Quote from: Perry on September 28, 2011, 23:50
RT, I'm sure some agency soon discovers a way to sell images for $1000 a pop. And then they could give 1% = $10 to you and you would be happy because "it's more than I get at IS" and not at all bothered that you have financed the CEO's new Mercedes?

Well now you're being silly but in answer to your question yes and no - No if it's to fund the Mercedes. Yes if they spent over $900 of that commission in marketing every picture buyer in the world.
But on the same note I presume you'd be happy getting 50% commission on a site that sells your images at 5c each?

Quote from: gostwyck on September 29, 2011, 00:23
Isn't portfolio-income-per-month the only real measure? 'Like for like' does not take account of volume. Too many people fall into the naive "like for like" trap.

I was comparing SS and iS both of which have the volume, therefore I took that "as read", but given a choice I'd take the volume of sales I get on SS each day with the commission rates I get at iS.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 29, 2011, 08:57
I'm not sure how you work that out. It is almost $4 per sale minimum for SS, I seem to get between 8c and about $3.20 on iStock, averaging something like $1.50. $4 looks bigger to me.

You've made the mistake of taking all image sizes into account for your 8c - $3.20 (although that's strange because I get $4.80-$5.20 for an XL on iS). This new scheme at SS is for 'high-res' images,by which I presume they mean at least XL, if it's XXL they it's even less. Oh and by the figures they've shown so far if a buyer takes up the 25 for $229 deal then your 30% commission equates to $2.75. (Edited to add - for many it will be less than $2.75 because it's a sliding scale from 20%-30% based on lifetime earnings.)


People have and will 'wooyay' about this latest deal from Shutterstock, no doubt the same people will be moaning like hell when iStock drop our commissions even further to match it. I don't pay my bills with percentages I pay them with money, and the actual monetary figure is the only thing that interests me.

Quote from: Perry on September 28, 2011, 23:18
The Royalties could be better, but 30% is MUCH more than 17% I get at IS

Percentages mean nothing, what you should be looking at is the actual $ amount you receive on a like for like basis, as happy as I am that Shutterstock are offering this, for the same size image download I personally would still get more in commission at iS for the same size image download than I would under this new SS scheme. Obviously it's going to be different on a per contributor basis.

Too many people on this forum fall into the naive "percentages" trap, you're licensing your images on these agencies for a financial return.

Quote from: lisafx on September 26, 2011, 19:29
Wow.  So this is the best match "for the foreseeable future" according to Lobo?

Is he privy to that sort of information? I always got the impression he was just a forum moderator.

Quote from: lisafx on September 26, 2011, 19:29
And by that I mean less than half the new crappy normal, not the ideal normal of a year or so ago. 

Quote from: azurelaroux on September 27, 2011, 12:42
According to the email Photolibrary is closing. All content will be moved to either Thinkstock, Photos.com or Jupiterimages. There's no information as to how royalties will be paid or at what percentage. If your on Zoonar you can click "partner managerment" and select Photolibrary to see what the old terms were.

Which email, if you're referring to the one 'Eco' has posted above it's from Zoonar and like I said it mentions that the Zoonar content on Photolibrary will be moved to Thinkstock, where have you got the information that ALL Photolibrary content will be moved to Thinkstock, because it doesn't mention anything of the sort in that email?

Photolibrary contains many different collections at different price points, I haven't seen anything anywhere that suggests all of these will be moved to the Getty Thinkstock collection. And I can guarantee you there'd be a lot of macro photographers up in arms if they found their macro priced photos being sold at micro subscription prices, not to mention a lot of Photolibrary content is RM.

Quote from: Eco on September 26, 2011, 23:18
You will probably be pleased to hear that we have now negotiated a partner contract with Getty Images. We can now offer you to transfer directly all the pictures which Zoonar has already activated for Photolibrary to the worldwide Getty market. The pictures will then be loaded to Thinkstock, Photos.com, and Jupiterimages and be sold via the Getty subscriptions. This way you can receive very high turnover rates. That's why we recommend you to accept the distribution via Getty Images. It will pay off for you!

I wasn't with Zooner but do/did have some photos on sale at Photolibrary.

I think the title of this thread may be a bit misleading, from the statement you posted and specifically the section I've copied here it mentions that 'Zoonar' content that was with Photolibrary can/will be moved to Thinkstock etc, it doesn't say that all Photolibrary content will be moved to Thinkstock.

