another factor that warps any caluclation is figuring the lifetime of an image -  my microstock portfolio includes many scanned slides that previously were part of getty and corbis collections from mid 70's to late 90's and now sell as MS

I am kinda curious, though, about how he managed to hang his camera above the restaurant table like that. Assuming he didn't have a ladder he could put up in that situation, do you think it was taken with a P&S or phone camera?

 

if your camera has a tiltable display, just stand on a chair, hold the camera at arm's length,  and compose - if no tilt screen, skip the composition step

By  the  way.  How  well  do  editorials  sell  at  123rf?

hard to tell, most agencies dont make it easy to track, and everyone's portfolio content will vary

for me, my editorials outperfrom RF even though they're less than 50% of my RF numbers

on SS my editorials continue to sell - that is, the editorials they accepted before they changed the rules and required that every editorial be 'newsworthy'

The whole 'ignore' thing is weird to me.  You see a post, write a reply, but may be just wasting your time because the poster is 'ignoring' you - no way to even find out.  Maybe you check back over the next couple of days, expecting some response, and when you never get it, you think maybe you were ignored, but can't be sure.

If you can't handle all the posts in a forum, don't read them - or better yet don't participate at all.  In my mind  the word "forum" means  "a place where everyone gets heard".  Not a place where you go to hear just the people you like or agree with, and walk out when the others are speaking.

If we're concerned about rudeness, I think this  passive-aggressive thing of secretly 'ignoring' people so you don't even see their specific replies to your posts, without letting them even know,  - is totally rude in itself.  And IMHO this so-called feature has no place in a public internet forum.  Call me old-school, or anything you want, actually - and I'll see it because I guarantee I don't have you on 'ignore'.

Let's see if my 'ignored by' count goes up after this post.

i agree with all you say, but i still use the ignore to block out trolls and others that just waste my time.  if an ignored does happen to respond to my postings, i always do read that, but it's simpler to be able to just bypass some of the spam. 

back in the BBS days of the early 80s we included a sysmin feature that set a twit filter for particularly obnoxious users - unlike kill filters,  they could post, but no one could see the posts.  this was only used for malicious and other vicious speech, never because of opinions,  or views

Quote from: lagereek on April 04, 2012, 05:35

Yes!  there is no doubt, ODs and ELs, are more then plenty and in my books they represent a hell of a lot more revenue then subs.

So EVERYONE makes their money from EL's and OD's ......or just a select few?  Anyway, I can't stand the thought of selling anything for peanuts so I don't. That's the path I have chosen.

i completely support your position and encourage the rest of my competitors to follow your example

Please refer our "Property Release" article for better understanding of Why and When a Property Release is needed.

If you are in doubt of Property Release rejection, please email [email protected] and we will recheck and explain to you.
 

as i noted earlier, i understand your rules but think they're overly exclusive

eg
===Any Exterior / Interior of properties that is individually owned or by an Organization.
 
   so, basically, no images taken in any city or village in the world; and for interiors, not even images that are generic - eg, a glass of beer in a bistro, a staircase,






==========Places that require an entrance fee (eg ; Museums, War Memorial Sites, Theaters, Music Halls, Performing Art Centers, Amusement Park Rides)

   an entrance fee is not a prohibition of photography

========= Any Building Exterior that is famous for its architectural design and is a Main Focus of the Image
   
this is redundant as you've already forbidden ANY exterior shots

=====Photography at a tourist attraction is generally considered legal, UNLESS explicitly prohibited by posted signs.

   this contradicts your previous prohibiton if a place charges an entrance fee

Quote from: cascoly on April 02, 2012, 18:59

Quote from: lagereek on April 02, 2012, 11:49

. I know quite a lot of buyers, from ordinary buyers up to Ad-agency people, ADs, etc, and I tell you, they are terrible in complaining, I have seen them in action and boy!  if they come accross similars, etc, after only 3 to 4, pages they move on to another outlet.

best.

