Been using Spider2express for about a year now.  No complaints... all screens (studio/home) are calibrated on weekly basis.

Patrick H.

Quote from: jsnover on June 24, 2008, 05:24

Quote from: patrick1958 on June 23, 2008, 21:12
In my case it was not fraude...
A XL sale, 1.48 credits only gave me 0,37 credits...
The previous times just the same... not the correct amount added to my credits amount.

Or is it just when you add up the day's total that you're 1.11 short of what you should have?

That's what has happened several times. When i started noticing strange total numbers i started keeping data on a spreadsheet from every sales.  On several occassions totals don't match.  I got suspicious after a payout a few months ago.  Had requested a payout, my total credits was deducted and was (if i remember correct) 0,47 credits.  That day when i had my first sale my total went to minus (yes negative) -1,01 .... that's when i started monitoring the numbers.

Patrick H.

In my case it was not fraude...
A XL sale, 1.48 credits only gave me 0,37 credits...
The previous times just the same... not the correct amount added to my credits amount.

Chad's answer doesn't explain the problem i'm seeing too often.

Patrick H.

Quote from: Peter on June 20, 2008, 08:26
Perhaps the buyer purchased your image, and didnt like it. So he requested money return. It is possible.

Didn't get a message from refund... and .. wouldn't be quit logical, purchasing a L standard ... then requesting for a 3 credit refund because he only needed an XS license....

Patrick h.

Hi,

Been happening before, actually several times to me... admins are deniying there is a problem.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=5076.msg52800;topicseen#new
http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12307

Very frustrating.
How much money goes into fotolia pockets this way..?..

Patrick H.

I have been complaining in the past about credits not adding for sales.  Always got some canned answer from admins.
Contacted Chad, no response... and today, again sales that are not added properly.
A 4 credit sale only added 1 credit.

What do we have to do so that fotolia finally will admit there is a problem.?...
Advice needed. I'm loosing money....

Patrick H.

Quote from: Chode on June 13, 2008, 21:35
I dont agree with ranking theory. I am almost certain that photographer's rank has little impact on image order in search, actually, I am positive that photographers rank has NOT AT ALL influence on image relevance order. Not at all. I am 99% sure of that. I was suspecting on that too, but I conducted series of tests, and made conclusion that rank has nothing to do with relevance order in search. 99% sure.

Maybe not on fotolia.. but on some other sites it does.

Patrick H.

Quote from: fotografer on June 13, 2008, 18:42
It's not that, I just tried a search using 6 of my common  keywords and it came up with 6 pages of results and I had 23 on the first page. I looked at the images on the last  page and they had all of the keywords so it wasn't because they only had 5 or  or less out of the 6.  I am due to become emerald quite soon so I still believe that ranking plays quite a major part .

Quote from: Chode on June 13, 2008, 12:51

Quote from: CofkoCof on June 13, 2008, 11:12

Quote from: Chode on June 13, 2008, 10:15
I give up. I totaly dont get this search engine. I just got aproved some watermelon images, and they have 13 keywords. 5 images on first page for "watermelon". This is really strange. There is no rule I guess....

Maybe they have a limit like IS. Only a few images (5?) from the same author can be on the first page.

that might be as well.

It's quit obvious and no secret  there are sites that rank pictures, good or bad rankings make your sales... visibility.. success.

Patrick H.

Quote from: fotografer on June 13, 2008, 13:48
What great communication between the people that run the company and the photographers.   It's great that they consult people and not just rush in and implement changes before notifying anybody. And in light of recent events it is a lesson that some of the other companies could do with learning.

If it weren't for the stupid ranking/comment system they have I would give them a try.

Patrick H.

Quote from: lisafx on June 13, 2008, 19:31
What I don't think is reasonable is EDITING people's posts beyond removal of forbidden links.  If someone speaks in a forum, their name is associated with their thoughts and it is not right to change someones words to misrepresent what they said and think.  Better to delete posts altogether than to distort people's messages. 

Fully agree on this statement.
It shows low/non respect to the person posting a question, statement by deleting parts of the topic.

Patrick H.

Quote from: tan510jomast on June 13, 2008, 20:33
Now, with all the pessimism we've been having lately at this forum, it's a breath of fresh air to read something like this.
I think some of us take things too seriously... me included, sometimes.

Just like to add one thing :   god is NOT a reviewer, because even
god rested  on the seventh day!   

Reviewers don't rest, with the exception of DT who doesn't review on weekend days..:-)

Patrick H.

Just out of curiosity, what programs do you guys use to create fractals...

Patrick H.

Quote from: Chode on May 31, 2008, 18:44
a slight raise:

QuoteHi Fotolians,

I am happy to report that Fotolia has listened to our members and as a result we are raising the commission structure for subscriptions.

The new commission structure will be as follows.

Ranking     Payment / Download

White            0.25 Credit

Bronze          0.26 Credit

Silver             0.27 Credit

Gold              0.28 Credit

Emerald         0.29 Credit

Ruby              0.30 Credit

Sapphire        0.31 Credit

Diamond        0.32 Credit

This is an effort to appeal to the concerns of the majority of contributors. Subscriptions will be released soon with the new commission structure. We hope to raise the commission even higher after we receive more data after the release.  We would appreciate your support as we make public this new service.

but still low.

