy in these times of aggressive microstock competition as it focuses on a niche. However if this is the case they should state it clearly - and not waste contributor's time uploading photography works and getting next to everything rejected. That's what I think.
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While it's frustrating to have good photos rejected, I think we'd be better off if some of these sites specialized a bit, instead of everyone trying to sell everything to everyone, and competing only on price. So maybe the answer is more agencies, not necessarily large, but having some degree of specialization - people, or objects, or travel, or something else... which could help buyers too, to some extent.
I couldn't agree more :). Over this Christmas period I uploaded 24 files (all photographs) to GL and they accepted SIX. That's an acceptance rate of 25%. Funnily enough pretty much all those other images got accepted at the other sites (I'm on 10+ stock sites) - and some of those rejected by GL have already started to sell well. So go figure their strategy! On other side GL sells VERY LITTLE despite all those high handed rejections (at least in my case). Someone on another thread suggested that they are pressing more into illustrations, vectors etc which sounds fine to me. That could be sound business strategy in these times of aggressive microstock competition as it focuses on a niche. However if this is the case they should state it clearly - and not waste contributor's time uploading photography works and getting next to everything rejected. That's what I think.
that is very weird, sure they are a little picky but I don't think they are unfair, looked into your iStock portfolio and I don't see a reason for rejections at GL, what were the rejections reasons? that said my GL portfolio is smaller than at SS
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While it's frustrating to have good photos rejected, I think we'd be better off if some of these sites specialized a bit, instead of everyone trying to sell everything to everyone, and competing only on price. So maybe the answer is more agencies, not necessarily large, but having some degree of specialization - people, or objects, or travel, or something else... which could help buyers too, to some extent.
I couldn't agree more :). Over this Christmas period I uploaded 24 files (all photographs) to GL and they accepted SIX. That's an acceptance rate of 25%. Funnily enough pretty much all those other images got accepted at the other sites (I'm on 10+ stock sites) - and some of those rejected by GL have already started to sell well. So go figure their strategy! On other side GL sells VERY LITTLE despite all those high handed rejections (at least in my case). Someone on another thread suggested that they are pressing more into illustrations, vectors etc which sounds fine to me. That could be sound business strategy in these times of aggressive microstock competition as it focuses on a niche. However if this is the case they should state it clearly - and not waste contributor's time uploading photography works and getting next to everything rejected. That's what I think.
that is very weird, sure they are a little picky but I don't think they are unfair, looked into your iStock portfolio and I don't see a reason for rejections at GL, what were the rejections reasons? that said my GL portfolio is smaller than at SS
many different ones such as- We are not interested in this image. Thank you - Isolation (including one or more images that had not even been isolated) - Tones - Poor use of focus - Lighting - Contains artifacts, noise or aberation. My issue is that at least over 90% of these same images have gotten accepted at other websites and some already started to sell well despite low January effect. So just dont get it!! :-\
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they also have a daily upload limit, which is a pain for putting up whole ports
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.......To ensure that each applicant is legitimate, we do background checks to make sure the images presented belong to them......
Can I just say that GL is the only agency I have ever had contact me to say they had spotted something coming through the queue from another contributor that they think could have been stolen from me, and could I check and verify if that is the case.
Now contrast that with some of the other sites that currently house portfolios from people with blatantly infringing material several weeks after they have been reported here.
(I hope this doesn't give my ID away to GL staff but it had to be said!)
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Will you offer video in the future? Might be a good time to reach out to all exclusives at iStock Kelly. Great site and I will be submitting there in the future.
Video is very popular and would be a great addition to our site. Yes, maybe in the future. We look forward to you joining us!
Perhaps another option is a partnership with Pond5? They're another contributor friendly site that specialize in video clips and already have a lot of buyers. It might be a good option for former exclusives to upload stills to GL and video clips to Pond5, especially if the two sites could work together and cross promote the different portfolios. Starting a new video site from scratch is going to take a lot of time and Pond5 aren't ideal for stills buyers, I don't think they sell vectors yet.
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Kelly@GL,
Could you respond to some of the acceptance rate issues in this thread?
I've been a contributor with iStock for over 5 years. With a 90% approval rating and a portfolio of thousands of images. Many of us have been around long enough to know what sells (especially within our own areas of focus.)
