Dear all,

I ve been using a gopro black edition for stock footage for a while now. I compiled two short movies on my website you can watch here:

Bangkok Multicolored http://www.angkorprod.com/bangkok-multicolored/

Cambodia Slow Motion http://www.angkorprod.com/cambodia-slow-motion-2/

anyone want to show their gopro movies or clips on the agencies?

Cheers

Reading article  with a picture using google image I was able to find this picture free to download at blog 400px if you put credit on your blog

the picture is the following: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Friends_g364-Teenager_Girls_taking_photo_p103336.html (credit ambro)

and also on 123rf where of course you paid for the blog size:
http://www.123rf.com/photo_15335445_teenager-girls-with-smartphone.html
(credit ambro)

I am missing something or 123rf made a deal with freedigitalphotos.net  or the photographer uploaded one this site as well?  both sites have about the same number of pictures (about 2800)  from ambro
what do you think?
Laurent

PS: Wagging Dog Media Limited is the parent company of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

tag line from the website:

Royalty free photos for business and personal use

Our free photos and illustrations are ideal for business, personal and educational use. Every image is free, with an option to buy larger images at reasonable prices.

I've been watching my Alexa ranking since the opening of my symbiostock site and found some interested stuff:
I was ranked around 6,900,000 beginning of May and now 5,400,000 with 5 sites linked, it looks it gets better and better.

funny thing is that for my smugmug site online for 3 years and with 12 links  Alexa do not have any data available?

Does it confirm the positive impact of Symbiostock network, your thoughts?

Is Shutterstock start doing quality control? Just received this e-mail:

We have removed the following images that you uploaded.
title (number ) deleted because: Quality Control -
Removed per legal. Do not resubmit
Regards,
ShutterStock Support

I came across this listing.....

Started listing price $7500, 4000 visitors a month, net profit $52 a month...

http://flippingethics.com/2010/08-23/stockfuel-com-being-sold-by-jaybirch-on-flippa.html

I was looking at this famous picture took by Istock exclusive photographer Eva Serrabassa, I guess she is pretty close to $100 000 commission in 4 years?
(picture downloaded more than 19 000 time)

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1921014-wishes.php

I try to access submit.shutterstock.com from two different computers at and cannot get through, no error message though, anyone else?

Ok it is back now never mind.....

I guess I missed that: Twitter got their bird design from Istock....
Here is the link to the original vector from the artist http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-3412146-eco-sing-song-bird-on-branch-nature-illustration.php

The Istock exclusive artist got apparently $6. But by the look of the Istock flame color  he got more than 600 dl's (file was uploaded in May 2007).


L

By browsing the video forums it looks there is not clear answer to this: either shooting interlaced or progressive. Some  argue that progressive is becoming  more and more popular. What is your take on that? Do you shoot interlaced,progressive or both?
You can vote on my blog's poll as well: http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/

Cheers!
L

Hello all,

I thought I might as well open a thread for August earnings:)
To my surprise August was a BME with few changes in my big 6 ranking: SS ahead of IS by few $, and the3Dstudio a new player take the number 4 spot kicking out StockXpert and FT....
More stats to read on my blog: http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/

L

How was your August?

HI there,

I am looking for an affordable HD camcorder and came across the Sony CX100 (Sony HDR CX105 in Europe) for less then 500 euros.
Any of you having some suggestions about this one, I know  it has a 8Go flash built-in drive

Thanks!
L

Do you get as me ''This site may harm your computer'' when you click on google search results : all pages are blocked this way !!!
big bug?

Hi there,

I am about to send one of my file to print for a 50*75 cm poster(22.15*22.53 inches). My file is 10MP (3648*2736 pixels)
When I use genuine fractale to get a 50 *75 at 300 dpi I need to upsize to 589 %
Is it the correct way to proceed ?
Thanks fro your help
L

By curiosity I checked the porfolio of the feature photographer  and was very surprise to see his RF pictures on Alamy ....with a L licence....
One example
http://www.dreamstime.com/young-couple-in-a-bed-image5863502
On alamy : B2E3KD

L

By searching in Amazon, I found one of my picture in a travel book with my credits along with DT name.
I check and i sold this pic only once at DT as a subcription.
What is your take on that , you think I should inform DT ?
I never had an EL at DT by the way


Cheers
L

What do you think about that, worth upoading to ?

