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Messages - click_click
2726
« on: September 22, 2009, 20:08 »
Thanks Click.... I am no stranger to 3D... I have been doing 3d sculpting and animation for thirteen years and some of my single-image- to-print files are 200 mb+ I have been using Strata products for the past three upgrades. My longest animation is two minutes that took nearly two years to render using a Mac 7100...
Don't forget that in this business you have to upload new images constantly. The more you upload (the more you can render) the better. I'm only investing so much time into some renders because I know from experience that they will sell often enough to pay me back for the time. Other really successful 3D artists are actually using 6 computers simultaneously to be able to produce enough content to stay competitive. It's not far fetched to rent a render farm online for certain projects. Good luck!
2727
« on: September 22, 2009, 14:47 »
You will be learning also a lot by looking at 3D rendered images at any give stock image site you can see on the right hands side of this forum.
Check Istockphoto, Shutterstock and Dreamstime to see what your "competition" is doing and how good the quality is.
If you want to produce stock material rendered on your computer, you need to meet certain criteria to make it worthwhile. First you need to develop an eye for what is considered "stock". Once you get some concepts together of what you can render you need to meet the file requirements to be even considered for an application.
The bigger the file size the better. I have 3D renders over 6000x6000 pixels or 12 MB in file size. Some of those took me over 24 hours to render on a Quad Core PC with 4GB of RAM which is almost considered a joke by now.
I'm also taking photos so I don't have to rely on producing only one image a day!
The more realistic your image looks like (realistic lighting) the longer your computer will take to render it nicely. Many times people who can model objects nicely forget about the importance of proper lighting to make it look perfect.
You will see the most successful 3D renders on Istock which have been approved lately are of very high quality. That should be your goal. There are a lot of people out there doing the same thing so it's a tough competition. You need to stand out in order to be successful.
So study your field, render very high resolution and make sure you get the lighting right!
Good luck!
2728
« on: September 18, 2009, 21:23 »
It is a GOOD shot!
Well done!
2729
« on: September 17, 2009, 18:56 »
So, am I supposed to be reciprocal and flag the flagger's bad keywords? Would that be the best way to show my sincere gratitude?
That's what was trying to say. When I checked the images of the people who flagged mine I could have flagged almost their entire portfolio if their interpretation of my wrong keywords would have been applied. Naturally, this power will lead to some nasty situations between contributors. Watch it.
2730
« on: September 17, 2009, 17:43 »
If an image is flagged, does it lose something in search results while they have not been reviewed yet?
If you find a wrong flagging, like Lisa mentioned, what are we supposed to do, is there some way to automatically explain it to DT reviewers before they cut the keyword?
Has anyone had the experience of having a wrong flagging accepted by DT?
Good questions. I'm not sure if images will be pushed back that have pending flags. I strongly don't hope so, because that would cause a major flood of flags of contributors who want to knock out the competition even if it's just for a little while. If you think your flagged images were flagged inappropriately (correct keywords) then there is nothing further you have to do. It was mentioned on the DT message boards that the reviewer will most likely agree that it was an unnecessary flag anyway. I'm holding my breath on my flagged images to see if how the reviewers will decide. That's why I think this system is flawed. Too much time spent on unnecessary reviewing. Wrong flagging has occurred as it was mentioned in this thread earlier before. At least I consider the lion - big cat thing as wrong flagging. It's not like someone used the keyword "sexy girl" for an image showing a lion...
2731
« on: September 17, 2009, 17:11 »
I'm hearing a lot of suggestions how the system could be improved.
However I'd consider the aforementioned cases as given requirements for a proper stock image agency to have IF they implement a flagging system.
After all the discussion here I still believe this flagging feature is not working efficiently at all.
Again, I am all for removing keywords that are not even remotely related to the subject in the image. But I also received flags that I had to ignore because the reported keywords directly relate to the image.
There is so much time wasted on both the contributors' and agency's side with this. The agency should handle it on their own.
2732
« on: September 17, 2009, 14:32 »
That's interesting.
Whatever I threw at BigStock, they accepted.
2733
« on: September 17, 2009, 12:37 »
I once tried to upload some editorial content of a big balloon festival in my city.
DT required a reference to the event, which should have been a URL link to a news agency web site covering the story. Since I provided a link of a local TV station it wasn't considered "editorial-worthy". I mean not everything is covered on cnn.com.
For a while now I see a lot of editorial images where I wonder what the event could have been as it just shows downtown shots etc. It almost looks like that when people are too lazy to clone out logos of fast food restaurants they just upload it as editorial - but how do they get around the news-reference?
