Great points made by Louddoor.  Thanks for posting them Gostwyck.  

This sums it up perfectly:

"Doesn't anyone realize that they "regular buyers" that are leaving are also a percentage of your Vetta Buyers? I buy both. I know when I am here for one vs. the other. But let's say I finally say enough is enough and I start using a different site for my "regular" purchases. What if I realize that the niche content on said site is 90% as nice as the niche content that Vetta is for, and still costs significantly less?"

@bunhill, your olive oil analogy only holds up if there is a big difference between the expensive oils vs. the lower cost ones.   Lots of V/A is not any better than the regular collection at IS or on the other sites.  60-70% of IS contribs are not eligible for V/A at all.  Lise and Sean are there, but not Yuri, Monkeybusiness, or Andres...  

Quote from: WarrenPrice on April 22, 2011, 19:07

All probably true, but still interesting information to share.

Sure.  One more piece of the puzzle

Very interesting!  I hadn't tried out the Darkroom feature before.  Thanks for posting

Quote from: gostwyck on April 22, 2011, 20:09
More evidence to me that Istock's CV simply does not allow the buyers the flexibility of the full vocabulary. Several of the main keywords used to find my images would either not have been permitted or would have been side-tracked to a different meaning.

Same experience here.  It's frustrating to see how many potential sales I could be missing at Istock because the top searched words on a given image may not be part of the CV.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 22, 2011, 16:46
It's not really a meaningful question with Dreamstime because everybody's average will vary depending on what levels their images are at and how steadily they add to the collection. So there are too many different factors at work for anyone to be able to draw any conclusions from rpd data.

Correct.  Not to mention that volume of sales is a big factor too.  If I have 10 sales this month and they are mostly credit sales, or include an EL or TIFF sale, then my RPD will be much higher than someone who has 1,000 sales that are a mix of subs and PPD.   I would still rather be the guy with the 1k sales.

Quote from: cthoman on April 22, 2011, 17:02
I think I'm going to work on an illustration of a lemming riding a sheep over a cliff today. 

Perfect!  Can't wait to see that one

Quote from: FreeTransform on April 21, 2011, 22:52
Somebody brought this up in the video forum:

"Will there be more of a legal clause in the contract binding iStock to these rates until the end of 2012 other than just a 'promise' in the forums? We've learned from the past that promises in the forums by admins don't mean anything."

He's right, you know.

Seriously!  The artists affected should all take screen shots of this promise so they will have proof if/when they need to sue. 

That's great!  Congratulations!! 

Site looks great to me.  

I think your customers' questions are more representative of general concern about the abundance of pirated images on the web (Heroturko, etc.), rather than a specific criticism of your site.  

IMHO it's a good thing that customers are asking these questions and going out of their way to buy legal images.  

Could be the reason Cory isn't getting the same questions is because he is strictly vectors, and it is easy to spot his particular style in his drawings.  Whereas with a large photographic portfolio it might be harder to tell they are all done by the same person.

Quote from: lagereek on April 21, 2011, 05:45
Thursday turned out to be a brillant day!  like in the old days. Is the search beginning to work or what?  anybody else with same experience?

Nope.  April is bad at IS for me.  This week is worse than bad.  It's pitiful. 

Quote from: ShadySue on April 20, 2011, 11:47
One thing I noticed on one of the threads was a contributor/buyer complaining about the V/A thing, yet they have plenty of Vettas in their port. So not only are they happy to have any Vetta benefits, but they must also be able to spot a Vetta image at 20 paces, and know all the tricks to avoid Vettas - different sort, go to page 2.3.4 ...

This is a very good point.  Even for buyers that KNOW about V/A they are difficult to avoid.  Why does anyone have to employ all sorts of tricks just to weed out expensive, low-interest photos?  

Hasn't anyone at Istock ever heard of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!)?

Case in point - Louddoor:

"I've dropped thousands of dollars in credits into iStock in the 2 short years I've been at LoudDoor and it is intensely frustrating to see simple fixes like RE-ADDING the Vetta Exclude filter constantly be ignored.

We are all adults here. We all see through the BS of answers that aim for appeasement rather than fully transparent explanation. We want to know the real reason that this feature hasn't been brought back.

...snip

Point blank: If we (the buyers, the people that make this site and its contributors money) can't get a real, definite timeline on when Exclusion search filters will be added, we will continue to explore other sites that are more interested in helping us use our time as best as possible. "

What's shocking is the responses from some exclusives to these angry customers.  Telling the budget-conscious customer that Istock is merely transitioning from microstock to midstock is essentially saying "Istock no longer wants your business cheepskate".  Although that is evidently the case, I can't see why exclusives would be crowing about it. 

Not to mention telling buyer that "Yes, there are cheaper stock sites out there, but the quality of their product is cheaper, too.  You get what you pay for."

Sorry, but that is just BS.  Anyone who has bothered to shop at the other sites has found that the images are comparable to what's on offer at Istock.  This myth that every image produced by an Istock exclusive is pure genius and every image produced by a non-exclusive is cheap crappola is simply not supported by the facts.   

Quote from: jsnover on April 18, 2011, 22:45

Quote from: Snowball on April 18, 2011, 22:31
LOL!  If you have to wear "shades" because your future is bright, what do you have to wear if your future is "sh*te"?  Galoshes? 

Hip waders

Perfect!!

Quote from: gclk on April 18, 2011, 20:54


So much seems to be still going badly at iStock.  If they keep going like this it won't be so much 'Your future is bright'. More 'Your future is sh*te'

LOL!  If you have to wear "shades" because your future is bright, what do you have to wear if your future is "sh*te"?  Galoshes? 

Big difference between the pics pointed out by Cathy and the ones pointed out by Elena.  The ones Cathy linked to are way too similar.  Not to mention they are low interest subjects and pretty bad photos in general.

Elena's pics are very different from each other.  One image she's looking at the camera and clearly interacting with it.  In the other, she's looking down and seems unaware of the camera.  Sends a completely different message.  Can't see how anybody could think those two are redundant.  

Quote from: velocicarpo on April 18, 2011, 19:02

I did this already month ago. But (un?)fortunately I am a Contributor too, so I guess my voice wasn`t heard :-/

Too bad.  Doesn't Istock have the same issue?  I don't understand that attitude. 

You can be a pro designer, but if you ever submitted a picture your opinion is suspect??!

Quote from: velocicarpo on April 18, 2011, 18:32

Simply wrong. As said in other threads I buy arround 100 - 150 images each month. It takes me 2 sec to overlook a page of results and many times I have to download various "similars" to find the right ones. Dreamstime just doesn`t understand designers needs.

You should contact them and let them know.  These types of comments will mean more coming from a designer than from a rank-and-file contributor. 

Surprised so many have been removed from one of the top sellers! 

Maybe Istock wants to make it easier to stop uploading to them?