Quote from: loop on December 04, 2008, 16:33
...The upload limits allow IS to have what others don't have and a great percentage of the best of what the others have.

You've got to be kidding...To me it appears that Istock makes special effort to reject the best of my images.

SS - 83%, DT - 86%, 123RF - 85%, BigStock - 87%, Fotolia - 72%, StockXpert - 83%.

And IStock - 36% LOL...

Yes, and I don't give a rat's ass anymore. It seems Istock policy is to actively discourage non-exclusive contributors. So be it.

Extremely slow review process, rejections for traditional "artifacts" and "overfiltering", slow sales...no need to say anything more, except that Istock is my number 7 (out of 7) this month.

"Does nobody even attempt to find answers..."

Well, it appears to me that this is exactly what the OP just did 

Yes, my impression is that Istock wants to get rid of non-exclusives. Waiting time for acceptance are dreadful - and then they manage to reject 70% of submitted images. Initially I tried to be more careful with focus/sharpening/postprocessing (because they used to have a point in most rejection cases, and I admit that I was at fault) - but not any more. Makes no point - as they manage to reject images which sell well anywhere else (and they are not "overfiltered" or "oversharpened" - simply because in most cases nothing had been done except converting from RAW with default settings). So, I do not worry excessively about IStock. If they accept some images - fine, if some of them sell - fine. There are other sites which sell better and are willing to take my pics.

Emphimy - I know that some people will disagree, but I would not try to submit anything from your Istock portfolio. This is just based on my experience with Istock - aceeptance at Istock means an almost sure rejection everywhere else, and vice versa.

It also happens that Sandralise has a nice bunch of images on all the sites that count...Thought it would be nice to bring this to attention...

Buy the best you can afford. Singh Ray is awesome, and worth every penny - but it puts a solid bite on the pocket. But - you buy them once, and they will last if taken care of. Happiness from getting and using a good tool lasts much longer than the financial sting. The reverse is also true.
OTOH, my daughter uses Cokin, and only very occassionally she needs the color to be corrected.

Three sales from Photos.com so far.

Below 0.4 USD ? Yes, I reckon it is possible. Australia and Australians need a reality check. Nominal exchange rate is about 2x as high as the real purchasing power of the Aussie dollar - just look at the prices of identical items in USA or Europe. Gives a real incentive to start shooting more though - as you just said  

Well, my pictures there are not anonymous, but there is only a small fraction of my Fotolia portfolio there.

Well, I do not know.
Last summer I walked on a walking track to Bondi Beach (Sydney). During the walk, I have seen whole trees infested by orb weavers - literally wrapped up. The nets (or rather whole 3D structures built from the nets, by hundreds of spiders) have been 10m+ long, spanning the distance between trees. There were hundreds of spiders, not as big as this one - but big enough (and remember, in Quensland everything grows bigger). Unfortunately - I only had point-and-shoot camera, but no picture could describe the size of the spiders and their sheer number - as one needed a reference objects, and I could only shoot against the sky. It only could be appreciated by being there - and it was not nice.

And, a 6" huntsman sneaking inside the house and sitting on the wall is something I mostly stopped paying attention to.

For me, from undisputed No 1 with 60% share, SS slipped to No 5 after 4 months of going downhill. And, while I don't upload much, I do it on a pretty regular basis. But, the more I upload, the slower SS becomes...Go figure.

Actually, a pretty dramatic slowdown on SS happened about 2 months ago, it was like hitting the wall, and it is only getting worse. Well, at least the other sites perform better and better all the time.

"...but then rejections from Fotolia are not exactly unusual."

Indeed, they are not. Here is a recent one for one of my pics (pretty funny I think):

"Your photograph did not reach our desired level of aesthetic quality."

For me it is DT, 123RF, SS this month...

Well, at certain time Crestock announced that from then on they will have the highest quality requirements in the microstock industry etc. etc. It was at the same time when they introduced $0.25 payments. So, after having one batch rejected in its entirety - I deleted all images and asked them to cancel the account.

Oh, what ., I'm in 

This month SS is #5 for me...yes, #5, after DT, StockXpert, iS, 123RF, and barely ahead of Fotolia and BigStock. No kidding. Something must have happened - otherwise I can't explain literally hitting a wall. Downloads have been steadily creeping down for the last couple of months - but September looks like WME...

"I think I can safely assume UncleGene is not a paid tester for ProStockMaster? "

Probably not. OTOH - maybe you should try and create a program like this yourself ?
I do some programming myself - and I know how difficult it is to create a truly bug-free product with great functionality (I am not even sure that athing like this exists...).

I do not remember how much I paid for PSM - probably about $50 or so (someone correct me if I am wrong). Which is less than I make per hour. PSM took probably a thousand + hours to make, if my experience with programming is of any guidance.

In other words - I do not think it unreasonable that a little bit of support from the users goes a long way with products like PSM. All other things aside - one (or a couple of programmers) can't  even come close to the number of ideas and insights that couple of hundred (or thousand) of users may have.

There are certain expectations for a product coming from a big corporation (which makes billions), and a bit different expectations for a product which, when all is said and done, is being distributed for a very small fee. And the big guys still sell you software costing $$$ - with bugs.

So - why shouldn't you do as much as at least report the bug ?
I did, and I have no affiliation with PSM whatsoever.

I guess most people expect the world for a small change ($50 or so), while being ready to sue the council when slipping on a banana skin in a public place...

"Today we have big victim on stock exchange market in USA, this is the bottom,these days..."

The bottom ?  You are optimistic methinks. It is still a long way to go, then we hit the bottom - and then we start digging.

One thing that I really like (well, I should like it, it was my idea) is the manual editing of the database. For instance - since IStock does not have FTP, I upload images with Filezilla - and then just edit image info in Prostockmaster. Helps keeping track of what was sent where. Overall - I like this program more and more.

Not selling very much - but selling some. BigStock it is a very friendly and no-nonsense site, that's why I am going to stay there. When I asked for deletion of an image which I mistakenly submitted as an exclusive image elsewhere - they made no fuss and removed it within 24 hours - and they didn't have to.

It is a good site, very nice and user friendly page - what makes you think that you shouldn't upload your pics there ? The only downside are slow reviews, but - so what ?

Regarding "how long does it take for the first DL ?"
Well, how long is a piece of string ?

"What do you think?"

Right now nothing. I am down for maintenance.