Quote from: le_cyclope on June 27, 2007, 00:53

Quote from: hatman12 on June 27, 2007, 00:30

Food?  Friends?  Life?  Sex?  What are those things......?

I know what these words refer to because I saw photos of these!

Congrat!  I'm sure you deserve it!

Claude

Brilliant! You made me cry laughing.


Congratulations Hatman. Its a great feeling isn't it?

I don't bother with the SS forums anymore because they are so depressing. The same people grinding the same axes over and over. Its a shame because they used to be great fun.
The only forum I bother reading nowadays is this one, everything you need to know ends up here, without a big pointless argument.

I have been trying to get paid with no success. I am off on holiday (vacation for our US friends) next week, and I want my money!
I have payments from just before the upgrade that have not been cleared also.
I emailed support, but just got a standard reply that told me nothing.

This is one of the nicest sites I have joined. The people are friendly and helpful, and most of all, totally human and approachable.
There are not many sales yet, but it is a new site so they will grow in time.
Most of all, making those little cards is great fun! I have uploaded about 250 so far, and really enjoyed it. Most of the pics I have for sale as stock adapt easily to business cards.
I was going through one of those flat uninspired times with the stock photography when this came along. I love playing around in Photoshop, so making frames and trying different backgrounds has been like relaxation after the stress of the micros.
Give it a go!

Have you considered doing a video of the lessons and selling it to us overseas photogs who cannot get to the states? I bet it would sell like hot cakes round the stock sites.
(Can I have a discount for suggesting it? )

Impressive images Phil. I must give this a try.

I was not able to post for ages, I logged in and out and deleted cookies. I find I have no problems since I downloaded Firefox.

I agree with Epyxx. I always have the most relevant keywords in the first dozen or so. It saves loads of time on sites like Fotolia, whose search is slanted towards the first few keywords. It will make uploading to CS a piece of cake.

I am all for a keyword limit. The spamming is getting ridiculous, and it must be putting buyers off.

I don't do all these percentages, I don't have time, and working in accounts I want to do something different with my evenings!
I just look at the money in my bank account.

SS - more than ever before.
DT -great month best so far this year
SX -improving all the time
123 -best month ever since the site opened
BS -averagemonth, steady sales all month
IS -seems to be dropping back
Fotolia -steady
CS -seems to be picking up, sales are more regular.
LO -disappointing, despite an EL.
FP - just dragging along

I find 123Rf sporadic. I will go a couple of days without a sale, then 10 come all at once!

You tease!! 

The high number of images in the queue tells me that Dreamstime is the place where people want to be. My sales there increase week on week.
The number of hours waiting time figure is generated by a computer program based on the number of pictures passing by the reviewers. Thats why it goes up sometimes, they have to sleep.
The review process is a lot slower than most sites, but I think it is a lot fairer than some. The rejection reasons are always right and fair.
I look on the suscription downloads as a extra, over and above the normal sales. They are attracting another sort of buyer who would not have bought the pictures from there otherwise.
They are my number two earner behind Shutterstock, and so far this month they are ahead of everyone.

I rememer bing a guest at a wedding and wathcing the photographer. His tripod was so flimsy that it swayed in the wind!
I go for the sturdiest legs I can, with a ball head, and with a quick release.
After saying that, weight is a big consideration for me. I am a small woman. My studio tripod is a Benbo, and there is no way I could carry that plus my equipment any distance, so I have to go for a lighter Manfrotto for outside work.

I am in the UK, and I do other photography work beside stock sites. I deduct 33% of the cost of new equipment each year over three years, all travel costs, 20% of all light and heating costs in my home (because I have turned a spare bedroom into a small studio).
Last year I paid no tax on my photography income, but I expect to pay a small amount this year.
UK photographers need to be careful about falling into the VAT brackets, and being forced to charge VAT and pay it over to the government. This is worked out on your turnover, not your profit. Im nowhere near that area yet, but I imagine some people reading this could be.

I found this one of mine. Its such a thrill! My chimp was using the stick to beat the other chimps over the head!
http://www.cryptoworld.co.uk/chimpanzees-use-spears-to-hunt-bushbabies/

A long time ago I read on these forum about American Frame. They sell frames, and you can upload your images to be sold with the frames. You set your own profit.
BEWARE.
I had a gallery on there, and last week received an email from their printing department. They had an order for one of my pictures, but did not have it on the database. They asked me to re upload, which I did.
I have not been credited with that sale. I have emailed support and received no reply.
Therefore, I have deleted all my images.
If you have any images with them, be warned, they don't pay you for sales!

If you just imported that image into Illustrator and then saved it as .eps, you would not have a true vector. There are a number of stages to go through to make it a vector.
To see how the paths work, try opening a new document, click File, then Place, and put you picture into the document (Better resize it to about 600 pixels first)
Then click on Trace, and then Expand. You can now see the paths that make a picture a vector rather than a jpg.
Autotraced images are not accepted on a lot of sites because they are usually a mess, with loads of confusing paths. You need to use the pen tool to create accurate paths.
Drawing in Illustrator is not like drawing in an art package, it is a totally different approach.

I don't think it matter when you upload them, pictures can sell at anytime. I sold half a dozen Christmas pictures last week.
Designers work sometimes months ahead of the season, so they could easily be looking for winter pictures in the summer.
Also, the Internet is global. When it is winter in the northern hemisphere, its summer in the south.

There are moves afoot in the British Parliament to restrict the use of cameras in public places.
If you are British and agree that this is a really BAD idea, please sign the petition on the Government website:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/

What a great picture. I love it. Congratulations, very well deserved winner.

This could shake things up a bit! I hope Bill Gates has some fresh ideas for microstock.

Still no luck here in Britian. (Pun intended!)

I find it really interesting that for the majority who have posted so far, SS is the leading earner, way ahead of IS. I expected them to be much more neck and neck.
I have not worked out the lesser earners but my top 5 are:

SS 45%
DT 20%
IS 18%
BS 10%
FO 7%

Last month was way weird, Shutterstock earned 10X more than IS for me!

My sales are really taking off there, I hope the trend continues!

I have over 650 pictures on Bigstock, and they generate a steady income.  It is not the biggest selling site, but it is steady and regular. It is also one of the friendliest sites with admin that respond to queries rapidly and in a friendly manner.