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Messages - cthoman
2626
« on: May 13, 2011, 10:12 »
Interesting idea. I don't see it happening. Although, it wasn't that long ago that you could get a wide variety of vectors for a buck at iStock. Some would say that it is part of the problem at iStock is rising prices.
2627
« on: May 12, 2011, 09:54 »
Not to be the downer guy, but it seems like you have a lot of images that could be the victim of a policy shift at any time. That would scare me if I were you. What if they decide not to allow public domain images or company editorial products. They could shut your whole portfolio down overnight. Not that it is going to happen, but it is definitely something to think about.
2628
« on: May 10, 2011, 14:07 »
That's the 80's. Indesign supports PSDs since god knows when, you can even copypaste them and switch layers on and off in indesign. I don't really think anyone seriuos uses anything else than ID for DTP assembly to be honest. You can edit anything, including masks. As a buyer-DTP guy I can tell you that when I browsed stock sites I found the isolated category a ridicule, from a graphic designer's standpoint its a misleading title: stuff on white is not isolation... Isolation is something masked with transparency... I guess most photographers don't realize that...
80's?  I was in Elementary school in the 80's. I thought that was all paste ups back then. I learned most of my stuff late 90's and early aughts. I haven't really kept up with the printing technology in the last few years though. I know pdfs are used more, but I have to assume some people are still doing it the same way they've been doing it for the last 10 years.
2629
« on: May 10, 2011, 12:19 »
@cthoman
Of course PNG is RGB. All photos on microstock sites are RBG. Just convert to CMYK. All printing houses are capable of this transition.
What? Unless your printer is Zazzle, I don't see that flying. Look I'm not the master of graphic design, but I've never worked anywhere where you sent images other than cmyk or grayscale tiffs or eps files to the printer. Maybe things have changed in the last few years when I've been mostly illustrating, but I would doubt it with the strictness of most printers.
2630
« on: May 10, 2011, 11:46 »
PNGs are ideal for print. Think of an apple with a gradated drop shadow. How are you going to clip that shadow? A PNG file will support that gradation. Drag and drop!
PNG is a web format. From Wikipedia: PNG was designed for transferring images on the Internet, not for professional-quality print graphics, and therefore does not support non-RGB color spaces such as CMYK.
2631
« on: May 10, 2011, 11:33 »
...for designers looking to easily drop an isolated object into their project, this will be the way to go.
Unless their project is for print, then they'll probably want a clipping path that they can edit. Really the whole thing looks less about need and more about regurgitating some buzzword. I make pngs for my clients, but that is of vectors which is a one click process. I'm just not seeing the big value or excitement here, but there haven't been a lot of details released either.
2632
« on: May 10, 2011, 10:00 »
I think I've yet to see a valid explanation of the significance or demand for this.
2633
« on: May 06, 2011, 13:23 »
If I thought there was a market for it, I'd give designers almost anything they were willing to pay the right price for (no RAW files). I've read some designers on how they'd rather do their own clipping paths so they know they're right and others who say they'd love to save time.
I've heard iStock's spiel on no finished designs but Shutterstock sells a ton of those sorts of files, so someone wants them.
If the market for PNGs with alpha channels is just corporate PowerPoints, I'd like to get some idea of what percentage of our sales go into that market before deciding if it's worth it. I was not aware that made up a large portion of our sales, but as we don't really have any data on sales - iStock does if they've categorized those who buy credits from them, which I hope for their sake they have - I could be wrong.
As management at IS has yet to do anything in the way of an announcement on this to contributors, we're left with KKT whining that we aren't focusing on the positives in his interview.
I wasn't necessarily criticizing giving buyers what they want. Just posing the question. Like you said, is it worth it? The clipping paths is a good example. Why put them in if you aren't going to get paid extra for them? There just seems to be this level of expected freebies as competition goes up. I guess I should wait for the details. It doesn't sound like it is going to affect vectors anyway, although I'm still not entirely convinced of that.
2634
« on: May 06, 2011, 12:47 »
How much should you give designers? Aren't they just making their own PNGs, clipping paths, crops, designs, etc.? It's stock. It is supposed to be adjusted for your needs.
2635
« on: May 06, 2011, 11:23 »
OK, I found this in the forum... Update: Level 0 has now been extended to old members as well. Everyone should be able to see now level 0 for the files that have no download. These files will automatically move to level one after the first download. I don't know what that means for the other levels. I was only half kidding about it being complicated. I guess I didn't realize how complicated it was.
2636
« on: May 06, 2011, 11:07 »
Are you still getting sales with the old pricing?
