So I'm glad that 123rf has posted the earnings chart here and explained how this new credit bundle works. I'm no longer concerned that my rate is below the level I have attained, but I do have other questions/issues:

1. For the purpose of calculating our 12 month credit total, how many virtual credits does this new download pack count for? Subscriptions count for 1, but 123rf makes much more money per image via a download pack than via a subscription, so I think contributors should be credited for more than one as well

http://www.123rf.com/contrib_structure.php

If someone purchased an XXL image of mine via credits, however heavily discounted, I made 6 credits for the purpose of future royalty calculations and minimum $1.08 royalty. With these new download packs, I make 1 credit for royalty purposes and 37 cents. That's a 65% reduction in earnings and an 83% reduction in credit for future royalties.

It doesn't take a math genius to see that I'll soon be dropping down the royalty levels if these download packs take off.

2. Is the earnings chart per download pack posted anywhere on the site? I don't see it in the link above where subscription royalties are posted. We shouldn't have to ask to have our earnings charts updated as soon as new products are introduced.

3. Why were contributors not notified of this new product? You have the ability to alert us to things on login, there's a blog, you could send out e-mail... The only conclusion I can draw is that you knew we wouldn't like it and were hoping we might not notice. That's just not acceptable.

4. What is the smallest number of images a buyer can purchase with a download pack? What number of images, and what expiration period, get the buyer the lowest price?

You've posted two options ($139 a month or $1,390 a year) on the site but there are clearly more options given the royalty chart you provided.

At the lowest price, working back from what contributors are paid, a buyer can purchase an XXL image or vector for 82.2 cents! That buyer price is below my current royalty floor ($1.08) for a 6 credit XXL sale.

Given a one year expiration, why would any large, regular buyer purchase credits after their current bundle runs out? Video, EVO (but if Sean's experience with EVO is any guide, that's not a big seller) & TIFF are the only things you'd need credits for. I don't sell two of those and the TIFF purchases are very few and far between.

So this looks to me like a massive price cut for buyers and for contributors a path to a drastically lower future royalty level.

Is there any "good news" I'm missing is this train wreck?

I think the situation is a little more complex than asking for more money - or a higher percentage. If you don't consider other factors - primarily the buyer's price, but also investment in the site, marketing and growing buyer services - you end up with a situation like Dreamstime where the amount you earn per download goes up but the downloads go down and you end up with a similar amount of money each month just distributed differently.

I think that agencies looking for opportunities to charge more for certain services - versus just upping the price for everything - could bring us all additional income.

There's a big if - if they share the new revenue with us equitably. Part of the problem in our current setup is that agencies are close to opaque in disclosing terms and royalty rates. Shutterstock is exhibit A in this with the lack of details about their various higher priced licensing options - I like that I earn more, but I don't like that I haven't a clue what is being sold (I complained about this at the time, but SS just says that these vary or cite bogus privacy concerns). Another example is that extended licenses are sold at multiple prices but we get a flat rate regardless of price, thus reducing our percentage of the total on the higher priced options.

The only other comment is that withholding content - certain types or all new - or removing content is the only way to get agency attention. They won't offer anything or deal more favorably with contributors unless they aren't getting something they want.

And 50% of nothing (or next-to-nothing) is still an uninteresting result.

I already contacted the support team about the failure on my desktop browser. Chrome, Safari and Firefox all failed. Flash (14) is installed, JavaScript enabled. Mac OSX 10.9.3. There are no script blockers or ad blockers installed. Popups are blocked but I don't see the indication that any popups have been blocked trying to access this.

I also tried a PC (Windows 8.1) with IE, Firefox and Chrome. All fail to connect. The only additional information Firefox provided was that it was first connecting to app.topspin.net and then it timed out trying to connect to labs.topsin.net

The behavior is that you see "Connecting..." in the status bar for an exceedingly long time and then an error that it couldn't connect to labs.topspin.net

Comcast broadband is our internet connection - it's fast (in other words I'm not trying this on dialup or on a ropey connection).

