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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
3726
« on: February 12, 2014, 10:46 »
... Time marches by, and the only difference I see at Fotolia is that they have gone from being an arrogant agency with pretty good sales to becoming an arrogant agency with really lousy sales. ...
It's a shame that an agency that started out with so much promise, and managed to survive a near-death experience with their V2.0 software has been a leader of late in various royalty cutting moves and not much else. They were the agency that really made an effort to do something for the European (non-English-speaking) market - which iStock and Shutterstock sensibly followed. Good agencies gone bad 
3727
« on: February 12, 2014, 10:30 »
Bought it, used it for a while, but in the end I am back to my mouse. I think the problem is I do not have the time for the learning curve. it was slowing me down too much. Maybe when I have some time I will go back and give it another try.
It can take a little while to get the muscle memory going (and it does help if you just go cold turkey). I hope you give it another try at some point because it really is a huge difference. Or just switch to Lightroom for all your processing where I'd expect you'd not notice the problems with a mouse as much
3728
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:47 »
Glad you're back (and I too got a sale to celebrate the return 
3729
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:47 »
I've been with BlueHost for a few years (prior to Symbiostock) and although they're not perfect, they're not bad, at least for the shared hosting. I have no experience of any higher end stuff from them.
They did have that long ish outage last year and they did change PHP versions once without notifying users, but otherwise things have been good for me.
3730
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:44 »
To my shock when searching the SS library for a similar image to the one I was about to submit the return was 0
And this is a shocking result as it is a very normal subject. I looked in Shutterbuzz if there was a restriction but there was nothing about it.
It might get rejected for reasons I dont know yet, but surely it will be the only image in the library of that subject if it gets accepted.
Weird.
When I got Bell's Palsy last summer I searched SS to see if there were any images of it and there weren't. Not only is the market (small, I grant you) all mine, but you can't copy it without having it (or some injection of a paralyzing drug). And yes, they do sell There are niche subjects out there if you're not trying to be Yuri or the like
3731
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:38 »
I'm not sure if those of us hanging out here are your target audience - of all the many bits of camera gear I've ever gotten mad at, my camera strap isn't one of them!
Putting my name on the mounting plate doesn't do anything for me either - my camera often has the plate for my quick release head for the tripod ball head and I'm not swapping that out for a decorative item.
I wish you luck with whoever it is that might buy this, but in a era of camera phones or serious DSLRs I don't know how many people need straps...
3732
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:17 »
I don't enter contests but I did go read the blog when I received the e-mail.
The 100% royalties might be interesting but they refer to a "bespoke contract" offer from Alamy - which I have to believe would include some term of exclusivity for those items. Potentially a big win if the images were really successful, but if they're that good, Alamy'd be the last place I would want to have them tied up.
3733
« on: February 11, 2014, 21:15 »
I wasn't impressed with what I saw either but clearly authentic and real are the buzzwords du jour so we'll have to get used to hearing this. I'm not sure about authentic with lots of Instagram-like filters (which they seem to be encouraging) Many of the images are tiny but they aren't all from phones - I saw one small one that said it was from a Canon 5D Mk III even though it looked like it was shot on a smartphone. They have an upload limit of 10 per week - because they want our best photos. That can be increased if you recruit a friend - they and you get an extra 10 per week for that. I guess that's how they plan to grow. The payout is $15 so that's nice and low, but in a year at Pocketstock I didn't make $15 so in a funny way I'd rather see $50 payouts with a promise to pay you your balance if you leave - it would say that they really planned to be successful
3734
« on: February 11, 2014, 14:54 »
Thanks chromaco & farbled for the clarification.
I'm patient and I know I'll have to build...
