(We can probably agree that the age effect likely has less impact on illustrations, where you don't have to worry about things like a model's clothes or computer equipment looking dated.)

Actually, I would disagree with that. Trendy illustration styles go out of fad. I've often wondered about this with the people with small illustration portfolios filled with a trendy style. Will their sales start to vanish as people transition to the next hip style?

Your guess was pretty good. Here's what I actually received after a few days:
"Thank you for your e-mail. That message does not seems to be related with the file requirements itself. You can find this information at http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contents/Images
Please describe in more detail how you are submiting the file so we can review it for you."

That's funny. I think there may be robot overlords that control Fotolia. That really would explain a lot. 

There is Wolverine somewhere in the video, who look like working for Adobe

Wow! Hugh Jackman has really let himself go. 

I often see mention here of 'the good old days', as a relative newbie (15 months in) I'd like to know when was that? What was it like? And what changed?!

I don't know if I was around for all the good old days, but there is definitely more competition. It was definitely easier to sell all your images a few years ago, but I make more now. So, I can't say I want to go back.

I think Fotolia's customer service is constantly working on perfecting their Abbot and Costello "Who's on first?" routine. That said, Fotolia seemed to insinuate that you had opted into something in their response (too vague to know for sure though). How did your portfolio get on there? I saw some people that looked like they had most of their images on there, but I didn't see any of mine.

I hope you can get a clear answer. These partner programs definitely seem a little devious at times, so I feel your suspicion (and pain). I think if Fotolia ever crosses the line too far, I'll be back on that IS exclusive fence. 

Too many subscriptions constantly are killing RPD...

I'm curious to see what happens with this in the future. DT seems to have been caught in limbo by having too few subs to be like SS and too many subs to be like IS. Hopefully, they can move in one direction or the other. That being said, subs were way up for me in March at DT and it was basically tied with my BME.

Sorry, I live in Austin, Texas. If you are on iStock, you may try the Meetups section on their forums. I met up with a few local stockers there for drinks and lunch downtown.

Quote from: cthoman on March 30, 2010, 21:19

I just got the opposite of this. I had a message about a bunch of keywords added. This has never happened to me at DT. Anyone else have this?

Somebody must like you a lot.

It was probably my mom. 

i always wondered the same thing ... everybody is saying vectors pay twice or thrice than photos but what if it takes a week to make a single vector ?

Then it better sell well. 

I think your figure for a good  3d/vector artist fulltimer at �80k is totally pie in the sky. You are probably extrapolating from a small not very old portfolio and not taking into account the level out that will come way before you reach that figure. At some point your % increase in new images per month is going to be way too small to offset the growth in competition from new contributors or new images from existing contributors. You'd be lucky to peak at $80 let alone �80k

Yeah, I wasn't sure why your figure was double for Illustrations either. I mean everybody knows illustrators are twice as awesome as photographers on the awesomesness scale. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we are paid twice as much for being that awesome. 

Files are usually approved/rejected in about a week.

True. That's probably the average of between a day and two weeks. 

Subs are certainly to blame, i can't see any other way for the leechers to grab 1000s of images
from stocks and it can't be a random occurrance that most of the images come from Shutterstock.

I would assume they come from a variety of sources. Saying it is all subs seems short sited. Employees can swipe their company's purchased stock images and style guide images. Credit card fraud probably contributes as well. I assume some of these people use file sharing and just keep accumulating files from a variety of sources. They may not have purchased any of them.

ignoring people is for guys who have no sense of humour and take the internet
way too seriously...
take forums with a grain of salt !

I agree. People are way too serious on here most of the time.