To be honest, I don't know. My sales numbers seem to line up with the new pricing. Did they just switch everybody over to it? I guess that was a short test period then.
2637
« on: May 06, 2011, 10:19 »
Yes, that's right, it's:
Level 0 (0 downloads)
Level 1 (1-4 downloads)
I depends on the customer though. Nothing changed for the old customers. I think Dreamstime is working on making their pricing as confusing as possible.
2638
« on: May 05, 2011, 17:18 »
Yes. They used to sell just the vector like iStock. Now, they still sell the vector, but they also sell all the jpeg sizes like DT. I'm more partial to iStock's system because I think the small sizes are kind of a rip off to contributors. Most of these sites you get paid less for an extra small than you do a sub sale. I was just sad to see Veer switch over to this.
2639
« on: May 05, 2011, 16:55 »
Doesn't sound too bad. I do notice the word photo on it though. Are the redheaded step children of iStock being left out again? 
2640
« on: May 05, 2011, 13:56 »
Yep. I like doing both. Clients can occasionally be a pain in the... but they are still the best way to make a good amount of money quickly. I guess I'd have to making a lot with stock to give up freelancing.
2641
« on: May 05, 2011, 12:33 »
Yeah, the link that Leaf provided has a bunch of them listed. You may not find one that does everything you need. I have experience with Ktools and it can be some work to get it to look or function the way you want it.
2642
« on: May 05, 2011, 11:57 »
"And one more new category coming for iStock: the PNG, (portable network graphics) format. Its big advantage compared with JPEG: it supports an "alpha" channel that lets designers mark parts of the overall image as transparent. That means objects work with colored or complex backgrounds without arduous image editing"
They'll probably use this to cheat vector artists out of higher price point vector sales. I'm suspicious. What is dramatically affected? Aren't 85% of contributors non-exclusive? I would imagine nearly 100% of them took a paycut. Where does he pull these numbers out of?
2643
« on: May 05, 2011, 11:46 »
I wasn't sure if it was going to be a good thing when Veer switched from selling just vector versions to a variety of sizes. Well, the answer is starting to become clear. It's a bad thing. Now, instead of having large credit sales trickle in, it is all extra small sizes. It's frustrating and it feels like my sales are being cannibalized. Veer has gone from an agency I was excited about to just another low RPD agency. Oh well there's other places to focus on. 
2644
« on: May 04, 2011, 18:15 »
\We're looking at different sets of values.
Dreamstime below Istock? On a list of favourites?
Yeah, definitely different sets of values. I like to be able to set my own price, get around 50% royalties and have a high RPD. So agencies that allow you to adjust your price like Clipartof and Graphic Leftovers top my list of favorites. iStock is above Dreamstime because it has a higher RPD and no raster sizes or subs. It loses a lot of points though for having low royalty percentages. I think if you flip my list over though it might line up well with my top earners.
2645
« on: May 04, 2011, 15:50 »
No site is perfect. Full stop. But Dreamstime is one of the best, hands down. (My most favourite).
On a list of favorite places I sell, I'd rank them 9th (just below iStock). That said, they are still one of my top earners. I just like other sites' pricing and royalty structures better.
2646
« on: May 04, 2011, 12:19 »
I was thinking about this today. You notice the level 0 sales, but it's hard to tell whether the other level sales are at the new or old prices. I guess the proof will be in the final tally at the end of the month.
2647
« on: May 04, 2011, 10:41 »
I've been expecting them to get rid of the monthly sales threads for several months now.
On the contrary, they've actually allowed the vector peeps to have their own separate stats thread, so I don't see them shutting it down.
2648
« on: May 03, 2011, 21:59 »
ha,cthoman
I followed your step to join the Can, and it doesn't disappoint me,thanks,man
Dang it! I need to stop being so optimistic. It's just encouraging competition.
2649
« on: May 03, 2011, 16:15 »
My hope isn't to take anyone's rights away. It's actually in the hopes of changing the way these companies conduct themselves with regard to these policies, which aren't laws by the way, only company policies and subject to change.
I think that's a good effort to have. If it was changing subscription policies, being able to change or set prices or a minimum royalty amount, I'd probably be right there with you. But, account canceling payouts isn't high on my wish list of changes to the micros.
2650
« on: May 03, 2011, 16:08 »
You wouldn't be the first one to try.  There have been members who opened multiple accounts and had conversations with themselves... such accounts are pretty easy to spot and the accounts are simply removed.
Are you telling me there is order on this ship of crazy degenerates, captain?
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