I'll add a +1 to Jo's post - and note that my own experience has been that I have had a few sales (of which I get everything but the PayPal fees) and I have only been working on my site since September. I had a bit of a learning curve with WordPress because I wanted to customize how things looked a bit and I am still uploading images (because I want to work on the SEO with such things as avoiding duplicate titles and cleaning up keywords where I now know better than I did when I first processed the files). I've been trying to understand things like Google authorship (which I wrote a blog about) because I think that clearly associating our names with our work is important and something the agencies don't take any interest in (obviously!) I didn't have to do all these other things - beyond installing WordPress, getting PayPal hooked up and uploading images - but I wanted to because I very much want an alternative to the agencies. I was part of WarmPicture (Dan Padovana's collective) which was a good site (built on kTools which I wouldn't consider for my own site based on the WarmPicture experience) but which wasn't able to get any traction - although I did get sales and Dan worked incredibly hard to get things off the ground. If the agencies hadn't turned from being partners to basically exploiting contributors as soon as the agencies got big enough I probably wouldn't be considering my own site, but I have to play in the sandbox I am in, not the one I wish I were in I think that some flavor of independence is the way to get a truly sustainable business and believe that Symbiostock has a great shot at being that. Like so many startups, you keep your day job while you build the new thing - so I haven't left Shutterstock and dreamstime, 123rf, PhotoDune, etc. just yet. I'm not building more sites than my own; the sales post on the Symbiostock forums has not been deleted - people can obviously delete their own posts but I've no idea where this "anything negative gets deleted" comes from; I honestly pay little attention to the MSG sales poll as it doesn't tell me much beyond what I already know - Shutterstock sells more than Dreamstime. Everyone's experience with Symbiostock will be a little different - that's part of what makes this work. It's not a one size fits all setup and the looseness of the association is what allows site owners to make each site their own - how it looks, what prices to charge, what works to make exclusive (or even just to promote as some do with their Alamy or Stocksy work). As an open source WordPress project, you have access to everything that has built your site so you or anyone else can work on it if you chose to. For the most part the tempest in a tea cup is just that. If you're ready to start a Symbiostock site, now's a fine time
3735
« on: February 10, 2014, 14:19 »
As a few people have commented on the Times' website, it's nice to see she's concentrating on the really big issues. 
over 120 comments so far, some of which pointing out what you just noticed. And one comment from "ugh" in NJ which makes note of the situation stock photographers are in producing what sells for the people who do the buying "Sorry, but they're picking on the wrong people. Freelance stock photographerswho only get 20% or less of the amount of the sale, with Getty or its other company, iStock, keeping the lion's shareare just shooting these images because they sell. Go to the source insteadthe white male fashion designers and white male advertising execs who set the trends and determine how women are portrayed in their advertising, and who make these stock photos best-sellers. The advertising industry is one of the most misogynistic in the country. Women and people of color are barely represented in top management anywhere. It's all these white men who determine which photos will appear in their ads. Talk to them, Sandberg." There are also a number of posts that mention Shutterstock and Bigstock as well as iStock and Getty commenting on the cookie cutter and unreal aspects of stock photography. Should be good news for Stocksy and the push for more "authentic" images. I put that in quotes, because the authenticity is still a long way from, and much more visually stylish than, reality, IMO. And I see Chelsea Clinton is jumping on the bandwagon... https://twitter.com/ChelseaClinton/status/432958471474933760
3736
« on: February 10, 2014, 13:07 »
I think Ms. Sandberg is a self promoter par excellence, so overpriced images that aren't really all that different from many others that would fit the bill doesn't surprise me - but it's good to see someone point it out in the coverage. Getty and some other organizations did tweet about this and then it got re-tweeted a bit so I guess it'll get them the attention they're after https://twitter.com/GettyImages/status/432918500290486272https://twitter.com/Slate/status/432926979588096001Amy Poehler has room for a salad too https://twitter.com/smrtgrls/status/432928016402886656A lot of the content in the Irish Times article appears to be from the NY Times (or whatever press release they received) but there's a great paragraph at the end: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/please-no-more-women-laughing-alone-with-salad-1.1686397?page=1"The partnership is a way for Lean In to broaden its reach after criticism that Sandbergs advice is relevant only to women in corporate America and that she places the burden of breaking through stereotypes on individual women, instead of on workplaces and society." Except that the comment isn't broad enough, I agree with that - I'd say that Ms. Sandberg's advice applies to Ms. Sandberg and the small number of others at the very top of the corporate ladder and income bracket, not anything like all women in corporate America, let alone all women in America.