One thing Getty and iStock have done well is get over the fetishistic quality focus and instead focus on sound quality images that are also authentic and serve buyers well. Heck, for the extreme, consider the current phone cam/mobile craze of buyers and ad campaigns (perhaps a fad, who knows) where lo-fi is actually sought after.
One thing I would place a high priority on if I move to another agency/distributor would be a reasonable acceptance process for experienced stock photographers that quickly checks for adequate quality but doesn't try to guess the market (which can change over time) nor toss out solid images, perhaps made under difficult circumstances, because of minor flaws that wouldn't concern buyers.
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Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
Correct, we do not offer an editorial license at this time.
Thank you for confirming.
In best Duncan Bannatyne mode, "And for that reason, I'm out!"
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Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
Correct, we do not offer an editorial license at this time.
Thank you for confirming.
In best Duncan Bannatyne mode, "And for that reason, I'm out!"
That would be me too as a large proportion of my port is editorial. Kelly, is that something you are considering or would consider in the near future? Regards, David.
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Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
Correct, we do not offer an editorial license at this time.
Thank you for confirming.
In best Duncan Bannatyne mode, "And for that reason, I'm out!"
There are other forms of work that aren't accepted either which makes them unsuitable for some but, again, the key thing is that it would be a case of moving your product line from tesco or walmart and using the local corner shop to sell your product
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Just checking: that wording seems to suggest you don't accepte editorial?
Correct, we do not offer an editorial license at this time.
Thank you for confirming.
In best Duncan Bannatyne mode, "And for that reason, I'm out!"
There are other forms of work that aren't accepted either which makes them unsuitable for some but, again, the key thing is that it would be a case of moving your product line from tesco or walmart and using the local corner shop to sell your product
Of course, but if you can't sell your product at the corner shop, it can't work.
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O.K. I am a lone business like all of you, when my files are pulled from iStock I am looking for a place with a higher price point then SS. It makes no business sense for me to just deactivate files with no place to put them just because I am pissed. I am looking at GL and thinking lets start this New Site with one that is already up and running. I think Kelly will work with us and this will add a one two punch to iStock at the same time. We can launch a massive campaign for GL and feel great about where our images are. I think its a win win for us
GL is a good place. I think everyone should follow their heart. That said, we need to back the smaller folks to give them a chance to take the place of eyestuck. That's easy for me to say as an illustrator since I hardly ever need to use releases, pay models, etc.
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GL! been there done that = No Sales, tons of nonsense rejections, up to now that I know of, No People photos unless your invited, and just read No Editorials...sorry dropped them around a year ago for all the above reasons...No thanks!
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Pleasant place, pleasant people. Professionally run, etc. They want to lay a bit more emphacy on that they sell photography not just illutrations, vectors.
Im afraid its not much revenue at the moment.
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I made my 20 files submission at 2 days. I donīt know anything yet. For a site so small is difficult understand why this delay but ok, i donīt hope big results. Why?
- I spend a little time reading the terms and seller rules, so:
- They donīt accept editorial; Ok for me, i submit my editorial work in others places like Alamy that are more specific for that .
- Now, they donīt accept people images? On the seller terms i read that people faces collection is for invitation only.....ok, probably iīm out...
-They donīt accept images without intact exif.....30% of my port is out....i have a small port,
- So , they could be a very good and peaceful place to be, but is not for everyone!
-there are another restrictions ?
I understand that each agency have their niche, their standarts , their host limitations, legal standarts and limitations, and all of this things, but this one have lots of limitations . Maybe they have change their terms and i have read the old terms or i not understand right, but i know one thing, is the contributor who choose the agencies and because of that i upload only in 4 (SS, IS, DT, Alamy) If IS donīt change the 18 images limit and get another version of Deep Meta (OR Deep Hole for me) maybe i upload to 3 agencies only in future.
Contributor blame the agencies for bad politics and low sales but the power is ours . In this case i will see how my files perform but after read the limitations terms i think they fall for 100% , iīm not invite to submit people, so....
PS: Exif is only necessary for editorial licenses , whats the problem with standarts ?
