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Messages - w7lwi
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201
« on: September 25, 2014, 17:05 »
Sales? What sales? Nothing since September 12 except possibly Thinkstock, but I don't know how to check on them.
202
« on: September 25, 2014, 16:57 »
Small contributor right now, but that's just temporary. Just a brief note on my experience. I've only been on line for one week with 81 images (several others in review) and have had 44 sales to date. Sales every day since day 1. A few JPEG sales, but the vast majority have been PNG images, especially Fall shots (leaves and such). Also others that I consider to be seasonal, at least here in the States north of the equator. I have quite a few yet to upload. Just a matter of finding the time to prep them and send them off. Too much else going on right now.
Question, How do I find the contributor FAQ's? It's probably on the site, but just not obvious to me. Also how do I upload model/property releases? I'd swear I saw that here somewhere, but don't seem to be able to locate it right now.
Lastly a personal thanks to Lee who's been very patient and a great help getting me straightened out via e-mail.
203
« on: September 20, 2014, 15:37 »
OK the question is, is there any market for "paintings" made from photos?
Correct! That's definitely part of the original question.
I wouldn't distinguish between the real and digital paintings (as long as the latter ones are done in good taste).
There is at least one of the frequent contributors here who happens to paint as well, and he has many of his paintings included in his stock portfolio, so I would assume that the paintings sell.
Hard to say whether they are bought for advertisements or for printing an art print to be hanged on a wall. Hardly to be used as editorials!
Only if you believe that frequent contributor. Does he sell on IS?
I'm not the contributor in question nor do I have anywhere near the quantity of paintings on-line that he does. I do have about a half dozen photographs of my oil and pallet knife paintings on line. The best selling one has over 100 downloads on SS and another 40 or so scattered across other sites. The second best has about 100 total across all sites. The remaining all have double digit sales, but not as high as the two top sellers. The best agencies for me for paintings seem to be SS, 123 and DT. Most other agencies have accepted them, but sales are small to nonexistent. I've yet to find one in a search, so I don't know where they may be used. So long as you have a property release, there's no reason they would have to be submitted as editorial.
204
« on: September 19, 2014, 17:27 »
you're sure that's not an XS Credit sale?
Yes, absolutely sure. See the screenshot:
Screenshot matches my sales exactly. Subscription sales on the 17th and before are all $0.30 but starting on the 18th they are $0.44.
206
« on: August 23, 2014, 13:21 »
Thank you Lee. PNG-24 it is. Now I need to get off my butt and put together some files to submit.
207
« on: August 22, 2014, 20:53 »
Lee, I sent you an e-mail on this but perhaps others would like to know the answer as well ... at least those, like myself, who don't know already.  Seems there are different types of PNG file selections in Photoshop. If you go to "Save As", you get one PNG option that results in a rather large file (as high as 50mb on some of mine). However, if you go to "Save for Web" there are two PNG options: PNG-8 and PNG-24. PNG-8 seems to be a low rez compression, but PNG-24 is listed as a non-compressed 24 bit file format. However, it's resulting file size is comparable to a JPG file. How this can be without compression I don't know. That's just what some literature I found says. Anyway, which of these two options would you prefer ... straight PNG or PNG-24? One I could submit via FTP but the other would have to go as a DVD via snail mail. Regards, Russ
208
« on: August 20, 2014, 20:47 »
Had my first sale in 3-4 months ... $0.52. 50 percent commissions don't amount to a hill of beans if you don't get any sales or the ones you do get are for low value sales. People say just leave your portfolio on line. Eventually sales will add up. While true, you also need to consider the time frame. At the rate I've been seeing, I'll be lucky to see a payout in my lifetime and my heirs may not live long enough to see anything in their lifetimes.  If and when I ever hit payout, I'm out of there.
209
« on: August 18, 2014, 16:17 »
Lee, perhaps half of my isolations (on white or on black) include clipping paths. Are these what you are looking for that would go straight through to the collection? And would it be of any benefit to add clipping paths the to remaining isolations or just leave them as is?
Hi, our systems don't recognise clipping paths at this time. It's something we considered, but we didn't have much data on how common it is, and after asking around and getting barely any interest, we pushed it towards the bottom of the priority list.
We've had images with clipping paths go through our system, and they don't change anything. Those images go into the cut out ("deep etch") queue.
One of our core philosophies is to not expect contributors to do anything special just for us. But if you're interested and have the time, you could use the clipping path to isolate the image and then save it as a transparent PNG. We have very high standards for cutouts, as our customers often use high resolution designs with cropped images (at 100% magnification), but if you're confident in the quality of your clipping path, and/or can do some manual refining before saving as PNG, we'll happily put them through review. Feel free to email me samples if you want some feedback before you invest time in it - an offer that's open to everyone. lee @ canva . com
Please keep in mind that our cut out queue is already well into the hundreds of thousands range. And it's an expensive process to have the images manually cut out to a high standard. For this reason, the queue is not moving very fast at all. Realistically, we're not sure many of the images in that queue will ever go through, unless there's some breakthrough in the technology of creating isolations at a high standard. And we've tested a LOT of technologies for this. So please don't expect images that go into this queue to come out in days like a standard review queue. Don't even expect it to be months. 
