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Messages - klsbear
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451
« on: July 04, 2012, 17:55 »
I actually turned Emerald at the end of April ... and bizarrely it's been downhill every since! Heigh-ho.
Interesting... Lends support to the notion that emeralds are penalized in the search.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that they include rank in the search algorithm. Immediately after I turned bronze it seemed like sales started to increase and I could count on some regular DL's rather than the previous random DL's with long dry periods. Could be that they are boosting the lower and middle ranks which in effect penalizes the higher ranks.
452
« on: July 01, 2012, 11:53 »
Processing of uploaded files is not working.
However uploading with filezilla is possible.
Same here, but when going to edit the files I get the message
Upload Stopped
Sorry to inform that uploads will be temporarily stopped to facilitate a scheduled maintenance of our storage system.
Hmmm - that message was from the 8th indicating processing was not available but I was able to process images on the 11th, 14th and 20th with no problems. Guessing it's been intermittent - hopefully they will get it fixed on Monday.
453
« on: July 01, 2012, 11:44 »
I've only been shooting with the specific intent of creating stock photos for about 18 months. I'm uploading to 13 sites and giving them all a chance to prove themselves. Biggest reason for giving all to everyone right now is that I notice that what is a top seller on one site may be completely ignored by others so I don't want to edit who gets what. I still need a lot more images online to really determine if some of the sites are worth my time but I do plan to stop uploading to one or two in the next 6 - 12 months if things don't improve. I have de-activated the EL option on FT due to low commissions.
454
« on: July 01, 2012, 10:12 »
I'm getting the following message since yesterday:
Upload Stopped
Sorry to inform that uploads will be temporarily stopped to facilitate a scheduled maintenance of our storage system.
Same here - I think I started seeing it Friday night. Sent some images via Lightburner and got their e-mail telling me the upload was successful but I cant access the upload area to complete the processing.
455
« on: June 30, 2012, 22:38 »
I think a lot of the power outages were caused by the violent and destructive stoms that downed trees and brought down power lines, not the heat itself. It's not just the oppressive heat but also the lack of power - not only no air conditioners but no fans either. Add to that the problems for those in the city where the concrete and pavement hold the heat and it doesn't cool down much at night.
You also have a lot more population density in some of the major cities along the northeast and mid atlantic which puts a larger than normal strain on the power grid when there is a heat wave. FL, TX, AZ expect the high heat regularly and the infrastructure is built for that but in the northeast it throws things out of whack. Kind of like when they get 3 inches of snow in the south and close the schools for 2 days.
456
« on: June 29, 2012, 19:22 »
Congratulations!
457
« on: June 26, 2012, 19:23 »
Maybe some are waiting until the Partner Program numbers are in at IS?
458
« on: June 23, 2012, 15:07 »
Very up an down sales for me - a decent month followed by very slow for a month or two. I'm not seeing the big increase the were forecasting. I did some calculations based on my average monthtly credits x 12 months and I would have needed to instantly increase my portfolio by a factor of 6x and they would have needed to increase the sales by a factor of 3x in order for me to achieve the credits needed to keep the current commision rate.  My portfolio is small and I'm working to increase it for now, but will reassess at the end of the year. They are currently my #4 earner but that will be certain to change after the new system is implemented if they don't make any changes.
459
« on: June 22, 2012, 23:16 »
If something is bugging you or can use improvement, we're always happy to hear!
Duncan, I'd like to see the option to include an image in more than one series. I have some images that would fit into more than one such as a hot cocoa shot that fits into Beverages and Christmas.
460
« on: June 15, 2012, 19:36 »
The recent changes certainly haven't been a benefit to me. Even though I'm a relative newbie and have a small portfolio I have been regularly uploading and have enough history to see this drastic change. Average sales over the past 12 months has been 11 images, ranging from 8 to 17, most months in double digits but half way into June and only ONE lonely Sub sale to date. SS and IS have been cruising along at the usual pace, FT has been steady with regular sales but here, and 123RF have seen a drastic downturn over the last 5-6 weeks. I know this is pretty meaningless to those with bigger ports and more history, but it is does refute the claim that all the glory is going to the newer contributors. I've seen the sales turn for the worse too.
