The whites are gray and the details look a bit mushy. You shouldn't need any noise reduction on a properly lit shot so using "medium" - whatever that means - is probably why you have smeary details.

If this had white whites and was downsized to the minimum it might get accepted, but I don't think it's a strong stock image. The background is a crumpled blouse that could use ironing (or to be so out of focus you can't tell it's wrinkled).

Sorry to be blunt, but I don't think this will fly

I heard back from support this morning.

Apparently all LELs are 20 credits, so my sale was made with 56 cent credits - certainly above the "floor" of 40 cents.

I don't know why it took a note to support to uncover that LELs were 20 credits - that could have been written somewhere. It would be nice to know what rights - for one use only - they get for 20 credits, but I'll save that query for another day. They didn't answer that part of my query

I can't comment on what video sales are like elsewhere as I don't do video. But assuming there is a decent market with the other sites (as there is for photos), I would suggest that the troubles you face with building up your portfolio across sites are much better for your long term income than hoping iStock/Getty/Carlyle turn things around.

In my case (I left exclusivity at the beginning of June 2011) I figured that I was going to take a hit in income anyway (I had been watching it drop by 10-20% over 2010 equivalent months at the beginning of 2011). Better to take the hit while building in some future upside potential than just sitting there and accepting whatever iStock/Getty/H&F cared to toss my way. I get the idea that you don't want to bail too soon, but even if you ignore the terrible damage of the debt that H&F saddled Getty with, Getty's track record in past acquisitions - controlling costs by cutting payouts to photographers - was clearly (to me) what was happening at iStock. I knew about all of that when I became exclusive but hoped that Getty would leave iStock alone for longer given that they were making money. Once I saw the writing on the wall with the September 2010 actions, that hope was clearly not the way things were going.

It isn't just iStock. Two of my brothers were PumpAudio contributors. After Getty acquired them, they sent out letters to everyone saying that they were cutting their royalty from 50% to 35% so they could market things better. My brothers got another letter saying they could keep their 50% if they went exclusive with Getty, which they did as they couldn't afford the loss in royalties at the time. Do a google search on Getty acquisitions and there's a sorry tale of the same type of behavior over and over.

I don't have a crystal ball any more than you do, but I couldn't bet on a good outcome by hoping any more. While other exclusives have been reporting huge drops, I saw my October - December 2012 about 5% up on October - December 2010 (my last fall selling season quarter as an exclusive). I know it's only a small uptick, but compared to 50% losses, I'm content.

I thought I'd catch up with the iStock December +2012 sales thread this morning and though it worth noting Sean Locke's report:

"I don't even want to try and calculate this stuff anymore because it is too depressing.

Frankly, I'd prefer the December report and the yearly report split into two threads.

December 2012.
- Worst month of the year for $$ and DLs.
- 25% off $$ and 50% off downloads from December 2011.
- Worst month of the past 3 years for $$ and DLs.
- Have to go back to July 2009 for a worse month for $$$, September of 2005 for a worse month (barely) in DLs

2012
- $$$ drop 20% from 2011, DLs down 50%

Wow. "

I know this is only one contributor but he is (a) historically successful (b) actively contributing - I think he said about 2K in 2012 (c) has Vetta/Agency to prop up the $$ as DLs fall. I know he mentioned he was one of the ones who benefited from the royalty stasis move.

For me, the only question remaining is whether Getty/Carlyle wants to halt the slump at IS or if it's part of their transition plan to whatever future they see. The only reason I care at this point (other than empathy for those caught in the exclusivity trap) is that I make a fair bit at iStock in spite of their train wreck of a business and I'd like to go wherever those customers are migrating to

^^ Ha!!

They're still messing up calculations - similar problem to the one I first described, but now they're paying me 18% a $34.00 XXXL sale should net me $6.12 and I was credited with $6.20. At the most expensive credits ($1.67) a 20 credit file would cost $33.40 and thus my royalty would rightly be $6.01

I sent site mail to Ms. Rockafellar when she was "communicating" last month but that's gone unanswered. FWIW it said:

"Ms. Rockafellar,

iStock calculates contributor royalties using floating point arithmetic. This results in predictable and well understood errors. Many view it as incorrect to make currency calculations this way because of the lack of precision.