Lee, Thanks for the reply. I sent you some samples via e-mail yesterday. I also asked a few related questions that, had I bothered to read the FAQ's I would have found the answers to without having to bother you.  As I mentioned, it's extremely simple to take a clipping path image and pop it onto a transparent background. Double check it on a black and white BG to be sure the edges are clean and save as a PNG. For myself, this takes less than a minute as my isolations already have clipping paths as a part of the image. Unfortunately as the PNG doesn't save the metadata I'd need to send along a small JPG file for this info. Anyway, if you're happy with the sample images I sent, I'll proceed with setting up an account and see where it goes from there. Thanks again, Russ
210
« on: August 14, 2014, 20:24 »
Lee, perhaps half of my isolations (on white or on black) include clipping paths. Are these what you are looking for that would go straight through to the collection? And would it be of any benefit to add clipping paths the to remaining isolations or just leave them as is?
211
« on: August 08, 2014, 14:42 »
Waking up in the morning to see you've made money whilst you was sleeping.. I love that :-)
Or the flip side of this ... waking up in the morning only to find you didn't make any money overnight.  
212
« on: August 05, 2014, 11:40 »
As an Istock diamond with crashing sales month after month I don't think it is Istock penalizing anyone. It is just that buyers have left the place. That simple. Exclusivity Istock and Getty (I contribute to PC and house collections) are no longer a viable photography business. I give them 6 more months to change that trend, thats when my cut will drop from 40 to 35, then I will be out. I hope my psychological health will improve after that :-)
If it just the buyers leaving then all I can say is that quite a few of them must have left with the last big best match change 2-3 weeks back.
There may be less buyers, and there are almost certainly more contributors after the DLs, but those would mean slower drops over time, which we have of course seen.
It's not that iStock penalises any particular persons or group deliberately, it's just "business"
Their business that is. Our's doesn't count.
To quote Lord Cutler Beckett at the end of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, At World's End "He actually expects us to honor our agreement. Nothing personal Jack, it's just good business." Sounds to me like Disney copied this line from iStock's current business plan.
213
« on: August 01, 2014, 17:15 »
Actually I never got started with them. After reading about them here on MSG I decided to give them a try. Took forever to come up with that silly .zip file needed for the first submission. Asked if I could do anything else (CD, DVD, Dropbox, etc.) but no, it had to be a .zip file. OK. Then I selected a wide variety of files which all had excellent sales records (100 plus sales minimum and at least one EL each) and had been accepted on all of the other sites I use. Made the .zip file and submitted. Response within 24 hours (quite a bit less if I remember correctly). All rejected for the most ridiculous reasons ... OOF, composition, poor isolation and so on and so forth. Keep in mind that I have been shooting microstock for the past 8 years, commercial photography since the 1970's and taught stock photography at the college level for several years. Plus these images all had excellent track records. I think I've a pretty good idea of what constitutes a decent photograph and how to get it. Pissed me off so I simply told them to take their agency and put it where the sun never shines. Closed my account and never looked back. Would I ever try them again? Doubtful. Unless they got rid of that dumb .zip requirement, I wouldn't even consider it.
214
« on: July 13, 2014, 16:27 »
Realistically ... we may as well ask for the moon. We've got abut as much chance of that as anything else from these tightwad agencies. Five years ago we might have had a chance of working something out. But no more. Our leverage has gone to zero, at least insofar as the bigger agencies are concerned. Best to be looking for other sources of income to replace what we have lost and will be losing.
215
« on: June 27, 2014, 17:00 »
Looks like you and I posted the same thing at the same time. 
217
« on: June 26, 2014, 17:50 »
Nett is the UK version of the American net. We could argue all day as to which is the "correct" spelling, but really, who cares anymore.
218
« on: June 04, 2014, 12:34 »
This thread had me concerned so I went and requested a payout from DT just a matter of minutes ago. Everything went through just fine. PayPal was the top choice on the page. I just entered the appropriate e-mail address, hit the request payment button and it went straight through without question. Perhaps I'll get an e-mail later with some issues, but for now all is good. As someone else mentioned, this could be an issue with non-US payments.
219
« on: June 02, 2014, 20:24 »
Today i got the 3rd refund notification in a month. This is so annoying! Why does it only happen on DT? Never had anything like this on SS on 10 times more sales!
Obviously someone has my high res photo and i have nothing
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I get lots of refunds on I stock too. Don't remember any on SS. Maybe because most are subs or part of credit packs and the buyer can just pick up another file without penalty?
Shutterstock has stated they will absorb any refund that is relatively small, but will have to pass on refunds for higher dollar sales. That was set up when the only options were subs and EL's. I've seen no indication of a change from them since adding ODD's and SOD's, but assume it's still in effect. What the cutoff is, dollar wise, is anyone's guess. Personally I've never had a refund on SS.