461
« on: June 14, 2012, 18:19 »
I recently asked a friend in the publishing industry if there was a way to find out the size of a print run and this was the response I got. Publishers inflate the stated print run of a book to make it appear "hotter" than it actually may be. The publisher and their printer are the only two entities that would know and they do not give this number out. The subject of royalties even to the author based on print and sell through is very messy and murky. I can say that a print run of 250,000 plus would be a "big" book and would most certainly land on a bestseller list somewhere, USA Today, Amazon, NYT, etc...
Most print runs are 5,000 - 20,000 of a book until it takes off and then pubs order in increments of 5 - 10,000 as demand warrants. Based on that response I'd guess that a significant number of the books on the shelves don't get close to needing an EL.
462
« on: June 13, 2012, 21:15 »
@seiksoon - that's the same response I got when I inquired about images that had been waiting about 5 weeks only the wait was running about 8 weeks at that point. About half the images in the que (which had been uploaded over about 5 weeks) were reviewed a few weeks later and the rest a few weeks after that.
Seems like the reviewers have been instructed to reject at least one or two from every series in a theme or concept. If I submit 4, one is rejected, if I submit 7, two are rejected, all with the "stronger images accepted" comment although they are generally series that are getting complete acceptance from other agencies, even those with a reputation for rejecting similars.
Being new at this my game plan was to give any agency I upload to a certain amount of time to prove their worth while I build up my portfolio but they are definately the most discouraging in terms of rejections and sales.
464
« on: June 03, 2012, 08:45 »
Well Im sure its a glitch, bug or something, I mean I just did a search on "construction engineer" and among the first 5 pages, there are 3 pages with guys and girls in a hardhat isolated on white, ALL! with zero dls, yep, zero dls.
cant be right, can it.
The search does seem to return an odd selection. A simple search on "milk" with the default as Relevant returned only vaguely relevant images - #1 was a couple in a field with some dairy cows in the background. Also in the first 2 rows were a recycling tub with a milk carton, pink desserts that seemed to have milk as an ingredient and milk chocolate. Changing to New wasn't much better - lots of bad keywording - there were blueberries without any milk in sight, an illustration of cats and a cup of black coffee taking up about a 20% of the slots. Sorting by Downloads and Popularity returned the same odd mix of images with just a few more glasses of milk or milk splashes but still a lot of cows, generic cosmetic tubes and bottles, etc. How is it that the second most popular download for "Milk" is an overhead close up of a box of Butter Cookies with two downloads? Narrowing it down didn't seem to help that much either - changing it to "Milk Dairy Glass" still had the two pink desserts in the first row. There was part of a jar with pink something in it which I guess was enough to keyword it for "glass". If I were searching as a buyer I'd be pretty frustrated with the results returned.
465
« on: May 28, 2012, 12:02 »
Lightroom doesn't save the actual image, it just saves a record of the changes you made and applies them at export. When you export to whatever folder you chose to store your exports you can export as a .jpg in whatever size you want, ie: full res or reduced for web posting. It's non-destructive editing so you can always return to the original raw image and edit again with different settings, you can make a copy of your initial edits and convert from there, etc. About half way down the export dialog box is the option to choose .jpg or a few other file formats when exporting. Your original raw image will stay intact, LR will retain the changes you made to the raw image for future work and your export will be a new copy in the new file format. ETA, here's a link to Adobe tutorials http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/gettingstarted/If you're a NAPP member or subscribe to Kelby Training you can find tutorials on those sites too.
466
« on: May 28, 2012, 11:21 »
I get a lot of subs and SM sales there and each month I sell about 1/10th the amount of images I sell at SS with essentially the same number of images. For me to retain my current commission 123RF would need to be selling almost 3 times the number of images I sell at SS each month or start selling a lot more of the higher credit images. I've continued to upload for now to increase my portfolio since its small and I've only been at this a short time but they will moving from a mid-tier agency to a bottom tier agency for me once they implement the new commission structure and at that time I'll be reassessing whether or not they are worth the effort.
What irks me the most is with the initial short-lived commission change they floated out there first I was considered a valued contributer that had enough approved images and enough sales to keep my current rate. Now with the new structure it's not just a drop one level, I've been kicked down several levels with virtually no hope of climbing back to my current level until I can increase my portfolio substantially. I haven't seen any significant change in sales over the last 5 months despite increasing my portfolio by about 25%.
