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Messages - sgoodwin4813

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1301
I just got the Canon EOS 500D. I use a CS4/5 filter called Perfectly Clear, but think the setting on sharpening was too strong, creating undesirable artifacts. In your experience, should this camera's images be acceptable without noise reduction?

I have a 500D and you should be able to use it without sharpening or NR depending on the situation.  Right now I mostly use it for isolations in my studio.  At ISO 100, manual focusing and with decent lighting I never sharpen or use NR.  Outside I find that the Canon Rebels often have noise in the sky, even at ISO 100 and good lighting, but it is easily cleaned up with some light NR. I usually use Noiseware or sometimes Topaz Denoise, and only on the parts that need it.  If you're commonly having to sharpen or denoise the whole image then it's not the camera - it's either technique or poor lenses.  If you're using the kit lens then toss that sucker and get some good glass - it's hard to get sharp images if your lens isn't up to the task.  If you're just getting noise in the sky then that is normal, for me at least, and that includes all of the digital rebels including the 500D and 600D.

1302
I've had some scanned by a couple of companies - Larsen and DigMyPics.  Both were fine.  I did a test at 2500 dpi and 4000 dpi and it didn't make a lot of difference - sometimes 2500 dpi was better, because 4000 dpi can get beyond the limits of the film.  That was 2 or 3 years ago - haven't submitted any scanned slides recently.  I got at least a few in at most of the major agencies except FT and BS where they were all rejected.  DT was the most accepting back then, and a couple of them sell pretty well.  Nowadays it will probably be very tough - they have real problems with focus and noise, or at least mine do.

Mine were mostly Kodachrome 25 or 64 and a few were Ektachrome 100.  The Kodachromes retained their color but Extachromes were shifted all over the place and many were unusable.   I wouldn't bother unless the slide has high sales potential and is very sharp.

If you want to give it a try, I would test a few at around 2500 and at 4000 dpi to see what happens.  You'll probably need to use some noise reduction and reduce them to the smallest size possible before submission.  The advantage of 4000 dpi is you can reduce them more which will help with noise and resolution.  Good luck!

1303
New images for the most part aren't doing much for me, either.  For the past 3 months, earnings from new images was about 6% of the 3-month total, over the past 6 months about 5% (didn't upload much for a while last fall), over the past year 30% and over the past 2 years 58%.  I've been trying to time my submissions to see whether acceptance (assuming a 5-day review period) on Monday or Tuesday versus later in the week makes a difference but so far have seen no effect - it doesn't matter when they get accepted. The boost from new images seems to be gone, at least for the kind of images I am making.

1304
General Stock Discussion / Re: Veer- Travel Pics
« on: May 05, 2012, 08:35 »
I've had the same thing - the occasional batch gets rejected for production value, or large proportions of some batches, whereas others with similar subjects and quality sail through with few problems.  I think it's variability among inspectors, or possibly one who is moody.  I've never bothered to resubmit so don't know whether that is successful.

They're one of my lowest sites so I don't bother about them too much.  However, they have he highest RPDL of all the micro sites for me so I hope that sales will pick up - that's what keeps them in the list.

1305
Newbie Discussion / Re: Ranking factors microstock sites
« on: May 05, 2012, 08:26 »
To turn back on the whole ranking thing.
I just noticed something, maybe its easy explainable, maybe not.

I sold my first file 2 days ago.
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-20023350-golf-scoring-board.php
It had only 17 views and 1 sale, its was a week online.
Since this sale the views gone grom 17 to 91 in 2 days.
while in a whole week it just got that 17.

All other photos are under 20 views
except for this photo. http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-20069694-old-and-yound-hand-on-pregnant-belly.php
Am i watching to closely on these stats or is it that a sale might boost ranking?


Yes.  Trying to figure out what changes search rankings is a waste of time - changes all the time for reasons you can't control.  Some images get tons of views with no sales while others get a sale with almost every view - no idea why.  The only part you can control is the number and quality of your images - increase those and you'll do well.  What you're starting with looks good and you'll soon have more feedback on what sells and what doesn't.

1306
123RF / Re: What happend?
« on: May 05, 2012, 08:09 »
123rf has been increasing for me more or less every month for the past 2 years, but it did drop off quite a bit last month - not as many sales and those were mostly subs.  This month so far as well.  Not sure if it means anything as my port is still quite small, but it is interesting that things slowed down right after they announced the new commission cuts...

