According to their website, LuckyOliver has implemented some sort of new reviewing system.  Does anyone know what it is?

Here is the exact text from their site (@ http://www.luckyoliver.com/blog/114/Reviewing+update):

Hey carnies, in order to combat our queue of images awaiting review I've made a new reviewing system which will allow us to bring on more bouncers and get through images faster. We're going to begin using it today, so don't be surprised if you get newly formatted responses to your submissions. This should enable us to review images quickly and still give carnies the custom responses they've come to expect.

Please let us know if you experience any odd reviews or bugs. Due to some heavy processing presently going on there might be a delay before your accepted photos actually show up in your portfolio after being reviewed, but this delay is temporary and should be through with by the end of the day. You can look forward to the reviews coming in faster in the coming weeks and from here on out.

I have an image that was accepted over 4 months ago.� I recently received an email that they might remove it because of a copyright problem.

The image has had over 30 sales, and I was wondering if they remove the image, would they also remove the sales that I received???

Has anyone had something like this happen?� If so, I would appreciate if you would share your experience...

It seems that Shutterstock is having so many sales that they have had to shut down the stats servers in order to give priority to buyers.  Stats are only being updated in the middle of the night.

I have been having record sales everywhere and was wondering how is everyone else doing?

I suspect FT are including their free images maybe why they didn't make that big a fuss about reached 1,000,000 - no prizes.

That is precisely why I think that there should be a disclaimer.  If you added free images to Stockxpert, then they would have over 500,000 images, and jump two positions (on your chart) ending up in 6th place.

I personally think that they are just displaying the # of images that have been submitted, because the # of images that they claim (1,453,900) is very close to the highest image # that has been accepted (1,448,884).

But however they calculate their #, it is obvious that is not the true amount of images for sale on their website.

I voted (b) but I do not beleive it needs a clipping path.� I believe it needs to be " cut out" as opposed to photographed on white.

What does it mean to be "cut out"

We've also started some of our marketing activities- we're taking a long term approach- so expect gradual results.

Bryan:

Thanks for all of your hard work and for keeping everyone apprised of your plans.

May I ask what type of marketing you are currently doing?  Magazines?  Mailings?  Conferences?

And what are the future plans for marketing?

Similar topic - I saw somewhere that recommended putting double sided tape inside your lens cap so that it grabs the dust when you have your lens cap on...

LOL.   

That is hilarious.

How would putting tape on a lens cap work???   

The dust mostly comes when you change lenses and the cap would be on the lens.

I would NEVER use any sort of tape on a sensor, since it might leave some of its sticky residue on the sensor itself.

In the same light, I have heard of using clear plastic wrap and could see this working if applied properly.

I'm currently shooting large jpeg -- will shooting raw help to clear my photos up even more?� And how difficult is it to work with raw files?� (I have Photoshop CS)

Noise is a function of how your sensor works and how the camera processes the signal from the sensor.� While a RAW file can help with things like inaccurate white balance and exposure problems, it can't get rid of noise.

Actually, noise CAN be reduced by shooting with RAW.� How much it can be reduced depends on your camera settings in JPG.

JPG uses in-camera post-processing to create the image.� In other words, an image always starts out as a RAW within the camera.� But then if you shoot in JPG, the camera will post-process the image to create the result.� Usually, it will sharpen, apply contrast, saturate, and apply white balance.� It does all of this automatically.� It is during the sharpening phase that noise can increase in the image.

This can be solved in two ways: by shooting in RAW (thus eliminating the in-camera processing) or by turning off sharpening in-camera.� Not all cameras can do these things (since not all cameras can produce RAW and not all cameras can turn off post-processing).

I believe that the camera that you have (the Canon Rebel XT) can do either, so it is just a matter of how far you want to go.

And how difficult is it to work with raw files?� (I have Photoshop CS)

Shooting in RAW adds more steps to the process (since you need to convert the RAW to a JPG, and do the post-processing manually).

At first, I would suggest turning off some of the in-camera settings for post-processing.� Although cameras can post-process the RAW automatically (to produce a JPG), they apply the settings evenly no matter what type of image you take.� For example, if you have sharpening set at +2, then it will ALWAYS apply sharpening at that value.� No matter if the image is taken at ISO 100, or ISO 1600.� No matter if the image is taken in full daylight @ 1/250 sec or at night @ 30 secs.� As you can probably see, it would be better to apply sharpening manually depending on the conditions.� On top of that, digital editing programs such as Photoshop have better sharpening algorithms than cameras and allow many more options.

Turning off the in-camera settings will leave your JPG image the closest to the RAW as possible, without actually leaving it in RAW.� So for example, I would first suggest turning the sharpening setting to its lowest value (which I believe is -2 on your camera) and then apply sharpening to the image within PhotoShop.� This will give you much more control over the process.� Over time, you can then do the same with saturation and contrast as you become more experienced.

Hope that helps.

I hear so many people state that they are against using noise reduction because it "degrades the image".  But this can be said about any type of digital editing.  Saturating an image too much can "degrade" it.  Sharpening an image too much can "degrade" it.  Compressing an image too much can "degrade" it.  Basically anything that you do to alter an image can be done in excess.

If you guys are having problems with degrading your image when you run noise reduction, then you need to learn how to use it.  If used properly, noise reduction will remove the "grain" but keep the details.

As per the OP's original question: Noise Ninja and Neat Image are the two biggest names in the industry.

what on earth did you search for?� That is exactly the program i was thinking of, and have searched tons of search terms in google, and searched a bunch of forums where i thought it was mentioned....

wow, thanks.

LOL.

It took me around 30 seconds to find it.  I just used some of the words in your description at the beginning of the post and googled on "photoshop plugin spell checker keyword".  I found it in the iStock forums.

I'm glad that I was able to help.

Quote from: ptlee on September 19, 2006, 23:18

The official update thread from IS.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=39923&page=1

Some reassurances, and updates on what's going on behind the scenes. It will take a while for things to sort out, but at least IS says we don't have to go to edit the tags for all our images.

Still waiting for the dust to settle.

cheers.

Well, if I don't have to edit all my 600 images, that's good. It's pain stakingly slow too.

There is no way that they can guarantee that you won't have to edit your images, because there is no way that a computer can know what you meant by "orange" (fruit, color, or both), or "doc" (document or doctor), or "in" (Indiana, within) or a myriad of other words in the English language.� So Bitter's words are just that, words (and not tags)...