What are the current requirements for editorial images at DT? Anyone?
Thanks in advance.
2734
« on: September 16, 2009, 18:07 »
Thanks, I needed that!
2735
« on: September 14, 2009, 08:44 »
@azurelaroux
Well said.
This addresses concerns I had all along.
Microstock is evolving all the time so many things have changed. Prices, commission, quality requirements and download numbers... (unfortunately).
The business hasn't become any easier and it will be important for the agencies to ensure that their contributors are working with them and not against (e.g. by keyword spamming).
It's impossible to edit out every single, not directly relating keyword out of every image online but notorious hardcore spammers should feel some serious consequences.
It's not the "lion" example that causes buyers to freak out. It's the contributors that use the keyword apple when the image shows a pear.
I think at some point the agencies will implement something like a "3 strikes and you're out" system. If spammers don't get punished for their actions they will keep doing it.
And locking someone's keywords it no punishment in my opinion...
2736
« on: September 11, 2009, 10:25 »
... What I don't like about this is, I don't want to go on DT and start disliking other members because they flagged my keywords.
These are the things I'm talking about. These are my long-term predictions that will cause trouble for both members as well as DT management as you can argue forever about certain keywords.
2737
« on: September 11, 2009, 10:16 »
Yeah, I don't really see the problem with this. If someone wants to spend their time for $.02 what do I care? Seems to be some paranoia in the air. fred
Fred, I'm well aware that not everybody feels like me. However you can read clearly that others don't agree with you either. Removing "cat" from a lion image is ridiculous. Why? Simple: somebody wants an image of a lion or a panther or a jaguar why would it be wrong to use the keywords "wild" and "cat"? So somebody looks for "wildcat" and somebody looks for "wild cat" which is totally appropriate in my opinion but maybe I'm just some crazy lunatic who dares questioning a fantastic flagging system... And how many millions of images would have to be re-keyworded to fall into the proper quotation category??? Talking about disambiguation here aren't we? This is literally shooting birds with cannons (not CANONs)  I'm more than happy to see the flagging system being USED appropriately for images that contain severe keyword violations. But from my experience looking at the flags that I got, too many people just take shots in the dark to get $.02 - that is what I'm referring to about wasting DT's resources.
2738
« on: September 11, 2009, 09:04 »
You receive a comment and can see it in the "comments" area stokfoto. My cowboy portrait was also flagged for the word "cowboy"... gebus, some peeps have so toooo much time on their hands...
Thank god that at least a few people feel the same way about this. I already thought I just imagined that this is a problem...
2739
« on: September 11, 2009, 08:25 »
But if a person flags incorrectly they lose the ability to flag files ever again ...
This is your only argument about this issue? And what about the hundreds of idiots that keep flagging until they lose their privilege? Some of those guys don't give a rats ass if their "flagging privilege" is taken away because they just want to piss someone else off AND waste the time of DT reviewers... So in your view it is just a matter of time until all the bad flaggers are sorted out? You know what? How about you offer a bigger chunk of your commission to pay for all the wasted reviews of flags that are completely useless instead of taking parts of my commission to do so? I'm specifically talking about the questionable implementation of a feature that does not do any more good than if any of us would have sent an email to support to check someone's funky keywords compared to spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars reviewing silly flags.
2740
« on: September 11, 2009, 07:57 »
How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.
How can it be a bad thing? [/quote] Did you read my previous posts? It is wasting reviewer's time to check invalid flags. As I mentioned in my post above in the case of the keyword cat for a lion it is a perfect example that someone is having other intentions towards the cat-photographer than wrong keywords. It's so obvious - why doesn't anybody see this? I have no problem with "flaggers" that report "sexy apples". I'm just criticizing the flagging feature as it is being abused by a lot of idiots that take resources of DT that we pay for.
2741
« on: September 11, 2009, 07:35 »
>... <... ... If there is a business case for reporting an image then you should not feel bad about doing it, and keyword spamming is a good enough reason as it could affects both the website owners and your revenue. David
Based on what the OP stated, I don't think he would see this as an issue if relevant keywords weren't being flagged !
THANK YOU TDOES - this is correct! The flagging system at DT allows reporting keywords with the touch of a button. It's so easy, it will be abused. If I as a contributor am so worried about someone else's keywords (sexy apple) then I MIGHT find the time to send an email to support - case closed. I still don't understand why such a delicate matter is outsourced to contributors as the past has shown that there are people abusing the system already. Now, somebody brings up the case of the keyword "cat" being flagged - perfect example how the reviewers time is being wasted (and PAID BY US!!!!) for checking a perfectly valid keyword. While 2 flags out of 10 are actually reporting keyword spamming the remaining 8 will be reviewed for nothing. I'm guessing this number based on how many of my images have been flagged in a manner like mentioned above (cat) How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.