1307
DepositPhotos / Re: First Sales?
« on: May 04, 2012, 12:48 »
My experience on DP last month worked out to about 0.064 sales per image.  If yours were downloaded at the same rate I'd expect about 10 sales in a month with 160 images.  I'm sure most people probably do much better than me.  Maybe it's just taking a while for yours to be found or possibly they are less commercially viable.  I'd just keep submitting and trying different things until you find some that sell.  Good luck!

1308
I think if his site becomes successful, it would be a logical next step to become an agency in its own right. It's human instinct to want to expand.
He will, but not exactly the way we imagine.
First he will give us possibility to create our own sites using "Yuri's stock store engine" - a kind of Ktools Photostore - for free. Once 1000 individual stores are on line a mega Yoogel search image site will be deployed. Yoogel will research images among all Yuri's engined sites and take 10% from each sale.

This could be the way of the future and a way for all of us to get a larger proportion of sales.  Individually we are too small, but a coordinated search of many individual sites could provide the breadth of a large agency.  This could really work if everyone used the same template for their own sites so they could be searched together.  If Yuri is heading in this direction then it really could lead to a new way of selling images that would bypass the agencies or at least give artists some leverage to get agencies to increase commissions.

Of course it wouldn't require Yuri if someone else has the programming skills to put it together ... a virtual agency of individual sites that are searched as one, like Travelocity or Amazon but for images.  There would have to be caveats about quality since everyone would be their own reviewers and some sort of agreements about pricing or it might be too complicated for buyers but something like this really could work - each individual is responsible for their own individual site and you'd just need a search engine and front bit to manage sales.  There would be no costs for reviewing images or maintaining a huge database, just a search engine.  Wish I had the time and the programming skills...  If someone is working on something like this it would be great!

1309
I agree that the categories are not very useful and mostly a waste of time, but you can autofill them from previous submissions so it is a minor nuisance.  The sites that require you to prioritize keywords (e.g., FT, Alamy, PM) take much more time for me, and of course DA at iS.

1310
Newbie Discussion / Re: Ranking factors microstock sites
« on: May 03, 2012, 06:59 »
I bet there are not 1,000 but 10,000 photos of green apples in all sites. :o

Out of curiosity I just did a search for "green apple" on Shutterstock and it returned 84,875 images.  On iStock it was only 5,249.  In either case a new image is not likely to get much attention and a single green apple may not even get accepted.  I know you were only using that as an example but the point is that almost everything you can think of will have been shot to death by tons of excellent photographers already.  If you're a competent photographer getting images accepted isn't hard but getting sales nowadays when you're competing against 20 million other images with 100,000 new ones added every week is tough.  Of course you can make thousands from the right image but in general you will want a large portfolio to get any kind of decent return.

1311
General Stock Discussion / Re: April Earnings
« on: May 01, 2012, 07:41 »
About 30% less than March.  Down at all sites except DP, which has had a BME for the past three months.  Hopefully it will end up being the worst month of the year.

1312
It's going to be an interesting month.

My guess is he's spent the past 2 years developing a huge library of exclusive images.  Through his boot camps he has trained a large number of photographers to shoot the way he does all over the world.  Now he will have his own agency to market all of that content, plus is providing some additional services that may be in demand by companies.  He's thought this all out and probably will be very successful.

The interesting bit will be to see how this affects the existing agencies.  Will he keep his content there as well?  How will they react if he is now competing with them directly?  Or will his new site only have exclusive content?  Might lead to a major market shakeup or might just be an interesting blip - no way to know until Wednesday.  In any event hats off to Yuri for taking the plunge.  Hopefully this will generate a lot of positive spin for photography in general.

1313
I had one earlier this year for $236, my cut was $94.40.  I would rather have had 60%, but that is still probably more than I will make on some of the smaller sites all year so no complaints.

1314
General Stock Discussion / Re: DT Nightmare
« on: April 30, 2012, 16:31 »
The first week pf April was great, then it dropped off to very little - only subs since then and not many of those.  Worst month there since last fall.

1315
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Rejected Can resubmit
« on: April 29, 2012, 09:35 »
I resubmit if I think I can fix the problem easily and if I think the image will get some sales.

Of all the agencies I've found the iS inspectors the most helpful in learning how to fix problems.  Some of their rejections - particularly the dreaded "Artifacting" - can be difficult to figure out the problem.  Sometimes an inspector has included an enclosure containing the part of the image with the problem.  Usually it has been some small CA or posterization that was not noticed by me or inspectors at other agencies.  Sometimes it was not visible (to me) at 100%, but was clearly there at 200%.  These enclosures have been very helpful and I've only received that kind of personal attention from inspectors at iS.  Now that I know what to look for I can find and eliminate those problems before submission, which has improved the quality of my images at all agencies.