467
« on: May 19, 2012, 09:46 »
I saw a SS tweet last night that lead me to a post on the buyer's blog describing Shutterstock Instant a new search interfact they are testing. From the blog: Shutterstock Instant is the worlds first image search experience truly optimized for inspiration and browsing. Instead of trying to add more features to our core website, we thought wed just re-imagine how a website would work if we focused more narrowly. Our hope is not to replace our current experience, but offer a new one for those of you in the exploration phase. Looks interesting and I like that it's an additional tool, not a replacement for the current search. Here's the link to the full post on the blog.
468
« on: May 16, 2012, 22:14 »
On Friday I decided I'd open a support ticket to ask about my forum ban. It was for one sarcastic (no profanity; no rudeness to any individual) post in early September 2011 and Lobo site mailed me that I should take a little break from the forums. The support ticket asked if my ban was in fact permanent, and if not, when would I get my forum privileges back.
It'll be interesting to see what, if any, response I get. ...
So far, no response - Opened May 4th, it's now May 15th. I realize this isn't a time-critical issue, but when you're looking at a yes-no answer, I think that 9 days is plenty of time. Apparently they could serve us better via the ticket system - if this is "better", I hate to think what worse is.
I have this vision of the support ticket going to someone that has no authority to make the decision to reinstate so they send an e-mail to their supervisor who tells them to open an internal support ticket which gets a canned response that all issues are to be taken up at the weekly support issue meeting. At the meeting they realize there is no policy on reinstatement and the response is tabled until a task force can be assembled to create policy, meanwhile another internal support ticket is sent to request a new push-button response to be sent in reply to future requests for reinstatement - something along the lines of "the issue of reinstating your forum privileges is being worked on and we will respond when we have a decision - if you require more information please call CR or post in the forums"
469
« on: May 14, 2012, 19:00 »
I've had one return and when I sent an e-mail inquiring about the reason I was told that they only issue a return if it was fraud (cc theft) when they get the complaint from the card owner. They told me that they never issue returns on good quality images just because someone changed their mind or didn't need it. They got back to me within 24 hours of my inquiry with a personal response too which was appreciated. Not a canned response like some sites.
470
« on: May 13, 2012, 20:48 »
My internet access is spotty enough that I would never choose to use a program that required a working fast connection.
You download the program to your computer just as you would if purchasing so the internet connection would only impact the initial download. It just does a monthly ping-back to verify that you still have an active subscription. It was likened to the program trials where you can test the program but the access expires in 30 days.
471
« on: May 13, 2012, 10:17 »
Just checked the pricing for the UK, they have like a 50% price hike on the US version, for something that is delivered over the internet!
what, how do they justify this?
Lots of complaints about that on Scott Kelby's blog along with the fact that it's not even available in several countries (ie: several in South America noted). It's a topic that's come up alot and never had a good answer, just a rather lame excuse about higher business costs. I suppose there are some added costs for online support, multiple languages for some countries, business licenses, taxes, copyright filings, etc. but it does seem unfair.
472
« on: May 13, 2012, 09:23 »
Price seem like a rip off compared to purchasing the upgrades, especially if you only upgrade ever couple of versions.
On top of that I imagine bug fixing will be even slower now with less customers holding out for creases to be ironed out of features before deciding to upgrade.
I think they've changed their upgrade policy now so that upgrade discounts will only apply if you're upgrading from the most recent version. No more skipping versions so you'd have to upgrade each time they have a new release or pay full price. The real benefit goes to those using multiple programs. Lightroom is supposed to be added later this year so if you're using LR, PS, and InDesign it becomes more economical. Definately a win if you're using more than a few programs.
473
« on: May 08, 2012, 17:22 »
Last year CanStockPhoto had the average wait time for approval listed a minus 5 minutes so I assumed that meant they were approving them while you were still in the upload process or perhaps just thinking about uploading 
474
« on: May 07, 2012, 17:33 »
5 of the last 32 sales for me have been from photos uploaded in the last 2-1/2 months so I'm seeing some activity and it's been an increase over the rate I'd seen on new files the last 4 or 5 months of last year.
475
« on: May 07, 2012, 17:24 »
I don't worry about review times but when they extend well beyond the norm I'll send an e-mail inquiry to see if there was a problem with the upload queue. That ended up being the case with images uploaded to SS in early April. After 10 days I sent an e-mail about images and was told there was a glitch and to delete and resubmit. I did that and a few days later all waiting images were reviewed. The funny thing is, even the images deleted 3 days earlier had been accepted! They accepted both the deleted images and the resubmitted version of the same. I ended up deleting the later set after I had a sale on one of the original images. That verified that they were live in my portfolio so I kept the group that sold.
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