2742
« on: September 10, 2009, 20:33 »
Are you sure that DT doesn't take any measure about inappropriate flagging? Have you got appropriate keywords removed by them? I have in IS - like rose removed from a photo of ... a rose - but not in DT, I believe. Do they send us any notice?
I contacted them today because of a much bigger issue regarding the flag-feature and the response was rather neutral. All in all and I can only speak for myself, I don't care at all what keywords other people are using. It's not going to affect my sales. It will affect theirs. If the agencies don't like the way people keyword their images then they should take active actions to prevent it from happening. It's almost like handing out guns to everybody and tell everyone to arrest/shoot criminals. Now guess what's going to happen... As soon as people get some kind of power they will abuse it and I'm most certainly sure that more people will abuse the flagging feature than use it wisely. I've gotten so many images flagged that I don't even want to know what's happening to people that sell sexy apples...
2743
« on: September 10, 2009, 20:01 »
I can't tell about the others, but for me it's certainly not for the money. I come accross an image with wrong keywords, I report it. It's not like I keep looking for images to report, and if people do that I am certain DT can detect that easily.
I'm upset about the "flaggers" that report an image for a keyword that is directly related to the image. Why should any resources be wasted for keywords that do relate to the image??? I'm not talking about the sexy apple thing...
2744
« on: September 10, 2009, 18:50 »
For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks 
You see - it's not about the money. It's about pissing other contributors off. Who . has the time to make the effort of flagging people???
2745
« on: September 10, 2009, 18:08 »
...Since these "flags" have to be reviewed by some inspector before being removed from the image, there should be some sort of penalty for people flagging clearly appropriate keywords.
Thanks Lisa! This the exact point. No doubt that constant violators need to be stopped and penalized but for issues like Lisa mentioned above I think nobody disagrees that this is a waste resources - and guess what, we have to pay for this nonsense.
2746
« on: September 10, 2009, 15:42 »
I'd rather see the reviewers getting 2 cents more per image review and checking the keywords in the first place than some site members with questionable agendas.
Let trained reviewers take over that job and not some idiots who sometimes don't even speak English as their native language clogging up resources on the agency's site.
It's not making sense.
2747
« on: September 10, 2009, 09:26 »
This makes me sick.
Even in an industrialized country such as the USA (although i a bit behind...) I'm sitting here on a 6 MB/s DSL connection which is the fastest I can get in the 2 Million people metropolitan area where I reside (downtown btw).
My mom who lives in a tiny village (1.500 inhabitatns) in central Europe has 25 MB/s as of now with the option to upgrade to 100 MB/s for 49 Euros a month. I'm paying the same for a 6 MB/s connection. I'm pissed.
2748
« on: September 10, 2009, 09:17 »
Out of thousands of submissions I had a couple of images rejected due to keywording issues. I'm strict against keyword spamming.
Now out of the sudden it appears that at Dreamstime people feel motivated to flag other people's images with inappropriate keywords.
What is the flagging about?
Do these "flaggers" get any incentives for doing that (and please don't make up stories about that)?
I check the flaggers portfolios and see worse use of keywords in their images. I just don't have the time to flag their images.
Friend of mine at DT is experiencing the same.
Anyone else?
2749
« on: September 03, 2009, 23:32 »
Good start but agree with the above people. I never really noticed that whole purple fringing thing till I started reading about it being a problem. Very interesting. Wonder why cameras have so many screw ups when it comes to taking pictures. Too bad they didn't work like our eyes but better.
It's not the camera creating the problem - it's the lens. Cheap lenses can produce horrible fringing. Put a decent prime lens on your camera and you have one less problem. I'm not sure if it has been mentioned but it appears to me that the guy is "falling out of the frame" to the left. I think the horizon is off or he is not standing 100% upright. That might be the reason why lisafx mentioned he looks awkward. Everything else mentioned above applies as well. Focus/blurriness - it's not sharp. Get a better lens.
2750
« on: September 03, 2009, 18:07 »
... What about this picture? I would of course take another during the day to get a better picture but would this be a good one?

You are winding us up aren't you? You see all the links to the stock sites where most of us sell our images. Go there and look at the best selling images to get an idea what this business is about. Then look at your images and start improving. Stock photography is about images that have a message or convey something. What is your last image telling a potential client? Think about it!
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