That may well happen in the future but it's not what is being said here.

Quote from: Mr. Stock on September 24, 2011, 14:37
I cant remember the specifics, but a there was an image sold on Alamy for something like $20,000. It was an image of a fish market (if my memory serves me correctly) just a snap shot, it wasn't any production image or a famous photographer. I wish I could find the forum post of this but I cant even remember which forum it was on, I read so many and this was a good four or five years ago but it was legit. There was a lot of hoopla over it at the time.

Yes you're correct, it sold to a large merchant bank in the US, there was also a tin of tuna that sold for a lot (search Alamy for 'tin of tuna' and you'll see that loads of desperados uploaded their own shots after that sale, some people are so dumb!), and last year a terrible photo of Windsor castle with a blown out sky sold for thousands.

Quote from: AridOcean on September 24, 2011, 10:38
I am out, too.

And I asked for a confirmation, because in the past some of my emails went unnoticed...!

I got an instant acknowledgement reply email, I've kept that as proof.

Quote from: borg on September 24, 2011, 12:31
"Opt-out e-mails must be time-stamped before 11:59 pm (PST), October 21, 2011."

What?

I can't opt out any more?

Ummm... It's September you still have just under a month to opt out 

I'd love to find a company that could do decent post editing from RAW files, as yet I've not found one with high enough quality for my needs.

I sent a couple to Indian companies to test their clipping paths, the results were pathetic, the clipping paths weren't drawn using the pen tool they were done using the magic wand and refine, that's not a clipping path it's a selection.

The really annoying thing in all of this is that, apart from iStock, all the microstock sites will quite happily accept a file with clipping path used in the description and keywords without actually checking whether it's a proper clipping path or one of these sub standard "magic wand paths"

Quote from: Perry on September 24, 2011, 10:39
At micro sites this image would still be rejected because its "low commercial value"...

On most it would, iStock had loads which is why the client chose to use them. This is however a perfect example of the difference in using reviewers that know the industry and those with no experience that just follow a simple set of rules.

We actually bought a couple from a user on iStock who also has their portfolio on Dreamstime (as a contributor myself I tried to favour the better commission paying site) , surprise surprise the one the client wanted wasn't in their DT portfolio - victim of the naive "too similar" policy I guess.

Opted out.

Ridiculous commission rates.

I'm working on a commercial job at the moment where we've bought a number of stock images like these (not we didn't buy yours) because the company makes a product that's used in commercial buildings and the result of their product is reduced energy and hence is kind to the environment, we needed shots of office buildings with trees in the image and a space to drop their product and some copy, so you see unknowingly you've created what could be (and obviously is) a very commercially viable image.

With an all time low commission of 0.10c if the buyer downloads all their allocation for the day.

Quote from: ShadySue on September 23, 2011, 12:52
I'm looking for a job where I don't need to get out of bed until noon and can go home at 3 p.m.
Please don't ask me to do anything when I'm there.

http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lords-appointment/

Quote from: aeonf on September 23, 2011, 12:02
When an inspector approves a file, the also assign a "rating" from 1 to 5 to the file (not to be mixed up with the regular "user rating" which don't affect anything).
This rating has a great affect on best match placement.

I've always had the upmost respect for iStock inspectors, they are the hardest working, highest skilled and nicest bunch of people you could ever want to meet 

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on September 23, 2011, 10:15
Firstly. Please show a good tone in this thread. I know this is a forum, but don't drag this thread down to the lowest level. You may feel this is a threat or that somebody is getting chances you never got, but again.... How many educational programs for young people offer them three years of photography education, traveling the world and to get paid while doing it...? This is unique and it deserves to be acknowledged.

Yuri with all due respect it's not an 'educational' programme, unless I and others have completely misunderstood it and you're not making a penny from any of this?

Plus to be honest the only unique part is that you're doing it on a grand scale, there are thousands of photographers assistants around the world that get 'educated' in the 'real world' whilst being paid a low wage, and of course the photographer makes money from their services.

I certainly don't feel threatened and I don't think you're giving anybody any chances that others couldn't have got, I admire what you're doing from a business perspective but unless you prove otherwise please don't make out it's anything different or special other than a business venture for which I wish you the best of luck.

Quote from: oxman on September 22, 2011, 23:11
For instance, if someone is selling many images and maxing out their uploads, will the system assign that contributor preferential algorithms in regards to file placement, faster inspections, foot massage etc?

