I am about 200 dls from Emerald myself (with EastWestImaging) and will be requesting all files get upgraded to a min price of 2 credits. I expect to see at least 1.5x income, if not closer to 2. If the file is what the client is looking for, I can't see why they wouldn't pay 2 rather than 1, or 4 rather than 2 etc..

I know we're only 3 days into September and it's unwise to extrapolate too much, but at this point in the month, DT is #1 earner for the month. This is the first time I can remember DT ever being ahead of SS and IS so things are looking very positive. I haven't had any ELs so it's just consistent sales, at RPD of $1.23.

DT seem to be very smart in their marketing, concentrating on European buyers and getting other partners on board.

It's going to be a very interesting month. I must admit, I am most excited at the moment when checking DT sales. Some of the 2008 level sales are great and even subs contribute in moving images to higher levels.

Way to go Serban and the rest of the DT team!

I don't really think it is any use making reference to Yuri or Andresr - these guys are in a different league to most of us and their situations aren't really a good basis on which to make a decision that suits you.

However, the fact that Andres only has about 3000 images on IS is due to the fact that their uploading procedure takes far longer than any of the other sites. Therefore the argument about time taken to upload to numerous sites never works with me. In the time it takes me to upload 20 images to IS, I have uploaded and finished uploading to all the other sites. I tend to do this in the evening as well so I probably couldn't be using this time to shoot - that argument doesn't work for me either.

For me, one of the reasons I stay non-exclusive is that I like to check all my stats on the different sites, be part of different communities. It fascinates me when I have a great day on one site and the others are slow, when I get ELs on different sites and to see the evolution of different sites. Yes IS has evolved too but I have never really forgiven them for the disambiguation fiasco which cost me so much in time and money to fix.

Financially it would never make sense for me at the moment to be exclusive with IS. I am lucky, I have seem rising royalties with them these past few months when a lot of contributors have seen a downward decline but it is not enough to convince me that I would be better off with IS.

So the decision is yours and is a personal one - don't worry about what others have or would do. Weigh up all the factors - financial, time, management etc and make a decision that suits you.

Earnings about the same as May

SS 33%
IS 23%
FT 15%
DT 11%
123rf 6% BME
SX 6%
BS 5% BME

Can't say I've noticed a slow down but have been uploading quite a bit recently which keeps the sales from becoming stagnant. I expect that there will be a slowdown in July and August but that is pretty normal.

I'd forgotten all about this site - it was down for ages and I thought it had folded. I just checked the site and found I have a balance of $80 I have only uploaded 650 images out of 8000 on the site so pleasantly surprised. Don't think I will bother uploading the rest but this is a nice bonus. Pays for my gas this week!

I've noticed a huge shift in when downloads occur in last few months. I am in Singapore (GMT +8) and most of my downloads would occur after a went to bed (i.e. the US market buying). In the last couple of months, this has definitely shifted and now at least half my downloads occur before I sleep, indicating much stronger European markets. It is Fotolia's presence in this market that makes it one of the strongest sites at the moment and why, despite the recent changes, that I continue to support it as I always have. I have always felt that they are trying to do the best they can by their contributors. Recent actions indicate that they are aware of market conditions and since they have done such a good job positioning themselves in Europe, I continue to trust their judgement.

Saying that, wish I got 35c+ for a subscription but fingers crossed for a raise before too long.

I'm not particularly happy about this either - I certainly don't want Fotolia taking any market share from SS if I am to be paid 10c less per download. I have always been very positive towards FT and have had a lot of success with them. This is the first thing they've done that disappoints me (other sites have done many things!) and I hope Chad will listen to the larger contributors like Lisa, myself and Andres. They need to be matching SS at least.

IS has slowed right down for me this week after an ok start to the month. It will end up in third place in May, well behind SS and FT, with DT snapping at it's heels.

Yes, same thing seems to be happening to me

Listened to all the Ricky Gervais Show podcasts and loved them. I don't think they'll do any more now but they amused me no end.

Funny to see Ricky Gervais on the tv in GTA IV!

I have a producer who is a co-owner of our stock photography company, EastWest Imaging. She finds the models, locations etc.. and also does make-up. We have an assistant who is also a budding photographer and he assists on the shoots as well as shooting himself (for us) sometimes.

