Yuri is paying a fair wage for South Africa. Go to Cambodia and get a Tuk Tuk and driver all day for $10?? Exploitative? We all live in different places with different costs. The world really is bigger than Western Europe and USA my god there is even Canada Denmark and Australia. Yuri's actions help us all.

Upload limits are difficult to understand. At a time IS had it going well many people could not upload many of their images there. So you join others such as SS. Guess what by the time you can go exclusive you have many more images paying much more at SS etc.  Any exclusives at IS complaining about others and their ethics is so so hypocritical. In this dog eat dog world IS exclusives do not mind what happens to independents there so how can they complain about Yuri.

Good luck and keep going Yuri.

They can get mainstream anywhere. TS? lol. Unless it is a brand preference eg Yuri. They may as well stay where they are. Good luck with the current strategy but mainstream with low brand awareness and limited product range?  mmm better if you sought niche buyers because you don't have niche product. It is not the public you need to inform but niche buyers and look to what is in it for them, not you.

ps. Yuri is a brand himself and is different in his approach. Having a site for him gives options and leverage. He is organised administratively. For those addicted to Yuri type shots it is perfect for them. They know what they are getting top quality stock people shots. I am sure his marketing strategy will evolve to suit the outcomes (maybe to include other artists in lean categories?).

I think warmpictures is a great idea. BUT having had a look at the images it clearly lacks the diversity of the existing sites. Too many gaps.Maybe you need not to be so exclusive? When you are missing a good coverage of niche categories as well as may stream buyers can't stay there. They have to go back to other sites so why go there and complicate their working life if they still need to go back to SS etc? Its like IS without independents.

I looked up "koala" - none , "Cambodia" - none , "Sydney " -none (three categories i had recently uploaded). Have lectured in marketing the analogy I used for students was it is like carrying one tyre in stock. Inevitable customers need two or four. What do they do? Buy the one from you and one or three elsewhere? No they get them all somewhere else. I don't shoot main stream business people shots. They sell more than other shots but the market is very full. For many of us uploading popular categories is becoming pointless because getting your files seen is too hard. Niche areas need coverage by wp. You can get the main picture types/portfolios off any site.

I am not a member of wp so ignore me if you like. Understand however that marketing is not just "promotion". You need to consider your whole marketing mix and tailor you promotion to the stage of the life cycle you are currently at.

Yes sometimes micro size shots cost much more on macro sites. Thank god some buyers don't look there.

5 MB
1093 x 1448 pixels
287 KB compressed
   $ 35.89
Total sales    $35.89

Unless it is a commercial site why worry? They have a watermark so maybe you could regard it as advertising. Not worth the effort. You can download 60gb of non watermarked from pirate bay. Bound to have some good stuff there. Unless they are selling your images I do not think it is worth the effort.

"You also have to wonder what kind of cheapskate goes to the trouble of doing the paperwork for a refund of $2.50 or so."

Is it eally a refund or is Istock getting back the commission it paid on what has become a bad debt or scam?

"Let's not forget: It's not about resolving details, it's also about resolving color! A 12mpix (bayer) sensor has 3mpix red pixels, 3mpix blue pixels and 6mpix green pixels.
You might not get much more details with 36mpix vs. 21mpix, but you will get more exact colors on pixel level.

If quality optics resolve detail suitable for a 21mpix sensor, we would need 84mpix to get more exact color for each pixel.

(does anyone understand what I'm trying to say here? Smiley)"

No clue at all. 12 mpixels is that many groups of r,g, and blue. One red receptor does not a pixel make.

agreee with what has been said and add: noise, wb ,and blown highlights.

you put these up in the SS forum and got feedback. What are you after? If you disagree with critiques put them up and let the inspector decide. Not real strong images and SS is harder than it used to be.

this seems totally irrelevant. Exclusives pushed in up searches may do ok, most independents down. It should be two totally seperate threads. One for exclusives and one for independents. It is like saying that you are on average comfortable warm when your arse is in the freezer and your head is on fire. Looking at both ends and the picture is more descriptive of the true situation.

Ps I thinkk the fire will die out before the freezer is turned off.

yep agree . It is not worth uploading to IS as an independent. Used to be my favourite site. Even though it is very immature the community badges and team perception wer winners. Goes to show never let goodwill blind you to commercial realities.

looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)

it is interesting that many at IS did want to put images up to SS because of low loyalties. Noew the real pain of much lower royaties at TS.

there is a cause effect relationship. If independent's file are lower in the search, they will sell less Exclusive's at the front should sell more. Overall none of us know whether dollar sales are down, they may be up but overall the trend for volume appears to be down. These forums are muddied by exclusives saying sales are good etc and verbally bashing independents (and independents bashing exclusives) . Clearly there are two types of contributors at Istock. The hard done by exclusives and the more hard done by unwanted independents. TS generates more for me than IStock. It would be interesting to know how this differs between independents and exclusives. Remember the cause effect relationship can be problematic - eg  ,divorce is caused by people getting married.

seems like it was a bright day. You lifted exposure to expose the subject and burnt out the sky. Subjects lighting is still poor

PS fail. Better work would have got him the win.

nice shots. I think it is best to enjoy the shooting. If you are shooting anyway put them up for sale. Starting out in stock is hard compared to the past.. Getting a buzz out of sales is important. Shutterstock is my biggest seller. Istock was second. I do not upload there anymore because I do not believe new files will be seen. Some of the people do it full time. For me it would be hard to be motivated or for that matter to be commercially creative enough.

monthly stats is full of exclusives. With best match shifts it is not all bad for them. The future however??? It would be nice to see industry figures rather than skewed stats.

istock is the hardest to keyword for. All the others you just do it in the iptc data once and all done.

i think sales for indies come from searches by downloads. Eventually these will dry up as exclusive files gain sales. New files? Not worth putting up. Long term only exclusives.

hi, I am from sydney. ENjoy the buzz.

if they just had better programmers. It could have been fully automated. Get rid of all the people, cut royalties, accept photos with no review cost, get partners agencies to sell the photos for you... Oh well the plan is almost working. Hope they keep the red hot team that stops fraud and the team that refunds customers so easilly , or maybe that part is automated???

I doubt their profit is falling. It will in future but for now it is less business (and getting more so) but with higher margins due to decreased costs. They now pay less in royalties and less for operations. I suspect the prgrammers aren't paid much.

"Clements?  Never heard of that one...thanks!  Everywhere I see them for sale, they are always called clementines.  Weird about "pizza," because it's embedded in the metadata and shows on all my other sites.  I've noticed with other images at IS that keywords mysteriously disappear.  "

Never heard of it. Called mandarin in Australia and naartjie in South Africa .