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Messages - FD
Pages: 1 ... 67 68 69 70 71 [72] 73 74 75 76 77 ... 82
1776
« on: December 30, 2009, 12:18 »
Good luck Keith, stay in touch, wherever you might be.
(slightly disgruntled since I uploaded a bunch of new full-size shots 2 days ago and lost an hour on it - but that's life)
1777
« on: December 30, 2009, 10:45 »
Our current payout is 15 pence per download and due to our low prices and subscription model ... you would earn (GBP) 300, that's 3,600 per year. If I would buy lottery tickets and I would win the jackpot, that would be one million euro, and if that would happen every year, that would mean 10 million euro by 2020. Fifteen pence = 0.24$. No thanks.
1778
« on: December 30, 2009, 10:30 »
Why not use iSyndica !? It does what u ask and very cheaply ? Because I don't pay for all those sharks that want to make money off microstockers. It would be OK with a RPD of 5-20$, but not with a RPD of 0.7-1.24$. Filezilla is good enough (for me) since it runs in automatic mode, and my bandwidth is paid anyways.
1779
« on: December 30, 2009, 09:48 »
RPI 2009 (per agency: $ in 2009/N online Dec 1 2009)
IS = 0.79$
DT = 0.92$
SS = 1.24$
FT = 0.44$
BigStock = 0.24$
RPD 2009 (per agency: $ in 2009/N downloads 2009)
IS = 1.13$
DT = 1.24$
SS = 0.46$
FT = 0.72$
BigStock = 1.13$
1780
« on: December 30, 2009, 02:57 »
Simply because I cannot find such a policy here in Belgium (and neither can my insurance broker). I'm sure the ordinary liability insurance will pull out the plug when something happens during a shoot. They always revert to the fine print, like " this is not a normal activity of an ordinary person". The same with travel insurances: in the fine print is stated that cameras, laptops and electronics are not covered. What the heck then? I'm going for years without any insurance at all and if something happens, I'll just go to jail. They are totally full in Belgium with 70% of you-know and sentences under 3 years are not even executed any more. Use your common sense when doing a shoot and nothing will happen.
1781
« on: December 29, 2009, 08:09 »
I'm sure non-exclusives will get more downloads when exclusive prices are raised, at least in areas where exclusives and nons are competing. I really doubt that since it has been said already many times: buyers don't mind that much about the price (within reasonable limits) if the image is right. What might affect independents' sales is the change in the best match. What I personally don't like about iStock is my very low RPD there. I made a quick calculation of my RPD of the last downloads last night and it was close to that of SS, around 0.50$ (compare DT: 1.24$ on average, 1.27$ this month). Perhaps that's due to the fact I only sell small sizes on IS. If that's the case, I can't possibly see how the investment in a 21MP 5DII can pay off on IS, for me. So from now on, they'll get only the 5MP downsized versions, just like SS does. Downsizing from 21 to 5MP should also eliminate the mysterious rejects for artifacts and feathering.
1782
« on: December 29, 2009, 03:23 »
What Shutterstock does NOT require (yet) is to sign a new release for each session with the same model. SS also doesn't require (yet) birth date of model and a visual reference. A date, location and witness was always required.
1783
« on: December 28, 2009, 18:03 »
are about to launch a major Marketing campaign, the first in a series. We have been extremely busy and remain dedicated to our task. All should see the rewards soon. This encouraging news is almost a year old. How soon is "soon"? I didn't have any sale since March 3. What now?
1784
« on: December 28, 2009, 16:29 »
I am wondering if the "feed the beast" phenomenon isn't relevant to many of the sites? That's how the search engine is programmed, no more, no less. I've noticed slow downs at 123rf and at DT when I go for any period without uploads. That might be the case if your port is still small and/or you have only certain subjects. If your portfolio variety gets wider, visual search takes over at DT and you'll bypass the search engine. My last 20 sales at DT were, again, in majority n/a. I stopped uploading for 3 months and I didn't feel any slowdown, but my n/a went up to 70%. I plan to upload at least a few images each week. Or, is it necessary to upload more frequently? Last year I experimented a bit and 10 images per week or 2 weeks is enough to keep the beast happy. If you have 30 new shots, don't upload them at once but space them apart, one batch of 10 over 3 weeks. Also don't mix similars in one batch, but make it varied. You will attract less buyers with just one subject in the newest pictures, than if you had many subjects.
1785
« on: December 28, 2009, 16:03 »
But a recent 'lypse in Turkey was specifically to train iStockers for shooting editorial for Getty. (Sadly, I had to do my day job, APU.)
Yap that caught my attention too. As or now, iStock exclusives have no outlet at all for their RF Editorial. Some people here don't think high of Editorial (thinking it's sloppiness about asking releases) but it's a fun way to shoot. I can't get most of my Editorial into microstock, but when it happens, it's amongst my best sellers.
1786
« on: December 28, 2009, 15:09 »
I checked out Clustershot and it doesn't look like they have a Rights Managed license option or quoting system so it's of no use to me. You will have to do the integration yourself, correct. A big problem is that thumbs and download links have a different PID. They also don't have usage restrictions like Editorial vs Commercial. Could be solved by categories above albums but they don't have that yet. They do have a reliable cart. The real problem with all this SEO (it has been mentioned) is that it attracts random Google traffic from non-buyers.
1787
« on: December 28, 2009, 14:52 »
Filezilla has another advantage over the distribution systems like iSyndica. I upload different sizes to different sites. The subscription sites like SS get the 6MP version, DT, IS and FT get the 12MP version and midstock without subs like ZYM or 3DS get the 21MP version. I"m just not ready to give 21MP shots away for 35 or 36 cents.
