Another side is the images they have wholly owned in these collections are going to become more selective as they try to offer more of a Vetta look to their new collection, they own some great imagery that is not on the new site yet. I don't think there are massive buyers for these individual styles of imagery but they will be subscription so buyers might shop there instead of paying Vetta prices for great imagery.

I don't see any Vetta-type images in the Thinkstock collection, just conventional stock images some quite good, some no so good, some a bit outdated. What they will do in the future, we will learn in the future, but I seriously doubt they are going to risk their more profitable business for an SS type subscription site and on the intent to get the SS costumers. SS is a good business, but because of his model, prices and comissions paid, far less profitable than Istock.

There's always "noise", but rarely ever much action.  Nobody wants to be the "first" to stand up to the agencies because they're afraid nobody else will follow.

One major problem is the sheer volume of contributors... So many of whom are not doing or attempting to do MicroStock for a living...  They are 'tickled pink' to get that extra $20 a month and they just keep on uploading not caring what the agencies do.  Sadly, THEY are the contributors who are in control and the agencies use them as the stick to beat the pros into submission.

I think I am example of this "noise". I got 1% of my income from microstock but actually it's my second year and I doubled it in comparison to first one. I am going to reach next canister on SS this year so I have to focus more on others to make them earn more otherwise there is no chance for another double.

I think patience is needed...Veer MP has only been up and running for 6 months or so in an overcrowded market...what I have found is that their average sale is higher than any of the other sites...visually their site beats the others...give them a chance to produce results.

I wasn't just talking about the low sales, but also the weird (and overabundant) rejections.  Every admin I spoke with there seemed pretty clueless about the type of images that sell in micro.  

Even had one very nice guy there call and offer me a remedial class on photo editing.  Apparently my images all left something to be desired.  Something buyers at the other micros seem to be overlooking when they buy them.  

In all seriousness, if I were to edit each image the way they suggested it would take me 20-30 minutes an image to edit each one for minimal gain in appearance.  There is no way that would be affordable to do in micro.  

Like I said, they really don't understand this market.  At all.

Quote

I opted out of third party and promotional use, as well as the partner programs at IS, and yet I just found one of my images being sold on thinkstockphotos.com.
Off to email support.
edit: done. I went to the page where my image is on thinkstock. Tried to copy and paste the url so IS would know where to find it...it wouldn't work. I also noticed a note on the support ticket page:
* Please note * Due to an extremely high volume of tickets at this time, there may be up to a 5 day wait for ticket responses. If you require immediate assistance, please call us:
I would imagine they are going to be busy. Think I'll call them.

I called IS support. I was told that they are shuffling portfolios over to thinkstock, whether you are opted out of subs or not, apparently. She said she would put me on a list to have my images removed and that should happen in the next 24-48 hours.
 
Things like this are one reason why I never wanted to go exclusive with IS.

Thats rather sad...so what do you have to do if you aren't even aware of what is going on, which I'm sure there are alot out there that don't have a clue. Does each indivual photographer that opted out of subs have to contact them requesting the images be taken off? It appears to be the case.

Hi Dook,

  Actually I wrote that incorrectly. Istock shooters as of now will still have the opportunity to upload to Getty collections. So far it seems that most of the Macro work that Istock exclusives have posted on Getty has been through Photodisc one of their poorest sellers. It's not impossible that eventually all of the images that Istock exclusives send up stream will fall into this category along with all their holly owned imagery. Getty will post their holly owned images at the top this will hurt Micro and Macro photographers. They did it to Macro RF before Micro was getting off the ground, they will do it again. Images at the very top of the search from their holly owned work doesn't have to be stronger, placement is a huge part of sales in stock. Besides when this collection gets going they just launched and you have not seen the amount of work they will be pushing over to this collection yet, just the tip of the iceberg so far.
 Another side is the images they have wholly owned in these collections are going to become more selective as they try to offer more of a Vetta look to their new collection, they own some great imagery that is not on the new site yet. I don't think there are massive buyers for these individual styles of imagery but they will be subscription so buyers might shop there instead of paying Vetta prices for great imagery.
 This is Getty the guys that own everything with the exception of one big agency. The only other agency that can give Getty a run for it's money is Corbis, pretty small market to try and grab a piece of. Like I said not everything is on the table and we will have to see where this goes. I am just not excited about it as an RF producer. I am focused on producing RM completely now in Macro, we made this change a while ago thinking something very much like this to happen between Macro and Micro RF, one big happy family. Just my opinion.
 One up side for Istock, they are owned by Getty it is the other Micro sites that are in trouble from this move more than ever.

Best,
Jonathan

Jonathan,
thanks for all these information!

Somebody did a crap job making the jpeg previews for this site. The few images of mine that migrated there look like complete garbage and the colors are an RGB mess. Not to mention that most of the images are blurry and not sharp.

Hi All,

 Yes this is the hot topic today isn't it. No worries on the post Lisa, I used Corbis as the only company that has the money and the staying power in the Macro game to hold up to Getty. If they do is still to be seen but I do believe a great deal in Corbis. They are kind of my Obiwan these days. If they can't help us no one can " Help me Corbis you're my only hope " ( I am wearing a danish on each ear as I type to get into Princess Leia's charecter )  . I think this is a good time for other models to start popping up and I can only speculate but I would imagine we will slowly see the demise of Macro RF as Micro and Macro merge over the next couple of years.
 So there is motion, RM and Micro/ Macro RF not a great deal different than yesterday but the packaging has changed drastically. Subs are the part of this that will hurt the business, there just aren't enough buyers to keep up our personal sales with these many images flooding the market from Getty over the next year from their Holly Owned content in Macro RF.
 Once again just my opinion based on what little I know about this business.

Best,
Jonathan

Their search engine must not know how to search...I put in Automotive Paint Gun  for a search and it pulled up 4 vector images of ships.

You are supposed to be able to find your images by putting your name in quotes, right?  If so, I don't have any images there.

Worked for me but I had to follow exactly what they said. Not my account name but "first last" as I was registered on StockXpert which showed all my IS images and no StockXpert images.

Not one image moved? That's odd because I had many different images on StockXpert and IS.

How much cash you want to place on that bet Loop 

Quote from: RacePhoto on February 02, 2010, 18:13

Worked for me but I had to follow exactly what they said. Not my account name but "first last" as I was registered on StockXpert which showed all my IS images and no StockXpert images.

Not one image moved? That's odd because I had many different images on StockXpert and IS.

i have about 1/3 under the istock brand and 2/3 under the hemera (StockXpert) brand.

Maybe they started at the letter "A" and haven't gotten to "P" yet? Like I said, not a one! Every photo of mine on ThinkStock says iStock. Nothing of mine is under Hemera. I did a search for Hemera then search only this collection for "my name".

I'm sure others will look and see what they had moved, or not moved. It's not the same as if I had identical photos on both sites, some were never uploaded to IS. I suppose I can go cross reference and submit them all and hope? Oh wait, we can't submit to ThinkStock can we?

Maybe they were all refused? Maybe some reviewer looked and said, looks like most are dupes, "next please"

Let me put is in a simple way. Not One Photo Moved from StockXpert to ThinkStock?  

Still searching hemera all I see are AbleStock.com, Photos.com and PhotoObjects.net. None marked stockxpert.com

Could you link to one photo so I can see how they are spelling it and listing them? Thanks

When I put in my name I get nothing what so ever...no hemera...no iStock,
My last name starts with a "B"...