I know and agree 100% that contributors most allow little agencies to grow ... BUT... if this limitations are true is this agency that donīt want to grow...
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Actually for me I have better success selling pictures on Pond5 than GL...
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- Now, they donīt accept people images? On the seller terms i read that people faces collection is for invitation only.....ok, probably iīm out...
they are accepting people pictures, send them an email telling you want to upload, believe you have an entry test (http://graphicleftovers.com/contact-us (http://graphicleftovers.com/contact-us))
-They donīt accept images without intact exif.....30% of my port is out....i have a small port,
this isn't correct, at least I haven't experienced it (ever in any agency I have joined, over 40)
IMO GL is the simplest agency ever, you just upload and done, not a single click, weird you are contributing in Alamy and saying GL is harder....
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I submitted 20 today and received the accepted letter. What does "15 pending" mean though? Does that mean they only want 5 in their collection, but the others maybe okay but no commercial value maybe? About 95% of my shots are released people so I didn't have a great selection to pick from. Need to figure out the release business also.
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Good luck with this. I've been down this road before, trying to lobby for a contributor-supported push to help build a good up-and-comer into top tier status. It doesn't work because no one agrees on what the right site should be...
I should add to this...
John, I didn't mean to shoot down your idea. I'm all for supporting good companies that treat contributors fairly, and GL is high on the list of companies that do that. And I fully support them and upload all of my work there.
I think it's impossible to get a consensus here on a single site that everyone should fully support and upload everything to. But that doesn't mean GL or any other site is off-limits. If you're doing a push at GL, good for you and just know that while my preferred up-and-comer may not be GL, I'm still sending all of my stuff to GL as well.
Maybe rather than trying to pinpoint a single site we should all get behind, we need a short list of maybe the top 3 most contributor-friendly, fair trade, all-around good up-and-coming companies to show support for.
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I submitted 20 today and received the accepted letter. What does "15 pending" mean though? Does that mean they only want 5 in their collection, but the others maybe okay but no commercial value maybe? About 95% of my shots are released people so I didn't have a great selection to pick from. Need to figure out the release business also.
Releases are straightforward - you upload them and their inspectors reference them. No need to attach releases to images (I do have shots of property and people on the releases for reference; not sure if they might need a bit of help if that wasn't the case)
Pending means it's in the queue; unfinished means you've left off necessary information (title, keywords, description). I assume they will inspect the other 15 shortly and you'll see those become accepted in your dashboard
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GL is by far the easiest place to upload to for model released images. No attatching model releases, no catagories. If the Iptc data is all there then you don't have to do anything at all after ftping them unless you want to change the prices.
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Thanks Joanne!
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GL Stock Images DOES NOT ACCEPT the following images:
Editorial images. We do not offer this license.
Images that contain copyrighted or trademarked content.
Images that require a property release.
???
Restricted Content (Do Not Submit)
Model released images (GL Personalities is a invitation only collection)
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
I believe it's because the system can't accept releases until you are approved, and those images go live into the collection once that happens.
Kelly can elaborate.
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GL Stock Images DOES NOT ACCEPT the following images:
Editorial images. We do not offer this license.
Images that contain copyrighted or trademarked content.
Images that require a property release.
I asked about that as I have quite a few. It's fine to submit those once approved - just add the property releases to the same area as model releases
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
I turned on the No People filter on your iStock port and it showed me 844 images. I think there's at least 20 keepers in that lot :)
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
I turned on the No People filter on your iStock port and it showed me 844 images. I think there's at least 20 keepers in that lot :)
Lol, that's what I was afraid of. Only 20 out of 844!!! I'll take a look, but I'm pretty sure those were from my early days.
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
I turned on the No People filter on your iStock port and it showed me 844 images. I think there's at least 20 keepers in that lot :)
Haha. I just did that too, and it hurts like hell to look at them. But, I'll probably give it a go here sometime soon.
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UPDATE:
- I have some images reviewed and have until now, 100% AR. They do accept people images and without exif. Maybe they do some search to their contributors first or maybe they be highly quality demand...donīt know, but for until now , is work perfectly. Support is great and fast.
Thanks Kelly. ;D ;D ;D iīm very happy!