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=12292&Title=Moodboard%27s_industry_first


Moodboard.com, the UK based innovative online stock image provider, has launched a new photographer upload section. An industry first, the online function encourages more hobbiest and professional content for consideration by its team of editors by allowing photographers to upload images directly via the site my.moodboard.com

This will result in even better choice for the creative industries looking for competitively priced, highly original stock images.

Moodboard has also introduced customised online sales reports, which allow photographers to track sales of their work quickly and easily. 

As the only stock image supplier to offer the complete price range of stock pictures on one website, from quality microstock right up to premium rights ready shots, moodboard provides photographers with the greatest opportunity to climb the financial ladder faster.

CEO of moodboard.com, Mike Watson said: "Our new photographer upload facility is another stage in moodboard's continual evolution. We constantly strive to be at the forefront of the stock image industry, pushing technologies to enable photographers to make money easier and faster.

"moodboard 2.0 will open up more earning potential for hobbiest content than rivals such as i-stock; and in these times of economic uncertainty, it is important we support photographers in every way we can and deliver new and more effective ways for them to sell their work. We will also be driving sales with an exciting marketing campaign to raise awareness of moodboard's benefits to customers.

"The latest enhancements we've made to our site not only make it easier than ever for photographers to get work considered and track their sales progress, so they can spend more time taking new photos, it also means our customer's have the ability to purchase professionally edited images at price points that suit their needs.

"At moodboard we don't make photographers jump through hoops to see higher earnings.  If pictures are strong enough from the outset, and photographers are happy to give us image exclusivity, we'll team them with the moodboard collection that enhances their best features."

Mike added: "We led change in the stock photo industry in the past, and we're at the forefront of innovation again today.

"Whether photographers are interested in becoming a member of moodboard's professional squad, are looking for an up and coming stock image agency that will help them shoot more commercial content or simply want to discuss ways to extend their earnings, we'd be delighted to hear from them."

The new photographer upload function, and other enhancements to the site, can be viewed at http://my.moodboard.com

I was thinking it would be fun to know what camera u had first and which one did u get next
Here is my time line

Olympus OM101 1991
Lubitel 166 (circa 1995, RIP)
Kodak DC120 1 MP 1998 (RIP)
Olympus C2500 2.5 MP 2000
Olympus E-10 4 MP 2001 (sold)
Olympus E-20 5 MP 2007
Panasonic Lumix FZ-5 5 MP 2007
Olympus E-510 10 MP 2007
2008-2009 Olympus next full frame ?

what is yours ?

Found a shutterstock pic on the  Economist website about the financial crisis:

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12326538&source=features_box1

Hi guys,

I ve been browsing to find  a plugin to simulate a bright sun other then the halo effect of CS3.
A example of a photo is below, any idea how it is done ?
Cheers

I was looking at the average monthly  $/download and put a graph on my blog for the last 8 months you can have a look here :

http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/2008/04/experiment-7-evolution-of-average.html

any comments are welcome !




L

I have been checking from time to time  SCP and uploads are still disable, no one has any info about that ?
Cheers
L

Hello,

I recently lost few files on my comp and was wondering if it was possible to recover them from the microstock websites where I uploaded them.
I sent them to SS,DT,IS,123RF,FT,BigStock

Thanks for you help
L

I came across this article today:
http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/0,239029524,339285758,00.htm

Basically someone took pictures from FlickR and sold them IS !

One good reason to downsize pics on Flickr and a lot of people are not doing it even pro .....

L

I know it is soon to draw conclusions but my downloads are much slower than usual this month, did not even get one today yet
I read on SS forum that some people experienced the same trend
What about you ?

I just found this article below regarding a  new search engine called Xcavator (http://www.xcavator.net/), quite neat 


Macworld Conference & Expo 2008

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CogniSign, a leader in image and video search technology, has expanded its stock photography search portal at xcavator.netTM to almost six million images of inventory. Xcavator.net is unique due to CogniSign's award-winning Intelligent Image Recognition TechnologyTM, which enhances conventional text based searches with powerful Image Search tools.

The portal is open to the public at www.xcavator.net. A video introduction is provided to help new users get the most out of their xcavator.net experience.

This new launch ends a very successful six month Beta test. Garth Johnson, vice president of business and community development for iStockphoto, the pioneer of micropayment stock photography and the first agency to test xcavator.net, said, "We are impressed by how quickly the Image Search technology at xcavator.net presents stock photo buyers with many viable options during the stock photo browsing and final selection process. We're very pleased to be a provider of microstock inventory at a site where there are so many powerful search tools to help buyers make their final selections."

