...The upload limits allow IS to have what others don't have and a great percentage of the best of what the others have.

You've got to be kidding...To me it appears that Istock makes special effort to reject the best of my images.

Yes, the search engine is the main issue. If contributor exclusivity is heavily weighted in search results, as is the case, it means that image quality isn't IS mgmt's highest value. In that case IS is benefiting itself at the expense of its customers. That seems like an unsustainable biz model. Maybe they should take the energy they spend in trying to game the contributor hierarchy and put it into improving their search engine. That's where the value added is in the long run. Customers and contributors are free, and I doubt that attempts to lock either group into using one microstock provider will succeed.

Hi All,

 This kind of work can be and is being outsourced to places like India already. Some big image retouching companies can handle very large amounts of work at a very reasonable per image price but I don't know if they can compete with the system IS already has in place. I don't know what they pay their inspectors now so it is hard to make a comparison. I imagine with the big agency leading the way they will make changes when it is cost efficient. I am sure they are looking at every angle to reduce cost over the coming years in every department. Most companies do during recessions.

Best,
AVAVA

exclusivity gives istock marketing power. xxx images are exclusive and can only be found here.  only the most successful (ie best) photogs are exclusive.  therefore best images are exclusive and only here so dont go anywhere else

whether copies / ripoffs / image styles istock doesn't like / even better images can be found elsewhere is irrelevant as most people dont look and it is easy to believe (esp if you are not a photographer). 

it is much like the mantra that designers dont want images that are all over the web. say it enough and people will believe because they wont to believe it.  The fact that they then search by number of downloads and pick the image with the most downloads because it must be good if that many people have bought it is again irrelevant. 

it's all marketing and promotion, you have always got to find a way to make yourself unique and your offerings better than your competition.

exclusivity gives istock marketing power. xxx images are exclusive and can only be found here.  only the most successful (ie best) photogs are exclusive.  therefore best images are exclusive and only here so dont go anywhere else

whether copies / ripoffs / image styles istock doesn't like / even better images can be found elsewhere is irrelevant as most people dont look and it is easy to believe (esp if you are not a photographer). 

it is much like the mantra that designers dont want images that are all over the web. say it enough and people will believe because they wont to believe it.  The fact that they then search by number of downloads and pick the image with the most downloads because it must be good if that many people have bought it is again irrelevant. 

it's all marketing and promotion, you have always got to find a way to make yourself unique and your offerings better than your competition.

Again I really disagree - buyers are not idiots and, even more so with the econmic downturn, have to justify budgets - istock can market itself any way it wants to but just as people don't buy a product based solely on the commercials, they will not buy at istock based solely on istock's marketing campaign ... buyers are shopping around, are looking at the alternatives - and I disagree with you that the best photographers are exclusive at istock ... are some of the exclusives really good? You bet they are ... are most of the really good ones exclusive? No way .... not anymore their not ... some really big names have entered the market as contributors this year and they cannot get their portfolios up and onto istock because they are subject to silly upload limits and the like  ... so we can only buy them at DT or SS or FT etc .... and that's the irony - the exclusivity program at istock is really hurting them more than helping them at this point in time ...

how do you think I feel as buyer when I cannot find an image I want on istock because istock has decided to treat some photographers differently versus others and limit the number of uploads that photgrapher can have every week? If I want to buy one of Jonathan's images (AVAVA on thses boards) I really cannot do that on istock because his thousand plus portfolio of images took a couple of weeks to upload on the other sites and but best case scenario will take him months to upload onto istock ... as a buyer I find that ridiculous ... so I buy his work at the other sites ... can that be a good thing for istock?

As a buyer I do not care if you give exclusives higher commissions or whatever - istock can do whatever it wants to in terms of how it differentiates its exclusivity - but when that differentiation impacts the buyer in terms of limiting the buyers choice, then I really think that is just silly and I would argue bad business ....

On the issue of "available only here", if a buyer is truly concerned about how many times an image has sold then they are surely not going to be buying a micro image .....

exclusivity gives istock marketing power. xxx images are exclusive and can only be found here.  only the most successful (ie best) photogs are exclusive.  therefore best images are exclusive and only here so dont go anywhere else

whether copies / ripoffs / image styles istock doesn't like / even better images can be found elsewhere is irrelevant as most people dont look and it is easy to believe (esp if you are not a photographer). 

it is much like the mantra that designers dont want images that are all over the web. say it enough and people will believe because they wont to believe it.  The fact that they then search by number of downloads and pick the image with the most downloads because it must be good if that many people have bought it is again irrelevant. 

it's all marketing and promotion, you have always got to find a way to make yourself unique and your offerings better than your competition.

Good point, now it's time for photographers doing campaign (blog, forum, etc) to disclaim the mantra.

Quote

the days when istock had the best images are done, over

I can only speak as a vector contributor but I've been considering giving up exclusivity on iStock and have been looking around other sites and I'd say that IS has the best vector images without a doubt. The standards on DT and SS are poorer than IS in my opinion, and I have a lot of experience in the industry, I was surprised by the poor quality in some cases. I'm not saying IS is perfect, but it still beats the competition vector-wise.

I think this is particularly true for vectors - and especially for SS, which has accepted some vectors that are so awful they belong on Jupiter's clipartconnection.com. The number of sites that are pirating SS vectors and offering them for free (and advertising them as SS vectors) has been a huge problem. Given how cheap vectors are with a 750 a month subscription, the temptation is clearly irresistable for some.