220
« on: June 01, 2014, 17:22 »
@ Mantis: I completely agree with you. That's why I commented that DT could have done a better job insofar as their opt out was concerned. Opting out of everything is really the wrong way to approach this. Opting out of this test only would have been the correct thing to do. Opting out individual images would be even better, but that's not likely to happen. I also agree that, in my opinion, DT has shown themselves to be a fair agency and won't set up a scenario such as FT or DP. Never-the-less, it is up to us to take the old saying to heart "Trust but verify." Watch what they do and act accordingly. If all goes well, we will be winners. If it doesn't then we have other courses of action open to us. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.
221
« on: June 01, 2014, 16:32 »
Having worked in the "real" business world for over 50 years, much of it as an executive for a multi-national corporation, I know the idea of giving away samples of one's product for a limited time is a proven way to encourage people to try and then buy your product(s). This appears to be the approach DT is taking, although on a more limited scale.
But DT isn't giving their products away, they want to give our products away.
Actually those who opt in are giving their products away, not DT. DT has made an offer that if we choose to allow certain images to be put up for free for a limited period of time, in this case "about" a week or two, we stand a chance of improving our sales. Thus if someone allows this to happen, then they are offering their product and DT is only the venue through which the product is offered. DT has made it possible to opt out of this (although they could have done a much better job in this regards) so the choice is now ours to make. This is no different from someone like, oh say, COSTCO giving away samples at lunch time of various edible products. Some people like the sample sufficiently to go and purchase the entire package. Others make it a point to show up at COSTCO every day a noon to get what amounts to a free lunch. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?  The choice is yours to make. Do you want to allow a limited number of your images to be offered for free for a limited time in the hopes of increasing your cash flow or not. Is it a risk ... yes. Is it guaranteed ... no. But in the end only you can make that decision and therefor you, and not DT, are the one offering your images. And BTW, there is no guarantee that any image you may agree to offer may be taken. In this instance, there seems to be only one large customer and they may not like or have need for whatever image(s) any individual contributor agrees to have offered. Be nice to know how each image fared in this, but I doubt we'll ever know. If you offered something for free and nobody wanted it, even for free, would you really want to know?
222
« on: June 01, 2014, 15:05 »
Well, after reading everything here and mulling it over, I decided to take a close look at my images that DT "selected" to see if there was any sort of pattern I could distinguish. I suppose my case would only apply to someone else who had a relatively large number of images selected, say 10 or more. What I found, for me at least, was the images seemed to represent a wide variety of styles from close-up to macro to backgrounds to Photoshop compositing to scenics to any of a large number of other styles. In other words, a selection showing a wide variety of what is available on DT. This makes sense in a beta test for a new customer (or whatever it is). Of course this would have to be combined with other contributor's images to show the full breadth of DT's offering. I don't do vectors or illustrations so don't know if any of that may have been included as well.
As to the images themselves, there's really only one that I would be reluctant to include. It has had over 500 sales across all agencies along with multiple EL's, including an EL on DT. Of the others, they have all sold only in the single digits or not at all on DT and have relatively low sales numbers elsewhere (except for one that has had 100+ sales, mostly at SS).
Having worked in the "real" business world for over 50 years, much of it as an executive for a multi-national corporation, I know the idea of giving away samples of one's product for a limited time is a proven way to encourage people to try and then buy your product(s). This appears to be the approach DT is taking, although on a more limited scale. It is always a risk that people may not like your product and not purchase it, but that's a normal risk of any business. It's a form of marketing. So long as it is limited in scope and duration, that is usually considered an acceptable cost of doing business.
Is there a downside to this action, of course. However the potential upside appears to be greater (based on the limited information we have so far been provided). Accordingly I've decided to remain opted in in the anticipation that DT, who knows their market much better than any of us, is correct in their assessment that the upside potential warrants this short-term beta test. This is within my personal risk tolerance, however it may not be within the risk tolerance of others and they are perfectly correct in opting out.
223
« on: May 12, 2014, 21:00 »
Sometimes it does pay off to do free work. I was doing some free shooting for AARP here in Nevada when they asked me to cover a visit by Pres. Obama where some AARP personnel would be in the audience wearing their organization's shirts. Got an event press pass through them and was one of those guys you see sitting on the ground down in front of the stage/podium. After the formal event he held a short press conference in a private area and I was able to shoot that as well. I gave AARP the images they wanted and they said I could have the rest to do with as I liked. Several hundreds of dollars and downloads later, I think that free gig has more than paid for itself. And the images are still selling once or twice a week. Now if I could just figure out how to get more well paying free gigs like this, I'd be set for life.
224
« on: May 12, 2014, 10:59 »
I can get to the site OK, but the forums won't open. Spinning circle of death.
225
« on: May 10, 2014, 13:23 »
I don't know who it is but it looks like they ripped off some Shutterstock images. Still have the SS watermark across the face of the pictures.
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