I am going to buy a wacom intuos tablet to make life easier when using the pen tool etc. From what I have read, the intuos 4 is much better than the old intuos 3, however, the 3 is now half the price of the 4 in the used market. For those of you that have used both, do you think I would regret not spending the extra on a 4. I havn't used a pen before, so it will all be new to me, and I will pay extra for a 4 if I thought I would regret not getting one later.
Here in England, a medium intuos 4 is about £300, and the average used price for a 3 is about £150.
many thanks.

I have been having problems trying to upload via ftp since last evening (UK time).
I tried again this morning with the same result. I am also getting failures when trying to upload via the web browser.
The files are starting to upload, and then failing after a short time. Anyone else having problems, or is it my end?
Thanks.
Bob.

I currently use a Canon 40d, but have always intended to upgrade to full frame when I can.
In the UK at the moment, a new 5d mk1 is just a little over half the price of a 5d mk11.
Apart from the video and XXL size available with the mk11, have those of you who have upgraded from the mk1 to mk11 found it to be worth the extra (double) price.
If money was no object, this would be not be an issue, but I know the mk1 has been a workhorse for many stock photographers, and it may well be that a new or used mk1 will be fine for stock for a few more years yet.
Cheers.

I want to put up the price of EL's on all of my portfolio.
Is it possible to change all of them at once, or will I have to go and edit each photo in turn?
I couldn't see any way to batch change them on the site, but I might have missed something.
Thanks.

I have just had 14 aircraft images rejected at Fotolia for overabundant category. It only took them 5 minutes from my uploading them to reject them, so no complaints about review times there!
My acceptance rate has plunged over the last 3 months and There have been a number of posts complaining about this problem. What I would like to know however, those of you more successful contributors, are you also seeing an increase in rejections. It can be very easy to complain about sites when you are not doing well , but I'm trying to see if the problems there are across the board.
I  guess the reality is, if they are rejecting for overabundance then I just have to shoot something else.

I see they have disabled uploading till Monday again.
It seems every time I try to upload to them I get the same problem 

When doing adjustments, ie. dust removal, curves, levels etc, on a tif file, is there any advantage in doing each adjustment in a new layer, and then flattening before saving as a jpeg, or as the tif is a non destructive file, is it ok to do each adjustment straight to the original Tiff image.

thanks.

I noticed that Alamy says that images with logos or signs etc can be used as RF as long as the logos are incidental, and not the main part of the image.
I have wondered about this before, as calendar images, and postcards etc often have shop signs, pub signs etc visible.
Is it just the micro signs being paranoid, as none of them as far as I know will accept an image with a logo visible. I spend a lot of time taking the name of a radar that can only be read at 200%!!
The fact is that it will not be accepted at most of the sites and we just have to live with it, but just wondered.

I submitted my 4 QC test images to Alamy on 24 Dec, and got an acceptance e mail today, 27 Dec. I was expecting to have to wait a month!!
I'm happy to be accepted, and amazed at how fast it all happened. I don't know if I was just lucky, or if they will be as quick reviewing anyone else, but it has to be good news (as long as your accepted!!).
Cheers all.

I am going to try and get in to Alamy, and have a question on upsizing.
My current workflow is RAW  - Tiff - save as jpeg.
I will upsize the images as a tiff file then save as jpeg, but I normally delete the tiff, and just keep the RAW and jpeg images.
This means that all the images I have at the moment are only processed as jpeg. Are there any problems in upsizing the jpeg for submission, or should I reprocess the RAW file and upsize before saving as a jpeg again.
I expect jpeg upsize is ok, as many of you only deal with jpeg anyway, but thought it best to check.
Thanks, Bob

Well after waiting weeks for 68 images to be reviewed, they have taken 4 and rejected the rest. I guess I am not suprised.
I don't know the reason as I don't get emails telling me despite having the box ticked, and contacting support. They say I should be getting the mails.
I know StockXpert is a good earner for some, so I will keep trying, but I must admit, I keep thinking I might pull the plug there.

I have had very little sales on IS, although selling well on SS.
One Image of a Mega yacht has had plenty of downloads on SS, but just 1 sale (0.22c) at Istock.
I just tried to search for it by keywords, and title etc, but can't see it anywhere. The same was true for some other images I looked for.
They are not going to sell if nobody gets to see them.
The keywords are similar to other Images on the site, in fact one image looks very similar to mine, although a different yacht, and that has 195 downloads.
Any ideas where I'm going wrong!!!
Cheers.
OK, I've worked out where I was going wrong on the search, ignore the above.
Still not getting any sales though!!!

I am using a 350d with kit lens and cheap 55-200 at the moment, and will be upgrading to 17-40 and 70-200 L glass in a few weeks.
  I expect to see an improvement in the quality of my photos (hopefully!!) with the new glass.
  Those of you that have gone the "improve the lens first" route will have probably later upgraded your camera body as well at a later date.
   My question to you, is did you find much of an improvement when the body was upgraded to say a 30d from an XT or d200 from a d40 etc?
   I know the build quality and ease of use is probably much better, but what about the quality of the photos themselves.
   Those of you that kept your old body as a spare, do you use it much with the good glass, or does it mainly sit at home?
   Cheers all.

Hello all, I am new here and to micro stock in general having started a couple of months ago.
    I am in England at the moment, and have a Canon 350d with the kit lens and a cheap tamron 55-200mm.
   I  will be returning to my small sailing yacht which is my full time home in 6 weeks. The boat is stored in Florida at the moment, so when I get over there, I intend to upgrade to L glass as its much cheaper than over here.
    My main concern is that living on the water full time is going to be hard on the camera and lens, and before I commit to a couple of L lens and therefore committing to Canon I would like to ask particularly you pro's if you feel that for full time micro stock work which will mainly be tropical landscape and sailing I should aim for full frame which would mean the 5D which is just in my budget, or stick to cropped sensors.
   If I was to stick to cropped sensors I tend to think the Nikon D300 with its better weather protection for my living conditions might be a better bet, and therefore hold on the L glass and get a complete nikon setup.
   My total budget would be $4500.
   I will have the 350d as a backup if I stick with Canon, but that is not a big issue.
   I,m sure its the lens that is most important, but I want to try and get the body straight at this stage to avoid having to change again in the near future. 
   Thanks in advance, and looking forward to talking to you all in the coming months from the West Indies.