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Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutter Stock Down Anywhere?
« on: June 15, 2016, 11:04 »
I see this started 6/13 - it was up then with nice sales last couple days but both contributor and customer sites are down here in NY 6/15
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to. 376
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutter Stock Down Anywhere?« on: June 15, 2016, 11:04 »
I see this started 6/13 - it was up then with nice sales last couple days but both contributor and customer sites are down here in NY 6/15
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Photo Critique / Re: Another photo rejected by SS« on: June 06, 2016, 13:50 »
You mentioned shooting at 80 ISO indoors, and this might be your problem. If you are trying to keep the ISO low and taking dark pictures, and you then need to increase the exposure, this can often bring up noise. Especially on a lower-end camera, if you don't expose it properly, even when shooting RAW, you can have an issue. It's best to expose properly even if you need to bump up the ISO to do it, rather than playing with the exposure in LR.
Moving the noise slider to 70 or 90 seems excessive. It will make even a very sharp photo soft. I'm not familiar with your camera but if you find you are bumping up the exposure, try shooting at a higher ISO so that you don't need to increase exposure. I know from experience that with my full frame Nikon D700 I have more leeway than with my Olympus OMD E-1 if I shoot a photo that is too dark, although when properly exposed I get amazing noise-free photos from both cameras. I've shot at ISO 1600 with the Oly and had amazing results when they are properly exposed, even though it has a small sensor. Good luck! EDIT: I typed this several hours ago and never hit submit til now so if it's repetitive of others' posts sorry - 22 posts since I typed it this am. Don't have time to read them all but wanted to share this if it helps. 378
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Hilarious iStock MetaWatch CIA email« on: June 03, 2016, 14:32 »
I just uploaded some editorial photos and found that the term "Governor Cuomo" only had "Mario Cuomo" as an option, and not his son Andrew who has been governor of New York for the past 6 years now; it also only had 2 towns and Bill Clinton for the term "Clinton" and not "Hillary Clinton" as an option. A tad outdated to put it mildly! I sent them a support ticket. Hard to believe, however, this hasn't come up before now.
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Shutterstock.com / Re: Still Haven't Subtracted April Total« on: June 03, 2016, 12:36 »
Mine has always reset on the first of the month, but I'm above the threshold this month and it hasn't reset. At first I was hopeful that I had a run of ELs at the start of the month but no such luck. I'm sure it will adjust soon. My PayPal address is still showing in my account settings.
I miss the days when the daily tweets & FB posts would go out showing one of the images you sold that day - I'd always get repeat sales on the image shown, and lots of comments on FB, as well as some assignments through it. That was easy marketing for them and us, but it's another simple thing that has been broken for years. Happy to see SS back up over 100 this month in the polls, things seem to be picking up over there but I'm still earning less most months than I did when I had half as many images, though this past month my graph started moving noticeably upward again, so fingers crossed the trend will continue. I can wait a few days for payout if earnings are improving. I usually see payment on the 6th or 7th of the month, so I'm not overly concerned about this latest glitch. 380
Print on Demand Forum / Re: sales ?« on: May 31, 2016, 01:23 »
I've got about 530 images on FAA and sell roughly one a month.
I have anywhere from a few to several sales a month on redbubble but make more from FAA as I'm usually selling framed prints there while redbubble tends to be more products. The POD sites don't do much marketing and some like FAA hardly do any at all, so you need to get your work up on social media to make sales. It's different than stock. 381
Dreamstime.com / Re: Why Does Dreamstime Even Bother?« on: May 25, 2016, 13:10 »
I got between $4-7 for 11 to 16 credit sales on a few Level 5 images recently, so it seems those have gone down too. I used to get a lot of $11+ sales before the prices changed. More than half my sales there are subscriptions these days, anywhere from 35 cents to $2.
Prices for most sales at the other micros aren't much better. 382
Newbie Discussion / Re: Shooting editorial - any point?« on: May 24, 2016, 14:52 »
I have RM editorial pix on Alamy - both Live News and other editorial - haven't sold through Live News but they have licensed them for me as secondary editorial. They've also helped me get press passes when I wasn't shooting for a local outlet. And I also upload outtakes from assignments.
I also have different RF editorial pix on SS, a handful of which I uploaded years ago from a local NYC event via their (now defunct I think) "On the Red Carpet" program where they helped me get a press pass. The event was far less interesting than I'd anticipated but I needed to get them a certain number of images and nearly all of them have been licensed at least once - a few several times - over several years - for various uses including a few books. Some of my Alamy images have also ended up in books. SS licenses a lot of my editorial images - Alamy fewer but for better prices. I've also licensed some via iStock and DT. Some several times - I try to capture the news but sometimes an image can be used to illustrate a concept in a more generic way - lots of my old images that I thought would need to sell right away to be successful ended up having life even years after the event. These are mostly festivals, the marathon, local parades with and without famous figures, interesting events with lots of people. I've freelanced as a local photojournalist for years, so I usually try to license images to local outlets, but they have less money as years go by, so it's nice to know there's a secondary market for some of this work. 383
Microstock Services / Re: Brand new stock uploader looking for beta testers« on: May 24, 2016, 11:17 »
Sounds interesting
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General Stock Discussion / Re: Old pictures starting a new life cycle« on: May 20, 2016, 20:43 »
I have some that still sell consistently since they were uploaded in 2009. This includes some editorial images that I never expected to license past the first year. Some of these are editorial and travel images I took as early as 2006.
