Quote from: MichaelJayFoto on March 30, 2016, 12:14

Quote from: NewStocker on March 29, 2016, 22:47Eh-Hem, I am a photographer, I have set up my own stock site selling purely my own content

Well, yes, that's your own images. Put on someone else's images who uses different key wording than you do, find out a fair way whose images to show first for any given search terms, make accounting for those, pay out the earned royalties in an easy and cheap way. And then do that for 10,000 contributors and 100 Terrabyte of image data. Good luck trying that with WordPress.

At least you won't need marketing because customers will just jump on board once the word goes around that the photographers get 80 cents per download instead of 35.

I don't see any reason to make it a site that is combined with other people's images. My intent was not to set up a stock agency, but my own outlet for selling my own niche content and by providing a much better user experience.

I had been scratching my head for a long time thinking how could a multi-million dollar company like iScraps put up such a poorly designed site, which functions so horribly and crashes all the time.

So in part, this was a test to see how difficult it would be to create something better than iScrooge and to prove to myself it could be done. The conclusions was it was neither hard or something that involved a tremendous amount of web design. And everyone can do the same. You would need some reasonable web design skills to achieve what I created, but you could also hire someone to build a nearly identical site to mine if you don't have the coding or design skills to customize a CSS package yourself. And the great thing is once you build the store it is done and always will be there. You can then develop it at your own pace with your own content however and whenever you wish.

There are also relatively simple and low cost solutions for all the points you raised if you did want to make it into a larger stock agency site. And yes, it is all completely possible with WordPress. I already studied it all when I had once considered taking on additional content from a small core group of friends. And video can be added as well.

Also, WordPress creates no limitations and is no different than any other CSS platform, which is what iStump is as well. WordPress simply adds a layer of easier user administration on the back end that other sites don't have and it also prevents you from having to write your own code for a core site.

It would be very easy as I said to get a few pieces of custom code written and added to the site to take it to the next level. Again, not an interest of mine. I am just happy to have proven to myself how easily it can be done, how inept iSpasm truly is, and to now have a fully functioning and fully automated eCommerce site with credit card gateway and secure download server to sell my own photos however and whenever I wish to.

By the way, I keep 97% of whatever I sell and I can price images for whatever I want. When it runs like that you don't have to sell nearly as much as you would when earning under $1 per sale on stock sites. And the best thing about it is my own site doesn't even force me to be exclusive with them either to get 97% royalties.

Quote from: Photostocker on March 30, 2016, 06:35

Quote from: NewStocker on March 29, 2016, 22:47

Quote from: MichaelJayFoto on March 29, 2016, 20:01

Quote from: Photostocker on March 29, 2016, 19:49
We contributors should set up our own stocksite where the royalty rates are something like 90%. 10% is only for the runing company and the website. And we need webtool for the copy and paste all the photos and keywords from the iStock if contributor wants to leave from the iStock.

Sure. Because customers are just waiting for that. And the site obviously is going to run flawless once set up because it is run by photographers who know what they're doing. 

Eh-Hem, I am a photographer, I have set up my own stock site selling purely my own content, it looks far more professional than iStock's site ever did/does. It has very simple pricing, it is easy to navigate, was built on a free and open source CSS platform, nothing is broken, the site can accept both credit card and PayPal payments, and it runs smoother and faster than the iStock site ever does/did.

Granted I don't have a sizable collection when compared to an agency that crowd sources from millions of potential contributors, or the traffic to be successful with it (yet), but it isn't hard to run circles around iStock's web programmers in order to build a stock site that works and people find easy to use, yet I still consider myself very much a coding hack at best. I set it up over only a few month period, on a part time basis, whilst tweaking and working the bugs out. Imagine what one could do if all they did all day was develop a stock site as a full time endeavor?

When I think of the iStock site programming team though I imagine a bunch of children with mental disabilities who can't control their bowels sitting in a bathtub together, whilst floating amongst their own turds, squeezing them like Play-doh, and giggling away as if they haven't a worry in the world.

What is your stockwebsite? We can make same kind of program what Qhero is to help people upload photos more easily and also make the webtool that contributors can upload all their stuff in other stocksites in the new site. Because of exclusive contributing the web site must be the first only for the showing photographers portfolio...but also there should be a button add this photo for sale...as 500px have! Whe should gather together few powerfull contributors and make this happen!

I built my site using WordPress and I purchased a very inexpensive theme that I added on to it which is designed for selling online products. Then I customized it from there.

There are numerous options like this available that one will find when researching the subject online. All kinds of different increased functionality can be added to a site as well. For example, files can be stored on a cloud server and secure download links can be automatically generated by the site when a purchase is made and which will expire after a certain number of downloads, or a short period of time, or both. All these things can be customized and different kinds of functionality added to a site like light boxes, etc.

Quote from: MichaelJayFoto on March 29, 2016, 20:01

Quote from: Photostocker on March 29, 2016, 19:49
We contributors should set up our own stocksite where the royalty rates are something like 90%. 10% is only for the runing company and the website. And we need webtool for the copy and paste all the photos and keywords from the iStock if contributor wants to leave from the iStock.

Sure. Because customers are just waiting for that. And the site obviously is going to run flawless once set up because it is run by photographers who know what they're doing. 

