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Messages - melastmohican

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426
Adobe Stock / Re: Is FT ramming us from Behind ?????
« on: April 06, 2010, 22:48 »
i think this is quite serious. any options to opt out from partner sales ?

I think sooner or later satellite partner sites will be future of microstock and they will not allow contributors to opt out :-)

427
123RF / Re: 123RF Image Enlargement Services & Your Earnings
« on: April 06, 2010, 21:59 »
It probably won't happen very often. It looks like cost of sale is 75% of price and agency splits revenue of 25% almost in half with contributors.

428
Adobe Stock / Re: Is FT ramming us from Behind ?????
« on: April 06, 2010, 21:56 »
It sounds like $9.99 for 30 images (one a day) so it is roughly .30 per download. for buyer. How much did you get?

429
Adobe Stock / Re: FT partners
« on: April 06, 2010, 00:24 »
I am surprised I got images on so many sites :-) I never noticed any partner sales. Is this on any special page at FT?

430
Whatever happened to people reporting earnings?  I used to follow several sites like Microstock Diaries, Pixels Away, Nil to Mil, etc. where experienced microstockers would report their monthly sales, but just about all of them seemed to have stopped at the same time.  Seems like everyone had a few bad months and decided to stop sharing the info.  It was always enlightening to read analysis of what was working and what wasn't, what new approaches they would try, etc.

All this stuff about percentages... 34% at SS, 22% at IS, etc... maybe I should find that interesting, but I don't care.  I'm glad Leaf is tracking which sites seem to be growing or contracting, but beyond that, I'd rather read about actual sales.

Relax, it's just second day of this month. Maybe they are busy and will update on weekend.

431
Next month DepositPhotos will drop down to low earners area cause they ended promotion in March :-) Other than that I think results are reflecting current balance of power :-)

432
otherwise Shutterstock is the best. It seems to be a rule when I looked at result charts from different people.

433

Overall it was 14% less than previous month in which I got two BMEs established. First think you may noticed is no data from StockXpert.
They are gone. Images are left in void. No timeline is give on when images are going to be transferred to Getty's new site ThinkStock.
We got new top 5 now. IS takes missing spot which means that 10% of my income has gone and is going to be replaced by site that generates 3%.
On a bright side, 123RD and DT seem to be growing slowly so maybe over time they would compesate for a loss of StockXpert.
Fotolia is dormant and IS is low as usual. Suprise on this onth chart was created by YAY.
They accumulated all third-party sales from last year and put it as one big sale on a random picture.
Very bad, no information which images were sold or how many times. All others are dead or barely alive.

Code: [Select]
Mar Mar/Feb
SS 52.24% 79.69%
123RF 14.77% 93.05%
DT 11.22% 206.50%
YM 8.96%
FT 6.05% 132.54%
IS 3.99% 66.89%
BS 2.01% 111.11%
CS 0.50%
Veer 0.14%
CanStockPhoto 0.12% 10.71%
Total 96.67%



http://melastmohican.net/wordpress/2010/04/01/march-2010-earnings-breakdown/

434
Off Topic / Google changes name to Topeka
« on: April 01, 2010, 13:26 »
Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google.
The unusual move is a response to Googles new Fiber for Communities program. Google is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second. Mayor hoped the proclamation would catch Googles attention. Guess what, today Google officially changed its name to Topeka to honor this gesture. No info on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project.