I don't shoot a lot of lifestyle images, but I have some from 2012 that are still being licensed too. 385
General Stock Discussion / Re: Alamy second to Shutterstock in the Poll?...Explain that...« on: May 19, 2016, 11:42 »
If you're with Getty and giving them your best stuff exclusively, your experience on Alamy will differ from someone who puts their best RM stuff there.
For me, sometimes DT beats SS, which is not most people's experience. One month I actually earned nearly $400 with just over 200 photos - which would skew results here being unusual. On Alamy, regular earnings can vary even more widely. You can't assume your experience and others' is going to be the same. 386
General Stock Discussion / Re: What is your top 5 agencies in regard to earnings« on: May 19, 2016, 11:31 »
Alamy
SS DT Fotolia iStock 387
General Stock Discussion / Re: Alamy second to Shutterstock in the Poll?...Explain that...« on: May 18, 2016, 16:54 »
You could get on the list for assignments if you had assignment experience. I started my career shooting editorial photos, and still do, so I was on that list ... but they abolished it a long time ago.
I get emails from the Live News people from time to time about events near me, but none of this has an impact on sales. You need a diverse selection of images, good keywords, and after starting with a mid-level rank you need sales and a good CTR to get you a good rank so your photos are up on the first couple of pages. They are heavily editorial and travel, though I've sold concept stuff there too, so having a portfolio heavy on travel stock with clean composition and lots of copy space (not holiday snapshots) and editorial helps. I often see travel sites that buy their images from Alamy, Getty, and then either SS, DT or iStock - so I try not to overlap my micro and macro ports so I don't compete with myself. For a long time I was making more with a small port on SS than with more than twice as many photos on Alamy, but lately Alamy has been number one for me. But I'm not a typical microstock shooter, since my port leans more toward editorial. 388
Print on Demand Forum / Re: Imagekind: pay to play?« on: May 18, 2016, 16:31 »
I had forgotten about Photo4Me after uploading a handful of files - less than 20 I think - on there a couple of years ago after some European friends with good sales told me about it. I got a sale last month and made $87. It was a travel image from Sweden.
Right now, my most regular POD site for sales is redbubble where I get several sales a month - have had over 100 with a tiny portfolio there (maybe 25-30 images) - but mostly small amounts so it takes a while to make payout. FAA is still my best POD - I have 500+ photos there so no surprise it's my best earner. Had two large random sales last month - a framed print and a canvas. I've sold some cards and pillows to friends who saw my stuff on FB but most of it is random. I do post images on twitter a few times a week but seem to sell totally random stuff - from flowers to travel and landscape as well as abstracts. I wish I had stuff in their collections. Any sales on Crated? My last sale there - $168 net profit - was a year ago - but they seem to be doing more social media these days so hoping it picks up - they featured my landscapes about a week ago via their twitter account - and I usually have pix on the first page and in some collections. I really wish they'd get more traffic. I like how the site looks and it's easy to upload. It's free to join. I've put less time into POD sites this year but I think the effort I made last year in uploading more is starting to pay off. Wish the effort I put into 500px had - no sales there yet. I didn't close my account but haven't added new work since they changed the commission structure. I had such high hopes for them. 389
General Stock Discussion / Re: Alamy second to Shutterstock in the Poll?...Explain that...« on: May 18, 2016, 14:39 »
From 2014 to 2015 my average sale on Alamy went from around $35 to $75, with half to me - so my net income per sale increased over 100% from $17.50 to $37.50 per sale. That includes averaging in a bunch of little $6-16 ($3-8 net) sales. My sales volume also increased leading to an even larger increase in my overall income.
For 2016, my average sale is $98, which includes averaging in my most recent $7.01 sale, or else it would be even higher. So, I'm netting $49 per sale there on average in 2016, more than my average gross sale in 2014. I'm not surprised by how Alamy is doing at all. 390
General Stock Discussion / Re: Shutterstock and Microsoft deal« on: May 18, 2016, 14:16 »
I once went to a presentation by Joe McNally where he said the best thing about competition between Nikon and Canon is that it means better cameras for all of us. While the competition between SS and Adobe can unfortunately mean a price war, fortunately it also means they need to stay on top of their game to keep market share and still earn a profit, and concepts like this one will hopefully lead to more sales and income for us. I noticed SS also has an editing software that lets people use filters and text and resize photos, with optimum sizes for social media. I'm encouraged by this.
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Shutterstock.com / Re: Bloody hell!« on: May 09, 2016, 18:08 »
Great image! Congrats!
Even though I have more images on trad sites than micros, I still smile when I get a $28 EL on SS, so IMHO you certainly should feel happy. 393
Paypal / Re: Don't trust in Paypal - your account can be limited without any evident reason« on: May 06, 2016, 14:15 »
I've had no problems with foreign clients this past year - from Ireland, the UK, and Germany, but that's just my limited experience. Most of my clients are US-based.