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I only photograph people, so it looks like I can't even complete the application as it would be impossible for me to find 20 images for application that represent my body of work. I am surprised that an agency would have such a limiting constraint.
Hi, if you only shoot people, please upload them as your 20 images. The reason we ask for a variety of non-people images for your initial application is so that we can get an idea of what types of subjects you shoot. We do accept MR images, and as Sean stated, new submitters cannot add releases until after they are accepted. Thanks
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GL is by far the easiest place to upload to for model released images. No attatching model releases, no catagories. If the Iptc data is all there then you don't have to do anything at all after ftping them unless you want to change the prices.
How do they know which model release applies to each image? Does it need to be referenced in the IPTC data?
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GL is by far the easiest place to upload to for model released images. No attatching model releases, no catagories. If the Iptc data is all there then you don't have to do anything at all after ftping them unless you want to change the prices.
How do they know which model release applies to each image? Does it need to be referenced in the IPTC data?
They don't, it's all down to trust. Let's face how do any agency know if a release is forged or not.
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GL is by far the easiest place to upload to for model released images. No attatching model releases, no catagories. If the Iptc data is all there then you don't have to do anything at all after ftping them unless you want to change the prices.
How do they know which model release applies to each image? Does it need to be referenced in the IPTC data?
I have small reference images on my MRs and PRs which helps to match things up. I don't have as many as you but there have been no questions so far (I'm not done uploading my portfolio there)
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Why are you considering "A" place to move? The logical action would be to move your port to multiple sites, such as GL, SS, DT and so forth. Each site has it's own strengths and weaknesses. They have their own acceptance criteria and, while not specializing in specific image types, they do seem to attract buyers that are looking for certain types of images. For example, it's difficult to classify SS as a low earner agency. While you are correct that starting subscriptions are at $0.25 each, on the assumption your images are good, this payout should quickly rise. Also, their ODD, SOD and EL sales are usually quite good throughout the month. Total RPD can be much higher than this base figure ... above $1.00. And while that figure isn't particularly high, compared to some other sites, when combined with the volume they seem to be able to produce the total monthly payouts can be considerable. And that's really the bottom line ... how much money can I bank at the end of each month. Add to this payouts at all the other sites and your monthly income should be a reasonable figure. Of course all this depends on the quality and quantity of your portfolio. As with any other site (except IS these days), the ball's in your court.
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Why are you considering "A" place to move? The logical action would be to move your port to multiple sites, such as GL, SS, DT and so forth. Each site has it's own strengths and weaknesses. ...
I liken it to people getting a kitten or puppy prior to deciding to have kids - you need to ease into it :)
Particularly for those who have never uploaded elsewhere (I was indie for nearly 4 years before becoming an exclusive, so I got it anyway) there is a strong desire to find a single good agency to work with. As I see things, right now that's just not an option, but recovering exclusives need time to adapt to their new circumstances. I'm heading for 2 years "clean and sober" and I still occasionally have warm longings for the thought of a decent, fair, honest agency to be able to leave behind looking around to see which agency is trying to fleece us today.
They'll figure it out in time, IMO
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GL is by far the easiest place to upload to for model released images. No attatching model releases, no catagories. If the Iptc data is all there then you don't have to do anything at all after ftping them unless you want to change the prices.
How do they know which model release applies to each image? Does it need to be referenced in the IPTC data?
All my MR have 3x4cm pictures to identify the model.
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I'm heading for 2 years "clean and sober" and I still occasionally have warm longings for the thought of a decent, fair, honest agency to be able to leave behind looking around to see which agency is trying to fleece us today.
Great way to put it. Maybe all ex-exclusives need a "clean and sober" version of canisters to designate how long they've been free.
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It's not going to be any good swamping GL with new images unless they get lots more buyers. I'd love to see that happen but the usual way it happens is that we all see less downloads after a site gets a big influx of images. So I think former exclusives will soon be looking at adding more sites. Hopefully they will avoid the ones that are almost as bad as istock. Here's the ones I would use if I was starting from scratch and had a big portfolio.
Shutterstock and they should link it to Bigstockphoto
alamy
Dreamstime
Canstockphoto
Pond5
Veer
GLStockImages
YayMicro
Stockfresh
Cutcaster
There's a few others but I think these are essential for most non-exclusives. And have a search here for threads about Warmpicture.
