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Messages - thesentinel

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276
Take for example http://www.mostphotos.com/160282
its a nightime shot of the Eiffel tower with lights that are clearly visible, which if I understand correctly is copyrighted....


That's during dusk, so it's a borderline.
This one is blatant infringement and it's Royalty Free, not Editorial.


Even the one in Las Vegas ?!

277
General Stock Discussion / Re: Nature that sells
« on: March 25, 2008, 11:21 »
Indeed a nice portfolio
His portfolio on Istock looks quite different from his Shutterstock portfolio:


http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=877446

But I see the same background again. ;)



From experience I can say that the general policy on iStock is not at all forgiving on manipulation of skies...BUT those that sneak through can do very well there, this pattern repeats itself on a raft of issues at the edge of their criteria.

278
General Stock Discussion / Re: Nature that sells
« on: March 25, 2008, 08:59 »
It's a bit obvious when the same sky-scape appears in so many images when viewing them altogether. ;D


279
General Stock Discussion / Re: For non americans...:-)
« on: March 21, 2008, 05:52 »
As ever Your Mileage May Vary.

In the UK currently the dollar is less than 2% off where it was 12 months ago, though in November it was a more than that, yet my sales value per image sold has risen by 60%, since Istock, where I am exclusive, has very significantly raised prices and this does not seem to have reduced sales. I am also selling significantly more than this time last year though I've not really uploaded enough to keep my portfolio size increase in line with percentage of the overall increase of the total available files.

You also need to consider that where the dollar has dropped against local currencies the buyers money goes further than it did and they may buy more------- though just how sensitive buyers are to prices in the microstock band remains moot given the istock price increases not resulting in the predicted, by some, sales collapse.

280
General Stock Discussion / Re: Stock Union
« on: March 08, 2008, 00:49 »

Bottom line is all of us are replaceable.  Even the big-shots.  A year or two ago Lise Gagne seemed irreplaceable and now Yuri has come along and challenged her supremacy.  And I see shots uploaded every day that I think are Yuris or Lise's and they turn out to be from some unknown newbie or other who has mastered their shooting style. 

A style that existed  before microstock may I add!

281
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Best match woes...
« on: March 06, 2008, 16:05 »
Also last week the 'newness' element of the best match equation was changed to give newer files a higher placement in search results.

This 'newness' component changes four or five times each year, which is why you'll see remarks like "Oh, it's nice to see some of my old files selling again" or "Why do my new files not get any views or sales?".
How do you know that?

Sort your own portfolio by Best Match and you can see the changes in the Force

282
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock XSmall price is a joke
« on: March 02, 2008, 13:38 »
Today i had 4  XSmall sells and the result is less than $1. that is where 20% shows its unfairness.

If there hadn't been people that had been happy to make less than that on full size images five years ago you wouldn't even be here complaining !

283
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Best match woes...
« on: February 27, 2008, 04:19 »
thesentinel - how do you get those numbers?  Is there a league table somewhere?


All sales figures there are public domain and there is an istockapp called compare which can collate it

284
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Best match woes...
« on: February 26, 2008, 18:25 »
Istocks best match really...really sucks.and  favors exclusive people to the MAX, in fact it might as well not even include us non exclusives. It is one thing to pay exclusive more for being exclusiveok I can live with that and it make good business sense, but if I have a good photo then it should have the same possibilities of being found as every other photobut NO..not Istock.

Yet the top selling iStock artist this month, again, by massive margin is the non exclusive Yuri.

285
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Prices reduced......
« on: February 23, 2008, 07:01 »
That sucks for many reasons


But lets compare that to any other business. Any huge store that wants to discount a product has to do that paying their share of the cut. What does a milk producer care about a store discount ? He has his price and as he is concerned they can give his milk for free after  they pay him his share.


Certainly here in the UK MANY suppliers fund both in-store offers, and long term discounting. Eggs, Poultry Milk producers etc can find the selves being paid less than the cost of production, and 2 for 1 offers are often fully funded by the supplier.


286
There is no excuse for peppering posts with the F word, but that seems acceptable over there.

287
iStockPhoto.com / Re: More evidence that IS favors Exclusives
« on: February 12, 2008, 04:54 »
As has been pointed out that is a search by DOWNLOADS not BEST MATCH, claiming that is some sort of bias in favour of exclusives is incomprehensible, especially when it has been shown that you do better in the best match search than the person you imply is being favoured.


288
iStockPhoto.com / Re: More evidence that IS favors Exclusives
« on: February 11, 2008, 17:24 »
Just did that Business Seminar search, Yuri 8 Lise 4. ???

289
iStockPhoto.com / Re: More evidence that IS favors Exclusives
« on: February 08, 2008, 08:29 »

I too got some of my files rejected for not being stock worthy and later I discovered very similar but exclusive files were up there selling well  anyway I got them online elsewhere  and they are doing well, at the end of the day  it's not a great deal I think.
 

Funnily enough as an exclusive I've had  'not stock' and 'over filtered' rejections and then have seen similar files from non exclusives selling well... but I've not been able to sell them elsewhere.

