Any of the reasonable quality wet cleaning "pad on a stick" plus fluid type things would do it I'd have thought. Quick and easy.

An illuminated lupe is fantastic for actually being able to inspect the surface close up.

Herg's camera needs a wet clean. But in other situations gel sticks can be great too. This interesting video at Vimeo - vimeo.com/6551861 (starting at 13:22) shows Pentax gel sticks being used to clean m8 camera sensors at the Leica factory.

It's just iStock has a long history of not being capable to present decent search results based on the data they have. Other agencies are much better in doing so, and their images are not keyworded better

I am almost certain that the CV is part of the problem - that it likely significantly increases the processing resources required. Since every search term must be cross-indexed against an ever growing hierarchy. Even before the results for those terms can be ranked for comparative relevance. Which probably involves another layer of cross-indexing.

There is presumably some sort of compromise which is always going to be made - in terms of how much processing can be performed before the results must be delivered. My guess is that the requirement to first cross-index CV terms must eat into the amount of processing which can be allocated to comparing relevance.

I am being very vague I know. But I strongly suspect that Shutterstock has tuned their search results in favour of more common search terms and the top results. Rather than trying to build a multilingual system which can determine what you really mean.

But goodness knows how they could go about removing the CV at this stage since the whole collection would have to be re-keyworded.

they tell us to jump one way (allegedly because the buyers want it), then tell us to jump the opposite way (allegedly because the buyers want it)

I agree with this ^

But I also think they are ultimately right to get rid of the user created links in the description field - even though it negates the huge amount of time and work that people have put into this.

It's a legacy failure - they should have got rid of these links years ago - or better still they would never have been introduced. As it stands it means that the pages do not look uniform. That's messy design. And everyone who still does these links has their own style too. Not to mention all the dead links, broken code etc. + the overhead of loading data from third-party hosts.

Ideally of course all of the metadata would be 100% IPTC compatible. Ultimately that is always going to be the best solution - especially when it comes to transferring and distributing content across different (potentially non Getty) platforms. I reckon that in the end they will come to the conclusion that they have to get rid of the CV too - partly because of the overheads and partly because it is non standard,  convoluted and resource heavy.

Quote from: bunhill on January 15, 2015, 10:36

Shutterstock widens its focus as it snaps up Rex Features agency - Financial Times

Meanwhile Jim Pickerell says there is speculation that Getty might sell it's editorial division.

Thank you for the link. Are there any indications this might go to SS as well?

I don't know. Apart from Jim's site nobody else seems to be suggesting this. I haven't read his article - only the come-on. Maybe we should club together and buy 2 credits

Honestly - I could see the whole lot going to Shutterstock one way or another. It's a phenomenal company.

I am very curious whether they are going to be doing RM.

Also - isn't Rex all RM ? Does that mean Shutterstock is moving into RM ?

Adobe wants to integrate Fotolia into its subscription service, but it is hard to see how Adobe will be able to offer a single subscription price that will be a compelling reason for users to switch from Shutterstock, iStock and others to the Adobe offering.

My guess is that Adobe will bundle x00 subscription content images per month as part of what subscribers get included with CS.

I do not believe that Adobe is looking to make money directly out of stock photography - rather I believe they are about adding value to their CS subscription packages. Especially as CS subscriptions peak. I am sure that they can afford to break-even on the deal.

By continuing to also offer a standalone Fotolia service they will be able to point to that - as the added value which is included free with a CS subscription.

Why don't you leave exclusivity? You might make more money. You didn't say anything about your sales but if you've stopped uploading I assume they're not fantastic at iStock at the moment.

I will not be surprised if iStock kill or substantially revise the exclusivity program themselves.

I have been barely uploading - mostly just stuff which was on my drive already + a few snaps. But if I were to drop exclusivity first it would not be because I expect to make more money with my legacy RF images by uploading them elsewhere. That would be unrealistic. I would probably even delete much of my legacy content completely - some of it is very weak and I don't want to spend my life farming old content - only the stuff I still think works okay.

For the past 18 months or more I have been building a completely different portfolio of RM images at Alamy. Slowly at first, but I am very pleased with how that has gone. It is much more what I think I am about and they are friendly. I have completely changed the way in which I take pictures. In some ways I would quite like to start uploading some RF content to Alamy. That would be a positive motivation to drop iStock exclusivity but I have not decided and am in no hurry. I also have an active (currently empty) contributor account at Shutterstock. And they are super friendly and helpful to deal with. I would not bother with any of the other microstocks.

/OT - that's an interesting font. And I can see the design logic behind most of the letters. Some of them look great. But how did you get to the G ?

ETA: - what I mean is - I don't get the G.

Android Studio is in stable state and is the official IDE now, closing the gap with iOS.

1.0

oh okay. I wondered why the rates seemed to vary. Presumably Shudderstok has no files in the Main collection then.

My subs RPD is about $1.50.

what is your lowest sub royalty ?

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-changes-the-outlook-of-Getty-Images-to-Negative-from--PR_314730

Jo Ann Snover linked to this public investment research/opinion a while back on another thread.

What do they mean by midstock ? What is midstock in this context ?