http://melastmohican.net/wordpress/2010/04/01/google-changes-name-to-topeka/

435
iStockPhoto.com / New Video FTP Upload Guide
« on: March 30, 2010, 14:51 »
Just got email today. It seems to be complicated if you compare to other footage sites.
Quote
1. You can now upload PAL SD, NTSC SD, and HD together through FTP. The system
will unite the files under one file ID.
2. You can upload a model release/screenshot and a thumbnail for the file.
3. You can upload the title, description and keywords.
4. Naming conventions: There is a strict naming convention that must be followed when
using FTP to upload your video files. Assuming that the original file is a 29.97 HD file
named clouds, the files should be named:
clouds_HD.mov
clouds_NTSC.mov
clouds_PAL.mov
clouds_THUMB.jpg
clouds_RELEASE.jpg
clouds_META.txt
5. File folders: These files must be uploaded into a folder that you create on the FTP
server named "clouds".
6. Once finished, rename
folder. When all the files are in the folder and you are
satisfied that everything is in order, you must rename the folder to "clouds_done". You
do not need to rename the files themselves, just the folder. Our system will not attempt
to process files that are outside of a folder, or in a folder that does not contain the word
"done". In other words, you can take your time to upload all the parts to a particular
folder, and we won't touch it until you have changed the name to xxxx_done. Once you
have changed it, you won't have any time to add more files, so don't do this last step
until you are certain that all is in order.
If for some reason a file in the folder fails to process, the file folder will be renamed
"xxxx_error" and the log note will be added to the folder for your information. You can fix
the files accordingly, and once fixed, rename the folder to xxxx_done and it will try
again.
Rules and limitations
1. You still need to edit the file metadata in a browser after the upload is complete to
add the categories and to check the radio buttons legal checklist. A file will not be
considered fully uploaded until this is complete. Although we continue to explore ways
to do this, there is no estimated date for this feature.
2. You cannot use FTP to upload the fullres
versions of files already accepted as
Proxies. If you are using the Proxy approval method, you must finish the upload through
HTTP.
3. If you upload several files such as NTSC and PAL together and one file is rejected for
any reason, then all the files must be reuploaded,
since they are all linked by the file ID.
Make sure you test the files before uploading them.
4. The thumbnail needs to be 380 pixels wide, and with the same aspect ratio as the
original. With this in mind, if you upload HD, then the SD versions must be anamorphic
(16:9 anamorphic pixel aspect ratio).
5. You may only upload one HD file. It should be the natural frame rate of the camera.
6. If no thumbnail is submitted, then a frame from the first second of the video will be
selected by the system.
7. If no text file is included, or if the text file is not in the following format, then you will
still have to add all the metadata through the HTTP interface.
Metadata
The following template must be used or the metadata will not be passed on with the file.
The file must be .txt and must be strictly laid out according to line. Use commas to
separate the keywords. Words with commas between them will be treated as a phrase.
The file should not include the words " Line 1:" This is for clarity only.
Line 1: Title
Line 2: Description (make sure there are no line breaks).
Line 3: Keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, keyword 4, keyword 5, keyword 6, (make
sure there are no line breaks).
Line 4: "Yes" if the NTSC or PAL files are anamorphic. This sets the anamorphic switch,
and is only effective on NTSC or PAL files. If you leave it blank or type in anything other
than the word yes, SD files will be processed in a 4:3 frame, even if the file is
anamorphic. This does not affect HD files even if HD files are included in the batch.
Example:
Fluffy Clouds
Pink fluffy clouds float by in real time.
clouds, sky, pink, fluffy, exterior, daylight, weather pattern, daydream, video
yes
The above example would be saved as clouds_META.txt and included in the clouds
folder.
These instructions will soon be available on the website. Meanwhile, when it is
announced that the FTP service is up and running, you will have to start using this
workflow. Once you login to the server, you should begin by organizing any files that are
still sitting there into folders and begin to create the text files for the metadata.
As a future workflow, you might consider creating the folder with all the elements on
your computer, then uploading the whole thing. Just make sure you don't name the
folder "done" until it is complete.

436
Tried search and got error:
Warning: fopen(http://api.123rf.com/rest/?method=123rf.images.search&apikey=a526ca3002dbbf532e2b1b67ed2d3af4&keyword=california+coast&keyword_match=all&page=1&perpage=40): failed to open stream: Connection refused in /var/www/samphotostock.cz/www/inc/apiFunctions.php  on line 53

From my end 123RF seems to be down :-)

437
iStockPhoto.com / Re: When did you branch out?
« on: March 26, 2010, 13:06 »
I actually started with IS, SS and FT from the beginning in late 2005. Did not try very hard at this time so my accounts were dormant till 2007. Then I started again but also added StockXpert, 123RF and DT.  I guess it would be much easier if I put same effort first time, less rejections, less competition. Anyway I have been trying many new agencies to find more distribution channels for my images cause I do not feel like putting everything into one agency is safe in long run.  Right now I actively submit to 4 agencies: SS, DT, 123RF and FT. IS is very problematic with low submission limits. I hardly was able to push 200 images in t years because of all the hassles. On SS I am close to 3000.

438
it can get pretty silly - some years ago the US Olympic committee sued businesses on the Olympic National park borders for using Olympic in their business names - not sure if they also went after our state capital, Olympia

s

I hope they lost :-)

439
melastmohican: Regarding MPEGStreamClip, there are so many options, which ones are necessary? For example: select "export to other formats" and then you can select interlaced scaling, deinterlace video, Field Dominance, upper or lower, Better downscaling, I don't know what any of that means, so i select "options" and that takes me to "movie settings" where i can choose "settings" and "filter" and "size" and so I select "settings" then I can select "compression type." So I choose "Photo Jpeg" And high quality but it comes out over twice the size of the original AVI file, is that what should happen?

For my camera:
1. Export as Quicktime
2. Uncheck interlaced scaling
3. Remove sound
4. Change quality to 75%

440
I use MediaCoder or MPEGStreamClip for conversions and resizing 5Dmk2 files. For a video codec I choose PhotoJPG which is most widely accepted. Tried using variants of MPEG4 (H.264) but it was no consensus among sites so I gave up. PhotoJPG produces much larger files but at least I got one file for every agency. I do not tell you anything about sound codecs cause I usually remove sound.

