The photo of the boy is by Natasa778 and is here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9258934-child-standing-by-the-sea-looking-down.php

(How do you embed an image here?)

It's a shame that although they credit the artist, they haven't credited the photogs - isn't that an editorial article? (though as neither photog is iStock exclusive, they may have bought the images from elsewhere).

Quote from: lisafx on January 30, 2010, 14:31

Quote from: gbcimages on January 30, 2010, 13:54

sub sites will always be here and growing,that's where all the buyer  do most of their shopping. The economy is down and will be for awhile.

You wouldn't know it from my sales.  40% of my sales still come from IS, which doesn't have an "all you can eat" type subscription model at all.

Thanks. I just looked at the IS credits subs system and it it much less generous to the buyer than the 'all you can eat system' of FT. Effectively, you buy credits in bulk and 3 months in advance at a discount of 70% but you have to use your number of credits each day or they turn into pumpkins at midnight. If a buyer with subscription buys a 10 credit image of yours, how much do you get as contributor?

From my own experience and hearsay from my CN and forums, the subscription scheme hasn't been a great success. The last time I saw iStock print ads (around 6 months ago) they weren't even mentioning the possibility of subs. Anyone know if that's changed? It really isn't a good deal for buyers, who need to remember to download images over weekends and holidays if they are to get their money's worth.

It's actually sort of comforting.  My sales are down pretty much across the board at the moment, and I guess misery loves company...

Have you seen http://blog.lookstat.com/category/analytics/? (Third article down - Microstock Photography Stats � Downloads and Earnings per User)

Quote from: WarrenPrice on January 29, 2010, 15:35

There was a court decision sometime back and I don't know details but read somewhere that buildings (in the USA) that were built prior to 1990 and had no copyright registered with the copyright office were NOT protected by copyright law and, therefore, need no release.

There is a lot of confusing copyright information on the internet.  Much of what or how it is interpreted is site-specific. 

And, remember, that nothing offered in a public forum is more correct than anything else offered in a public forum.  Most of us are just expressing opinions with minimal research backup.   

I understand...i would assume that the PR would have to go with the well known landmarks..of which I doubt anyone could get unless you were related to the Queen of England...and of course that would be site specific...I just have never tryed uploading anything like these...meaning the actual pictures.

If in England, you're generally OK if you're shooting from a public place. Scotland is the same. :-) It's generally thought that even those images which are generally culled from agencies (e.g. NT) are also OK if taken from a public place, but the NT rattled their cage and several agencies culled some images, though some still remain in these same collections. Well-known landmarks would generally be particularly OK! In fact, there are several of Buck House on iStock, who are notoriously conservative.

Today someone bought one of my landscape images on Istock at XS size netting me 22c commission. It was the first sale of that image in the 4 months it had been on-line. The subject was a coastal geological feature, images of which tend to be relatively high in supply and low in demand.

Less than an hour later the same image was bought on Fotolia at maximum XXL size which generated about $4 for me.

If the buyer had bought the XXL image on IS it would have cost them 20 credits or about $30. Over on FT the sale cost the buyer about $12, a worthwhile saving for the few seconds it would have taken them to find it if they first spotted it on IS.

Normally I would put such things down to coincidence but in this case, because of the low-selling nature of the image, the timing of the two sales and the sizes bought from each agency it does make me think otherwise. It appears that the buyer may be doing the initial searches on IS, to get the best selection, then buying XS images for comping purposes and, when they've made their choices, purchasing the full-size images from the most cost-effective source.

Any thoughts?

Not quite the same, but yesterday I had two 'medium' sales (for different amounts) on iStock, for a photo which has been 'up' for two years with only 14 previous sales, and isn't seasonal or topical. Don't rule out sheer coincidence.

What if you give Illustrator a try? A square, a circle, you've got yourself a flag and you're in  

Oh well, if my sales at iStock continue their downward spiral and I have to give up the crown , it's nice to know there's somewhere I could grow my Vector skills - from zero.

OMG!!! LOL!!! I was (obviously) VERY confused.
Thank you all so much for commenting on my post. I really appreciate it. I don�t know if you read my post in the newbie section, but I am an English teacher-- in a very rural area in Japan. I would seriously love to take a class or meet other photographers, but my Japanese is not good enough to do something like that! Plus don�t even know if there is anything like that around here in the boonies.

I sympathise - I always see this sort of advice; it must be an American thing to have classes people can just drop into. Hereabouts there are full time photography classes but not evening or weekend courses. Several years ago I was astonished to see a 'studio techniques/lighting evening class and I phoned up to be told "it's not really a class, it's just cheap studio use for our last year's graduates".
Good luck.

