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1451
« on: November 24, 2007, 22:23 »
But why they do this? Don't have money - Hacking culture - Never pay for artwork culture? It's amazing how somebody can proudly say that! "Poverty" is a lame excuse in these cases, because these people are dirt rich, measured in local standards. It is the hacking/pirate culture that makes you feel like a dumb fool when you pay good money for something you can easily get almost free at the "market". Most of all, the authorities are reluctant to do anything substantial about it. Many "market" vendors are small entrepreneurs that try to survive on 3$ per day. But they are 100% voters.
1452
« on: November 20, 2007, 08:00 »
their so-called CV (Common Vocabulary). Actually it's "controlled". It's a good idea in principle. If not... you would never be sure about why fruit flies like a banana. Noam Chomsky, semantics, context-dependent semantics of words, blablabla. Nouns and verbs (flies) adverbs and verbs (like). It was a very bold move, but you can only afford it when you're a market leader and the other sites have to follow you. That didn't happen. The disambiguation was decreed like a Papal Bull at the same time the exclusives were proclaimed untouchable Saints, - and it took me by surprise, stuffed far away from Net and Mores in the Mindanao jungle. When I returned, my sales were bottoming and Istk went from place #1 to place #4 for me the rest of the year. The disambiguation turned out to be so much work, and for what? I could better go and flip hamburgers for 7 euro per hour. After a while (around the begin of 2007) I even stopped uploading since their Java uploader is programming crap and it eats up all resources of my ailing PC. Still no FTP... I know it's subjective but Istk gave me very bad vibes suddenly. Made me feel like an idiot, no respect at all. Ungrateful me, not going exclusive on God's Gift to Stock. Sales have been bad and worsening since then, although I disambiguated my 20 top sellers. Right now, I'm checking them once every 2-3 weeks or so. May the Force always be with them, and may they finally find a programmer that can add FTP in a couple of days.
1453
« on: November 20, 2007, 06:59 »
I have a constant problem when isolating objects with Photoshop Elements 5. Every isolated
object has lot of tiny white holes on the rim of the object after i separate it from background. Jaggies? It sounds so obvious, but did you check the anti-alias checkbox in your selection tool? (a feather of 1 pixel in excess should get rid of all jaggies - excellent for 10MP shots).
1454
« on: November 20, 2007, 05:54 »
After months of almost 100% acceptance, I hit the "crazy reviewer" too, and a batch of 5 was discarded as non-commercial. Funny, since it sells OK at DT. I don't get rejections for noise any more. I did 2 years ago. You just have to learn the "trick" what SS likes. I don't use NR over all the image, just where noise is visible. SS still likes crisp images, but no noise in skies, skin folds, hair, dark areas. I routinely do NR on a second layer and then selectively erase those areas, with a 50% soft brush, keeping the well-lit parts crisp as they are. That's what SS likes ;-) Every site has a different approach, you have to change your products according to it at your very start, it's normal procedure like with every job. Correct. But if you keep it crisp where it needs to be, you can upload to all other MS sites without any special treatment. As I do it now, I postproduce the shot for the toughest agent (SS) and then I'm sure that same shot will be accepted anywhere else - technically spoken. Of course, the second hurdle is to make the reviewer believe the shots is sellable, and opinions may vary in that respect...
1455
« on: November 20, 2007, 05:24 »
Since Peer Mangia doesn't seen to post on this forum, I take the liberty of linking his mini-interview with Elena Oryol of Featurepics. One statement struck me: "What we are realizing is that there are artists who do care to see their work in good hands and there are some who abuse the system. Our effort has been concentrated with helping to promote the artists and eradicate the abusers."
What would those abusers do then? I'm intrigued.
1456
« on: November 20, 2007, 04:43 »
Ah, well. I'm on a lousy 2kbps phone modem in the jungle, and between electricity brownouts in, I prefer to take shots (batteries still work) instead of reading intrigues on forums. Missed that one. If I want a good name-calling fight, I go to my fav political forum :-p
1457
« on: November 20, 2007, 01:38 »
People was saying that in Asia, nobody was buying pictures, they was stealing them or a thing like that. But anything to censure the site. That was me. I met the son of an editor in Manila and he told me his dad uses shots from Getty and Alamy, and that he knew Photoshop very well. He explained me that he used Photoshop (you can get the CS3 extended version here in the Phils on any "market" for 1$ - on the same DVD are Vista Coorporate and multiple games, all cracked). When I asked why he used Photoshop for, he told me to clone out the watermarks. The China block is a hoax. There are sites around that "test" you via a Chinese proxy. I run a site for EU expats in East-Asia, with political content. It showed blocked by the proxy, but in Bejing, it showed up very well. The MSG works fine in China.
