For the first time for getting on for 20 years, I didn't even make payout this month.
Not even before the refunds.
Pretty sad what this has come down to now.

Quote from: rinderart on August 23, 2017, 05:52

Quote from: marthamarks on January 01, 2017, 09:35
Methinks this discussion has run its course.

Actually, it ran its course after the first post.

Anybody who claims he has "gone through hundreds of cameras" and believes a high ISO will help him shoot in bright sunlight is either a troll or terminally hopeless.

Happy 2017, everybody!

+1000 amazing and some of the responses are even More  amazing. WOW. Kinda shocking actually. Dear OP. read what Sean said and go take a class. concentrate on exposure. I had to copy this thread to show students. WOW.

It's the internet. . .

IIRC, there is a standard for the way the data in a jpeg is written.


PS (I believe) writes the data in reverse, which is why (or perhaps it is so that) you can attach a clipping path to a PS jpeg.


Any of the other data EXIF. XMP, IPTC, etc. can be altered or removed.
I'm not a PS user, but I'm pretty sure that the "save for web" option strips most of it out.

Quote from: tickstock on January 05, 2017, 19:07

Quote from: ColobusYeti on January 05, 2017, 18:53

Quote from: tickstock on January 05, 2017, 16:49
If you have permission why would they be opposed to signing a document saying you have permission?

He didn't like the wording of the SS property release.  I didn't quite understand why but I know he won't sign it.

Sounds a lot like he doesn't want to give you the necessary permissions. 

If you question is:  "Can I do whatever I want and hope Shutterstock never finds out?"  then no can stop you but you will open yourself up to being sued and having your account terminated.  If your question is:  "What should I do if I want to sell someone else's images?" then the answer is get him to sign a release or transfer the copyright to you.

That says it all. No release, no sale. I certainly wouldn't do it without.

Quote from: ShadySue on January 05, 2017, 12:07

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on January 05, 2017, 11:56
So, to review, all sites' sorting algorithms are different.  Got it.

And within a site, the algorithm could change weekly, daily or hourly.

Move on, nothing to see here.

And even if we did know what a particular sort algorithm was, there's nothing we could do about it, and even if there was, most agencies take a very dim view of people who do try to play the system.

It's not as simple as "these are the rules"


Many companies are protective of their recognisable designs and packaging whatever the rules say.


Being "in the right" doesn't stop you getting sued. The rules might be a defence, which may or may not work.



And remember, that whatever you may think of individual agencies, they have vast experience of what will give problems and what won't.


I've always been happy to have anything refused that could be a problem in this way.

Lets try putting it another way. The problem which you originally said you had is due to the way light is reflected. Bright light will make brighter reflections. Coloured surfaces will give coloured reflections.  There is no easy "in camera" fix for the colour or amount of reflection apart from trying to take your videos at times and locations with more diffuse light.


Very bright sunlight is also difficult due to blown highlights, assuming the rest of the image is correctly exposed. Again, no easy "in camera" fix.


It can all be "fixed" to a greater or lesser extent in post, but while that is relatively easy for stills it is less so, or at least more time consuming, for video.


In other words, as has already been said, different cameras, lenses, and filters, assuming you already have reasonable gear, won't help with your problem.

No, nothing here either. I did wonder if payment might be a day or two early because of the holidays.

Quote from: Asthebelltolls on December 11, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: ColobusYeti on December 11, 2016, 12:49
Shutterstock replied, they insist on a property release for each individual image and my father-in-law decided he doesn't want to sign the form! 

From my perspective I'd much prefer to err on the side of caution. If Shutterstock or any other agency for that matter requests additional legal forms, then so be it. They know the business better than I do. And frankly, if your father-in-law doesn't want to sign the form then personally I would abandon the project.

In fact, if he won't sign a release, then he hasn't really given you the copyright. No one is going to accept that "he told you it was OK" or similar in place of a release.
It's one thing to be given, and so "own" a physical photograph in slide or print form, and quite another to hold copyright of that image.
Not having a release would leave any seller, and the OP, with the possibility of all sorts of legal problems in the future. As Asthebelltolls says, better to err on the side of caution.

