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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: indust on March 14, 2019, 03:44
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Hello!
I have around 1000 photos uploaded to stock agencies, but there are many duplicates. (Same scene from a slightly different angle, or movement.) What do you suggest, should I kick them or leave them? Could that negatively affect my income?
Furthermore I'm not satisfied with the post processing of many of my photos and I'd like to redo them, with different colors, contrast, etc. What do you think, should I upload them too and leave the previous versions uploaded, or I should kick them?
Thank you!
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Opinion: If anyone honestly believes that having 1,000 of the same image (or 100 or 20) with nothing more than filters or color shifts, is going to make them more money, let them be lost in that delusion. To answer directly, I don't think having the many will help or hurt anything much at all. I don't care, but I won't do that myself or just to have a bigger collection or more numbers. More images doesn't = more money.
I honestly think that any buyer who sees a page of, lets just be fair, 20 of the same image or setup, and was looking for something like that, they will find something else that stands out. You can't stand out in a crowd of similar looking images, identical images with nothing but color changes, or same elements arranged in minute variations. In the eyes of someone looking for an image that stands out, for their use or illustration, you have just made your work look like something, common, ordinary and the impression is they are not special or unusual in any way.
Why would any of us intentionally make our images look common, or ordinary? Seems like our goal is the opposite, in order to attract buyers.
If there's a reason or an angle or some change, in a similar shot, that would justify any different versions of a similar subject, by all means do that. I won't say, don't do many of a subject just based on numbers, just because of the number.
Just like keywords, only as many as are needed to properly cover the contents for a search, only as many images to cover the concept and creation of the composition.
What anyone else does, is of little concern to me, I'm just expressing my personal view of what I do and what I upload. I think that's a better plan. I might be wrong.
Did I ever say this before? Less is More? ;)
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I spent a lot of time retouching some of my best photos and the retouched images are popular in some cases.
I did some color changes as you suggest, but I did not do it on duplicates. If I have 20 photos of a person wearing a shirt, I changed it so that 5 have 1 shirt color, 5 have another, etc.
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In my view its a sure sign of a poor photographer/image producer to shoot angle variations and then put them up for sale.
Its best to keep the best shots and delete the rest.
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There should be a strong reason why you shoot the same thing from different angles and with different colors. Most of my port is diverse, but I have uploaded between 3-4 pictures with this kind of "similarity", but totally justified. Recently I uploaded a picture with more variations, and people seem to buy different perspectives, but I think it's because I actually make them look different even if the subject is the same. What I want to say is that you can shoot the same "subject" from different perspectives but make sure you tag them differently (provide different concepts?) and also that they also look different.
My example was a lab reagent, in some pictures it was held by a hand, in others only the bottle, in others, colorful lab background, in others focused on the label, etc.