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It's not going to be any good swamping GL with new images unless they get lots more buyers.
But it's chicken and egg.
I already have all my stuff on GL and get a sale every now and then. If all you big fish jump into the pond, yes it might reduce my sales even further; on the other hand, if buyers start to hear about GL as a place that is getting a lot of images that have been pulled from IS, that could be good.
In the long run, we all need new outlets for our work or the future is bleak.
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It's not going to be any good swamping GL with new images unless they get lots more buyers. I'd love to see that happen but the usual way it happens is that we all see less downloads after a site gets a big influx of images. So I think former exclusives will soon be looking at adding more sites. Hopefully they will avoid the ones that are almost as bad as istock. Here's the ones I would use if I was starting from scratch and had a big portfolio.
Shutterstock and they should link it to Bigstockphoto
alamy
Dreamstime
Canstockphoto
Pond5
Veer
GLStockImages
YayMicro
Stockfresh
Cutcaster
There's a few others but I think these are essential for most non-exclusives. And have a search here for threads about Warmpicture.
putting FT and 123RF outside doesn't make much sense (at least for me)
believe DP got to a nice place too despite the high volume of subs and the all shady things people talk but I never understood really
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How many commission cuts have we had with FT? They're communications are about as good as istock. I couldn't recommend them. I didn't like they way 123RF handled their commission cut. By the time they told us how many credits we needed, it was too late to do anything about it. How many will we need this year? I just don't like having a commission cut each year and it looks like that's their intention.
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How many commission cuts have we had with FT? They're communications are about as good as istock. I couldn't recommend them. I didn't like they way 123RF handled their commission cut. By the time they told us how many credits we needed, it was too late to do anything about it. How many will we need this year? I just don't like having a commission cut each year and it looks like that's their intention.
we could be here all day discussing this and it won't do much, we go with who we want and for as long as we desire...
I am not saying I don't agree with you but if we think like that pretty much we leave microstock, not only FT and 123RF but the all bunch perhaps all beside SS because most agencies paying fair don't make us happy as you know
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I like GL, although my sales look more like a bell curve than a growth chart there. I have been quite impressed with Pond 5 images lately, but maybe that is because most of my images there are new. As long as the sites pay decent percent and aren't too much trouble to upload to and don't have insanely low prices I'd say they should be supported. Sites like IS and FT have a long history of shady deals, others like 123RF have a shorter history of this, but it isn't a good trend.
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I want to be involved with new or still-small agencies that -
1. Have reasonable prices and commissions.
2. Don't do goofy, shady or obnoxious things to alienate their contributors.
3. Make a sale now and then.
Let's make a list! Hmmm. So far my list contains only GL. I tried CC for quite a while but they fell down on #3. PD is out at #1.
What am I overlooking?
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As an 'alternative' to istockphoto I have got to be honest and say that i don't love the layout/appearance of GLstock. No offense to the owner but IMHO the site looks a little amateurish in comparison and I'm not sure it could attract all types of customers from one end of the spectrum to the other eg. corporates to personal blogger. However I fully appreciate their support for the contributor and they do look like a fully contributor orientated site.
To be honest, right now i don't think there is a solid alternative. My vote would be to create an entirely new contributor orientated site which borrows all the best elements from all stock media sites and should sell photos, vectors and videos.
Right now i would say spread your port around and in the mean time start getting ideas on paper.
Just my 2cents.
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Really? I think the look is clean and no nonsense.
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Really? I think the look is clean and no nonsense.
I agree. And I like their design blog.
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wow, stick to photography guys :P
It looks very designer orientated, but could you see corporates using that site?
Above all sites my vote would go to canstockphoto
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wow, stick to photography guys :P
It looks very designer orientated, but could you see corporates using that site?
I'm not getting this. People working for big corporations will only use web sites with some particular look and feel?
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I believe so yes. An ideal example of the perfect site would be istockphoto back in 2006, the design was clean (although a bit dated) the site was functional the search worked and above all prices were good for everyone, designers, corporates etc.
