The first time that you a get a rejection from IS for "file has been altered too far from it's original appearance" you will appricate that they can tell.

Another example; I shot a test with a young African-American model.
I shoot raw and place a WhiBal card in the first frame.
The shots I sent her were dead on accurate, but she was unhappy with her skin tones.
She thought I made her look like an 'orange moon'.

Why? Because she does not have a calibrated monitor.
So on her screen she looked too orange.

This is the reason that color science exits and why calibrating to a known standard is essisential for consistency.

No one cares if the grass in your shots is a little too blue or too yellow... Unless the person buying the shot is in the grass seed business.
The same applies to many fields in science and industry. Accurate color matters.

And as in my example above, certain ethnic groups are very aware of how their skin tones are represented. 

Back from the Twilight Zone.
What a strange trip it has been!

So today I get a notice from IS:

"We regret to inform you that a refund has been issued for a purchase of your file #5688410:

client did not want this image.

Regards,
The iStockphoto Team"

Okay, it's only around five dollars, and certainly not the end if the world.
But the thing that bothers me is that the file was downloaded early in the morning and I did not get this notice until late in the afternoon.

Now how do I know that the client is not keeping the file and then asking for a refund?

If the file had been downloaded in error, and immediatly contacted IS, would I not have recieved a more timely message?

Maybe am being too suspicious, because my wife has a habit of buying five or six of the same garment in different colors and then returning all but one or two.

What's to stop a designer from doing something similar?

I don't see the logic behind your conclusion. If you offer your files for free and if your image gets chosen as FIOTW, it may bring say up to $100 income you would not get otherwise. That would be the logical conclusion. Does it mean that it pays to offer your files for free? How many files have you offered for free? How high is the probability it will be chosen as FIOTW? How much does the usual file that is not featured as FIOTW bring? The math needs to include that to draw the conclusion.

I understand that it feels well to be there on the front page. Yet I doubt one will get compensated for that.  And, obviously, on top of that there is the larger picture - 47,810 free downloads of this one picture? Did 47 000+ designers needed this particular image in this particular time frame? Hardly. It is possible they are building library of free images for future needs. Look at the archive of FIOTWs on iStock alone. Quite a collection of good quality stuff.

Will this trend have longterm significant impact (like moving towards free in much larger volume)? I doubt that. Yet I'm pretty sure it does not pay off.

Visibility brings sales. It really is that simple.
This file had a 'sister' image from the same shoot that was an "editors pick" @ Dreamstime (before I went exclusive).
It sold well for a short period of time.

But this image had been laying fallow for close to a year on IS and now it has a new life for the time being.
There is absolutely no way to 'do the math' that you are asking for in your first paragraph. It would all be based on supposition.

How much would it have earned without the exposure?
My guess is it would have been moved to the dollar bin in another year and made next to nothing.

I had nine files in a lightbox offered for use as FIOTW. This one was chosen.
Chance of having another file chosen within a years time? Almost nill.

And no, I don't see IS increasing its give away collection. They do have to generate revenue after all.

I liked IS enough that I went exclusive. 'Nuff said.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have two monitors side by side.
One is an LCD and the other is a CRT.

The CRT is set to 100 while the LCD is dialed down to 90 cd/m2.
Setting them this way renders the brightness of the two monitors approximately equal.

LCDs as a general rule are set too bright and contrasty from the factory.
This makes them look fantastic displayed in the bright electronics store environment, but makes for crappy prints.

Remember that even though your images bought from micro are purchased while being viewed from a computer display, many times they are destined to be used in print.

Wait; do vectors of jumping/dancing smiling goldfish, wearing headphones still require a model release?

Well we are coming up on a holiday very soon in the USA.

My sales are better than they were last Nov... But this is the slowest month that I have had since last winter. Glad to hear that I am not alone.

I am continually amazed at the lengths homo sapiens will go to for an adrenaline rush!

Cool footage, even though the idea of shooting video is anathema to me 

And, there goes the neighborhood.... again 

HI All,

I had the FIOTW on iStock last week.
I was pretty excited to see it featured on the front page and it generated well over 54,000 views over the weeks time.

I also had a few downloads of related images this week (same model), so there has been a small amount of action from it, but not nearly what I was hoping for from the exposure.

Has anyone else here had a similar experience?
Is donating images to be used as traffic generators a waste of time?

Your thoughts please.

I'm going to grab some popcorn & sit back to watch the sparks fly.
I have both PC & Mac... But do all my editing on my Mac.

Quote from: sjlocke on October 21, 2009, 13:35

Hmmm, so current contributors are S.O.L?

I like what level I'd be at ...

Sorry what exactly is S.O.L?

S_ _ t Outta Luck