Never one to take a stance without an experiment (the scientist in me!)

I did a test where I took one image with a backlit translucent fabric under the object, and another where I shot through the glass table onto a lit white background paper. I've updated the original post to show both shots.

Overall, the results were similar, although there is less light spill when you light a piece of white paper some distance from the subject. With the translucent fabric method, you get more light coming onto your reflectors and other areas above the object, providing more light onto the object itself. As a result of this test, I think the method explained by Perry is more controllable.

Steve

Nice - do you extract with the pen tool or try to select the object and clean up the edges?

Steve

A common task for stock photos is to isolate the subject against white and beginners can sometimes have an issue with this, especially with lighter subjects as the subject blows out along with the white card background. I was asked by someone who follows my blog if I could write a short post about how to make an isolation table from things you may have around the house, and I did that today.

If anyone is interested, here is the post:  http://www.backyardsilver.com/2012/05/home-made-photo-isolation-table/

If anyone wants to suggest improvements, please feel free! I'm always glad to learn more.

Steve

PS - why didn't I use a piece of translucent plastic? Two reasons - I couldn't find one in my local DIY store, and I also wanted to add some separation between the lighted surface and the subject plane to avoid any details in the surface of the translucent sheet from showing through.

A great month �April doesn�t normally outsell other months of the year,but this month I romped home with total sales of just over $1450 �a personal best. The month was helped by three sales on Alamy,for a total of $214,three video downloads on Pond5 for $75 and another great month on Shutterstock of $513. iStock recovered from a poor March to end with $271 compared to $235,and the other sites were OK if not at their best. That makes three sites with a best month ever earning total for April �Shutterstock,iStock and Alamy.




More graphs on my blog as usual.

Steve

I was reading the Washington Post this morning and saw one of my images in the travel section. The credit said "Backyard Productions: Alamy" - which is my LLC name. I checked the Alamy site, but no sign of a sale of that image - I went back through all sales at Alamy and this image has never been sold.

Should I wait a while and see if the sale appears (perhaps large customers of Alamy can pay when they use the image?) or should I contact Alamy and ask about the sale?

I know that the Washington Post also uses BigStock, but no sign of a sale there either.

Steve

Thanks Stuart! It is always gratifying to hear of a satisfied reader. As always, if you have any questions as your progress in stock photography, please feel free to email me directly.

Steve

I can see the difference. There are two ways to calculate revenue per image. One way, which is what I did in the table above, is to calculate, month by month how much revenue I get from Shutterstock divided by the number of images online with Shutterstock and repeat that for every agency. As we know, some agencies don't take editorial, iStock has limits on uploads, and so the images online on each site is different based on those factors and the rejection rate.

Alternatively, you can take the revenue per site (or total for the month) and divide it by all the images you have available for sale, whether they were accepted or not. That is more a measure of your revenue related to total effort.

Both measures tell you something, although the numbers could be very different from each other.

Steve

Can you go through the steps you took to get a photo uploaded into the News Section?

I must not have been paying attention - I didn't know there was all this confusion around!

When I look at "My Alamy", I have two upload links, one for Upload Stock Images, one for Upload News Images. I don't recall signing up for news, although with all the pressure of the microstock business perhaps I have forgotten! I certainly didn't have to do anything differently.

When I took my Space Shuttle images, I thought there would be an opportunity if I got them for sale quickly, and so I used an account I already have with Demotix to upload them with a short caption to their site, and I tried this Upload News Images from Alamy. Upload was as normal - a web based page to select files and get them to the site. I then checked "Track Submissions" and after 15 minutes or so, I saw that a message there that they had bypassed QC and were now in Manage Images. I went to that page, and added in some main keywords in the normal Alamy style, and filled in the MR and Property release page and saved the files.

My misunderstanding was that I expected to see them in the main database, but it appears they go straight to a "News section" of the site for 48 hours and then move to the main database after that. In fact, they are now visible in normal Alamy searches.

Lessons I learned afterwards:

You need to fully populate the Title, Description, Keywords and "Headline" fields in your image before uploading. I didn't know about the Headline one - it isn't in the default Lightroom fields and you can find it under IPTC. In Alamy, the headline for a group of shots of the same subject should be the same so that they all appear together. In my case, the Alamy team added this for me as it was missing from my uploads.

I am not sure that you need to "Manage Images" before they go on sale in News. I have a feeling that they go straight from the upload queue into the News section using the information in the file. I can't prove this now, but next time I will check before I add different keywords etc. to the file.

Sales are still few and far between! I sold no licenses on Alamy or Demotix (although I was on their "front page") and my only earnings from the shots were the 8 prints from Smugmug that earned about $35 profit.

Steve

The only reason I bother with the site is that it gives you free online storage of your images. You can always go along and download full resolution copies if you have a disaster with your own hard drive. It is easy to upload to, the final bit of the import doesn't take much time (the bit where you say whether you have releases or not), and I got $23 in the past 12 months. Nothing great, but being paid for storing 3000 images is a good business model!

Steve

but aren't there restrictions from the Apple store?

There is a restriction that it must not be sold for more on the Apple store than it is sold elsewhere (although I think Amazon had that restriction as well) and it must be less than the paper version (not an issue for me). Before I started, I thought that they wanted exclusivity, but when I read the T&C I saw no sign of that. I didn't use their fancy iBooks software which allows for a much more interactive book, so perhaps there are some restrictions there.

Smashwords act as a consolidator for Apple as well as the other sites - Apple had mentioned that if you didn't feel capable of converting your text to the proper ePub format, you could use companies that would do it for you in return for a share of the revenue. I decided I was capable of doing the conversion and so didn't investigate much further. But getting it on the other eBook sites looks like a worthly objective.

Steve

It is absolutely not a get rich quick book! I've bought those myself and they are full of glamorous images and how easy it is to take a few similar shots and make your fortune. What I decided to write was a simple "how to do it" manual, covering all the things I had learned (from this site and from hard experience) and the tips and tricks that made life a little easier and more efficient. In the introduction I stress that it is hard work and you need to keep at it for a long time to really make any money.

My thought process was that if someone is going to do this, they may as well spend a bit of money up front and do it properly, rather than spend their time and effort trying to piece together a plan by reading posts and forum discussions.

Steve

PS - the above assumes I know how to do it properly!! I'm sure there are some that would disagree with that statement

Phew - I just passed another milestone - my book is now on the Apple iStock as an iBook. I've no idea how to give a link to it - but if anyone wants to try it out on an iPad, you can find it by searching for "Stock Photography" on the store. I found it by searching in iTunes.

The process of publishing on the Apple store is not for the faint hearted. Not only do you have to buy an ISBN number (just $100 for one number, of $250 for 10), you have to convert the book to the ePub standard and then you can only use a Mac to upload it to their site. Finally, after 6 weeks of Quality Assurance, it has finally got on four stores - France, Germany, US, UK. I now need to work out how to get it on all the others.

Steve