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Messages - Gannet77
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451
« on: January 21, 2010, 08:17 »
<rant>
After being away from microstock for a couple of months, I decided to submit some more images to IS. I picked a few that I already had on SS, DT and FT, that had sold reasonably well. You guessed it. IS rejected 3 out of 5 for "artifacting".
With the usual helpful hints about saving at higher JPG quality - hey, my slider is at 10, but apparently they have one that goes higher (remember Spinal Tap's amps?). Yes I've done the noise reduction, the minimal sharpening. There's no place left to go here, folks. This is what digital photos of real objects look like.
Why can't these people simply say "not what we're looking for" and leave it at that? Why the endless obfuscation?
</rant>
I understand it's always fun to rant, but if you're getting lots of rejections for similar reasons and you want to do something about it, your best bet is the iStock Critique forum...
452
« on: January 20, 2010, 07:22 »
If you choose to go exclusive be extremely careful deleting your files. Partner sites like pixmac are slow to remove files. I deleted my files from fotolia two weeks ago and had my istock application rejected because pixmac still had them I'd never even heard of them.
Am now stuck waiting for the 90 day rule. Hope there is a way around it.
It would be good to have a list of these partner sites so we can check them.
Have you asked IS Support? They may relax the 90 day rule for a genuine mistake through no fault of yours.
453
« on: January 17, 2010, 13:08 »
Yes, that's quite true.
My top seller has no ratings at all - those with many high ratings have sold many fewer.
454
« on: January 17, 2010, 13:00 »
EDITED
As for regrets - well, if I had any, I would drop exclusivity. It's not a life sentence.
good point.
so i construe this :
the ones who are not IS exclusives ...are not because they cannot... rather than they do not wish to be.
it's pretty obvious , esp now that there is a lot more carrot waving to be IS exclusive.
Yes, I would think that is the case for most independents. I would estimate that most people - including myself - could probably make somewhat more in royalties by being independent, but it does involve extra time and work, so it's really a decision that depends on your personal circumstances. I spend too much time at the computer as it is, I prefer to keep it simple!
455
« on: January 17, 2010, 12:46 »
A few of my photos on IStock have received ratings from other contributors. In each case they gave me a 5, which is great of course, but is there any real significance to this, say, in terms of search rank? Or is some other game being played, about which I'm clueless?
This is something frequently discussed in the forums - my understanding is that ratings did play a part in the best match at one time, but some contributors collaborated to form "ratings gangs" to help their positioning, and the current word is that there is no longer any effect - unless of course you change the search order to "By Rating". In theory, your rating just means someone likes your image - but it's often been mooted that it would be better if there were a simple "Thumbs Up" rather than a 1 - 5 rating, as it's generally felt to be bad form to rate less than 5, and a mortal insult to rate as a 1!
456
« on: January 17, 2010, 12:35 »
For myself, it took 8 months to reach 500 downloads in order to apply for exclusive, but I had to wait a month or so longer as I recall because I had some images with another agency.
As for regrets - well, if I had any, I would drop exclusivity. It's not a life sentence.
457
« on: January 17, 2010, 12:27 »
i also project to put most of my future works in RM with Alamy, as for now, i have 100% approval there but all in RF..., and i am told i can still maintain Alamy with IS exclusivity.
I'm not sure I have interpreted you correctly here, but you can't maintain Alamy RF with IS exclusivity - only Alamy RM. You will have to remove all Alamy RF to apply for IS Exclusive - or convert to RM, if Alamy will permit.
458
« on: January 14, 2010, 05:28 »
You can use keywords that aren't in the CV - they will be used for the image and work in searches, but not translated into other languages, and if they're phrases they would have to be placed in quotes for the search to work.
But that's just a partial workaround. It would be nice if IS would check through the list of keywords entered that aren't in the CV, once in a while, and move appropriate ones into the CV proper.
459
« on: December 23, 2009, 05:13 »
I think in his case the big deal is the higher upload limit. 25/week can be stifling if you are producing twice that.
But he only has 860 files up now since 2006, either he isn't using all the upload limit or he has a very high rejection rate, which seems unlikely given the quality of his work... and it'd only be 5 more uploads in any case. My query though was more that there are 2 months to the cut off date, with over 24000 downloads now I would have expected him to be in with a good chance of reaching the 25000 download target by then. But Jan and Feb are slow months I guess.
460
« on: December 22, 2009, 18:53 »
I'm a little surprised you say you'll be only 500 downloads away from Diamond at the end of February - you seem to have less than a 1000 to go now, I'd have thought you have a pretty good chance of crossing the line before the cut off date anyway, don't you?
But then you say you don't intend to go Exclusive in any case - so I guess no big deal. The bling would be nice though wouldn't it?
461
« on: December 21, 2009, 09:27 »
From kkthompson on Istock forum:
"Our plans for next year had one goal: make more money for our exclusives."
I wouldn't be too worried if I were exclusive.
Well I certainly don't doubt either their honesty or their business competence, but plans don't always work out as expected. On the other hand, no, I'm not worried, just interested to see what happens.
462
« on: December 20, 2009, 18:52 »
...And some buyers didn't fill out the survey. 
Quite so!
463
« on: December 20, 2009, 18:19 »
Sky does seem to have rather more noise than I'd expect - large expanses of blue sky like that are always a bit of a problem. You could try noise reduction, or perhaps a gaussian blur, with a mask for just the sky.