Eh-Hem, I am a photographer, I have set up my own stock site selling purely my own content, it looks far more professional than iStock's site ever did/does. It has very simple pricing, it is easy to navigate, was built on a free and open source CSS platform, nothing is broken, the site can accept both credit card and PayPal payments, and it runs smoother and faster than the iStock site ever does/did.

Granted I don't have a sizable collection when compared to an agency that crowd sources from millions of potential contributors, or the traffic to be successful with it (yet), but it isn't hard to run circles around iStock's web programmers in order to build a stock site that works and people find easy to use, yet I still consider myself very much a coding hack at best. I set it up over only a few month period, on a part time basis, whilst tweaking and working the bugs out. Imagine what one could do if all they did all day was develop a stock site as a full time endeavor?

When I think of the iStock site programming team though I imagine a bunch of children with mental disabilities who can't control their bowels sitting in a bathtub together, whilst floating amongst their own turds, squeezing them like Play-doh, and giggling away as if they haven't a worry in the world.

I am new to video and I am just wondering about which settings I would be best to use on my DSLR if I were to start shooting some stock video? I notice my camera has the option of PAL with either 24 or 25 frames per second. Or NTSC with either 24 or 30 frames per second.

I understand that 24 frames per second would be best for a more cinematic looking effect, but if I am shooting stock video would I not want to aim for a higher frame rate of either 25 or 30 frames per second for the best quality?

Also, for stock footage is there a standard that is generally followed in terms of either being the PAL or NTSC systems?

I guess if I want to shoot at 30 frames per second my only choice would be to shoot NTSC.

Anyway, just wanting to set my camera to whatever is the industry standard for stock footage if I start shooting.

Thank you for any input you could offer please.

Quote from: Roberto on May 20, 2015, 08:34
I think is time to pass  from Top Tier to the middle tier forum, it's going down day by day    The glory days have passed

There haven't been glory days on iStock since 2011.

What is the Shutterstock policy right now on exteriors of Private Homes? Are property releases needed like on iStock?

How about on residential interiors? Commercial interiors? Or any interior spaces?

Once they remove both the links to lightboxes, and ability to link in thumbnails of similar pictures to your image closeup pages, people who utilize these methods now as a viable sales channel for cross selling their images will probably perhaps see an additional 20% drop in regular sales. Then when the summer months hit, you can expect another ratchet down of 30% or so from where your sales are at in May. I think people stabilizing themselves on iStock will occur from a metallic clanging sound when gold crowns start hitting the pavement in amass.

Each site will be different in terms of permanently removing all your files from their system and/or deleting your entire account, but the following will explain how to disable or delete files on an individual file basis from your portfolio on all the above sites. This should make the removal of the files from their system immediate and the files should be removed from the online portfolio as soon the database updates on any of the above sites. If I made any mistakes on the below instructions for any of the sites then anyone please feel free to correct me:

123RF - Can delete photos individually anytime. Login, scroll down to the bottom of the site and go to History, then scroll down to Summary on the history page. Then click on the number next to accepted files to display your online files and then there is an option next to each photo you can click which says "Delete this photo and remove it from 123RF stock portfolio".

Alamy – Login to dashboard. Click on manage your images. Drag all the images you want to delete to the bottom of the manage your images area to delete them in a batch. Then select them all as a batch once they are loaded into the batch area by holding down the shift key and click on the first and last image to highlight them all. Then click on "Delete All In Batch".

DepositPhotos – Login, then click on Seller Menu. Then click on online files. There you will see an option to deactivate files one by one.

ShutterStock – Login as contributor. Then go to the Portfolio tab from the main navigation bar, then click on Approval Status, then click on the Approved Photos tab. There you will see your approved photos broken down in batches by the date submitted. Then you can click on any batch ID and then there will be a delete option next to each photo to delete photos individually.

Fotolia – Login, then go into Contributor Mode. Then click on Manage My Files. From there you can delete any file individually.

Dreamstime – Login, then click on Management Area. Then click on online files. Then click on edit next to any file. From there you will see a trash can icon when you scroll down on the image edit page. If you click on the trash can icon you can Disable the file.

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on August 15, 2011, 08:01

Welcome to the forum!
Yes, it's a security measure - you can't start a new thread until you have at least one post, it's explained here:
http://www.microstockgroup.com/newby-discussion/why-can%27t-i-start-a-new-thread/

Regarding the cc frauds, I didn't have any recently luckily but it's important that we keep posting here as they happen

Cheers for that. I wasn't actually suggesting it was fraud for sure though. I am only trying to determine if it might be and if there was a pattern forming today on iStock and/or if it was an isolated case. I do hope they are legit sales of course, for various reasons obviously, and was hoping to compare notes with anyone that might have experienced any similar activity today.

Thanks.

Hi everyone. I am new here and was trying to start a new topic about this under the iStock message board, but don't have the option of starting a new post. Is that normal for new members on this forum?

Meanwhile, I thought I would add my message to this old post on the subject since I can at least add replies to existing posts. About half an hour ago, in a matter of about 1 hour's time, I had about 12-13 XXL downloads on iStock in a row. All the same type of pictures as well. It is a bit worrying in terms of possible fraud I would say. Has anyone had any similar patterns of downloads in the last 2 hours or so?

Cheers...