The systems in question are connecting all the time with all sorts of other sites without problems. I honestly think the problem is something TopSpin's end

I just checked the rest of today's downloads and I have a third new number for a "subscription" download:

0.374

That's not my regular subscription (45%) royalty of 0.324, or the number Anglee posted, or the number I got on July 3 that they corrected, or the 0.522 from a sub on July 9th!

It's also not 45% of any of the posted download pack prices. What on earth is going on with these "subscription" amounts?

Support can't or won't reply to me (I haven't received anything since the explanation that 0.401 was the correct sub royalty for a download pack).

We need to be paid the earned percentage on these sales and know just how low they're discounting - i.e. does it go lower than one year for 1200 downloads at $1,390?

The fact that they corrected the first one that I happened to notice, plus the conflicting information given so far does not fill me with confidence.

These are my files and I believe I have a right to know how and for how much they are being sold.
 

This doesn't explain anything!  None of those numbers match the two amounts I have received

I did write already

These payouts are a total ripoff and not at the percentages shown given the price the buyer pays

ETA: some comparisons of prices and royalties

These download packs include images up to XXL (normally 6 credits) and EPS (10 credits).

At the lowest rates for credit sales  (our past guarantee was that 40 cents per credit was the lowest for royalty calculations) at 45% (level 4) that would mean:

$1.08 royalty for XXL and $1.80 for EPS

Using the pricing available on the site, if I were to buy 7200 credits (enough to buy 1200 XXL images) I'd pay $5,140.80, or 71 cents a credit. That would mean royalties of

$1.92 for XXL and $3.19 for EPS

Of course I don't know why I'd buy 7200 credits when I can buy a download pack for $1,390 - why pay over 3.6 times as much? The one year expiration is the same for both.

Even if I received 45% of what the buyer paid for these packs, I'd get 62.5 cents for the monthly pack and 52.1 cents for the annual pack - not 37 cents

I have so far see two of these sales. I'm going to monitor them because it seems to me that the pricing is attractive and the cut in royalties - once again; I'm not forgetting the cut from 50% to 45% - is an utterly unjustifiable action.

I will consider pulling my portfolio over this - good income or no (and 123rf is a good earner). I am so sick of scummy, underhanded tactics where agencies just take more for themselves without (a) telling us up front and (b) giving us anything in return (those doubled sales promises from the time of the introduction of the rolling 12 month royalty rate scheme ring rather hollow).

Re saturation, check the image now - I had forgotten to embed the sRGB profile into the JPEG I made for the web and it looked awful in browsers other than Safari. Sorry about that.

I can't get my sensor completely clean so I use Lightroom or Photoshop to deal with them. You have to get used to looking over your image for these sorts of details if you want to avoid rejections. It does get easier to spot them with practice . If you use Photoshop you can add a curves adjustment layer set to Hard Light blending mode that makes them stand out really clearly. Lightroom 5 has a tool to help visualize them but it's not that great IMO.

It's not hard to fix perspective in Photoshop or Lightroom if you didn't use a tilt shift lens. You'll lose some of the image (for some you can clone in corners to fill, depending on the subject matter).

If you're going to do much processing, RAW is the way to go, IMO, especially when shooting in difficult light. You'll get a variety of strong views on this, but I think in controlled light - studio - JPEG works fine and it's faster. With RAW and 16 bit processing you have a lot more leeway to process a shot and get a clean JEPG out the other end. When you do shoot JPEG, you need to avoid the camera doing too much processing (sharpening, noise reduction, etc.). I would always do noise reduction in Photoshop so I can mask a layer and only modify those darker areas of the image that need it.

As far as whether a certain shutter speed is fast enough to avoid camera shake, I'm sure you've read the general rules and know that it depends, in some cases on you and how stead you can be. Up a ladder might mean some ladder movement even if you're rock steady.

