I know it's not in their overall best interest, but the sites should consider doing payouts below their normal cutoff for a processing fee.  So if their payout is $50 and you request the $42 in your account, you get $37 (they charge you a $5 processing fee).

I don' know about "amateurs", but I do believe they are run by investors whose only interest is in their own profits.  The decisions they make are not based on what is good for the industry, but rather what is good for their own bottom line.  Of course, you could say the same about MOST businesses today.  That doesn't make it right, just reality.

Of course, if people truly have an issue with it, it is their own fault for letting things get this way.  Photographers are just as greedy as those running the sites they despise.  They allow sites to continue doing things that hurt them in the long run because they are more interested in the next check they are gonna get and not about the much lower check later down the road for even more work on their part.

If they were smart, they'd all close down their portfolios on any site which offers subscriptions.  And upload only to those which offer the ability to opt-out of the subscription model.  Microstock sites are only as good as the photographers who submit to them.  Without good photographers, a site will wither and die (or make the changes necessary to attract good photographers).

The "mini-rebellion" at StockXpert is a perfect example of how they can band together to effect positive change.  Sadly, they stopped when they got "most" of what they wanted.  It got to a point where their own greed caused them to cave before getting EVERYTHING they wanted.

So, if you want to blame anyone for the state of things on MS sites, blame the people who continue to contribute despite the changes made that are not in their favor.  As long as they continue to contribute, sites will feel emboldened to continue taking money away from photographers and putting it in their own pockets.  As long as they do it a few dollars at a time so that it's not a massive change, they'll get away with it.

Can anyone point me to some place on line where I can order a detachable key ring?

I bought a new 8 GB USB thumb drive and I want to keep it on my keychain, but I want to be able to detach it rather than having to plug my whole keychain into my computer.

I haven't been able to find anything that is small, however.  Looking for advice.

Thanks for the answer.  I still believe that unless there is an issue with storage space, it does not hurt in any way shape or form to accept every image that has no technical issues or violates your guidelines.

I can understand the need to combat outright image theft, but if I go out and shoot a similar image to the most popular selling image on your site, it's still gonna be different in some fashion and (in my opinion) you'd be robbing your customers and yourself by not allowing it on your site.

But I understand you have to do what you have to do.

Perhaps Keith or Paul can explain the logic for refusing images just because there are a bunch in a given category because I don't understand it...

If an image meets all of your technical standards and guidelines, why reject it at all?

Isn't the goal to get as many choices in front of buyers as possible?  Isn't it likely that a category with no new (or very few) submissions will get stagnant in time?  Aren't designers hungry for new and different images all the time?  Even if that difference is only slight?

I remember reading about a behavioral study done by Penn State a number of years back where they took 360 pictures of the same object, one for each degree in a circle around the object.  Over 2500 students participated in they study.

Over 360 images, they found a fairly even distribution over the 2500+ students.  Although the difference between most images was slight, students still chose a different image for various reasons than the one next to it.

What was very interesting was the experiment was in two parts.  The first part students were just asked to pick their favorite.  71% of the picks were in the first 60 images shown (they got tired or bored of looking).  In the second part, students were required to review all of the images before making their selection and 79% of them changed their selection to images later in the batch (even a few who chose the very last image).

For the first part of the experiment, almost all of the 29% who selected later images were art or artistic related majors and took the time to find what they felt was the right image.

If I can find the link to the article again, I'll post it.

If you have an image that you believe should not have been rejected, do you wait a few weeks or a month and then re-submit?

I had a couple of images rejected because there were supposedly too many in the category.  I waited a few weeks and re-uploaded and submitted them as new images and they got through...

It just goes to show the total lack of consistency with the review process as it is completely at the whim of the individual reviewers.

Easy depends on the software you use and what is available for reference and teaching.

Blender is an outstanding FREE program, but the support for it is considerably lacking compared to commercial packages.  And I couldn't figure out how to do anything useful with it.

Finally, I bought an old version of 3DS Max off eBay along with a book and found a good site with video tutorials.  Then I was able to actually use it.  I was gonna upgrade to the latest version of 3DS Max, but I an AE tutorial I have also has a 3D component to it and showed how to set up Blender to look and act like 3DS Max, so now I'm moving into Blender.

That said, of all the 3D programs I've tried Cinema 4D had "the" easiest interface to learn and the workflow matches AE, so I found it very easy to work in.  Until recently when the new v11 was announced, I was only really unhappy with the render engine, but their new engine was written from scratch and rivals that of dedicated renderers.

In my opinion C4D is easier to learn if you know how to use Adobe apps because they purposely designed the interface and workflow to be "adobe like" to grab that market.

3DS Max is better (at the moment) for realism and has more 3rd Party support (tutorials and such).

I've only used Maya and Lightwave at the local university because I can't afford either.

What will rock is when the Blender team is finished with the plugin to import Poser/Bryce objects/scenes and you can use the free Daz 3D/Bryce (or pay a few bucks for Poser) and have a really good free render engine in Blender.

Cinema 4D has a plugin for bringing Poser models into C4D and you can render them there, if you have C4D.  Same thing with Vue.

If the company puts the funds into an interest bearing account, it can generate quite a bit of additional revenue depending on their overall business model.

I asked about this type of thing at a Dell shareholder meeting a number of years back because Dell does automatic rebates instead of just lowering their price up front.  I was told the extra $200 to $400 per purchase sitting in an interesting bearing account added an additional $10 million in revenue for the company over just lowering the price.

If you are in a crowded room and you accidentally "let one go", does it do any good to deep breath and try to catch it all yourself?  Does the act of breathing it in then expelling it lessen the impact at all?

I guess video isn't very popular on StockXpert yet (I notice they don't do any advertising for it outside of their own site).  I've had my top sellers up there for a couple of weeks and while they get lots and lots of views, no sales.  Most of them have sold several times over on other sites.

Must learn patience...

So you never lock your car or house?

Good luck, mate.

Of course I do, for piece of mind.  But if you think locking your car or house will keep out a determined thief, then you are crazy.

And if you think that a Microstock Agency putting a watermark over your image is going to keep a determined thief from using it, you're even more daft.