Quote from: leaf on November 17, 2009, 19:53
well it is nice to hear thoughts from a buyers perspective.  I think there is all too little of that here.

So you are planning on selling and marketing your images on your own?  that sounds like a bit of a work load!

Maybe, but I know my market and what they expect. I don't expect to be a millionaire overnight - if ever, but I'll work on it 

I enrolled on this forum thinking I might get into micro/macro stock, but decided it's not for me, I'm going to go the hard route of trying to do it all myself. But that's beside the point. I noticed there has been some discussion over some sites offering free photos.
I'm also setting up a business in another field and need some photos. Yes, I've gleaned all I can from the free photos (money is tight - if people offer them for free, I'll have them), and I will buy the few that I can't find there. I'm not going to say what business as I intend selling photos in the same area (those of you with private eye capabilities could probably find out   ), but a few points I've noticed.

a) free photos won't boost your sales to cheapskates like me. If I'm looking for something I'll do a general search for what I want regardless of the author. This probably applies to others in many areas, therefore:

b) keywords. Some that I've come across have been appalling in their lack of, or incorrect, keywords. Know your subject, find all the keywords relating to it, and you'll appeal to a much broader market. I've waded through 54 pages of "blue" to find one image that could have been found on the first page with correct keywording, sad person that I am. As an example, a yellow insect has a latin name, and someone who really wants to buy it will be searching for the latin name, not "a yellow insect".

Apologies to everyone to whom this is obvious, but having just searched umpteen pages of stock sites, with some absolutely ridiculous keyword references, or in some cases, none at all, I sometimes despair of ever finding the right photos, and I'm sure others must too.

I also blame the stock sites themselves - they're narrowly focussed on what they think sells best, but perhaps there's a niche for a stock site which will supply accurately named stock, not aimed at the same market.

I expect I'm in for some flack now so I'll take cover but I hope this insight may be of use to someone.

Edit: I just thought I'd add, any photos of mine you come across may be cr*p, but they're keyworded to the best of my ability.

I think the Broardell connection is misleading (having been heavily involved in fake-site killing) before anyone rushes off to kill all three sites:
Broardell.com is registered in Belgium, with a Belgian landline number & registered August 2008.
efotto.com was registered in France, with a French mobile number & registered August 2009.
Both registered on different hosts.
and as for "le site efotto.com benéficiera d'une très importante campagne de liens sponsoriés sur google dans près de 100 pays" - they actually have 5 google hits (whereas broardell.com have several thousand)

The connection is more likely a result of ID theft, and possibly, unless they have been very good at photoshopping, credit card fraud. It would be interesting to know if any of the photos used have had cancelled fraudulent sales.

(just for info  )

Thanks leaf, I was just trying it out for myself as you wrote the second post - I see what you mean, and I'm old enough to know better!

@ ap, no I haven't got Lightroom, just an aging version of Photoshop, but I think I can improve on it if I mess around a bit. The D5000 has a sort of fake low ISO (I believe), but 200 is the basic lowest setting. I shall have to do some more experimenting.

Thanks both 

Since having some of my first uploads rejected for quality, and changing cameras, could I please have an opinion? There are one or two sites that demand uploads in 300ppi. Having looked at my new camera's images (still learning it), I can see noise at 300ppi, but it's not really visible at 72ppi. Do you think something might pass at this level for noise and sharpness (ignoring composition, saleability, levels, balance etc)? Am I being overly critical? The eye is sharp - just so you know where the focus point is.

Straight conversion from raw to 16 bit tif from ViewNX (4288 x 2848 pixels), then to 8 bit tif in Photoshop, otherwise untouched.
Nikon D5000, kit lens 18-55 VR at 34mm f8 1/320 natural light, 200 ISO
Sharpness set to zero in camera, I think it was on the macro setting but I can't remember now. It's a horse, by the way.

100% crop corner at 300ppi

reduced size whole image at 72ppi (for location)


I'd be grateful for any opinions so I know what to aim for, thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've decided it's a combination of me being careless, and my aging Fuji S5000, though looking through miscellaneous fora, I think probably all of the agencies are upping the stakes a bit regarding the low end cameras, consciously or not.
So, I've decided to improve both me and my camera, a new D5000 (mainly for me, though an income on the side would be good) - the difference in quality is truly startling! Though I've had film SLRs in the past, this is a whole new learning curve.
Now, if I can only remember not to leave shutter priority accidentally set at 1/4000 sec, I'm sure I'll be getting somewhere. 

Sorry if this is necroing a thread (though it's only a few days)
I joined BigStock on 10 October, submitted ten and had five accepted, since then I've submitted 7 more - all rejected. Now, it's hard enough to know if your submissions are good enough without the added thought that perhaps BigStock have moved the goalposts in the meantime. Any thoughts on that?
Particularly since I followed the guidelines and submitted a photo of someone actually doing something with a piece of machinery, only to have it rejected as a snapshot  
PS Hello - I'm new here and everywhere