Pah  istock  is obviously so biased against me 

290
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Discussion about Istock's Seach Engine
« on: February 08, 2008, 03:42 »
If you look at the diamond contributors contributors list you'd find that, mostly, either they don't participate in the forums or they can post some fairly strongly worded complaints. It's the newbies ,wannabees and camp followers that post the woo yays. The same can be said for other sites too.

291
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Well...I am about to give up on Istock...
« on: February 08, 2008, 03:05 »
So the reviewer was spot on :

This file contains artifacting when viewed at full size. This technical issue is commonly created by the quality settings in-camera, in post-processing or in RAWsettings. Artifacting may be the result of other factors such as excessive level adjustments.

And this was in fact incorrect as you MUST have being over compensating by moving sliders etc.

"The camera: 1DMkII + 24-70/2.8L. RAW with minimum of adjustments barely touched in PS. The image didnt need adjustments"

You may have been using a raw converter that you were not familiar with but you ought to have been suspicious if you were having to alter the default settings on a well metered image. I wonder if you had been more open to the reviewers comments in the past whether you'd have been constantly rejected all these times.

And to amplify a point, as for the rest of your folio on photo.net, you will find that files that get heaped with compliments on such site, from other photographers a different beast from stock buyers, do tend to be hyper real over saturated over processed artworks.

Pull back on your processing and take rejections at face value and not third in a list of conspiracy theories!

292
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Well...I am about to give up on Istock...
« on: February 07, 2008, 17:09 »
ale 1969: thesentinel may well be right - and you may be right: so, for God's sake, please just take a crop from the image and show which area exactly contains jaggies.

They are there red arrowed in aramintas post, if you don't see them there then any further discussion is moot.

eta: To me the image looks worse than  a less than 3mp cam from five years ago up-ressed.

293
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Well...I am about to give up on Istock...
« on: February 07, 2008, 16:34 »

2)   I do not think that the image has too many artifacts if any, but most definitely it has issues, and in the end I think that I have botched this one up rather badly. The final result is not what it could be and artifacts is a convenient scapegoat here. I put this vase on the table, plyed with lighting and most of people refer to as artifacts are actually there mostly internal reflections and distortions due to rapidly changing thickness.


I fear with this you have not seen what some of us are, glass is smooth and there are jagged artifacts which just should not be there at 100% percent, period.

294
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Well...I am about to give up on Istock...
« on: February 07, 2008, 12:30 »
I see an even bigger problem if someone dishing out photoshop tutorials thought it was ok

295

#8 The default "Top Rated" photos window showcases the highest MP Index photos for the last 3 days. You can apply different settings for while your browsing or searching, but the settings always go back to 3 days for the first search. This allows new images to be shown to anyone that is searching for the "Top Rated" photos fairly often

#9 The Photo Community concept really works. In my first few days there I have had plenty of feedback on my images that has been entirely useful. Those Swedish photographers that have been on that site from the beginning really know their stuff ! I am starting to see some familiar names that I've seen here on MSG if that's any sign ...

#10 There is member point system that encourages the ranking of your fellow photographers. You also get points for commenting on other's photos. All in all ... the point system is geared towards making MostPhotos an interactive community that works together to QC itself. From what I can tell so far ... this seems to work

#11 "Portfolio Summary" will show you things like you point total, and the distribution that you are receiving from the voting that has been done on your images, and the votes that you have given as well.

Mark



And the result of the above is a set of images akin to those on similar pages of photo.net or photo:sig, which are often far removed from useful saleable commercial stock.

296
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Well...I am about to give up on Istock...
« on: February 06, 2008, 18:15 »
Is that REALLY the best that camera can do?! It looks like it has had life processed out of it.

297
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Considering Closing Account in 2008
« on: January 12, 2008, 19:19 »
Whenever I go to the istockphoto site, I watch the connecting bar at the bottom left of the Firefox screen. It goes to istock, then to google-analytics. Gee, I wonder why? By the way, istock isn't the only site that monitors you.

As a web designer at times I'd say it's pretty stupid NOT to have google analytics on your site.

298
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Considering Closing Account in 2008
« on: January 11, 2008, 17:53 »
Now... the burning question we all want to know.....

Dan.  Why did Istock contact you?  Was it an "exit interview" or are they reading this thread?

Just as an FYI, they would be reading this thread. 

As a matter of full disclosure Dan ought to have also said that this was not the only place he posted, so it may not have been this thread they were reading!

299
Off Topic / Re: Can you recommend a printer for prints on Canvas
« on: December 04, 2007, 08:14 »
I thoroughly recommend, for UK, the oddly named http://www.intelligence-direct.com

300
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Dramatic best match changes...
« on: November 26, 2007, 11:05 »
WOW! Now I get why my sale fell dramatically last week! Monday was a record day for me on IS and the rest for the week, my sales were down 30% from my average. For me 30% is a lot of $$$. Let's hope things pick up again or else I'll be loosing hundreds of $$/month because of this.  :(

Nothing to do with Thanksgiving holiday in the US then?!

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