For stock, the lighting will probably get you a rejection - too much is in hard, dark shadow

As far as removing the logo, that may not be enough. John Deere is pretty aggressive in going after infringements
http://www.handmadeology.com/you-have-all-heard-it-my-shop-on-etsy-was-shut-down-for-copyright-infringement/

This is older, but it may still have identifiable or protected elements

Last thing- for stock it's a bit tight - hard to use in a design. More grass in front would be better

That was a long nap

Not sure what that test would be, but there's no information on the site at all about price, license, terms or anything else. If and when they make all of the nuts and bolts information available, I'll have a read.

If you're thinking about having a long term future selling stock (photos? answer might vary a bit depending on your medium or media) I honestly think you'd do better to stay independent.

Long time iStock exclusives are (for the most part) experiencing huge drops in downloads, and in many cases income as well. There is only so long you can put up prices to counter falling downloads and decreasing royalty percentages (you only get 20% on Getty). Not only is iStock not doing well at the moment but Getty is struggling a bit too (you can read up about the two private equity funds who've burdened them with debt as they took massive amounts of money out of the business to pay themselves "dividends")

If you keep selling through Shutterstock and other sites that raise your royalty rate the more you sell, I think you'll do better than gambling that iStock can pull out of its current nosedive.

I'm an indie-exclusive-indie so I did see the really, really good side of iStock exclusivity, but that was then...

I'll give you the opposing point of view from the July sales thread on iStock (I just went to have a look and it is something you should read as you consider exclusivity). Most of the entries are very gloomy, but there is this very upbeat comment from one exclusive:

"Small port, but absolutely thrilled with being a new exclusive. In July 2013, revenues were $1.54 for 4 non-exclusive iStock only sales. In July 2014, revenues were $26.48 for 5 exclusive iStock only sales. It's the same trend for year-to-date. Very inspiring, at least so far. Honestly, I can't believe anyone would question the benefits of exclusivity."

This is a contributor with 385 images and between 300 and 400 sales. If 5 sales a month seems good to you (it isn't) then I guess exclusivity might be for you too

...what do you think? has the business changed much?

Yes, a lot.

In some ways things have improved - I had an $82 license in with my subscription sales and on demand sales from Shutterstock today. I wouldn't have had that when I started with them in 2004 That was my entire September earnings from them in 2005.

When I started with 123rf I had to snail mail a paper contract to Inmagine and they made my account for me because things were just getting started for them. All they did then were subscriptions.

Fotolia was a promising newbie in 2005 - they really woke everyone up to the importance of offering a site in local languages and currencies. Possibly everyone would have figured that out in time, but the other sites followed them into localizaing their offerings. They have descended into a thuggish and unethical pit.

iStock improved a ton - I viewed 2010 as a banner year up until Sept of that year - and then turned to the dark side and is now worse - in terms of how things are for independent contributors than they were when I joined them. For so long they were the leader and they're now just a mess.

Dreamstime is just the little engine that couldn't. They (and CanStock) have been around since 2004 and neither of them could ever really get a good market position for themselves. They have a pricing system that makes iStock look simple and that I would think is just very confusing for credit (versus subscription buyers). They sold us subscriptions with the promise that it would earn more for higher level images and then backed away from that. They've cut our percentages drastically from the original 50% and none of that has been able to vault the agency into major player status.

Personally, my images are a ton better than they were when I started.

The agencies used to be more attentive to contributor concerns when they were newer and smaller and needed us more. The extent to which they have exploited their success to grab a larger share of the pie for themselves (and their private equity backers) is a real lesson in unfair trade.

Some of the agencies that were around in the early years have folded - Gimmestock, Albumo, Lucky Oliver, Snap Village, StockXpert, Pocketstock.... Some of them (like Albumo) not in the least bit lamented. Lots and lots never get off the ground, probably because they were just chasing a money maker versus had any real interest in building and running an agency.

It's hard to remember that once upon a time iStock, Dreamstime and CanStock were innovators.

So things are both better and worse than they were

Mostly agree, but GL and Crestock are way worse.

Sorry, I forgot about GL Stock - they are worse (although very fair when they do sell; 52% and decent prices)

I've never been with Crestock, so I have no idea (but I've not heard anything good about them recently)

It's good to hear how people are doing with new sites - thanks for posting.

Shame you can't be featured photographer though - you have images in your gallery

downloads are 56% down from July 2013 and money 40% down. The month isn't over, but I've just been seeing one or two sales each weekday this month, which means effectively it doesn't matter unless there's a few ELs in the next couple of days.

The dropping download numbers are bothersome in that it suggests customers are moving elsewhere (obviously it could mean that it's just my files that no longer sell). By comparison, SS's downloads are roughly the same this as July 2013 ($$ are lower because of fewer ELs and SODs) and 123rf's are up 30% so it's not an overall fall across the board.

... But you can't have buyers looking at the same images for ten years or you'll start losing sales altogether.

That's true, but you can easily have a few alternatives to Best Match - which should, IMO, be heavily keyword weighted.

You can have Most Downloaded and Popular - where the former is absolute downloads and the latter some downloads per month/week/quarter. You could name popular Hot, or Trending or some such.

MyFonts has Hot New Fonts and Best Sellers - I think both are useful and other than arguing about which should be the default, I don't see any reason the buyer shouldn't have a range of sort options (including, at agencies with multiple pricing, price).

I tried to use this (Chrome & Firefox, Mac) and couldn't get anything to display - clicking the Go button didn't produce anything (or appear to be trying to access anything - no status messages or Connecting...).

I tried one or two keywords, different sites from the dropdown list and thumbs as well as Gallery.

People ignored micro stock for a long time because it was small and new - there wasn't a lot of money at stake. Lawyers come calling more when the money is there

There is no "we're new" free pass now as crowd sourced content - the maker movement - is over a decade old. New entrants learn from the mistakes of the pioneers

I'm not so much opposing Mike as putting another viewpoint. He's not a photographer and I'm not an illustrator. We both have something to add to the discussion

If you were to build a Pinto now, you couldn't defend yourself against the lawsuits over gas tanks exploding by saying you didn't know. You need to get up to speed with the state of the business now, not start from zero each time

I care about the business as a whole, not just what I do, because if I invest time and energy to get my work there, that can be for naught if the business is shuttered over legal issues. Not to mention that I think things like this will deter business customers. They'll worry about the legal safety of licensing there

Thanks - I see it now I scroll down

I have a 27" monitor and the main image fills that. It never even occurred to me to scroll down!

In the "It's all about you" section, clicking on a number of the icons produces just a name and "This gallery is empty". Doesn't look so good, IMO.

I would hope for photographs from a featured photographer - I guess the newbie Mr. Locke has to stop being so lazy and create something

I just saw that Sean is their "featured photographer" - with 0 files 

Where do you see a featured photographer? I just went to the site and couldn't find anything - I don't have an account, so is it something you have to be logged in to see?