Xcavator.net Image Search tools help users dig easily through millions of photos visually. The site meets the needs of stock photo buyers looking to quickly find the exact photo needed to complete marketing, advertising, or communications pieces. The site is also useful to sellers of stock photography; they can search the site by provider to quickly determine which one needs the type of stock photos they have to offer.

New providers will be added selectively over the next few months, increasing site inventory to more than 10 million photos – making xcavator.net one of the largest stock photo portals in the world. Today, in the Royalty Free (Microstock) category, the four providers are Fotolia, iStockphoto, LuckyOliver, and 123RF. In the Rights Managed category, the two providers are Photovault of San Francisco and Danita Delimont of Seattle.

Danita Delimont, Founder and CEO of DanitaDelimont.com, a niche agency specializing in worldwide travel and nature, believes the site's powerful Image Search technology will have a major impact on converting browsers to buyers. "This technology can help browsers to quickly find exactly what they need, in a fraction of the amount of time it takes using traditional keyword methods," she says. "I know that when potential buyers come to us from xcavator.net, they've already dramatically narrowed their search and are very close to a buying decision. This is extremely valuable to my business."

Market research has shown that designers, art directors, marketing and business communications professionals, and others in the design community are incredibly rushed when making final selections of stock photography, which is often the last element needed before going to print. The proprietary Image Search tools at xcavator.net allow buyers to quickly get to a large number of photos that approximately meet their needs, providing enough relevant choices to make the final selection a much easier, faster, and more satisfying process.

In addition to keywords, the xcavator.net stock photo search portal uses proprietary Image Search and color filtering technology, giving users a combination of tools to find what they are looking for. The key to these search capabilities is the portal's image and color search engines. These engines allow a user to look for similar images within databases containing millions of images – just like a human can look at a few dozen manually – based on color, key features and their spatial relationships and proximity, etc.

CogniSign's objective for xcavator.net is to create powerful, fast, fun, and easy-to-use Image Search tools to augment the keyword (text based) search currently used to search stock photography. In most cases, just a few keywords are needed and the site's proprietary visual browsing can easily complete the task.

"In user testing, we saw a natural inclination for users to spend a lot of time changing and adding keywords to refine their stock photo search," said Bryan Calkins, CEO of CogniSign, "which is a time consuming and iterative process that can often lead a user down a blind alley with very few results. Xcavator.net's Image Search tools need just a few keywords to get the process started, and search refinement happens visually. This provides much more powerful and efficient browsing, where the user is presented with a lot more options that have still been refined to meet his needs."

About CogniSign

CogniSign is a technology company providing image and video search product solutions for Internet and mobile markets, based on its award-winning Intelligent Image Recognition Technology (patents pending). CogniSign is a privately held company based in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit http://www.cognisign.com. For immediate assistance, please email Celia Cratch at [email protected].

NOTE: CogniSign, the CogniSign logo, xcavator, xcavator.net, the xcavator.net logo, and Intelligent Image Recognition Technology are trademarks of CogniSign LLC. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Hello all,

I was wondering what was your  earning per picture of your portfolio in SS (monthly earning/total pics in porfolio)?
Excluding the extended licences of course since I will distort results
As far as I am concerned this number is quite stable for the past two months ( $0.44 for september and  $0.42). Porfolio +100

What is yours ?

I start this thread early I see
Just went over my spreadsheet and here my numbers for this month

1.SS 37 % (+35%) BME 
2.FT 37 %(+435%) BME 
3.DT 8% (+3%) BME 
4.IS 7 % (+60%) BME 
5.123RF 4 % (+13%) BME 
6.StockXpert 3 % (+400%) BME 

LO,CT,CanStockPhoto,BigStock: each of them < 2%

more details on my blog like usual

So are very good month overall (+75%) 

I don't have tried this before but I just experimented the live help feature on 123RF and I was quite impressed, I got connected to someone by chat in less than 1 minute and he solved the problem immediately.....
The bad part is that I lost 2 pics I sold yesterday
Laurent

Hello

I thought it would be interesting to open a thread about the best seller of the previous month. You can post you pic and optionally how much did you earn. Here we go with  $5.71 this month
Let's see yours!

Hello all,

I was wondering if some of you experienced also a dramatic decrease in acceptance rate at FT this month. I am close to 100 % rejection on my last batch, although the same pics were accepted on SS,IS and DT...
I would been nice of FT to tell us beforehand if they changed their rules. Oupps, I forgot they are crap at communication 
Seriously did you notice something different ?

Cheers