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Messages - ShadySue
Pages: 1 ... 616 617 618 619 620 [621] 622
15501
« on: June 06, 2009, 04:36 »
My perspective (apologies to those who have read this before on the iStock forum): Years ago I was accepted to Corbis, by sending them three trial slides, which they paid me about 35 each for to use on one of their very early RM CDs, IIRC. They then sent me a list of photos they wanted, based on my location and required 100 images on my next submission. Because of work and weather etc, this took me several weeks, and when I labelled them, and made up a submission sheet etc and posted them off, they were returned unopened (i.e. they'd skimmed the submission sheet but hadn't opened the slide parcel) saying they were no longer accepting 35mm. I was furious, as you can well imagine, as I'd gone to the places and shot the images specially, wasting time and money. There was no way I could justify a MF camera. It took me a while to accept microstock for the reasons mentioned in the OP, but eventually I joined iStock, and while I'm never going to be a big player there, I've earned enough to get a 5DMk2 and two lenses, and I'm now submitting RM/Editorial to two midstock sites, which was what I wanted to do in the first place.  (Only one sale so far, but it's early days!) What the 'big guys' didn't recognise was that there was an emerging market for smaller images for websites, and a market for images from smaller companies which just couldn't afford the high prices, and didn't require exclusive use of images. F'rinstance, on of my images was chosen as the front cover of a book. It's a small, specialist publisher, and I doubt very much if the book will sell even 1000 copies (maybe not ven 500, but do they really print books with such a small print run?), but what do I know? If they'd bought an image at 'trad' prices, they'd probably have had to add about 2 on to the cost of the book, which might have pushied it too high for the target audience. I didn't get even an EL on that sale, but in fact that particular photo has sold 296 times on iStock so far. But yes, I'm cool about that because it's a small publisher, the designer did IMO a lovely job on the cover, I'm very interested in the subject matter (and may even buy the book!). I'd be much less chuffed if it was a huge company which had paid peanuts for the image, but that's the way the game goes.
15502
« on: June 04, 2009, 17:54 »
BBC has a little interview with Jeff Widener who took (one of) the 'Tank Man' photos which are so recognized.
Thanks for posting this link. Very interesting.
15503
« on: June 02, 2009, 17:59 »
You do ask some good questions Leaf!
I used to have insurance, primarily for travel purposes, but any policy worth having (in the UK) has become ludicrously expensive. The cost is something like 10% of the equipments' value if you are a pro, want in-vehicle and also world-wide cover.
Where are these hotel safes which are big enough to hold anything other than your passport, spare cash and maybe a G9?
15504
« on: June 02, 2009, 11:47 »
i'm really pi$$ed at Istock. They FINALLY accepted 3 images after sending them DOZENS over many months... so 3 of my best sellers across all sites end up in the final 3..
so i get accepted..
and send the 3 in again, to start my porfolio.
So the REJECT 2 of them !!!!! ..
after having reviewed them..and their being up to the standards to join their team, they reject the images.
that kind of drek, i don't need. Canadian or not... I
That's really common: I had one of my initial images rejected for the site. Basically, with the entry sample, they're trying to see if you can hold a camera the right way up etc and if you have potential. The standards are less stringent (though getting stricter) for entry than for the site.
15505
« on: June 01, 2009, 19:15 »
You'll need to post full sized (watermarked) copies of your images. We can't tell anything from these small versions.
Your photographic background counts for nothing at iStock; the images have to speak for themselves.
Also, the iStock critique forum is very, very helpful, again you have to post full size images, e.g. on your own website or on Vox. People won't spare your feelings, but it's tough love.
15506
« on: May 31, 2009, 09:38 »
Note that you don't automatically bet access to Getty RF(Photodisc), you have to be at least an iStock Silver, then Getty has to accept you. Not everyone is accepted in their first few attempts.
As to the original question: it's hard to say. You get more upload slots; it depends how well you use them.
Yuri seems to do OK though not exclusive!
15507
« on: May 27, 2009, 17:49 »
I have an image used for a CD cover and I was never able to know if this is legal in any standard license, but I believe it is the same as a book cover - what means, yes, it's allowed. 
Although it's not the cover of a CD or of a book that makes a best-seller, both are important for marketing, and both CD and book producers give special attention to the covers. I think any site should require a EL for that usage.
I can confirm that iStock for one does not require an EL for a book cover.