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Shutterstock.com / Re: Disappearing sales« on: May 06, 2016, 14:07 »
This past year so far SS has been a fraction of what I'm earning on Alamy (net, not gross) due to both a significant increase in my earnings at Alamy and a sharp decline on SS. My SS sales the past couple of months have been at an all time low - about equal to when I started and had a fraction of the images I have now.
I was happy to see an uptick in SS stock and an uptick in earnings, but the fact that the uptick in number of files online is a multiple of earnings growth does much to explain why many people are seeing a drop in earnings there. To be frank, I've also been concentrating on adding new work on Alamy while my SS portfolio hasn't grown much at all. RM and higher end RF just seems like a better bet to me right now, though I'd still consider putting American editorial images on SS over Alamy as they seen to do better there. Alamy is also growing at an alarming rate, but a few good sales each month can add significantly to your earnings there while good income on SS relies on volume. I've never seen so many days on SS without a single sale than I have the past couple of months. Fotolia is growing but it's not "on fire" yet for me. I'm not on 123rf so can't comment there. 395
General Stock Discussion / Re: Help with payments from Paypal« on: May 06, 2016, 13:55 »
I called them two weeks ago for help setting up a PayPal Now account and got through by phone immediately, then called back some days later after I received the little gizmo for help in checking that it worked properly got through right away again, and they walked me through it, easy. Surprised you can't reach them by phone.
There are so many regulations in place these days to prevent fraud, which they need to follow, it can cause some issues but can usually be resolved with a phone call - hope you get through. Good luck. My experience with PayPal has been positive & I've been with them since around 1999. As some have said, usually these things get resolved pretty quickly. Don't fear, you money is safe. It'll work out. 396
Paypal / Re: Don't trust in Paypal - your account can be limited without any evident reason« on: May 06, 2016, 13:44 »
PayPal has been great for me. I've been with them for years since they started elance way back around 1999.
I had one small issue a couple of years ago, called them on the phone and they were courteous and helped me resolve it immediately - it was actually my mistake, but they waived a fee anyway, and could not have been more helpful. I logged in when I was in Chicago, Illinois and then in West Lafayette, Indiana while traveling last year (I live in NY) to invoice two different web clients, and had no issues at all. I had a dispute on elance with a client who stiffed me many years ago, after making some payments. I was disappointed in their seller protection procedures and complained, and this had no negative effect on my account. Bank and credit card companies will occasionally freeze an account when you make a large purchase while traveling - it's fraud protection on their part - and a simple phone call will generally resolve the issue. It's not restricted to PayPal. That list doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary. I'm sorry you had a problem, and I hope it is resolved, but you shouldn't scare people away from using a reliable company that lets people sell to buyers around the world. In the US, if someone sends you a check in Euros or Pounds or some other foreign currency, you can't cash it, but for a small fee (less than a bank's wire transfer fee which another way to received foreign currency directly), PayPal lets you receive currency from around the world. I'm not a fangirl but I'm just sharing some examples from nearly 20 years of experience with them. 397
Shutterstock.com / Re: Bloody hell!« on: May 05, 2016, 19:23 »
Congrats! Nice when those come in!
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Off Topic / Re: Could you spare a minute please...« on: May 02, 2016, 12:09 »
I voted for wilting lotus before realizing tailed emperor was so far ahead - couldn't change my vote but good luck - lovely images! And the top 25 have a go so you're in good shape. $1,000 for a calendar cover is great!
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General - Stock Video / Re: Selling direct via your own website« on: April 21, 2016, 16:01 »
I've been happy with Photoshelter too.
I license stock from there as well as prints, and it also helps me bring in clients for portrait and editorial work, and gives me online backup storage for all my work. The templates are easy to use and while you need to drive traffic to the site yourself if you want to make substantial sales, they bring in some traffic for you too, since there are, e.g. magazines that will go there (they can search the entire Photoshelter archive as well as an individual's site) if they can't find something on one of the agencies they use. I've gotten some $200-300 licenses that way. Others find me via google searches (all your keywords are searchable and the site is indexed by google) and of course some go to my site directly. I've licensed traditionally priced RM images from there as well as some of my microstock work at much lower prices; you can set up any kind of pricing structure you want both for prints and for stock, they have an RM pricing calculator and licensing language on the site. Definitely worth checking out. 400
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy- Any success??« on: April 16, 2016, 14:07 »
Although this link is to an article on Forbes.com about the Best Places to Retire in 2015 - what's really interesting is that there are two images by the same photographer - one from Shutterstock and one from Alamy - and there are also a handful from Getty and from iStock - so it shows that even big magazines are looking for the least expensive photo but will pay more for the right image. There are more Alamy images than others but if you have the same images with Alamy and the micros, you'll be likely to get far fewer sales on Alamy.
http://www2.forbes.com/investing/the-best-places-to-retire-in-2015/?utm_campaign=Top-Tier&utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=45396874&utm_term=740537 |
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