1458
« on: November 19, 2007, 22:05 »
I tried them all, and somehow they were lacking or had too much. I don't need to resize/rotate/email/blabla an image, that's done in PS of course. A management script should stay away from my images themselves.
The ProStockMaster is written in Java, so quite slow on my outdated PC. I tried the "file properties" thingie that's built into the XP file system, but it didn't work. MS planned a virtual content-drive file system in Longhorn/Vista beta, but it was postponed till the next Windows version. That would really be a great thing. I think the Mac has a thing like that already. Searchlight? Any Mac-ers in the audience?
As to keywords, I wrote my own script (link on bottom) and I use the IPTC metadata extensively.
Since my background is programming, I have been playing with the idea to write a lean script that just does what a stocker wants concerning file-tracking, and not more. That is, just keep track of metadata, where uploaded, result of upload, sales. Using XMP-files is an option.
Sales reports are not really necessary since it needs access to the account, and not many people (included myself) do like that.
It would help to know what your workflow is to design a spec for a real useful image management program.
1459
« on: November 19, 2007, 21:30 »
one post has been deleted from this thread which didn't offer much to the conversation except mild name calling and 'egging on' of other members. IMHO, noticing some vested interests is not name calling. I made it quite clear on another forum I appreciate the LO bouncers reviewers in general a lot, and Kari in particular. I converted my earnings to credits already, and before I leave LO (quite soon) I buy some of her shots I really like, as a small token of appreciation. At least somebody will be happy ;-) Off-topic: LO isn't slow here at all, but I'm in the Shanghai-Manila time zone so I'm probably checking it in off-peak hours.
1460
« on: November 17, 2007, 14:39 »
The main thing I'm impressed with is the frequency of ELs. I've never had one at DT or BigStock, only one at 123RF, and yet I've have had several at LO since July. Plus, in July, LO was my #5 earner behind SS, IS, DT and StockXpert! So, at least for me, LO is already showing signs of knocking on the Big 6's doors. Don't forget to mention you are employed by LO as a reviewer, so this hurrayh LO message should be read in context. For an exceptional photographer as yourself, it's not that difficult to get some sales, even at LO. I bet you make much more at SS or at any other site. For mere mortals as myself, with a modest portfolio, LO has been a debacle and an utter waste of time. The CEO Chief Instigator has been like acting on Prozac for the past year, partying (or Balloohing) all over Ca, promising a real take-off the next quarter, but never delivering on his promises. The best part of LO are the reviewers bouncers who seem to be great for beginners. The community approach and the commenting game is silly, because we have a (much better) Flickr for that. Recent uploads don't get any views any more, probably because the previous views all came from random Google traffic, not from buyers. IMHO the strategy of LO is basically wrong. It doesn't translate into sales. It's great some people seem to have sales on LO, so I wish them the best with it. LO works for them. Not for me. So be it. I stopped uploading and will jump out as soon as I hit the next 10$ to convert to credits, and make some people happy with a download. As to EL, I got 3 in a row on DT alone this month, so I hope not all my shots are crap. And finally, it's great to post here, where threads aren't closed and messages don't get removed because they are " bashing LO". That's why I left TalkMicro.
1461
« on: November 15, 2007, 09:01 »
My experiences with Zymmetrical are these.
- About 2 months ago I did a test upload of 10 shots: 5 models, 5 nature. After the upload I had not the faintest idea what to do. The workflow was unclear on the site. Where did those shots go, was the IPTC accepted, how to attach the model releases? As it turned out later, 4 nature shots were accepted, but I didn't know.
Since the site was in beta and just beginning, I couldn't afford to spend much time on it, especially since I'm in rural SE-Asia on very limited and interrupted bandwidth.
A year ago, LuckyOliver was at the same stage. I mailed them often for support and to report site glitches, and they got their things right (especially IPTC support) like 4 months later. Till now (a year later), I made just 15$ on LO, so the time spent on it was totally unproductive.