When I look at the Delta Queen image I see the sternwheeler looking mostly focused but a bit soft. The bridge on the left looks as if someone shook it (not smoothly out of focus), all the way back to where there are buildings that look sharp. Without a tilt-shift lens I don't get (visually) what's in focus and what's not. It just looks wrong given that this isn't a tilt shift lens - and even given the extreme aperture.

For stock, I'm guessing you'll do better at f/2.8 or higher - just having a little bit more that's really sharp while still giving you plenty of background blur

And here's a tutorial on using Curves in Photoshop which has some good examples of images that need a little improvement in contrast (which also improves the colors). Look at the before and after images for examples

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photoshop-curves.htm

I was a bit puzzled by the need to enter my e-mail address when following Scott's link, so I went back to the submit home page and clicked on that link (thinking that if I were already logged in I wouldn't have to do that).

Still got the e-mail request, so I filled it in and then I get an e-mail with a link to "Confirm & Download" with the following text:

"By clicking "Confirm & Download", you agree to the terms of this promotion and to receive future email updates from Shutterstock.

Add [email protected] to your address book to ensure delivery.

If you download this guide, we may send you promotional or educational materials via email in the future. We will never sell or give your email address to a third party. If you do not want to receive future email from us, you may unsubscribe by using the link provided in email you receive from Shutterstock."

The download failed because I couldn't connect to labs.topspin.net. Tried twice. Assuming this e-mail is legit, I guess it's some marketing company Shutterstock has engaged?

I'm happy to receive e-mails from Shutterstock but I am leery of signing up for some other "promotional" materials. I am certainly not adding anything to my address book when I have no idea who the outfit is.

I google topspin and get this site

http://www.topspinmedia.com/

Logo is the same as in the e-mail - it says "Software for Musicians" on its home page.

Those kinds of toys are often trademarked, although some are made cheaply by the bazillions. Several of the agencies err on the side of caution (as they don't want to spend time researching each product in a shot) and reject.

In all honesty (I know you didn't ask about this) the lighting isn't the best and even if you cloned out the face, I'd expect Shutterstock, for example, would reject it for lighting.

I don't yet have an answer from support, but I had a download this morning in the subscription column with a royalty of 52.2 cents.

At a guess, I'd say this might be for the $1.39 sale (100 images a month for $139) and perhaps the 40.1 cents from July 3 was the volume pack (1200 images a year for $1390)

Even if this is right, that's still 37.5% and 34.6%, not the 45% I should be receiving.

Have you reported this to iStock? I assume it's Numbuzz2000 with the copies because it's a new (June 2014) account and Yuriy Panyukov has been with 123rf since 2007 and Irochka with Dreamstime since 2006

And yet more - a simple Google search on the iStock thumbnail easily found this

http://www.123rf.com/photo_13896240_christmas-eve.html
from this on iStock
http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/christmas-eve-42547550?st=fc929af

They really need to vet new portfolios better - it would be the most unusual new contributor to have all of this work

I sent a note to support about this, saying they need to fix this and pay me the 45% I'm owed on these sales, and that they can't start calling things subscriptions when they aren't just to cut payments to us.

I'll post here when I get an answer.

aciculum isn't in the CV (I checked by editing one of my own images).

If you look at the images with that keyword, the oldest is from 2002 and the newest from June - in other words it isn't some ancient or recent temporary snafu that caused it (or an addition/subtraction from the CV as there are a couple of new images with the keyword and they have no other keywords in common

http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/shipyards-and-crane-42763232?st=6aff840

http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/ritratto-bimba-bagnetto-42863346?st=19a107e

Not sure about the copying as here's an illustration uploaded in June to both iStock and Shutterstock and it has the keyword

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-197528900/stock-vector-greeting-card-snail-with-butterflies.html
http://www.istockphoto.com/vector/snail-with-butterflies-42488614?st=8b90a2b

Could there be some third party keywording tool that's adding this word (which I had never heard prior to this thread?)