By fixing and resubmitting you will get a better idea of what they are objecting to and can then correct those before submission.  In my experience, "over-filtering" can often be fixed by lowering the saturation a little.  Of course, for other agencies the "over-filtered" look may be more desirable and sell more so it's a balancing act.  If you feel you're still learning and want to figure out the reasons for the rejections then I'd recommend resubmitting - for me this has been a great help in improving my photography.  Of course they still might get rejected for other reasons as pointed out by BT, but at least you can have fixed one issue and will learn something in the process.

1316
General Stock Discussion / Re: Check Out PicturEngine
« on: April 25, 2012, 13:20 »
The link worked for me.  The next paragraph says:
The disadvantage of participation is that instead of being able to post images for free as is the case on all microstock sites there is a $40 per month fee, plus $0.15 per gigabyte per month for image storage, to advertise an unlimited number of royalty free images. (The $40 is for those who sign up during the beta period and is locked in for life. Photographers will not actually be charged this fee until the project comes out of beta.)

So $480 per year plus storage fees for the possibility of getting a 100% commission.  I'll wait to see whether it leads to sales, but probably too rich for me as well.

1317
Very slow for me, too.  Down a lot on all sites except for DepositPhotos, which is a BME.  Might end up 30% off of the last couple of months unless something changes dramatically.

1318
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Strange refund
« on: April 20, 2012, 07:38 »
Hey, all you folks quit yer bellyachin', IS just refunded ME:


 FileID         Amount Paid     Correct Amount   Difference         Date
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0003740993          $00.23               $00.24             $00.01        1/27/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Amount Paid: $0.01

Now if I could just figure out where to spend it all.

I beat you both - I got $0.07!

Hah! I got .02.

1319
Panthermedia.net / Re: Rights Managed at Panther
« on: April 20, 2012, 07:34 »
Thanks for the explanations - I think I understand it now.  The new PM license is RM because it is for a specific use instead of RF allowing for any usage.  However, this is not RM in the same sense as at e.g., Alamy, where it means that you know how the image has been used (although I suppose it could apply in the case of PM).  To be safe, I think I will keep my RM images at Alamy and elsewhere separate, but will certainly opt in to RM on PM - sounds like they are responding to a need and if it leads to more sales for higher prices we will all be happy.

1320
General Stock Discussion / Re: alamy Q/C Process
« on: April 19, 2012, 16:52 »
I've had them take up to 11 days and all were approved.  If you're only sending files that have been vetted already by inspectors at other agencies then you probably have nothing to worry about.

1321
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy has sold one image for over $100,000
« on: April 13, 2012, 12:20 »
Mine either.  Drat.

I suspect there is no way to find out unless the person who made the sale wants to brag.

1322
Alamy.com / Re: News: Alamy allows 'breaking news' uploads
« on: April 11, 2012, 12:22 »
It would be interesting to compare those to the micros to see which is likely to give a higher return.

From an editorial newsworthy perspective, Alamy gives me a much higher return than the micros.  I no longer submit editorial images to the micros for that reason.

Thanks - that is good to know.  For the past few months I've been splitting my editorial-type submissions if the images are different enough to test where they would have the highest return - micro RF editorial versus Alamy RM - but my output is too low to have a good enough sample and of course it isn't a direct comparison because it is different images at each place.  The few DLs I had at Alamy when I had only about 80 images online have made me more more than some of the micros with hundreds of images over three years, so now I am focusing on increasing my submissions to Alamy - so far, so good.  Your experience tells me I made the right decision

1323
Veer / Re: Refunds at VEER
« on: April 11, 2012, 12:01 »
I had two refunds in January of a large and an EL totaling $38.50, four days after the sales. - annoying but at least it was within a reasonable time.  If it was 7 months I would complain.  I agree with jsnover that there should be a limit for digital content - 7 days seems reasonable, 30 tops.

1324
General Stock Discussion / Re: Zoonar & Alamy
« on: April 11, 2012, 07:54 »
I was just doing some searches on Alamy yesterday and noticed a lot of duplicated or even triplicated images.  This probably explains how that happens.

1325
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT Pricing Changes? Stay tuned...
« on: April 11, 2012, 07:48 »
No sales there since April 7th.  Before that it was a good month...

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