I've seen fewer rejections the last few weeks. Figured it was just a phase or maybe they like what I'm uploading a little more than usual.

I'm getting a good mixture of Jupiter, Photos.com and StockXpert subscription and regular sales.

Not the sharpest pin in the cushion, is he?

I was not able to log in from my iPhone (internet down at work) but have the login info saved at home on Safari, so OK there.

Yes! I am cautiously optimistic. Already close to passing November's total sales. I noticed the increase starting Dec. 1. Did have a slow few days over the last weekend and now it has picked up again. My old best sellers are still buried but there seems to be a "2nd tier" of new best sellers emerging from some of my older files (less than a year old). Also, more views on newly uploaded files. I never stopped uploading during the slowdown and continue to fulfill my weekly allotment.

another awesome point is that uploads no longer read iptc data   for me at least

Same here. Seems to be an intermittent problem.

Yep, we are done here folks. Clearly there are differing opinions on what Exclusivity/Non-exclusivity means to a contributor bottom line. For all the perks we provide our Exclusives we appreciate that some would feel we are trying to push out non-exclusives. The reality is we are trying to provide more incentive to the people on the fence.

How does decimating a person's search position and sales help one decide to go exclusive if you are on the fence?

Maybe if IS was the only site you were uploading to, you would go exclusive out of sheer desperation but if you upload to other sites and can compare your progress, you can clearly see the mind games going on there. Personally, I am extremely disappointed in the tactics being used by IS. Waaaaay to extreme to the point where I don't trust them anymore.

Things are really starting to kick in for me. With the addition of the Jupiter and Photos.com sales along with regular StockXpert sales, my income has tripled this month on StockXpert with a BME by far. Very pleased with this progress

Here's my analogy for IS. It's like i meet this wonderful guy who heaps lots of love and attention on me and then just when I'm starting to fall hard for him and ready to make a commitment, I find out he is already married to someone else.

i have never added catagories to any of my images!? ... maybe i should have....

You still can

When you click on the clipping path and make it a selection in Photoshop, you get a very clean copy to paste into other applications with no stray pixels to worry about. Also, a clipping path allows you to place a jpeg into a page layout program such as InDesign with a transparent background. Similar to a .psd or .png file. I don't know much about how the clipping paths work with Windows applications, if at all.

I have sometimes gone 3 or 4 rounds resubmitting objects with clipping paths that had been rejected by IS because they usually don't tell me what is specifically wrong with the path and I just have to guess. All of the other agencies take the clipping path objects (no shadow) without question.

If you are using isolated objects and your background is white in your document, natural shadows are the best way to go.

I work as a designer and prefer objects with no shadows because most of the time I have to remove them to put them on a colored background. For IS I upload two types of isolations - objects isolated on white with a natural shadow and objects isolated on white with no shadow and a clipping path. The ones with clipping paths sell very well for the most part.

Very nice work!! Something to aspire to.

I currently have a BME (by far) at FT only 12 days in with 3 ELs.