We see this all the time. You do a search on your favorite photography subject in iStock and the top selling image is crap. We all think we can shoot a better image, and in many cases we can. Then we upload it waiting for the downloads to roll in and nothing. You search for your own image and it's buried on page 96 and no one is ever going to down load it.

It all boils down to the IS search engine. It is truly a mystery why some images rise to the top and others don't. Then sometimes, they magically drop out of the top ranking. Also, designers are lazy. Many of them search on Best Match and download the same image that 500 other people downloaded. Many of the top selling images are 2-3 or more years old.

With 3 million images on IS it's becoming about volume. I just had my BME for money, but my best month for downloads was THREE years ago when I had a port a tenth the size it is now and had double the downloads. So, like they say at IS, shoot frequently, upload frequently... It also helps if you are exclusive.

Sales have slowed down there so much, I barely check my account anymore. I just don't have time to constantly feed the beast. OTOH, I'm having my third in a row BME at IS after being there for over three  years.

You don't have istockphoto on there, they are best earner for many.

You'll find if you don't keep feeding SS a constant supply of images every week, your downloads go way down...

I'm the laziest, I only have 330 pictures and I've been there since September 2005! Actually, I took a hiatus and I'm back uploading again.

Yes... they've always been the worst for uploading and review times. I don't think review times have changed much in the past three years...

Yup... my 2nd month in a row for a BME (before this my BME was two years ago!). Clearly IS is doing something right and exclusivity is looking better and better... SS is 3rd best for me after DT and both of them are distant to IS.

I don't know how you guys do it at SS. I've been there three years and my downloads just limp along, while over at IS I just had my BDE and BME after 3.5 years. I am not a heavy uploader so that my be my problem at SS. Recently, SS has been rejecting some of the stuff that was accepted at IS. That was a shock to me!

Of course, wouldn't you know as soon as I post my previous message a bunch of new images got through...

Is it still down? I keep getting the same files in the Newest Upload section like no one has approved any photos today. I've refreshed and tried different computers and get the same thing...

There was mention in this thread that he moved to Bigstock, but why I don't know

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=66991&messageid=1000981&source=rssforums#post1000981

Sales are about the same as last month, which was a my Best Month in over two years. (My previous best month was in 2006) But this month my downloads are coming from three or so images, where last month they seem to come from all over my portfolio. I'm sure they've been fiddling with Best Match again.

Well I have to say it's about time that they started having a look at keywords. Too many people spam their keywords with inappropriate words just to show up in searches that have nothing to do with the image they have.

I've been at this for over three years and SS is definitely geared to new uploads and IS does seem to take weeks before the downloads start to roll in, especially when you are a new uploader. It seems to take months before all the pieces fall into place before you start to see steady downloads.

Same here... an image either takes off or languishes and hardly gets downloads. Rarely does something sit for a while then all of a sudden take off.

IS has continued to dumb down the categories over the years. My felling is that IS must not feel that people are using them as much as just keyword searching. I put minimal effort into selecting them. Never more than one category

Great work, but too "artsy" for the stock photo crowd. I hate to see someone put so much effort into their "art" and only make a couple of dollars...

The reason to recommend a flatbed scanner is that it can can MF film pretty darn good. 35mm it does OK...

I have an old Epson 3200 that still does a decent job. I've had several 35mm negatives accepted at IS that I scanned myself. I would suspect that the follow on models like the 4490 to do an even better job. If you can take good care of it, then turn around and sell it on eBay when you are done. I've seen a lot of people scan all their negatives in and turn around and sell their scanner for a small loss, but well worth it.

If you don't know that case, an elderly woman ordered coffee at a McDonald's here in the USA somewhere. Spilled her coffee on her lap and caused 3rd degree burns on her privates as the coffee was something like 190F. There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides... don't order coffee and try to drive and drink it at the same time and then also don't make coffee so hot that it's near the boiling point for people to pick up at a drive through widow at a fast food restaurant...

Quote from: UncleGene on March 03, 2008, 20:15
I'm with Adelaide on this. Feeling much more comfortable going with editorial than with RM for unreleased pictures, either posing or not (though as I'm new in this play, I did not do neither yet). That leads to another newbie question:
What is (or are) the best place(s) for editorials? Who take them on micro side (other than SS and DT), and who - on mid and macro (obviously Getty does, but they are for sure out of my league

Again, Alamy is a great place for Macrostock Editorial images...

I've been reading over on the IS forums about February earnings... lots of veterans lamenting the fact that downloads are off significantly over the past several months. I wonder if one of these top line Microstock agencies would ever sharply cut off new contributors? Do they no think the contributors they have now are enough to handle the load of the demand? It seems like the influx of new contributors at all the bigger sites are really starting to dilute downloads for people with bigger portfolios...

Yes, after 3.5 years and thousands of downloads, I've only found two images of mine used and both were accidents. One was used in a local magazine without proper attribution (that really burned me) and one by a local wine association for the cover of their brochure. Otherwise, the best way to look is on google and search for  your name...

Quote from: hatman12 on March 02, 2008, 21:57
Also last week the 'newness' element of the best match equation was changed to give newer files a higher placement in search results.

This 'newness' component changes four or five times each year, which is why you'll see remarks like "Oh, it's nice to see some of my old files selling again" or "Why do my new files not get any views or sales?".

Jeez... this week it's new images, next week it's older images... could they possibly be consistent for once? After a couple of years I've had my best month. Please don't screw it up in March!

I think there are two types of desingers, lazy and creative. The lazy ones are happy to be 5000 downloader of popular image, while the more creative ones go digging deeper in the search engine for little used, but high quality images.

best match on IS is a constant source of debate. Obviously they will never tell us what is behind the curtain, but we are sure that many factors have a play in what hits the top of best match search. Keywords have the biggest influence, but then there are many intangibles like exclusivity, view/download ratio, acceptance ratio, newness, ratings... I'm pretty convinced that there is a hidden rating given by the original inspector. I'm sure there is way more we don't even know about.

Probably your best bet with those types of images are RM at Alamy. It's not hard to get past the initial Quality Control, especially if you past muster on Microstock.