15508
« on: May 25, 2009, 08:54 »
Nothing suggests it's a scam or fraudulent. Yes you will get free images (3), Maybe you will, or maybe, like me, you'll get a 404 not found but it shows you've had a download. Looks like a scam to me; but I'm not about to try again to be sure. 
15509
« on: May 24, 2009, 08:56 »
OK, I'm a high school teacher with an insatiable wish for images and no way of buying them except out of my own pocket. The few times I've been desperate enough to try that, I haven't found anything suitable.
But for free, I can satisfice, and often do that at Microsoft Clip Art anyway.
So I followed the link and signed up.
Firstly, you can only get 3 downloads until you give them a lot of personal information, including your mobile phone number. Hell, only my husband, my sister and my parents know my mobile number - I don't even know it. Forget that.
It's a big con, though. Before I discovered that you have to type in your mobile number (it's hidden until you get to that bit, which is the last field) I had typed in the other info, as vaguely as possible. But I bet they have that info when I clicked on the 'click here to get your registration number', which was the only way to find out that you must give them your mobile number.
Well, even three downloads is better than nothing. Think about the first lesson I'll be doing on Tuesday morning and look for a suitable image. First of all, the keywording and/or search engine is pretty useless, but at last I found an image I could use. Click to download it. 404 not found error, but they system says I've had one download. Try again, still 404 not found error, so I haven't downloaded anything, but I'm still only showing as one download.
Try another search. Search results are totally bizarre, and 6 search pages later, I haven't got what I want.
I don't think you need to worry about too many people downloading your images for free.
15511
« on: May 24, 2009, 03:55 »
When the 'big' contributors quit, or move to mid- or Macrostock, where will microstocksites find photographers that can fill the need for that kind of images for the buyers?
I'd imagine that most of the companies which use Yuri's kind of image are percisely not the little 'mom and pop' businesses that iStock mainly supplied in the beginning, so they'd be able to make the budget available to buy from the macros.
15512
« on: May 22, 2009, 04:29 »
Careful, the pieman might be lurking nearby 
The pieman is apparently in Spain, though he may be back by now. OP: Thanks for the post. You should write for Private Eye.
15513
« on: May 21, 2009, 16:25 »
Does anyone know why IS disambiguations are not in alphabetical order? It is really hard to find the right one when the list is extremely long.
Has anyone raised this before? Is it very difficult to do technically?
It has been raised, including when it was introduced at first, but surprisingly seldom. 'They' don't seem inclined to do anything about it. You could raise the point anew, I guess, e.g. in the suggestions or keyword forum, but some smarty will probably just point you to where it's been mentioned before.
15514
« on: May 21, 2009, 10:46 »
Ahh well umm.. welcome to the new and exciting world of delegation. Last time i keyworded and categorized an image by myself must have been over a year ago  You'd be amazed at how much time you can save by outsourcing a few boring/dull tasks.
You find it is cost effective to delegate uploading and keywording? Do you have someone in house do it or do you outsource to a company that does that?
Just curious. I like doing everything myself and keeping my costs low.
What else would you do on a wet Sunday or on the dark winter nights?
15515
« on: May 20, 2009, 13:49 »
About keywords:
I have read somewhere at Istock that to increase sales its a good thing to improve your keywords and titels. So that means that Its ok to add keywords afterwards?
Oh yes, provided they're good keywords for the image. 
15516
« on: May 19, 2009, 14:17 »
that's ridiculous. I think it'll be simple enough to have -person and -people for 99.99999% of the cases. As it is for most of the searches. Look for yourself and you'll find out that "nobody" is not that popular in fact.
I agree. That's what negative search options are for.
I also agree. So I suggest we teach buyers to search for "hamburger -nobody" if they are looking for some people eating hamburgers.
Yaaaaaay. game, set and match.
15517
« on: May 17, 2009, 15:14 »
I think some buyers use this keyword, but I don't use it because I had few rejections because of using it. I don't want my approval ratio to be ruined because of keywords.
If you were rejected on iStock purely for having 'nobody' as a keyword, sitemail Ethan (emyerson). I can't speak about other agencies.
15518
« on: May 17, 2009, 14:03 »
Do I get more downloads because I'm exclusive?
No.
You're kidding, right? The whole purpose of going exclusive with iStock is to get more downloads due to the best match placement advantages, and of course the commission increase.
The current best match does not seem to favour exclusives. This hasn't always been the case, and may not be the case in the future.
15519
« on: May 16, 2009, 11:05 »
I see a lot of images of objects, food, etc... with "nobody" keyword. I mean, what the...? Why? Do you really think that buyers type "nobody" in search?