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Well web sites can always be changed, at least in superficial ways. Maybe GL's current look is appropriate for their current customer base. I actually like it, but of course it's a very subjective thing and people do react differently.
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I might think about signing up if they would change their name! Even GL hasn't got entirely rid of the old 'graphic leftovers' name, which just implied that they sell bits of rubbish nobody wants to me.
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I might think about signing up if they would change their name! Even GL hasn't got entirely rid of the old 'graphic leftovers' name, which just implied that they sell bits of rubbish nobody wants to me.
If microstockers survived Crap Hamlet Snap Village, possibly the worst name ever for any photo agency, I'm sure GL Stock is manageable!
I only joined there last week and so am still in the process of uploading my portfolio. So far I've found the experience smooth and straightforward - this afternoon I also made my first sale. My take on a medium file is more than I get for many Large sales at IS - so the buyer pays less than 1/3 of the IS price and we both end up with a good deal.
I'm not naive about the difficulties of getting an agency going - look at Stockfresh and a host of other languishing sites - but decent prices for buyers (not dirt cheap, but decent) and reasonable returns for sellers seem like such a good idea. Funny no one thought of that before....oh, wait....
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Sorry but being with them for more than 2 years my conclusion is that GL reviewers will be more successful selling tomatoes rather than inspecting images same as Veer. My approval rate on IS and SS is 3x higher than GL and Veer.
Just have a feeling that they don't know what kind of images want?
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As an 'alternative' to istockphoto I have got to be honest and say that i don't love the layout/appearance of GLstock. No offense to the owner but IMHO the site looks a little amateurish in comparison and I'm not sure it could attract all types of customers from one end of the spectrum to the other eg. corporates to personal blogger. However I fully appreciate their support for the contributor and they do look like a fully contributor orientated site...
Totally disagree. It's a great design, easy to navigate, no clutter, highlights the product well, it's al all around great design.
Far better than CanStock for sure.
...To be honest, right now i don't think there is a solid alternative. My vote would be to create an entirely new contributor orientated site which borrows all the best elements from all stock media sites and should sell photos, vectors and videos...
That's great. Now we just need to find someone with a few million dollars sitting around looking to start something like this. :)
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If microstockers survived Crap Hamlet Snap Village, possibly the worst name ever for any photo agency, I'm sure GL Stock is manageable...
I still have a SnapVillage t-shirt. Not proud of it. I use it for painting.
:)
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Guess I better get uploading. Got a sale notice and don't know if I've been approved a week with just the first 20 files.
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Well great. Now the pathetically few sales I'd been getting will dry up completely, as all you heavyweights show up, with your thousands of images.
Welcome aboard.
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Does the site have some sort of best match search system in place?
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Well great. Now the pathetically few sales I'd been getting will dry up completely, as all you heavyweights show up, with your thousands of images.
Welcome aboard.
It's always possible that if enough variety of images arrives, more buyers will find the site useful and everyone will do better. This idea that we do better by keeping people out comes up a lot, but I think it's not a viable long-term strategy.
The big issue with the smaller sites is lack of buyers, not too many images
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As I have only started distributing my images through different agencies last week, I can say that I like GL so far for several reasons:
- Easy submission process
- Personal and friendly support
- Choice of price level for contributor plus high royalty rate
- Interface clean and current (like 5 years ahead of Fotolia and iStock and 10 years ahead of Dreamstime, Deposit, Canstock)
If there are sales (and I had a first one already), I think GL will be on the top of my preferred agency list, along with Shutterstock.
I have no plans of keeping content from any agency but some are making it easy to supply and those will get future uploads first. Others are complicated, so they will have to wait until I take the time...
With regards to some comments in this thread: I submitted people images without problems; and I have a very high acceptance rate on my iStock-accepted files - actually not (or almost not) getting any rejections at all like I did on Deposit and Canstock makes me doubt about their seriousness on quality. I am totally fine with getting a few rejected because they don't fit into an agency - or because they just tell me "hey, if iStock approved these it was probably because the inspector had to go through 500 flower images before and was just happy to see something different".
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There is a few things I would like to see on GL, but I need to figure you what they were because I forgot. LOL. But Kelly is great and the uploading is easy. Just waiting for the first sale now.