One of these days some manufacturer will wake up and invite stock photogs to shoot their stuff with logos just for the free advertising!

fred

Maybe they are trying to limit the competition for their "Infinity" collection!!

I am not sure about the RPI numbers.  Is there a time component in the computation?   Without that it would seem the site that had the pictures longer would always come out on top.  Is that right?

fred

...
This is the problem Mostphotos are struggeling with.   If you can solve it, let them know

I don't know why sites bother with reviewing.  Just approve based on whether the image was approved by DT or SS or IS.  Their reviewers already have a good track record and are competent - contributor complaints are about the images they reject not the ones they approve.

The money saved on paying reviewers could go to marketing and/or increased commissions.  Time lag might be a problem I guess.

fred

Quote from: Fred on August 06, 2008, 00:53

... I am glad I didn't go to the trouble of downsizing everything to 4MP before uploading to them.  Could pay off a bit now.

c h e e r s
fred

Why would that pay off??

All images in SS have a SMALL/MEDIUM/LARGE/SUPER format, regardless of the original size.

In my case I always downsize to 3 or 4MP, so my large version of the image is 3 or 4MP, and this will most likely result in having the buyer buying the large version, hence making me more money 

Guess I misunderstood a previous thread where everyone was considering downsizing to minimums for subscription sites so that they did not give away the larger size images. 

This is good news though - lets me downsize to improve quality without losing the bigger sales.

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: dgilder on August 05, 2008, 19:13

Yeah, SS takes a bigger cut on those, but they also have to pay for a whole new advertising campaign for it, .....

The problem is that none of us are making any extra profit when a customer moves from one agency to another, since most of us are represented at all the major agencies anyway. So all the money spent on advertising will make a difference for each agency, but for us, it's just an unnecessary cost.

Well, it would be kind of silly for SS to take that into consideration :-) - but I am glad I didn't go to the trouble of downsizing everything to 4MP before uploading to them.  Could pay off a bit now.

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: Seren on July 20, 2008, 08:17

Quote from: daintee on July 19, 2008, 22:35

For example, in the past they accepted several animal photos that I know were horribly overexposed, and people were buying them for whatever reason (shortage of such pics, maybe).

You shouldn't have uploaded these shots in the first place.  If YOU thought they were bad, then they didn't even pass YOUR quality control.

The entire photo wasn't awful; the lighting could have been better.  One photo I'm thinking of in particular is one of my most viewed and downloaded on several sites.  So it has value to someone--to a lot of someones in fact!

Unable to locate any animal images in your BigStock portfolio that had any DLs.  Did you pull them off?  fred 

Quote from: Fred on July 15, 2008, 06:01

Well, my rejection rate at FT has soared over the last few months also but I look at this a different way.  What I am interested in is sell through rate - i.e. what percentage of my images get sold once they are approved.  In this category FT is my number 2 agency trailing only SS.

I have found that the agencies that sell my stuff the best are the ones that reject the most and to me that is the bottom line.

I think your mistake is in assuming that these two things - high rejection rate and high sales - are in any way related.

If you had asked me 2, 4, 8 or 12 months ago, I'd have told you that Fotolia was a doing really well - regularly one of the top 3 earners and sometimes challenging the two big dogs for the #1 spot.

In the last month, some folks have reported stellar sales at FT and I've seen the bottom drop out of sales there. They've changed something in the default search and as is typically the case, there are winners and losers.

Be happy your sales are great, but don't assume that it'll stay that way. Next spin of the wheel when they tweak the search engine and your sales might drop.

I don't know how long you've been selling through the micros or how many sites you sell through, but about the only constant is change (and SS being in the top 3 earners).

Guilty as charged! I should have explained that this was a general observation that seemed to be a logical fit.  However, it is the result of the analysis of far to small a sample to be have any great validity.

I have been submitting to MS for about 18 months but still only have portfolios averaging about 125 images on 5 sites so no great depth of specialized experience with the trade.

That said though, it would seem to me that the only way to really judge the quality of reviewers is the submitters' sell through rates.  SS seems to be the best performer here from most of the numbers I have seen for this stat.  I think that can be partly explained by the quality of their reviewers but the fact that it is a subscription only site probably also has great significance. 

Would be interested in hearing of others experience regarding reviewer quality vis-a-vis sell through rate.  Results from a larger sample might be revealing.

c h e e r s
fred

oops!

Quote from: Susan S. on July 08, 2008, 04:17

I think these people have come up before on istock - they buy the correct extended licence for prints (if they are the one's I'm thinking of) and are legit.

Here's the thread on it:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=63570&page=1

Is it really legit to resell images though? If it is then there is a hole in the agreement with iS.

I do not believe they are selling the image - as such - they sell artwork that uses the image.  The IS thread that was posted is pretty clear that this is what an EL is for so that should not be a problem as long as they purchase an EL.  I'd let Ansel Adams work out his problems with the site on his own - not a real fan of copyrights attaching much past the life of the artist. 

What you might want to look at is what kind of protection is required by the EL holder.  The large, unwatermarked thumbnails could be a problem, but it would depend on what the EL holder's responsbility for protecting the work is.

fred

Well 123RF was the only one to refuse this one -- they wanted a property release!!



http://69.90.174.246/photos/display_pic_with_logo/97749/97749,1214942515,2.jpg

Yeah I just had a bunch rejected for that reason also. What burns me is when they reject something for needing a model release (SS didn't need one) and then when you resubmit with a release they reject for Lighting/Composition.  Probably need to send a site mail on this one!

fred