The new prices do not come into play until Jan 7th.

You need to set your stock income up as a business (sole trader is fine) then offset your equipment depreciation and travel costs as a business expense.

Go see an accountant.

Extraordinary thread that asks all the wrong questions and gets all the wrong answers (except HSI's input).

CUSTOMERS, ladies and gentlemen.  What a business needs is CUSTOMERS.  Without customers we are all doomed to failure.

And to get customers an agency needs to invest in marketing, development, PR and systems.  That takes money.

Paying too much to artists leaves little money to get customers.  No customers = no sales.

Anyone looked at iStock's 'most popular' list lately?  Some of those pictures have sold up to 8,000 copies in three months.  Let me repeat that - 8,000 in THREE MONTHS.

Now simply ask yourself this question: "would you like 20% of 8,000 sales, or 50% of nothing?"

As HSI points out - the two agencies that generate the most income for most people pay the lowest per sale.  But they both invest heavily in marketing to generate customers.  That benefits them, and it benefits the artist.

Don't tell me about percentages, because any % of zero will always be zero.  Tell me about customers.

And this is why Dan's decision is the worst one he could have made - he's focussed on % and not on customers; he's just said goodbye to the agency with easily the largest number of customers; it's equivalent to removing his goods from Wal-mart's stores or saying "no" to having his product bundled with Windows because Microsoft would only offer him 20c per sale instead of 50c.

Customers are the most valuable asset a business can have.  It doesn't make any sense to say goodbye to them.

Interesting article, but clearly a means of obtaining referrals.  No harm in that I suppose given the reputation he has built.

I am a great admirer of Dolgachov's work; simple, fresh, inspiring.

This just received:

Dear David,

 We sincerely apologize for the delay in sending your royalty payment. We are having some technical problems with PayPal. Our team is working with PayPal to resolve this and will send you your payment as soon as possible. I will let you know when we can give you a more specific estimate of when you will receive your royalty payment.

Thank you for your patience.


Sincerely,

Jess

Team SnapVillage

Ah, so now we start to hear the real story:  instead of "copyright infringement" we've got "stole someone else's idea or work".  That's a better reason for Shutterstock to ban someone.

Sooner or later we'll hear the rest of the story.

Well. I'll tell you where I think the best growth will be, and it won't be the answer you first think of..... or even your second or third answer...

Clearly SlapperTown has huge potential, but that potential won't be realised with the present management; the venture lacks commitment and enthusiasm, and without those it will fail to make the spectacular progress Corbis is capable of.

And no, I don't think BigStock will suddenly emerge as a major player - it is a privately owned company and appears shackled by lack of funding and inability to grow the customer base.  I like the people very much, but I don't think its going to suddenly change.

No - in my opinion the area that will show the best growth will be.....

.....being an exclusive photographer at iStock (see, I told you it would be a surprise).

Why do I think this?  Firstly, iStock's customer base has risen over the past year from 1.4 million to 2.7 million; so instead of it suffering from competition, the competition has caused it to thrive.  I spend a lot of time reading the iStock forums; there are a lot of designers there, and a clear message is coming through, which is that the more small agencies that get launched, and the more photographers who promotoe their wares through six, eight or even sixteen agencies, the more the customers are reacting against it and buying exclusive through iStock.  Designers are becoming 'fed up' with seeing the same pictures at mulitple agencies; they say it devalues their professionalism; customers can find these same pictures splashed all over the internet at hundreds of small agencies at differing prices; the designers are becoming 'embarrassed'.  Time and again I see comments from designers that they don't want to use pictures that are splashed everywhere, and at least with iStock exclusive stuff they know it is only available in one place.

People complain that iStock gives its exclusives an unfair advantage, but what they overlook is the demands from the buyers - the buyers increasingly want the exclusive pictures, and they want iStock to place an even greater emphasis on those.

So while many photographers spend hours uploading to multiple agencies, and as more and more new small agencies jump on the bandwagon, the people who will flourish the most will be the iStock exclusives.

The agency I think will show the greatest DECLINE in 2008 (relative to the industry) is Shutterstock as it becomes a victim of its own business strategy.

Nazdavie, in addition to sharply_done's suggestions, please check that you are not using colour space sRGB either in your camera or in Adobe (or other processing application).  sRGB uses a more limited colour bandwidth.  You camera and Adobe should be set to use Adobe RGB.

Naturally you shouldn't be using 'web colours only' when you save files.

You shouldn't be getting these problems with your Nikon so it is something in your processing method.

A poor week for me at Fotolia.  Sales down about 40%.

The week started off with FT's servers down, which didn't bode well.

Then, I had two or three days where the sales and credit counters didn't match (so presumably ongoing IT problems).

Today I can hardly access the site at all - tried to keyword several images and just gave up.

Fotolia seem to get more than their fair share of problems.  MORE than their fair share.....

Yes, further feedback would be welcome please Vonkara.

I'd be interested to hear about dynamic range (whites and blacks) in the iso 100-200 area.

Well it looks like yet another IT disaster at Fotolia - I've got images showing downloads in my images list where I don't have a transaction or a credit, then I've got transactions showing for other images, but zero downloads showing on my images list...

...on top of that the credits list doesn't seem to add up.

Are you using a laptop or a desktop?

If its a desktop you can change the monitor settings using the monitor's own menu.

The fact that it 'works' in VGA suggests that it is indeed the monitor that is the problem (best guess).

Boot up in safe mode and check your monitor settings in Nvidia control panel.  Reduce the resolution or change to a 'normal' setting.

Yes, you could update the Nvidia driver.