You have more faith in the iS programmers than I do   

Quote from: Microbius on September 23, 2011, 09:06
Anyone else have experience with them?

Yes, they don't want anything that's on micro sites but will take stuff that's on equivalent non-exclusive macro sites like Alamy, Age etc. Having said that I haven't uploaded there in years, sales are few and very far between as a direct contributor, however I do sell more through a distributor with them.

My advice to the OP - go with a distributor or pick one of the majors to send your work direct.

Quote from: atramos on September 23, 2011, 04:59
Where is the best macro/micro-stock site where I can simply "dump" all these images without having to organize them, and let the potential buyers sort through them?

Well you could 'dump' them all on Shutterstock and many people do each month, but if that's how you value your work I don't think you're going to make any real money, the days of just dumping stuff on micro or macro sites are long over.

Quote from: RT on September 22, 2011, 16:00
[....] I'm guessing Yuri is moving into editorial stock, for which the only real skill you need is being able to be somewhere with a camera, [....]

Quote from: ann on September 23, 2011, 03:44
You were joking, right?

No I wasn't joking - His advert mentions they'll be travelling around the world. There's a lot of money to be made from editorial stock, just read the Alamy forums there's one guy who's got 65k images and a look into his portfolio reveals he has no photographic skills whatsoever, seriously he walks down the street somehwhere with the thing on motor drive and submits the lot, and he's not alone, there's loads of folks there who have portfolios full of nothing more than snap shots, if you read their posts you'd think they were some of the worlds best photographers but they've no talent at all, yet each month they post how much they've made. So my guess is that Yuri's seen the potential to send these 'students' off on their travels, then hook them up with some models and you've got 10-15 people shooting model released editorial travel shots with Yuris compositional training (and he's very good at composition) and Seans photographic training, get them to sign away the copyright and he's onto a winner IMO - good for him.

Like I say that's my guess, oh and I wasn't trying to insult editorial photographers as a whole, quality always shines through just as in commercial stock.

I think the reality TV thing is just a spin off, Yuri is a master in the art of selling himself and I expect he's sold the idea to a TV company after he came up with the student thing, not the other way round.

Whatever your personal opinion of Yuri and his work nobody can deny the guy is certainly the worlds most successful 'self promoter' even when he doesn't deliberately self promote, and I admire him for that, I wish I had half the marketing skills he has.

10-15 photographers travelling around the world - I'm guessing Yuri is moving into editorial stock, for which the only real skill you need is being able to be somewhere with a camera, I'm sure they'll get some training about the basics of photography, they'll certainly get educated in giving away copyright 

Quote from: lisafx on September 21, 2011, 17:23
No complaints from me then. 

I'll remind you of this in a few months when the next 'image sleuth' thread appears about a contributor with a portfolio full of other folks images 

You know one way to do it is book a model through an agency for a commercial job, then when they're there ask them if they're interested in doing some stock work in the future, you may come up against the old adage of "my agency tells me not to do stock because it devalues my chances of future work" when you explain to them that the reasons agencies tell them that is nothing to do with any future work appeal but more to do with agencies being fully aware that even models aren't stupid and that they'll go direct to the photographer for future work and the agency loses out on commission. I've got four models I use regularly all recruited through this method.

The vast majority of decent agency models are self employed and will take any work they can get, I agree with what most people have said about MM, I get lots of contact from models from the private sites and generally speaking they all seem to think they're experienced because they've done a topless shoot for one of the lads mags - talk about devaluing your future modelling chances!

As for Yuri, don't worry about what he does, just do what works for you.

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on September 20, 2011, 18:46
The fact that they only host about 6000 of my 65000 images makes them a rather small playing in my financial monthly statement, so as a business partner (offer, etc.) I really have very little to do with them.

Yuri

Have you considered pulling your portfolio from there and encouraging your regular buyers to visit a site where you have all your portfolio, tricky one to gauge but it may make more financial sense, it's certainly something I'd consider if I did the level of self marketing your company does.

I haven't noticed as drastic a drop in sales on iStock that you and others have I'm glad to say, but what I have noticed is the increase in sales at SS which, like you, concerns me because of their low commission rates.

There is no doubt, no matter what everyone's individual circumstances, that iStock is not the company it was, could or should have been.

Haven't noticed any influx of sales there recently, and if it wasn't for the fact I don't have to lift a finger to upload there I'd have dropped them ages ago - which is exactly what I'm thinking of doing with Stockfresh.