You'd do better to post in the iStock critique forum. If you're lucky, an inspector will come by and give you a better idea of exactly what they see as the problem.
464
« on: December 20, 2009, 18:01 »
Over on the IS forums, the Exclusives are concerned that they'll lose out because, given that the non-exclusive images are just as good as the Exclusive ones, the buyers will always take the cheaper (non-exclusive) file over the Exclusive one, assuming it'll work just as well for them.
I'm not sure why the Exclusives are worried about that...buyers will have to find the cheaper photos before they can buy them and I gotta believe they aren't going to be easy to find. Do you see a sort by price on IS?
I know I've read a lot on this whole business over the past week and can't recall...will non-exclusive photos be totally separated out from exclusives now? If so, then I see why they're worried. If we are all still in one hopper, then my first statement applies.
No, nobody knows exactly how it will be done yet - we've been told the Main collection will not provide a search option which excludes Exclusive content, that's about all. Everything else (including the suggestion made here that the best match will bury non-exclusives) is conjecture. I was just intrigued by the fact that both camps seem to think it will be bad for them - clearly they can't both be right! I would guess it depends how price conscious the buyers are. iStock say their surveys indicate that most buyers aren't that concerned about a few dollars here and there, but you can see that if a buyer has, say, selected maybe half a dozen possibles and they see one or two are cheaper and just as good, they'll most likely pick the cheaper. Some buyers have said (in the IS forums) that they would do that, but others have indicated that they don't mind paying more for the right image. We can only wait and see.
465
« on: December 20, 2009, 12:34 »
I seriously doubt that will happen. We will be gathering dust at the back of the best match.
I share your - rather bleak - view of the future of independents at IS. It will be interesting to see, though, if they can afford to let half of the collection "gather dust at the back of the best match"...
Interesting. Here, the independents seem to feel they're going to suffer from IS changing the best match to favour Exclusives. Over on the IS forums, the Exclusives are concerned that they'll lose out because, given that the non-exclusive images are just as good as the Exclusive ones, the buyers will always take the cheaper (non-exclusive) file over the Exclusive one, assuming it'll work just as well for them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
466
« on: December 19, 2009, 05:25 »
None of them have many downloads though...
467
« on: December 17, 2009, 05:38 »
Another thought on the OP - I see a lot of people who put a great list of all their private lightboxes in the description of every file.
I don't see the point in that. If a buyer is looking at your image of an isolated banana, it's not likely they want to check out your lightbox of 200 Engineering Widgets or whatever.
On the other hand, they might be interested in your lightbox of "Fruit Isolated on White" - keep the links relevant and they're more likely to take a look.
At least, that's how I think.
468
« on: December 17, 2009, 05:32 »
Agreed - if you're relying on the IPTC for keywordng on the other sites, DeepMeta will pick that up and use it to derive iStock keywords, so just regard loading the files to DeepMeta as your "upload" to iStock.
Then, when the files are in DeepMeta, you just have to do the final submit.
It's easier than uploading directly. About the only glitch is that you can't resubmit images via DeepMeta - you have to use the iStock interface for that. Not a failing in DeepMeta itself, it's just that the API doesn't have the capability.
469
« on: December 17, 2009, 05:04 »
If youre thinking of going exclusive with Istock you should know you need 250 dls and 50% approval rating.
Before February 24th...
470
« on: December 15, 2009, 04:48 »
Like Vonkara, I have private lightboxes with links from the images in them, and every view of those lightboxes must have come from someone clicking on a link - there are many views, so certainly people do. How much it helps sales I can't tell of course, but it can't hurt.
I also use the links to "related images" method a lot; I have no way to evaluate how successful that is, but again, it can't hurt and with DeepMeta it's easy. My feeling is it's likely even better than a lightbox - after all, someone has already viewed one image, they must be interested in that subject.
It's another way you have to market your own images against the competition. If the best match puts one of your images at the top and others lower down, then if a buyer views the first one they get a chance to see the others too. It can only help.
471
« on: December 14, 2009, 08:18 »
The vast majority of your sales come from only about 8 images - if your most popular images suddenly drop out of fashion, or if someone has uploaded something similar, it would impact your sales disproportionately.
You need to get a larger and more varied selection uploaded... shoot, upload, repeat...
472
« on: December 04, 2009, 07:48 »
You can also "force" the new IP adding in the file "hosts" the following entrie:
205.134.239.191 microstockgroup.com
205.134.239.191 blog.microstockgroup.com
205.134.239.191 www.microstockgroup.com
It works, for me ;-)
That was my solution too... as I'm in the office I didn't want to change my DNS!
473
« on: November 19, 2009, 19:30 »
How about asking the other two sites?
If it wouldn't have required an EL from iStock, then presumably even if it was sold through them there was no license breach... so it's the others that matter.
474
« on: November 17, 2009, 18:02 »
I am opted in on IS but not a single "Partner Program" sale has registered on my stats page there. What does it all mean? The ways of Getty are mysterious indeed.
I think it means they report them just once a month.
At least, that's what I seem to recall having read. Anyone else remember that?
That's correct. See http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=88699&page=1, last post by sylvanworks. It's been suggested elsewhere that you may see nothing until end of December, but I haven't seen that confirmed by any admin, so maybe end of November perhaps.
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