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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5551
« on: March 20, 2012, 17:29 »
March is just (-$2) at February's level and we have 10 days to go, so I wouldn't say things are dead, but February was much slower for me than January and I'm not seeing a big boost in March. Given their new status, the fact that they did better than BigStock in February (which is not doing well but which has been around a good while longer) suggests they're around for a while, possibly able to become middle tier.
5552
« on: March 20, 2012, 17:21 »
I haven't uploaded there since they announced their 2013 royalty grab. I haven't pulled my portfolio, but I see no reason to give them any further support. I'll see where we are January 1 2013 and decide then about whether I stay or not.
5553
« on: March 20, 2012, 17:05 »
@Gannet77. If you have a minute some time and don't mind looking at "Jo Ann Snover" on Thinkstock, tell me if the first few pages are littered with missing thumbnails for you. I don't notice problems with other sites, and my ISP is a pretty large outfit (Bluehost over Comcast broadband) so I'd be really surprised if it was a problem my end.
5554
« on: March 20, 2012, 13:04 »
So if the pendulum of what's desirable swung back to where it had been a few centuries back where curvaceous women were the ideal, would we have some handwringing in the legislatures of the world about the dangers of encouraging obesity? Anyone who takes advertising seriously is going to be taken for a massive ride - everything about it is pushing a totally fake, largely idealized "reality" to get people to buy more "stuff". Legislating healthier weight for models won't do squat to help that. And as far as eating disorders, I think there's a fair amount of research connecting those to depression and other mood disorders, so you won't fix those by changing models (IOW the eating disorder is a symptom, not the core problem). So back to one of my basic premises - most politicians are idiots (or at least act like idiots while in office) 
5555
« on: March 20, 2012, 12:03 »
Does anyone else who has recently been "force migrated" to Thinkstock have masses of missing thumbnails and image previews for their portfolio?
I'm now up to 956 but have many (some pages have more missing than present) with missing thumbs. As a lot have been added in the last day or two, it's possible that this is just a delay in generating the thumbs. If this will resolve itself in time, I'll just ignore it (and be glad I'm not a customer seeing this wretched display of search results with many missing thumbnails) - I "see" other images missing thumbs in search results, so I know it's not just my portfolio
Couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery - what a useless lot!
5556
« on: March 17, 2012, 19:16 »
Out of curiosity, which web sites couldn't read Photoshop-written keywords with semi-colons? I haven't ever had a site (that read IPTC data) have a problem with this.
5557
« on: March 16, 2012, 20:12 »
Bottom line is that none of these will pass inspection and editing these images wouldn't have made any difference. Before you can even get to discussion of composition and varied subjects, you need the required technical quality - focus, lighting and lack of artifacts. In the first shot, for example, the detail in the foreground rocks is completely gone - it looks smooth and smeary (probably in-camera noise reduction); there is a huge amount of the frame in hard dark shadows, which would probably get you a lighting rejection. I'd stay away from silhouettes at sunset for an application image as it's hard to get right.
Why don't you post something current that you're considering submitting. I'll echo the advice about showing three different types of images for an application.
5558
« on: March 16, 2012, 12:55 »
DT's existing free section (on the DT site) has images that by and large I think are substandard. DT (and other sites) have rejected images of mine that I think aren't even close to substandard - at DT the biggest issue is a crackpot similars policy. Perhaps I should rephrase slightly to say that images that would get rejected a the majority of the top and middle tier sites don't represent any competition beyond what's already out there.
I wouldn't want any poor quality image of mine on a free site for just the reason you state, but it doesn't hurt me as a contributor if someone else chooses to do that. I was talking from the point of view of us as a group of contributors and what agency actions hurt us or help, in general. The issue of what helps or hurts an individual contributor is often different.
5559
« on: March 16, 2012, 12:16 »
Morons. Goes to show none of them care about you/us.
Who? DT or the thousands of individuals who have contributed content to the free section?
A bit of both. I have contributed to free image of the week promos at sites (I don't think it's ever done anything for personal sales but I think it's a reasonable way for contributors to help the sites). I have never and would never contribute anything to a free section. Once my images are old enough, anything DT wants to consign to the free section will be deleted. I don't do free images and think that anything of sufficient quality to pass inspection shouldn't be offered for no charge. By and large the difference in quality between the freebies on DT and the paid images is pretty obvious. If someone wants to offer images that didn't meet inspection standards at no charge, then in general that doesn't seem to be any more competition than Flickr with a creative commons license already is. The new site, vs. free images on DT itself, seems to be little different beyond the URL. The one thing they didn't do though is provide a portfolio link on the paid site from the image on the freebie site. You can see other free images by that person and similar paid images. I think there should be a portfolio link for the contributor to make it easy for someone to find them (in the unlikely event they actually did want to buy credits).