This first came up at iStock 2 years ago because a contributor noticed an error in subscription royalties. An iStock employee (Joyze) acknowledged in the forums that the error came about because of the use of floating point calculations.

Instead of fixing the general problem, the correction was to round up the particular subscription royalty.

From an exchange this week with contributor relations over an incorrect royalty of mine on a cash sale - it was 2 cents too much, but the errors can be either positive or negative - it was again acknowledged that the discrepancy came from the use of floating point calculations. Contributor relations insisted that the developers claim the royalty is correct.

If you get out a calculator to figure 17% of $34.00 you'll see it says $5.78 - not the $5.80 I was credited with.

The potential liability to Getty for mis-handling all contributor royalties site wide is huge. There's no point in arguing with CR. I strongly urge you to talk to the folks who handle this area and get this fixed - if my bank handled money the way iStock does they'd be shut down.

I can get you links to the 2010 discussion and my CR exchange if you need them.

regards

Jo Ann Snover"

That's exactly what I mean. I have a mouse on my desk - the Wacom tablet is on the keyboard tray. Once in a while I want to check mouse vs. tablet behavior but otherwise I never use it.

I have express keys on the sides and a touch strip. One of the four keys is mapped to the space bar so I can press that with my left hand and scroll windows up or down with my stylus - so no need for the scroll wheel. You have rocker buttons on the stylus, so that's double click and right click. Single click is a tap of the pen. The other three express keys are mapped to command, option & shift (it'd be control alt shift for a PC) - that's particularly useful for Photoshop. I don't think you have a touch strip on the Bamboo, but those are mapped to Cmd+ and Cmd- to zoom in and out.

Congratuations! As I recall I received an e-mail about the change and I don't remember waiting long

Ok.. I think I have the site back on it's feet.  Let me know if anything looks fishy

It was a bit like opening the door to your own house and finding that someone had completely re-arranged the purpose of every room and most of the furniture!

It was a testament to how well things normally work that it was so jarring and surprising to see something amiss with this site (unlike some other sites that shall remain nameless...)

Thanks for making the interruption brief and it was a very good thing that you quickly got a note up above the forum list saying you were working on fixing it - great idea do to that.

You are not selling the image (tangible) but a license to use it (intangible). I think that isn't covered by Sales Tax even if the sale occurred in Washington State. I think the employee misunderstood.

And the sort answer is that you cannot know where your images were licensed, so even if the intangible license were covered, you can't separate out locations.

...Of course, this is grossly unfair to those who sold exactly the same number of files as, for example, jsnover but are now trapped a level below her because their sales have not fallen the way hers have. (Nothing personal intended - but I'm sure an extra 8,000 credits could have shifted a lot of people)

It may have been 6K not 8K but it was definitely over 5K as I am 99% certain that the last time I looked at that number some time in December it was not over 30K.

I agree that it's unfair, even within a totally misbegotten system, to "help" some people and not others. From what others have said, Getty was aware when they started it that the key was to keep the top contributors happy, regardless of how they scr3wed everyone else.

My only puzzle is why I would have been included in the people to help - they never included me in the inner circle or gave me any sort of indication I mattered to anyone while I was exclusive. Largely the opposite.

First, they said they were going to roll over current rates and mine has gone up one point from what it was in 2012. Second, I'm an independent, and as such am part of the lower than dirt group that supports the higher payments to iStock exclusives by getting less than the Getty target of 20%. Why help me? My work is already everywhere else.

Given how they've mangled the site this past year, it doesn't surprise me that they've effed up implementing this new policy - layering incompetence on an unfair fix to a greedy and miserable RC system (in particular splitting credits by medium, having different levels for different media types).

Just when you think Getty can't get any worse...