For the rest, keep it simple with open source that wont disappear overnight. I don't like all those databases that I can't control. I order my shots per shoot day, with the file name = shoot YYMMDD_sequence number, one folder per day. No fancy database needed. The Windows file system is enough. Releases of that day go in the same folder: easy for the new IS release policy.
Irfanview is for tagging per folder: it can handle (sub)batches well. It's open and it doesn't rely on the proprietary Adobe IPTC system. There was one tool I really liked and that was Lookstat. But when it became unusable for SS and they didn't follow-up for other sites, instead concentrating on Backoffice services I can handle much cheaper and better myself, I discarded them.
1788
« on: December 28, 2009, 14:25 »
Is there any chance that IS would add Editorial RF?
1789
« on: December 28, 2009, 14:23 »
So while PS has SEO tools and all kinds of advice, their site seems almost invisible to Google.
For now PS looks like a great option if you already have a client base. 1. Yes their SEO manuals are great, and I all downloaded them. 2. The only reason to have an account at PS would be their market presence. If you have to do your own marketing and SEO, Clustershot at 20$ per year only is much better value for money.
1790
« on: December 28, 2009, 10:42 »
To revive this old thread, PhotoShelter is offering a free BASIC trial of 30 days. I uploaded some stuff, just to find out the interface is a bit cranky. The first time moving to galleries worked, the second time it didn't for all. I'm not interested in online storage since MostPhotos is free and for TIFFs etc... the bandwidth would be too costly with my ISP.
Did anybody had sales there, to justify their huge fees?
1791
« on: December 28, 2009, 09:42 »
Don't forget flemishtagger, the most usefull for me Thanks. I wrote it 2-3 years ago when there wasn't Adobe bridge and no plugins for spell-check in PS. I'm still a bit reluctant to use the Adobe proprietary IPTC model. Flemishtagger works fine for me, together with Irfanview. There was a time I wanted to add a textbox for Title and Description too, with automatic import into the keywords, and add the Princeton public domain database for synonyms and CV, but it would be too much work for now. For quickly sorting the keywords, I didn't find an alternative yet. By the way, Frank, the author of DeepMeta is a Brussels guy too. 
1792
« on: December 27, 2009, 23:24 »
I tried to upload 6 images using ftp yesterday. They are all bigger than 5 Mb. I tried it twice and none of them appeared. So, I decided to use flash uploader on the website. All of them were uploaded, and I saw number 6 in submissions, but after I clicked to submit them they disappeared again... 24 hours passed, and still I can't see them.
I just had the same problem a while ago: both FTP and Flash. When 3 months ago, I uploaded about 300, 30 or so never made it. I asked support but they couldn't make me any wiser.
1793
« on: December 27, 2009, 21:31 »
Did you put the power plug in? 
1794
« on: December 27, 2009, 07:14 »
My virus scanner (AVAST) detected a trojan horse so be aware what to do next. One? Over 300! 
1795
« on: December 27, 2009, 07:08 »
Give them a chance, they might grow! Yeah, they might. During the next ice age. 
1796
« on: December 27, 2009, 06:18 »
Are you lonely, Princess?
1797
« on: December 27, 2009, 06:05 »
Hi PellixQL - have you read what FD-Amateur had to say about the Co-Op? Some very good points there, worth your attention. Please consider them.
There's a lot of work involved, but if you're willing to do it, support will come. Build it and they'll be there.
Thanks, since the discussion got detracted into the (non)sense of free images. A co-op or any new site can only succeed if the content is different from the one on tightly edited collections (LCV) now. You can of course do that on your own but you will sink away in the search engines. That's where a co-op can be better, SEO-wise.
1798
« on: December 27, 2009, 04:52 »
I feel the need to say a few words about my introduction to Shutterstock. I'm very pleased. I have had at least one download on each of my ten days as a member. With just 79 images online (20 in the last five days) I have 35 downloads ... three on Christmas Day. I don't want to be a party pooper but new contributors get a huge bump in the search engine during their honeymoon (6 months or so) at ShutterStock. After that, the effect wanes off gradually unless you keep feeding the beast. On Xmas day I had only 5 sales from a port of 922. But I'm with SS since 2005. By the way it's the moment to upload there. I sent them a batch of 10 last night and they were all accepted a couple of hours later. Atilla-the-reviewer is having a Holiday break.
1799
« on: December 27, 2009, 04:36 »
"Editorial" is no license type, it's just what people call images that they have no releases for. Not really. It sounds like any image of a person or a location where the photographer was too sloppy to ask for a release (or worse, the person didn't want to) or clone out the copyrighted elements is "Editorial". Editorial should be newsworthy and/or be interesting in a cultural, educational or scientific way. That means it should depict a real situation or event, not something set up like an image of a bunch of friends making funny faces that turned out to be good. The images should also not be altered (except some contrast or luminance tweaking and/or minor cropping), or you fall into fauxtography. Also, if the main focus is on an unreleased person (like in street photography), it's not Editorial unless that person is a celebrity or in the news or involved in some editorially meaningful act (like a protester at a march). I agree that Editorial is not a license type since it can be either RM or RF or any other self-defined type. Stock agents set usage restrictions on Editorial, but if acquired outside that channel (like from the photographer himself) the usage is always the responsibility of the user/buyer.
1800
« on: December 26, 2009, 15:10 »
No, that's pretty much an RF license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ The only "license" of CC that makes sense is the "all rights reserved" one, but nobody needed CC for that. The other "licenses" are worthless since CC can't back up the claim of the poster of images that those are his, and they don't make any provision for releases.
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