Quote from: MichaelJay on January 24, 2010, 06:08

Quote from: Frykmangallery on January 23, 2010, 19:21

We've decided not to pursue stock photography right now, and we're fine with that. We never wanted to change our style or choice of subject for this.

I can fully understand that - and I'd say, microstock will require more than a minor change of thought. I think all those images are great and I'd love to hang them on my wall.

But for microstock you will need your images to be more in a "raw" stadium, so different customers have lots of options to change the image to their personal needs. And most of them won't end up on a wall in a living room but on marketing material or illustrating articles.

Still, those images are nice and could certainly make some good money on stock as well. But you'd have to separate your workflows for your art/print business and the microstock business if you want to succeed. Maybe you should consider going a bit up, more like an RM agency with an artsy approach.

Agree totally with what Michael says. My iStock acceptance rate shot up after I realised that I should submit them WITHOUT sharpening for printing - the buyer might want to do a lot with the image before they're ready to print.
That said, if you are selling well where you live, it may not be worth pursuing stock. Round about here, photography can't sell. For example, we've got a nice gift shop in this (small) town where they tried out some nice framed pictorial images, by heavily promoting them in their windows. I was impressed with their quality and astonished that they could sell so cheaply (I wouldn't even know where to buy the frames that cheaply) but none of them sold. Same in the nearby "Craft Village" - even a big name's stunning photos of local scenes, at a price it seems most Americans here or on iStock wouldn't get out of bed for, sold only three in over a year.
So while not discouraging you from stock, if you're not happy about changing your philosophy or workflow, good luck with the direct sales. Also agree with Michael, that if you want to make the effort to improve your technical issues, you might do better on one of the macros for this sort of image - though you'll see that they generally have many already.

Hello again!

I tried to improve from my last critique and picked up a white plate etc etc. I am trying to like suggested to get a nice "white airy" look. I set the aperture to 1/100 to achieve this... but I think it's making the end part of the vegetables look blurry! The middle looks clear... but the sides seem to lose focus.

Any ideas of what to do? I really just want to get some of my food photos to be clear and have that "white airy" look.  Any help or other critiques would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and I tried uploading the original picture. But it won't let me, so am uploading a smaller version of it. Sorry about that, I know that was a comment last time.

You'll need to increase your depth of field. What f-stop were you using? Try f16 and f22.

Hey, I just realised I've got a Dreamstime rank, and it's not even the lowest for downloads!
I've never had an image uploaded, far less downloaded on DT, and the lst time I looked I was n/a for DT, which I checked is still the status showing for another group member I know has always been an iStock exclusive.
Just pointing this out as I don't want an iStock exclusive witch-hunt.

I agree that the issue probably is that you sent three 'landscapes', I'm surprised they didn't accept at least the first one and ask you to submit two 'different subjects'. When I applied, I submitted three wildlife photos and was asked to submit something else. I submitted a shot taken in Venice and was accepted, but that image was rejected for the collection for my usual - 'flat light'.
I disagree with Perseus' advice for getting unusual subjects or behaviour for iStock in particular - I can't speak for the other micros. Firstly, iStock's buyers seem mostly to be interested in the well-known species shot in 'coffee-table book' style, not in the more typically 'natural history' photos.
Second, the reason many species are 'under-represented' is that they are 'shade-loving' species, whether plants or animals - automatic 'flat light' rejection. I've seen advice in the critique forum on iStock which went totally against the Nature Photographer's Code of Conduct, rule 1: the welfare of the animal comes first.
Third, from personal experience, if a species is unusual, it doesn't even matter if you're the only person with that species on iStock, you'll be lucky if you get a sale. I've seen some species with maybe twenty photos from various photogs, with 1-3 sales between them after 2-3 years. At first I had no alternative, but now that I have a 'pro' spec camera, these pics are now going RM - then if I only get one sale in five years, at least it might be 'worth it'. (Much as I hate to say that with my other hat of non-profit newsletter for a local natural history club on.)
'General' landscapes seldom sell well; well known locations sometimes do. But just recently, I've noticed some really super photos of Niagara Falls totally frozen, with few or even no sales after a year or two - that shocked and surprised me.

...maybe this is for some of those super whippersnapping cyberpunks who pride themselves of how much of a cybersleuth they are in  phishing .....  they could put their brains to something more useful like this ?

You'd leave your image security in their hands? They made it, they can break it in a heartbeat.