i've never understood why no one has ever come up with a search engine that deals with similars in a realistic way - there's no excuse for 3 or 4 pages of similars - they should present results the way google does - show varipous rdesults, but only show a few similar images, with a link if someone wants to dig deeper -

this would help both types of buyers [and would also eliminate the need for so many LCV rejections by reviewers who really have no clue what the actual value of any image is].  the argument that it would take up too much space is long gone

Great Idea....although personally I am not bothered by similars, the results could be presented in a "tree like" structure. Only one image of a series on top and visible on the search results page with the option to go deeper into. Nevertheless this would undermine my personal search behaviour and I think I would lose some images since too many clicks are involved for me

they could also include an option to continue to present results the way you currently prefer

Quote from: louoates on April 03, 2012, 12:44

Most veteran folks here as well as newbies overlook one of the great perks of microstock. I discovered it by accident simply by uploading less than six images in the entire 2011 period and less than 24 images in all of 2010.

The perk: THE INCOME KEEPS COMING IN just by sitting on one's fat behind. The only work I do is check the sites occasionally and request payouts when they reach the payout threshold. Common knowledge here is that your income would dry up rather quickly because of the new images streaming in by the tens of thousands. What I've found is that my best, say, 25 or 30 images (out of 600+ per site), keep pulling in about the same sales month after month. The mediocre ones (5-10 per year) keep plodding along also at about that rate. The lousy ones still suck.

I scratch my head at this continuing income stream. Must be my superior shooting or flawless key-wording.

As good an example of "hitting the nail on the head" as I've seen in quite a while 

i agree completely, unfortunately, neither we nor the various reviewers can accurately predict which of those 3 categories any particular image will fall into [ignoring technically deficient images].  that's why the LCV, or 'we dont need this image right now' rejections are so frustrating

at a bridge tournament recently, one of the speakers remarked that bridge players have to be the most ego-less of any profession or trade, since they dont win 98% of the time - he obviously knew neither computer programmers nor photographers

I love how they put a series of completely nondescript signs (i.e. road signs and the like) into editorial via their "submit to editorial if not accepted" option. what? Might as well refuse - for editorial I am sure nondescript road signs have quite LCV... 

not sure why you wouldn't want your images to go in as editorial

123 does have one of the strictest rules on property releases, but they also have the far-and-away best editorial process i've seen - unlike other agencies, the submitter doesnt have to waste time trying to decide to submit as rf or editorial, and then resubmitting, and following anal punctuation rules for captions.  instead, you just let 123 decide how they want to deal with a particular image.  they also have the best editorial acceptance  i've found - es[pecially for travel images and others where it would be impossible to get mpodel releases, but other agencies reject as LCV or 'not newsworthy'

. I know quite a lot of buyers, from ordinary buyers up to Ad-agency people, ADs, etc, and I tell you, they are terrible in complaining, I have seen them in action and boy!  if they come accross similars, etc, after only 3 to 4, pages they move on to another outlet.

best.

i've never understood why no one has ever come up with a search engine that deals with similars in a realistic way - there's no excuse for 3 or 4 pages of similars - they should present results the way google does - show varipous rdesults, but only show a few similar images, with a link if someone wants to dig deeper -

this would help both types of buyers [and would also eliminate the need for so many LCV rejections by reviewers who really have no clue what the actual value of any image is].  the argument that it would take up too much space is long gone

firstly, i'm not really sure what my best sellers are since many sites make it difficult to do a listing by sales.

but for those that do, i'm usually surprised by what sells [traffic jam in buenos aires, 'fresh fish' isolation of asign from pike place market]

i do stock because i enjoy travel, first, and photography.  i take pictures i think willsell, but am constantly surprised, but my basic philosophy is whatever works.

i've been willing to give new agencies a chance, esp'ly if they have a simple submission process.  but to date superhug, isign, allyoucan stock zoonar have all be a bust - no sales, and no views

cutcaster & photodune are slightly better - but also few views and rare sales

3dstudio started well, but i've not had 1 sale from them in the last 8 months - when they started it seemed a good idea, since they paid about $10 per sale, but it appears that images just get lost