- Then, about 2 weeks ago, I got a mail from Zymmetrical that I had 7$ in my account. Quite unbelievable with just 4 photos on a beginning site and just after 2 months. Especially since I saw a while ago my shots had no keywords/description at all. This would mean that Zymmetrical can yield a tenfold of LO.
While both the CEOs of LO and Zym seem to act on Prozac and they are quite outspoken, obviously Paul can deliver on his promises while Bryan can't.
- So I gave Zymmetrical another shot today. It is possible to upload model releases now, but it's still totally unclear (at least to me) how and where to attach those to the photos. The worst is that the IPTC still isn't accepted and that it seems you have to cut-and-paste your tags one by one on a webform.
So my questions/suggestions to the Zymmetrical programmer(s) are these:
- Is IPTC accepted now? If no, when will it be?
- How and where do I attach model releases?
- Can the workflow be made more clear? Upload > finalizing > pending > accepted/rejected, with the possibility to edit tags/description + adding model releases at any stage.
You should realize that uploading a 700 photo fully IPTC-ed portfolio with manual cut&paste of tags is even too much for Mother Theresa ;-)
1462
« on: November 15, 2007, 08:31 »
I also found Zymetrical takes me to a different site. Is this owned by Zymmetrical? Zymetrical is another company than Zym metrical.
1463
« on: November 14, 2007, 19:01 »
Well I rarely get EL sales, and all of them on SS. Till that day of  utter joy  , Nov 3 2007, I got 3 EL's in a row on DT around the same time, at maximum size (10MP). I thought at first there was a glitch in the earnings box as there was 75$ more. All 3 are tropical nature (2 sunsets, 1 waterfall). My guess is somebody used it for a mag, but alas, I will never know, since the buyer didn't send me a comment this time.  The rainbow is faked in with PS.  The red is exaggerated in PS with a soft-light layer. Surf lighted up with simple on-cam flash.  This shot almost killed me. Back to the resort in a moonless night found out my rented motorcycle's lights didn't work. There was a giant concrete block and a very deep excavation on the road, of course without signals and lights. I noticed it when I already passed it, a near miss of 30cm. Welcome to South-East Asia.
1465
« on: November 11, 2007, 09:13 »
I used a couple of filters long ago. About 2 years ago, there was a post on Webaperture that they gone out of business. That is, somebody paid them, but never got the working version by email. They didn't reply to email either.
1466
« on: November 09, 2007, 00:16 »
Thank the photo gods for SS & IS or I'd have to bail out of this business right now... LOL..... I'm actually up with the both of them.... but DT, 123 and StockXpert.... things have been bleak to ... worse than bleak.. all my others slow but breathing steadily. Oh well, every 2-3 months or so, I have my period and get quite depressive about stock. Then I swear I only do editorial, snapshots, artsy things for Flickr and Deviantart, and never again worry about distorted pixels, noise, tags and stop beging a Photoshop slave. And then, when crying like Job on his heap, there is a sudden EL sale somewhere, and I guess I wait a bit longer to stock-kill myself
1467
« on: November 09, 2007, 00:02 »
An angry reviewer sounds to me like an honest lawyer and an altruistic politician
1468
« on: November 07, 2007, 23:24 »
Many photogs have endured the Snapvillage "beta" debacle, the non-watermark and the lack of IPTC for a long time, just because it was a company owned by Corbis, and ultimately by Microsoft. As such, there would be potential in the site. Not any more. Snapvillage moved to Ireland under a low tax scheme, and is now owned by a sortof offshore shell company that shelters hundreds of other companies. As an Irish company, Snapvillage can escape US taxes and copyright practices easily. In fact, it will be very difficult to sue Snapvillage as it is not a US company any more. So where is Snapvillage's USP ( unique selling proposition) now? It aint Corbis, it aint Microsoft, its just another newcomer in the tsunami of new mictrostock sites. Got this from Paul Melcher's blog on http://blog.melchersystem.com/2007/11/02/so-far-away-from-it-all/. Some quotes: Corbis the Corbis ( how else to describe them ?) have again taken the world by surprised. A few months after launching Snapvillage.com, they have posted a new contributor agreement, effective August 31, 2007, but only posted a month later, on September 27. Most of the contract is all about changing the legal name of Snapvillage, and adding some very threatening comments that is not particularly contributor-friendly. One would think that if you have a UGC company, you would have an agreement that doesnt scares the pants out of those Users. Corbis is afraid of no one, not even its own contributors who find themselves forced to fly to Ireland if they need to sue Snapvillage and pay all legal fees even if they win. Furthermore, the agreement makes no efforts to be readable by the common man. Quite the opposite. So much for being user friendly. SnapVillage Ltd.