Quote from: ShadySue on October 14, 2016, 07:58

Quote from: Pauws99 on October 14, 2016, 07:41

Quote from: ShadySue on October 14, 2016, 07:23

Quote from: gregory21 on October 14, 2016, 04:34
Being exclusive means that you ONLY list those specific images on the site you are exclusive to, meaning they cannot be on any other site.

However if you are doing a model / product shoot you can select specific images to go on exclusive site and whatever you have left over (as long as they are different from exclusives) you are free to sell on any other site. Just make sure you do not accidentally post these alternate images to the exclusive site because they do check.

Anytime you do a shoot, try to get 2-3 shoots out of whatever you are shooting. Good Luck!

That's image exclusivity. iS has artist/media exclusivity whereby you can't sell e.g. any  photos RF via any other agency if you are photo exclusive with IS. Unless you are one of the few with a special deal.

Presumably though if the photo is almost identical those without "special" status would be in trouble, maybe?

Apparently not if you are shooting together with an indie. That was stated by a well-known exclusive in the old forum and never refuted by admin, but as it was mid-thread I can't now find the post.

I remember that thread, but only took passing interest at the time. It makes sense that people might share a shoot. Wasn't there something about a husband and wife team where one was exc. and one non-exc. ?
I'd reckon that any such arrangement has been Okayed with TPTB though. Risky to just assume it was OK I'd have thought.

Quote from: disorderly on October 10, 2016, 18:16
There is a command line program called exiftool that will let you read and write IPTC and EXIF data.-
-exiftool is a command line wrapper for a set of code written in Perl.  It's free, but I'd recommend you find someone with command line experience to help you with it.

There is also this, a gui for Exiftool.
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/~bogdan/
It will batch edit files, but you'll have to look at it to see if it'll do what you specifically want.


Irfanview as mentioned is only free for non commercial use.
It's right at the top here
http://www.irfanview.com/

What I can tell you is that one million images, assuming you took, processed, keyworded and uploaded one every 5 minutes, 24/7, would take you 9.51 years to complete.


So the question is at best, academic.


Forget about there being some kind of universal answer or logic behind this business. There isn't from a contributor's point of view. Too many variables.

Quote from: ShadySue on October 01, 2016, 11:47
All that said, unless you were certain who was the legitimate buyer, think carefully before approaching a user. A legitimate buyer could contact the agency, who might take a dim view.

I'd agree. Legit users are going to be offended if you ask them where they obtained the licence to use your images. You also need to find out what the rules are at the individual agencies you contribute to.

If you sell RF, you are always going to be able to find unlicensed use. That is unfortunately the name of the game.
I'd only bother with the most blatant, commercial abuses personally.

I'd do the same. treat it as toxic until proven otherwise.


Does the "full" header give any clues to where it came from? (Although I'm wary of relying on that because it can be pretty cryptic!)

Don't use Skrill myself, but can't they tell you whether the email is legit if you email them?
Do they have a method for reporting suspected phishing attempts? Most financial type organisations seem to.

No, despite what the BBC would have us believe  , normal life and work does not stop for the Olympics. Probably makes some difference but not that much.


Whether you get credit sales or not is ultimately going to be (possibly) down to how long you have been with iStock, as earlier stuff still seems to sell better. Also possibly whether you have stuff that is niche enough to appeal to buyers who have a subs account elsewhere for the bulk of their work.

I reckon credit sales are about what I've come to regard as "normal" these days. Obviously way down from the peak, but regular.


The thing is that's there is no saying what will and won't sell. There never was. As I said in an earlier post. What worries me more is my lack of sub sales in July.


Whatever the case there is very little any of us can do about sales one way or the other. 

Credit sales are very slow, but more worryingly (assuming that you accept that subs are the future at iStock) sub sales for July were the worst for me since Jan 2015. I'd really expected to keep seeing at least some growth in subs as credit sales fell off.

