BigStock overtaking Istock - the hare and the turtle.
SS king of the game - sprinter.
DT steady and increasing - marathon runner.
FT better than thought
"New" or renewed sites: CanStockPhoto, MP and CC dead, ZYM keeps going - the Duracell rabbit.

for me , these upgrade is very bad

你好 

Yes, I read your thread at Dreamstime. For me it's very good since from 2 downloads yesterday of older exclusive images with high image levels alone, I had 11$. Those shots never really "flied" but Achilles asked me to optimize keywords and title a week ago, and I did it for all my older images with higher image rank.

It's a good strategy since "relevance" as determined by the search engine is only determined by the metadata/keywords, while real relevance might more depend on previous sales and views. What's more, as the contributor wins more on high image level images, Dreamstime in general too will have more revenue. My RPD went up from $1.39 in February 2009 to $2.41 in March which confirms this guess.
My referral income went slightly up from $4.49 in February to $4.54 in March, and considering these ports are more recent, it all fits.

In every search algorithm change, there are winners and losers. I turned out to be a big loser on Istock and a winner on DT. That's microstock life.

Your port is very vulnerable to algorithm changes, and you should analyze its content. With 5,000+ online, you have large series of similars, and the concepts/settings are limited. That means you are competing with your own images and you will reach high image levels on selected images much slower. With limited variety, you will also have less sales from visual search in your port. My keyword-less sales are 60% of the total, indicating visual search. On a side note, you should pay more attention to keywords and title. Many shots of your daughter have just the title "kid" and the keywords are limited. On every shot you use "beautiful" but that's not really a search term since all landscapes, nature and girls are "beautiful".

Whoever has a high production with a constant flow of new images should also upload to ShutterStock, where new images rank high in the search engine but die quickly. Dreamstime is more an investment in the long run.

The easiest thing is to read the reviewer's remarks carefully, and if you believe in the shot and you're allowed to resubmit, just process it all over and resubmit by the resubmit button. I would never reupload an image that has been rejected without addressing the issues. Sometimes those issues are very easy to correct, like an off-keyword or a brand name that wasn't cloned out. If the reviewer believes in the image, he will even attach a screenshot of the problematic area, something that other sites never do.

Planning to buy a studio set with softboxes for quite some time, I just discovered both the Linkstar 750 and 600 w/s sets (2 strobes, 1 softbox, 1 umbrella) are out of stock. The only one available is the 500 w/s set. Since I need it within days (will travel), I will have to decide soon to settle for 500 w/s, or browse for other brands. The advantage of the Linkstar is that I worked with it before.

The set will be used in studio to shoot 1-2 persons on a white background, intended to isolate. I'd like to use it on the lowest ISO, and at least F11 for the DOF with 2 models or poses that don't have the hand perfectly in the plane of the eyes. Canon 5DMKII and occasionally D200 Nikon.

To all those marvelous studio gurus out here, my question is if 500 w/s is really enough for this kind of work, and if there is that much difference between 500 (guide number 70 at 100 ISO) and 750 w/s (guide number 85 at 100 ISO).

Thanks!

the other way is like a marriage. not always ending happily, esp when divorce time comes.

Well if the images are minor, you can always press for alimony.

FlemishDreams you have been misinformed, I am just a solo artist and not a group or collective.

In that case, I bow very deep for your quality and production. Yes, the variety is amazing. There is still Iofoto that is a group, so there must be a way to handle it.

Now this mean that I must spend another 5 mins to limit my keywords and maybe after that again have "THAT educational" mesagge from iStock for dummies learning team again and fck my self like dog around the tree?!?

Dario, I hope you feel better now. And when you cooled down, download and use deepmeta for uploading to Istockphoto without getting a tantrum  

Thats one of my most recent designs. Do not know yet if it sells..

Gave me some ideas 


"A house for all seasons"
"What side would you like to live? Support global warming!"

So sad to see your profile is "hidden" would have loved to see your portfolio on any of these sites.

Personally I don't pay much attention to "new users" that have no portfolio links at all and start to voice very strong opinions. If they go on, I mostly ignore them. Nothing personal, but it's a waste of time if somebody starts a gossip game that doesn't advance my understanding of the business.
Anaire isn't one of those and it's quite easy to find her portfolio.

Flash is slow, SEO unfriendly and 95% of the buyers hate it (ref: photoshelter web design study amongst 500+ image buyers - ask copy of the detailed report by email to PS).

In short, Flash is great for a site intended for other photographers/artists and to show off. It's counter productive for buyers and personal marketing.

Quickest way may be to reshoot it. Im pretty sure it�s not withered...

I'm sure it will, at least in my experience with bright red and a vibrant development from raw. I wasn't thinking of reshooting nor tweaking but just develop the raw a second time with vibrancy or saturation slided down. Reshooting may only help when you're far off in exposure. The color of the rose won't change.

Quote from: Magnum on March 28, 2009, 08:17

http://www.localfoto.co.uk/details.php?gid=91&pid=9
Best quality?

Oops it�s gone...