(there are only 2 sapphire members, and 0 diamond members).

Stil a joke compared to other sites.

Patrick H.

Let's put a little scenario to the test.

Let's assume that most buyers of XS standard switch to subsciption, kind of logical assumption.
Take the % of XS sales and calculate these sales at 0,23 cent compared to 0,37 cents.
This should give already a rough estimate how much income will decrease (again).

In my case, with the huge drop of income because of their  messing around with the search engine of already 43 % this month, bringing in the assumption would lead to a total decrease of about 55 %.

When DT introduced the subscription plan my sales there dropped considerably, it took me months of hard work and uploading to climb back to the state i was before their subs plan.

Why does FT think they can do a better job.?.. i'm puzzled.

Not happy at all.

Patrick H.

update :

Going into bios, noticed that motherboard only recognises 3 gig.
Went to manufacturer site, downloaded and installed a bios upgrade, the same... only 3 gigs are seen in bios and windows vista.

Patrick H.

Quote from: mjp on May 29, 2008, 17:25
Do you have 32 bit versio of Vista? The 32bit version can not see the full 4 giga bytes of ram due the 32bit limitations (The maximum amount is something like 3,2 gigas if I remember correctly). Only the 64-bit version can see 4+ gigs. I hope this helps.

br, MjP

Yup, 32 bit version.

Hi,

I recently installed an extra 2 gig ram module on the motherboard.  I'm running Windows Vista home premium.
The funny thing however is that when i go into configuration screen, system it seems vista only sees 3 gig or ram while i have two modules of 2 gig = 4 gig.

Is  there a way i can force vista to see the 4 gig.?.

Patrick H.

Quote from: michealo on May 27, 2008, 16:14
I think you are missing an important consideration here and that is the production cost of an image.

If it costs $20 dollar to produce the image then I wouldn't be happy until it covered these costs ...

The cost of producing a good series is much higher then the $20 mentioned. 
- finding/hiring models that suit the concept
- props
- make up
- clothing
- studio time (own studio, never the less, time spend in studio, on average 8-10 hours per session)
- editing, keywording, uploading

And then, if i have a few sales on first week i might consider myself lucky these days.
But, as mentioned above, it's the overall quality of the portfolio that determines the success.  If i upload some pictures that are not really in big demand, but if a designers search for it and discovers my portfolio... that will improve my visibility, hence my sales.
It is hard to determine how many a single photo should earn to be considered successful/cover the cost of producing.

Just my two cents.

Patrick H.

Excample : in the past i did more 3D illustration than photography.  I have some series on body building... a few weeks ago i started uploadiing studio pictures taken and with a young body builder... now that lead to a boost in my sales on the 3D body building illustrations.
Simply said, one picture can help/boost another one in sales.

Quote from: jsnover on May 16, 2008, 16:49
So after the original snafu with the new credit prices not being calculated correctly, I've been watching the credit sales more closely to see what the prices are.

In general things have been as I've expected - 35 to 50 cents per credit. However, yesterday I got one sale for 3 credits at 75 cents - 25 cents a credit.

I thought 123rf was absorbing the cost of the 30% discount and that credit prices couldn't be that low. The most discounted package is 2500 credits for $1,750 which is 70 cents per credit (35 cents commission). Is this 25 cents a credit commission an error? Anyone else seen anything lower than 35 cents a credit?

I got several of 0.25 dollar credits.  I'm tired complaining, next payout i close my account over there.

Patrick H.

Hm... i see two of my Paris pictures on the calendar, and also 100 % sure no EL license was purchased for that.

Patrick H.

Almost 70 % down... complete disaster, on top of that also disappearing credits... !!!!

Patrick H.

Quote from: rinderart on May 09, 2008, 06:09
Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??

April ended 18 % below march.
Prognosis for may will be another drop of about 26 % (according to spreadsheet).
So yes, sales are decreasing inmensively.

Patrick H.

Quote from: patrick1958 on May 08, 2008, 17:08
Yup,
same problem here, they are looking into it according to Chad.

Patrick H.

Just got another answer from fotolia, now they claim that customers demanded a refund for some reason.
Sorry, but i find this hard to believe.
First, sales dropped inmensively past two weeks, and when i finally get 5 downloads/11 credits on may 5th, 5 different customers and all five demand a refund... hard to believe.
Frankly, i never had a client ask for a refund on fotolia, and now all of a sudden 5 on the same day... how big a chance is that..?..

Patrick H.

Yup,
same problem here, they are looking into it according to Chad.

Patrick H.

Quote from: basti on May 03, 2008, 15:26
When US economy hurts, then it hurts mostly US but many other markets will be affected also though I dont think it will hurt too much. Economy changes anyway and there are many other big players like China, Russia, Taiwan etc.

It maybe means great times for agencies paying in bucks which means they pay less and prices in US are not 35% higher from year ago what was the drop od U$ here. That means they sell cheaper pics and so attract customers, pay less to photographers and still earn great money. Its pretty bad for most of photographers outside US - we have to increase portfolios very fast just to cover drop of $$ value.  So maybe great for customers but not so much for photographers - imagine you have to work 20% harder every year in your regular job just to earn the same - how long can you do it that way?

Big point... I also notice the need to upload more just to stay in the game....

Patrick H.