We share the uploading process between us - think it would be the most boring job in the world to just upload and process all the sites.

In the future, I would like to streamline this to having a team of part-time assistants who post-process and keyword all the pictures but I still find that the post-processing is a personal part of the image-making process and I am reluctant to delegate this to someone else. But guess I will just have to find the right person.

I agree with Andres. The whole argument of  "the time you spend uploading to multiple sites could be spent shooting" just doesn't wash with me either. I usually do my uploading late in the evening when I definitely wouldn't be shooting. With ftp uploading to all the other sites, it hardly takes any time at all and finishing the files can be done in evenings too.

The one site that does stop my creative process is iStockphoto - it also takes me about a day to get 35 images online and at the moment, I can't upload at all because I need to use ImageManager and it is not working properly.

I have started getting some shots rejected for "Too Similar" but there is no point worrying about it, even if we as the contributor know there was a difference between the shots. I tut and move on.

I have just tried to read the whole thread on iStock but got bogged down by the whole thing. Some of the wording of the iStock statement is just too confusing and until they release more details of how the whole thing is going to work I will reserve judgement.

However, nothing iStock has done in the last couple of years has benefitted me as a non-exclusive contributor. First we had the disambiguation fiasco, which cost me a lot of money and time and made no difference to my sales. The Best Match definitely seems to have changed in favour of exclusives and some of my best selling files have gone from dl/month of 120 to next to nothing.

The bottom line for me is sales and income. If this is going to increase my income then great if not, well, it won't come as much of a surprise really.

Did a studio shoot yesterday with a brand new 8Gb Sandisk Extreme IV card which my assistant bought for me. Turned out to be a fake and we lost a three hour shoot, which my assistant then spent all evening trying to recover.

Give him his dues, he managed to recover 99% of it and is now going back to find the guy who sold him the cards

My experience is very similar to that of Lisa. My earnings at iStock have been steadily losing ground since the first big change to the best match, spent many hours and $ disambiguating the portfolio but it did nothing to help.

In March, SS is #1 for me, FT is #2 and IS is #3. I have uploaded a lot of new images recently and so earnings at SS were very good, up by 200%. In same time, have only managed to get about 50 online at IS, partly due to their upload limits and also their unreasonable rejections (none of the other sites have rejected same images - make me think that IS actually don't want them and are finding reasons to reject).

And if I were forced to be exclusive, I'd be on Fotolia with Andres

I've made a total of 8 loans on Kiva now and all have received payments. No-one has re-paid completely but I am very reassured by the reports on the various projects I have loaned to. It definitely makes a big difference to people's lives and I will be sponsoring some more projects shortly.

My sales were down by 90% today compared to yesterday!!!! what!!! Did anyone else experience this or have they toyed with the best match again? I know the site was slow and people had trouble uploading but what about downloads?

I am really getting frustrated with IS. Some of their rejections lately have been unbelievable but I just can't be bothered to send to Scout to wait for six months.

I have a problem with StockXpert reviewing my images TOO QUICKLY. Often I ftp a batch of images to all sites and then I will transfer 50 images to a StockXpert Briefcase. However, I am not always able to finish adding MRFs and categorising images before the reviewer sees them, who then rejects them for not having an MRF!

Please slow down SX and if you don't see a MRF, it's not because I don't have one or have forgotten it, it just means that I haven't got around to finishing those files off yet!

I now have 40 rejected images for not having MRFs that now do have MRFs!! Aaaarrrgghhh!

I have had my password reset several times in last week and now I find it impossible to ftp upload. Some changes are definitely afoot.

3310

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34865

Does anyone really bother with these? Do you always try to select three and have you gone back to your older images and re-categorised?

Do designers use them to search for images?

Just throwing this out there!

Anyone else having trouble getting on to iStock today? It's been really slow last few days but now I can't get on at all. All the other sites fine but no joy on IS. Was going to spend some time doing some Lightbox links but looks like I won't be doing that now!

This is good news and hats off to StockXpert. I love the ease of uploading there and higher commissions is definitely something to look forward to.

Shutterstock really needs to follow suit now or it will find some of the better photographers having a mass exodus. Yuri made a pretty strong comment in the forums there and I hope they take note.

Added: Yes, let hope subscription commissions raise to 45c to 50c per download. Else I will opt out