3738
« on: February 10, 2014, 12:07 »
... I am a lawyer and a contributor and I have actually never read them...
That's funny - but not all that surprising. For any of us who purchase software, we just click on the bazillion page license that claims the product isn't fit for any purpose, the company's not responsible for anything etc. What choice do we have in practical terms anyway? So we get used to by and large ignoring that stuff
3739
« on: February 10, 2014, 11:58 »
DT has a whole front end set up to let you make FB covers http://www.timelineimages.com/Many of the stock agency licenses include a maximum size you can display the unmodified image on a web page although SS removed the specific number limit and switched to a phrase like "for display purposes". SS has some sort of deal with FB for purchases for use just in FB ads - but that might not be the best option if you want to use the same image for multiple purposes as they limit the use under that deal to a FB ad only. When I put my own site's license together, I included a pixel limit of 1,200 pixels on the long edge for unmodified web display http://www.digitalbristles.com/License/standard-license-agreement/
3740
« on: February 09, 2014, 11:46 »
If Adobe added significant features to the CC versions the students might be at a disadvantage, but the vast majority of what's really day-to-day important in PS is not new. They add little things (so far)
3741
« on: February 09, 2014, 02:31 »
I upgraded to Lightroom 5 last week (I know, I'm slow!) and put together a blog about some real time savers in using multiple Graduated Filters and/or Radial Filters to develop RAW files. I was really impressed with how much Photoshop time I could save this way http://www.digitalbristles.com/lightroom-5-developing-magic/
3742
« on: February 09, 2014, 02:26 »
"If a designer ever stops paying the monthly fee to Adobe for whatever reason, after a 30 day grace period they will not be able to open or edit any previously created work."
This isn't completely true, it depends what format you save your work in. E.g. it's true if you save photos out as .psds, but not e.g. .tif or .jpg.
Think about it - it can be necesary in any situation for someone owning photoshop to be able to share files with people who use other software, or who want to put photos into Word, put them on Flickr, Fb or an agency as jpgs etc.
(Not defending the subscription model, but this is one of the commonest inaccuracies.)
There are all sorts of things you can't save any other way than in a PSD file. JPEG is fine for an output format, but that's really it. If you have a multi-layer 16 bit PSD file loaded with adjustment layers or smart objects the only way to preserve that is a PSD file. Most of the other apps that can open PSD files can't handle layers or only handle some types of layers. My "forever" files are the RAW, the layered PSD files and JPEGs as uploaded. Almost all my work is represented in the PSD files and I can't get at that any other way than Photoshop CS6. I can and do go back to older files to steal bits, edit differently etc. People pay the big bucks for Photoshop because their images matter. The technical truth that you can export in other formats doesn't hide the practical truth that without the PSD what you have is worth very little. The article covers two aspects of the problems with CC - for the University it's the cost structure, for the students its that if they get on the hamster wheel of CC they're stuck paying and paying and paying.
3743
« on: February 09, 2014, 02:18 »
I'm sorry to see yet another dust-up over Symbiostock here.
Cathy, you're of course right to relay how Symbiostock didn't work for you and your choice to move your site to something else, but you keep saying that you're just stating your opinions and you're doing more than that. You are in effect accusing Leo and some nameless others of setting things up to benefit themselves at the expense of site owners. You keep making this accusation, but other than getting mad when Leo won't explain the details of why Symbiostock is built the way it is, I haven't seen anything specific to back those suspicions up. How discussions of Bill Gates help clarify anything is lost on me.
Accusing other people of fraud is a serious thing. Phrasing the accusations as questions and then saying they aren't really accusations doesn't change anything. If you're happy with your new site, why do you keep returning to try and stir the pot in Symbiostock threads. You're done with Symbiostock, no?
3744
« on: February 08, 2014, 17:07 »
I posted on their Facebook page that they had webiste problems and please get in touch with contributors here or by e-mail.
Things have clearly not been going well for them although I had a couple of sales this month, so I was hoping things might be turning around. They owe me $20, so it's not the end of the world, but I do think they should pay contributors if they are wrapping up.