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 18:26

Quote from: Mantis on July 26, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Now let me tell you something i figured out in this microstock business. Let's say that you're shooting 10 pics of an apple. For me that's one potential client that has 10 options to choose. So you're client in this criterias is looking for an apple. But if you're shooting 10 pics of an apple, a banana, an orange, a lemon and a kiwi in the same picture, you have 6 potential clients. the 6th may want a multifruit shot. Considering that fruits are on white background. So you see my point here? you have 10 shot in both cases but in the second case the probability percentage will be higher.

I don't reckon it works quite like that. The buyer won't want that combination or arrangement. You could go on forever making endless combinations and arrangements, and you can see attempts to do this very thing by some contributors on some sites.
Far better to take the best isolated on white fruit images you can as individual fruits, and then leave the buyer to comp them, or most likely others, as they please.


I'm sure you already know this, but I really wouldn't bother shooting isolated fruit though these days!

Quote from: ShadySue on July 21, 2016, 10:53

Quote from: Microstockphoto on July 21, 2016, 02:01
i can understand the rejection for  composition,  but auto keywording is not a replacement for your own keywords but more asa tool to save you time or make things easier

Not when you have to read them through and delete/uncheck all the rubbish. I'd much rather do it myself.

That's the problem with it. Some people are going to use all the suggested keywords.
Keywording's one of "those" jobs though. It's not all that difficult really, but it's still a PIA.
There's also the perception by some that "more keywords is better". Nothing I've seen supports that, assuming the keywords actually describe what's there.   

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on July 21, 2016, 03:35

Quote from: Difydave on July 20, 2016, 21:08
Until somebody comes up with a computer program that actually "understands" what it's looking at, all "automatic keywording systems" are doomed to failure.

That's what it is supposed to be doing.  It's AI that analyzes the image and returns a set of possible keywords you can then choose from to add to the submission.  I tried it yesterday, and it at least got the idea that it was looking at food in a restaurant.  It's pretty cool if it keeps improving.  I'd rather tap a keyword to add it then type in the whole word.

If it can just tell roughly what it's looking at then I'm impressed! If the suggestions are at least reasonably relevant, then as you say it saves typing.


I was thinking about it last night, and I thought that things must have moved on some to enable the use of autonomous vehicles, which must have some idea of what they are looking at to work.
 

Until somebody comes up with a computer program that actually "understands" what it's looking at, all "automatic keywording systems" are doomed to failure.


I reckon hope we're way off that time!


(Bear poop in the drive though! Scary!)

Quote from: substancep on July 05, 2016, 11:26
Do people really buy images of words, or those psychidellic backgrounds? I don't do vector though.

I think the OP answers that in the first post.


These type of questions get asked here time and time again by suppliers of all sorts of content. 
The reality is that if the style or content of what they are uploading doesn't sell after a reasonable time, then it's no good keep on uploading similar stuff. This may be a numbers game, but it still has to be what people want to buy.


There's more to this business than being a technically able illustrator or photographer.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on July 03, 2016, 15:29

Quote from: bpepz on July 01, 2016, 10:02
He shoots 5 days a week, all editing, key wording and uploading is outsourced. He even has people hired who find locations, models and schedule everything so that every single workday is filled.

For some people this is the way to go, but I would never want to work this way with stock. The pressure to perform would just turn it into another job and take out the joy of filming/photography.

With just 5 employees anything below $25,000 per month means losing money.




I like the idea of about zero fixed costs and my own time is what I lose.

That's what I reckon. the idea of employees and so on is all well and  good, but it's easy to lose sight of the goal. Which is profit.


The beauty of this business to me is that I can (and do) make money without having to deal with people, or having big overheads. I know I don't make as much as some, but it suits me the way it works for me.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 30, 2016, 13:07
I watch 95% BBC1 / BBC2 with about 1% BBC4*. I can't stand adverts**. In fact, I can't get my head around e.g. Sky at all. You have to pay money and you still get adverts? Are people INSANE?
* and 1% Dave, until the adverts come on.
** and even on the Beeb, too much time repeatedly promoting their 'favourite' upcoming progs.

I didn't mind adverts so much, at least you had some apparent randomness to what you saw, but this (Insert annoying advert type voice over) "Complete rubbish, brought to you by You'll never buy it" at the start  of every program, and at the commercial breaks is so * annoying