441
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Inspector's training manual
« on: March 24, 2010, 13:46 »
One more thing. Learn to shoot video. Is like 2005 for footage on microstock. Everything goes and they pay a lot just to attract as much contributors as possible :-)

442
There were few threads here :-) Apparently it's back 2005 with footage. Agencies take almost everything so nobody would share now-how with competition :-) When market gets saturated and you no longer be able to earn money on stock footage I am predicting there will be hundreds of site telling newbies how get rich quickly shooting footage for microstock.

443
General Photography Discussion / Re: backpack for DSLR
« on: March 24, 2010, 12:26 »
I got Lowepro Micro Trekker 200 for years. Indestructible. Maybe now there are better models but it is good enough for me. For portability I use Tamrac Tele-Zoom Pak with attachments for additional stuff. I took it for my 4 day trek on Inca Trail where I wanted to save on every gram I was carrying with me so I got body with one lens attached to it in main bag plus another lens in side holder attached to it. You can really attach two like this so I could carry almost all stuff I got in my backpack.

444
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Inspector's training manual
« on: March 24, 2010, 12:14 »
This discussion is pointless. You cannot argue with facts:
1. Agencies already got enough images so they do not really need new supply
2. There are more suppliers everyday so they also do not care if you stay there or not there are hundreds who can take your place if you quit
3. It's no longer true that you can grow from nothing to something and earn money at they same time. Now you have to start from something and keep growing but there is no guarantee that you actually earn enough to justify time spent.
4. Better make sure you got some other source of income to pay your bills. For pros it would be place to sell their leftovers. Amateurs will have to change to pros or die here. Anyway times where you can have full time income from this are over.
5. If it's not your major source of income just face the facts, relax cause rejections across the board will rise. You need to improve your skills rather than spent time ranting :-)

446
Such provision is dead from beginning because it contradicts others. How it could be possible that buyer is entitled to download specific number of files in period of time and prohibited to do that at the same time. Is there any expiration date on usage of these files? If there isn't then one can download them and use in next century. Contributors or agencies may not like like it but nothing can be done unless somebody includes some sort of DRM into files. Nobody likes DRM'ed files so they can only do some law tricks with expiration date.

447
If golden fish gives me one wish I would like to see arbitrary sorting of results gone. Best match, relevance, whatever it's called is based on some artificial logic owner of the site invented. Nobody knows what is in this "secret sauce". Maybe you need to write nice comments on a forum to get highest ranks in search results. IMHO search results should be sortable by any meta data and statistics. If somebody wants to sort by description or upload date, size, so be it. Number of downloads, views, months in collection, , go for it. I guess they also know who is downloading so maybe sorting by geo data: most popular in specific country,  large or small buyer.

448
I just wonder if reviewers have to hand pick offending words? If CV is limited and each keyword must usually appear together with some other related keywords it must be possible to define rule that would some probability guess that if it can find words like apple, red, delicious, round, fruit, image could show apple and mark other words that are not often visible with these five mentioned. Something similar to Google's Page Rank so offending words would have lowest rank and appear last. If they can automate some thing it would be easier for them to use it for everybody.

449
Put another way, iStock exclusive don't get rejections for bad/inappropriate keywords - the offending keywords are removed for them.

I think that should be natural thing to do for everybody. It should take same amount of time (human or cpu time) to remove offending keywords. They must to do it anyway to generate email. I would gladly agree to make it happen by running a script. I got a feeling that in many case it's just an excuse to reject without give valid technical reason.
This is true to some extent but think about how many people would just spam the keywords until they had 50 and let the reviewers decides which are valid. That would take a lot more time and it would take even longer for images to get accepted.

Common how big is CV, 10K words? It's probably matter of milliseconds to get 50 keywords checked against it. And as I said previously they must be doing it already cause it's hard to believe reviewer is hand picking words to paste them into email.
Why would they compare keywords to CV? They are checking them if they are valid for the image. I imagine they click on the keywords that are not appropriate and the systems generates the email based on that.

PS: You can also add keywords that aren't in CV, however they won't be translated over to other languages, so only people using the language you use for keywords, will be able to find your pictures on those keywords.

So what's the difference between actions to generate email or deleting keywords? I would say generating email is more CPU intensive than deleting couple strings?

450
Put another way, iStock exclusive don't get rejections for bad/inappropriate keywords - the offending keywords are removed for them.

I think that should be natural thing to do for everybody. It should take same amount of time (human or cpu time) to remove offending keywords. They must to do it anyway to generate email. I would gladly agree to make it happen by running a script. I got a feeling that in many case it's just an excuse to reject without give valid technical reason.
This is true to some extent but think about how many people would just spam the keywords until they had 50 and let the reviewers decides which are valid. That would take a lot more time and it would take even longer for images to get accepted.

Common how big is CV, 10K words? It's probably matter of milliseconds to get 50 keywords checked against it. And as I said previously they must be doing it already cause it's hard to believe reviewer is hand picking words to paste them into email.

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