3745
« on: February 07, 2014, 19:50 »
They sent out some progress e-mail this week saying that uploads were available again and I went to the site to look around. I had thought I'd wait until the reading of IPTC was fixed to upload, and apparently descriptions still aren't read. At any rate, I noticed that URLs just have numbers for the images. I'm not knowledgeable about SEO, but in the process of building my own site, plus remembering things that the agency sites have done in the last few years to change their URLs, I've come across lots of recommendations to use descriptive terms, not numerical codes. http://moz.com/learn/seo/urlAnother thing I noticed - other than how few images are on the site at the moment - is that on an image page there is mention of Albums. See here for example, where it says the artist has 11 Albums https://stockbo.com/635The Albums: 11 phrase isn't clickable and I can't see anything on the page that links to these 11 Albums. At the bottom of the page there is a link to Galleries, but these are site wide, apparently, not artist based. Have Albums gone away but are still listed? Then I see on the above page that All Media for that artist is 72 items but if I click on the View All Media button, I see a total of 60 items. Where are the other 12 and why are the counts different? It isn't just this artist; a number that I looked at had mismatches. One last observation is that there are some artists who have listed a website but on an image page there is no link, just the text https://stockbo.com/2229It's really annoying to have to cut and paste a URL - if you don't want to link, then don't show it.
3747
« on: February 07, 2014, 10:57 »
Some gems in the comments:
"no, not joining race to the bottom you just start there! What a load of crap. Photographers dignity, my arse!"
"Whoever made the decision on 30% should be "shot" and fired."
Unlike Getty, they don't have much negotiating power in strong-arming photographers to take this awful deal. Getty had the existing earnings as the carrot and their "don't let the screen door hit you on the way out" stick (they should start a charm school...but I digress). This is more like the situation where iStock wanted to start Vetta for illustrators and offered a terrible deal but allowed an opt out. The illustrators largely opted out so iStock sweetened the pot temporarily.
My guess is that 500px will get few takers with their current offer - they have no track record of sales to make their case with.
3748
« on: February 06, 2014, 16:38 »
Percentages mean nothing in this case.
When I say 2% you still know nothing. I could well make 4000$ dollar per month or 50$.
Not always. My percentage is exactly 0% because I don't have any referrals.
Ditto
3749
« on: February 06, 2014, 15:47 »
So can someone sum up what is the problem with symbio currently? It looked a home run project.
Like all software, Symbiostock is not 100% finished and not 100% bug free - but is mostly finished and perfectly capable of selling licenses to royalty free work. Leo - the guy who did almost all the work to build it - has his irrepressible optimism repressed by a criticism or two. As Leo hasn't yet hired a PR firm to polish his every word, you get pretty direct statements from him that reflect how he's feeling. It can sound a bit offputting, but it is mostly unrelated to how well Symbiostock is working - and there are 170+ sites up and running with 235,000+ images, so I'd say it's doing well for a new project. If you look at all the griping about agencies here on MSG, it'd be a miracle if there were no griping about Symbiostock! Given that this is so very personal to Leo, I think he has a hard time hearing complaints and letting them run off (like the proverbial water off a duck's back). I think the most recent specific issue was some suggestions that symbiostock.com be focused not on contributors considering building a site but on buyers; Leo had just spent a bunch of time working on revamping the site and ... This is all just my take on it - others may see things differently - YMMV (you get the idea)
3750
« on: February 06, 2014, 01:31 »
I completely get your frustration and what you want to see happen, but the current reality is that the agencies have no legal requirement to provide us with a full and detailed accounting and they don't.
All the blather about too many transactions is 100% rubbish. Computers are very good at tracking details - they just don't want to argue about refunds and figure the less information we have, the less argument they'll get.
I had tilted at this windmill while with iStock - who just ignored the requests to provide detailed, downloadable sales transaction data.
Bottom line is that you either trust them or you don't. If you don't, you remove your portfolio. The choices suck but agencies have become big enough that they don't care at all about contributors as long as they get a supply of files to sell.
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