Attn: Matsack Trust Limited
70 Sir John Rogersons Quay
Dublin 2
Ireland
The Matsack company websites clearly specifies : Our in-house company Matsack Trust Limited acts as Company Secretary for several hundred client companies, comprising public, private, unlimited companies
MmmNow everyone knows that Corbis will do anything to protect its very wealthy and only stockholder, Bill Gates, from any possible liabilities. Fair enough. This agreement does not even mention Corbis at all. But Ireland ? and a empty company ? Well, an article on the American Chamber of Commerce explains it all :
These [benefits] include Irelands open and transparent tax regime, a standard 12.5% corporation tax rate which applies to all companies. Equally important are the double taxation agreements with 44 countries and the favourable [sic] tax incentives given to intellectual property and to Research & Development investment.
A tax shelter. Apparently, Corbis idea of making a profit is to pay less taxes overall, and none in the USA at all.
1469
« on: November 07, 2007, 12:34 »
Thanx for the comments and the RB forum link. It seems that RB ridicules the demand for watermarking. So be it. You have the right not to upload. I won't.
1470
« on: November 06, 2007, 22:12 »
If it sucks, it sucks well. I don't know what DT did, but they did it right, at least for me. Suddenly sales are rising, and I even got 3 extended sales in a row 3 days ago. Whoever told that sunsets and waterfalls don't sell was wrong. I even started to sell old photos with no downloads.
There has been some grumbles around about the subscription model on DT, but as far as I'm concerned, my sales went up since DT introduced it. Some people talk inspiringly about good marketing (like LO's Chief Instigator), DT just does it.
1471
« on: October 29, 2007, 01:05 »
I have seen so many economic predictions go wrong, I no longer believe that anyone can give an accurate forecast. I beg to disagree. I can make very sound predictions about the USD-EUR rate for instance. 1 - It will go up. 2 - It will go down. 3 - It will stay the same.
1472
« on: October 29, 2007, 00:58 »
There won't be a recession until the year 2012. Between 2012 and 2018 there will be a very deep recession, nearing depression levels. Interest rates will go up to much higher levels than at present. Property values will fall 50%, and indeed property values have peaked almost everywhere except Asia.
Sorry, but that's the way it is.
Great! I like your crystal ball. Could you advise me also what stock to buy now? ;-) On a lighter note, I'm more worried about the bad USD-EUR exchange rate. I leave all on Paypal in USD now, in the vain hope the USD would soar against the EUR.
1473
« on: October 25, 2007, 09:23 »
I won't count Geckostock and Albumo as they are too new. To compare 2 sites that are each 1 year old now:
Best: FeaturePics (second payout on its way).
Worst: LuckyOliver: 400 photos, 9000 views, 19 dowloads, 13$. Just converted my 13$ to 10$ credits since I will never reach the 100$ payout there. After that, I'm an ex-carnie.
1474
« on: October 24, 2007, 04:25 »
Everybody know who first discovered America - few know who came second. Oh yeah? Anybody heard of Leif Ericson? He was the first. Amerigo Vespuci was the next one. So why it's called "America" and not "Ericsonia"? Actually the first ones to discover America were North Siberians crossing the street to Alaska, when there was still a land bridge, near the end of the IV-th glacial. They'r better known as "Indians". So why isn't America called "India" then? ;-)
1475
« on: October 16, 2007, 18:59 »
Honestly, I doubt you'll find anyone to do it cheaper than 40 cents per image. Globalisation and outsourcing. A Filipino English university graduate will get 10$ per day. Considering 8 hours per day and tagging 5 photos per hour (I always want a final look at the results too), and included net-connection costs overhead, 25$cents per photo is a workable deal. Guess where most of the call- phone support and help-centers are in the world? ;-)
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