I am close to Emerald at Fotolia. In last few days sales/earning dropped about twice.
To my surprise, my 7days ranking remains more or less the same (200 - 300).
Is it the sign that Fotolia is losing its position? If so, to whose advantage ?

As you know the Prostockmaster can now be used after paying subscription for Lightburner (which I find an absolute nonsense as these are two separate programs and not everybody needs the buggy Lightburner).
I've done some research and I have not found a program which allows you to set keywords in order (needed e.g. for Fotolia that treats first keywords preferentially).

Do you know any ?
I tried Xnview, cushystock, stockphotoexpress but none of them is good for my needs.

Thanks,
Michal

Hi,

I am looking for a program which would gather all the keywords from all my stock photos that have metadata.
The keywords would be imported without duplicates and in the number of usages order.

Then, I would like to export it to a txt file.

Do you know such program ?

Thanks!
Michal

I got used to ups and downs of DT's sales, but what's been going on for last 3 days is pretty catastrophic. Having the portfolio of over 3000 images, being there 6 years, earning on avarage 250$ monthly (middle tier for me), now, since November 12 I earned 2 dollars!

DT behaves like a capricious child, probably they have made another change in their search algorithm and it sank my portfolio.

Hey,

I have been wondering what is the point of synchronizing your microstock accounts with social networks like Twitter, Facebook.
I mean for instance the automatic posting on the Facebook wall how many pictures of yours were approved and sold.
Does it have any marketing/financial sense for us stock photographers or is it just a form of free advertising for microstock sites ?

Best,
Michal

Hi guys,

I am a stock contributor with some years of experience, you can view my portfolio e.g. here http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-64681p1.html

I am constantly seeking new venues to licence my photos and just recently have found out about creating products with desings/images on them.
Do you, more experienced in that field, think it would be worth the time to create products with my kind of stock portfolio ?

Thank you for any support!
Michal

Hi,
I have got like 500 photos to upload after holidays. They are of various categories - some are tourist pics, some are isolations on white, what's more, portraits and strictly conceptual pictures and landscapes.
Do you think it's better to upload the series of the same category at once or totally mix these photos into let's say 5 baskets and send them in 5 turns - each batch consisting of mix of photos from various categories.   ?

What do you think ? I'm asking especially people who have had similar situation/s and have experience which strategy proves to be the most effective.

Thank you in advance,
Michal

I am looking for THE BEST hdr software which means quality, reality etc. The most expensive program I have found costs 119$, Photomatix of course, but does it mean it is the best ? I would be able to pay these 119 bucks if I were sure that it is really THE BEST (I'll keep repeating myself ). One time investment, however high, might work for a long time.
What do you think ?

I am asking experienced contributors with at least 1000 images in port and being in micro over 1,5 year.
If you don't mind please share your experience whether you have noticed a decrease or increase in your revenue for last some months let's say.
As for me I see the gradual decrease in Dreamstime revenue, especially RPD which now is below 1$ in my case. It's the biggest dissapointment
Fotolia works pretty steady (with about 15 download daily), however, this month is worse.
Shutterstock - it's a different agency than it was 4, 3 or even 1 year ago. 40 regular downloads a day + ODs often gives about 20$. 3 or 2 years ago I was avaraging over 100 regular downloads + some ODs...
Istock - works very steady but my sales have never been good there.
The rest agencies have their up and downs, but it's The Big 4 that counts.

It leads me to several question - what is the future of microstock? More and more big players from macro come to micro and the competition is getting fiercer.
What kind of pictures does it worth to upload nowadays?
Maybe it's time to look for new markets ?
Generally - what's the way WE photographers with not bad and not small ports should go to keep our businesses alive ?

Michal

Hi,
I am generally an optimist but what have noticed is that the industry called microstock is on the edge of some big change or even collapse. Much as the agencies themselves might survive, the photographers will get burned in the search engines among millions of other pictures and it will become non-profitable business for an individual.
I have already seen that the vast majority of my sales are pictures 2 or 3 years old which established good positions in the search engines. And here I come to the point - Is there a sense in sending new pictures to agencies like Fotolia, Dreamstime (except Shutterstock because it's a different model) ?
I hear voices - take better, more commercial pictures. Actually I do send prime quality, commercial pictures which I believe would do very very good 2 years ago, but now they end up unnoticed.
What are your views ?

Michal

Very sad... Things are getting worse and worse there. Now, with 80,000 photos added weekly it's a daunting task to keep the stable level of sales.
I wasn't uploading for 3 weeks and my income has decreased about 50%. Now I uploaded about 80 good quality stock pictures (here is a link: http://www.shutterstock.com/results.mhtml#gallery_id=64681&page=1) and there is almost no bigger rush noticable.
I don't want to make this post look like unproductive complaining but I am just a litte anxious and doubting whether any efforts make sense.

How ? Do you have any clues - less better / more better?
How do the first 7 keywords influence on the search results? Do categories matter, maybe even with some combination of keywords?
Or at last, might the reviewers give some kind of rank to newly accepted images, in orded to make the relevence search starting form the best (in reviewers personal opinion of course)?

I ask because I am really confused. Most of my income on Fotolia is produced by about 5 photos, which are of course high in the search.

Michal