Yes, it they want a photo of a burger or an object without people, why wouldn't they type nobody? Saves them having to wade through a batch of images with people in them.
15520
« on: May 16, 2009, 04:37 »
just stay away from Stockxpert for now . there's been a spanner in the works at StockXpert for quite a bit, and getting scarrier
@Perseus:
Sorry, English isn't my native language, so I am not sure if I understand what you are trying to say? What does spanner mean? My usual translation would be that of a tool for bolts, but that doesn't seem to fit... 
That's exactly it. If you threw a spanner into an engine, the engine would stop working.
15521
« on: May 16, 2009, 04:27 »
Oh, and at @allyclark:
maybe you should wait to get the Silver-Status at istockphoto after about 300 more DLs and see, if that affect sales...
I can tell you from personal experience that being Silver in itself will not affect sales. I've been silver for over a year, and my current downloads are down to what they were the month after I became Bronze. Of course, in the intervening time, you may submit a file which flies ...
15522
« on: May 16, 2009, 04:17 »
Well, ok, had two images rejected, only the first was inspected (100% size crop attached below). They said "Soft or lacking definition". I don't think it is any closely bad as the example they give here in their guidelines page.
What do you think? These images are a bit of a stretch indeed (originally 7MPix), but it is difficult for me to judge softness/definition when I see an upsized image.
I think the image is really soft, and the upsizing hasn't helped. This may not be relevant to your image, but I've found that autofocus has a really hard job focussing on wet mud. I 'lost' a series of photos of a buffalo in a mud wallow for that reason. (I'm having fun playing 'spot the eye' on this ele )
15523
« on: May 14, 2009, 16:53 »
The main thing I'd like is just one tickbox to mark an image as 'editorial' instead of having to 'disallow' several other options. I'm all for cutting confusion, and I wonder how often one or more of the commercial usages is deselected separately from the other, while others are allowed?
Is there any reason why this would be a bad idea?
15524
« on: May 14, 2009, 16:46 »
It's not the camera! But I suppose people will think I'm being mean by mentioning that?
Nope, not mean at all.
If that's the case, what would be the point of saying otherwise!
The picture of the church was underexposed and you lightened it to bring out the shadows. If anything you need to over expose 1/3rd stop so you have some room to move around. Problem is, you have that stone pillar which is brightly lit, and would be blown out, if you exposed properly for the shadows. It's noisy and soft.
Ah, it's true I did lighten it  - It's a very dark church - but the noticeboard was blurry before I did.
But I'd rather it was an idiot user than another faulty camera.
Still, nothing that I've taken so far/handheld seems 'bitingly' sharp.
The tripod tests were 'acceptably' sharp.
sure 100 ISO and 200th at f/11 should have been fine, except if the proper exposure was 1/200th at f/8 ?
The EXIF says f10. But I'll give the +1/3 exposure a try.
Oh wait... the camera is junk, I'll take it off your hands for fifty bucks. Dream on!
I'll just have to learn to be a techie.
If anything on the safari site is yours, (or the site is yours?) darn good and really amazing. Very nice.
Tx. The whole site is mine, but the pics are mostly heavily scrunched down scans from slides from when I was on wet-string dial-up. It was never intended to be a photogallery. (And I'm two trips behind.)
15525
« on: May 14, 2009, 16:00 »
It's not the camera! But I suppose people will think I'm being mean by mentioning that?
Nope, not mean at all. If that's the case, what would be the point of saying otherwise! The picture of the church was underexposed and you lightened it to bring out the shadows. If anything you need to over expose 1/3rd stop so you have some room to move around. Problem is, you have that stone pillar which is brightly lit, and would be blown out, if you exposed properly for the shadows. It's noisy and soft.
Ah, it's true I did lighten it - It's a very dark church - but the noticeboard was blurry before I did. But I'd rather it was an idiot user than another faulty camera. Still, nothing that I've taken so far/handheld seems 'bitingly' sharp. The tripod tests were 'acceptably' sharp. sure 100 ISO and 200th at f/11 should have been fine, except if the proper exposure was 1/200th at f/8 ?
The EXIF says f10.  Oh wait... the camera is junk, I'll take it off your hands for fifty bucks. Dream on! I'll just have to learn to be a techie. If anything on the safari site is yours, (or the site is yours?) darn good and really amazing. Very nice.
Tx. The whole site is mine, but the pics are mostly heavily scrunched down scans from slides from when I was on wet-string dial-up. It was never intended to be a photogallery. (And I'm two trips behind.)
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