There is also the issue of vector pricing elsewhere which is, IMO, very unappealing for anyone who creates complex vectors. Except for IS's recent best match disaster with respect to vectors, the only way I could see anyone who does vectors considering dropping exclusivity would be if they had huge collections of simple vectors.

I can only speak as a vector contributor but I've been considering giving up exclusivity on iStock and have been looking around other sites and I'd say that IS has the best vector images without a doubt.  I'm not saying IS is perfect, but it still beats the competition vector-wise.
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As a buyer I agree with this statement (and have consistently done so in my other posts on this forum) - the one place where istock leads hands down is with its vectors - better quality and more choice ... but that is also why I found it strange that they would disadvantage vector artists in these last best match changes ...

I agree with hoi ha. I have a friend who is a buyer. And he told me that he doesn't really care if image is IS exclusive or not. He doesn't think IS exclusivity is very important to buyers because he often looks at few other sites to find what he need. He said that he otfen can't find what he needs in IS. He is just a buyer and he is not very connected with world of microstock contributors. He just login into agencies and searches what he needs. When I asked him does he thinks that images on IS are best on the market, he told me what I think when I say "best images". He didn't notice any big difference in quallity. When I explained to him what I mean when I say "best" images, he told me that he thinks images are good enough technically if they pass inspection on any site, so technical quality doesn't bother him mush. He just looks if image looks "nice" to him. He has account on IS, SS, and FT.
In the end he told me that exclusivity on IS doesn't look like something special to him if he cannot find what he needs among exclusive images. He told me that exclusive images on IS are not something class better, or something so special because there are many very similar images on every single site. Simply searching on these 3 agencies he decides what to buy. He doesn't care about exclusivity. It means nothing to readers of his magazine

Agree!

This will be trojan horse for IS,trust me!

Hello Hoi Ha,

 I am glad you are finding our work at some of the other sites, thank you for buying and please, Don't stop! It will actually take me 4-5 years to upload my content that is ready today for Micro at Istock at their limits. I wish they would take more than 15 a week but that was the agreement I was willing to sign. I believe it will change over time.
 I am glad you are finding our work elsewhere. I see this as an opportunity at a shameless plug. We are in the process of adding 2000 more images this month so keep checking back we are adding a lot more location to the mix now.

Best,
AVAVA

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on December 01, 2008, 18:40

Similar findings....
More so with about 20-30% rejections on the same "overfiltred" and "artifacts" my upload limit is actually only about 20-25 files per week. I simply cannot maintain my income.
Even with files coming from probably the best camera in the world and that have never been compressed in any way, I still get files rejected for overfiltred and artifacts. Especially really sharp files get rejected. The files that get through the inspections easily are the ones that are slightly soft or out of focus... Too sharp (even with no sharping added anywhere) and the files get rejected for being "mysteriously sharp"....overfiltred...

Yuri, so good to hear from you. Frankly, if IS is putting the squeeze on you, what chances do we newbies have?
I mentioned the same thing as you did here...even without post processing other than levels
i get overfiltered, for an especially sharp file. only because i went from a 7MP to 14 MP camera.
that's the mysteriously sharp ...that the reviewers rejected as over fliltered.
also the soft focus and lack of contrast, were actually high key lighting and actually steam off a glass, lol.

still, in hindsight, Yuri, if you get those rejections with your most expensive camera in the world,
hey ! i am going to forget IS for now.  or maybe, just send cats and off focus files that are accepted.
i am a newbie, only 20 images. Why scream at IS some dude tells me. Well, you know what, the images they rejected are so much better. Even i won't buy the ones IS accepted over the ones IS rejected.

Anyway, once again, Lisafix, Yuri, Coco,etc...and all, thanks for the insight. I will leave my portfolio at 20 images and go elsewhere until i see you all get better results from IS.

Same on my side overfiltering what the h........ even straight out of the camera without processing overfilterd very strange I thought I was the only one.....also strange rejection about keywording  picture of a beach and cant use the worth beach Hmmm makes you wonder........

Hello Hoi Ha,

 I am glad you are finding our work at some of the other sites, thank you for buying and please, Don't stop! It will actually take me 4-5 years to upload my content that is ready today for Micro at Istock at their limits. I wish they would take more than 15 a week but that was the agreement I was willing to sign. I believe it will change over time.
 I am glad you are finding our work elsewhere. I see this as an opportunity at a shameless plug. We are in the process of adding 2000 more images this month so keep checking back we are adding a lot more location to the mix now.

Best,
AVAVA

Hi Avava - thanks for the heads up .... looking forward to seeing your new images and for sure we will be buying!! All the best ...

Unless they sell more than enough exclusive images to make up the difference and then maybe they aren't as dumb as you think...

Quote from: hoi ha on December 05, 2008, 03:34

Good point, now it's time for photographers doing campaign (blog, forum, etc) to disclaim the mantra.

Agreed as I think they are the only ones who have actually bought into it ...
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fair enough, I may well be very wrong and not realise that buyers dont believe the hype.

personally I dont care whether people are exclusive or not, I'm still learning and got enough of my own problems without worrying about that sort of stuff the dont like images all over the web statement bugs me though, as far as I can it is only a minority of people think that.

What makes me laugh at the irony of the whole exclusive thing and promoting exclusive images (I dont know or care whether they get higher placement, it's their shop) is that it is the exclusive images that they make less money on due to higher commissions, so they are actually promoting their less profitable product

phil
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