5560
« on: March 14, 2012, 17:14 »
The only fixed payment at 123rf is the 36 cent sub royalty. Everything else varies a lot just as it does at IS and for the same reason. The buyers are getting volume or promotional discounts
5561
« on: March 13, 2012, 02:01 »
Thanks for posting a link here. I read the conditions and it didn't say that entries were required to be exclusive to PhotoDune - is that correct? I understand the 2 year time limit but wondered if uploading the same item to other stock sites was not allowed for submissions for this section.
5562
« on: March 08, 2012, 16:57 »
Thanks for posting this. I had a look but didn't add anything to my profile as I don't think any of those really apply to my portfolio. Perhaps after we see it in action once it goes live it'll be more obvious whether a generalist (like me) is better of not putting anything vs. putting categories in which they have only some images.
5563
« on: March 07, 2012, 14:40 »
Perhaps I missed it, but is there something that talks, briefly and concretely, about what you can do with this? Or a video with some examples? I'm missing what a friend of mine used to call the elevator statement - the "what this is" you could cover during an elevator ride.
Certainly the idea of control over my images (or other data) is very appealing - which is why I almost never put anything on Facebook, but on my web site with a pointer to it. I don't know if hosting my own pod is what I want to do (or whether bluehost will let me) as I don't really know what a pod is. How did you decide that this was something you wanted to/could participate in?
5564
« on: March 07, 2012, 13:25 »
... You could practically make a meal of what ended up coming home stuck to my cleavage! Gross!!
So even when all the larcenous agencies stink something fierce, a bad day in microstock might still be better than a good day working at the deli?
5565
« on: March 06, 2012, 17:56 »
Anyone else getting only XS sales today? Besides number of DLs is barely half of yesterday's, I hope at least the number of DLs catches up, if the file sizes won't...
No - today is a surprisingly good day - (a) much less sucky on the download front (b) lots of larger sizes (half of sales are Large or bigger) and (c) an extended license this morning.
5566
« on: March 06, 2012, 10:50 »
...
Also the fancy buttons that intuos have, are useless My bamboo has 4 buttons on the tablet and I don't remember using them once.. I only use keyboard shortcuts and the pen..
I don't agree about the buttons at all - they are essential to me and in constant use (at least the ones on the left - I'm right handed) I have an Intuous 3 (I think they changed the arrangements a bit on the 4 and I'll have to check out the 5). My left hand can zoom with the touch pad (I do it a ton when working in Photoshop); I hold the bottom botton and use the pen to scroll windows up and down; the left button is control, top right is shift and bottom right is option (I'm on a Mac - that's Alt on a PC). I do use keyboard shortcuts a ton too - and I wish I had something with less of a reach to do those with my left hand - but I use those modifier keys constantly and it has helped so much with the aches and pains while working. I realize everyone's workstation and workflow varies a bit, but along with getting an adjustable chair with good back support, getting the setup with keys, tablet, & keyboard was essential to avoiding problems with long term, long hour computer work editing and drrawing. Also, you shouldn't assume that photographers editing don't draw much - it depends how much masking and compositing you do. I spend a ton of time painting in Photoshop, mostly on masks.
5567
« on: March 05, 2012, 23:35 »
To be fair to Pixmac, I only uploaded a few hundred of my images there, but I don't think it's worth it. I don't contribute to any of the sites that they partner with, so the only images I have there are those I uploaded. The trickle of sales is so small - and the 25 cent subscription sales so cheap - that I have no incentive to upload more.
5568
« on: March 05, 2012, 17:57 »
What's the point of uploading to agencies that don't sell anything (or virtually nothing)? Of the major agencies, SS's upload is the easiest - FTP, stored model releases, ability to assign categories & model releases to a batch...
5569
« on: March 05, 2012, 12:15 »
I have the Intuous 3 6x11 wide, and it works very well for me. Before that I had a large 12 x something Intuous and it was fine, but I don't think I needed it to be that big to be useful. When you're working on fine details, you need to zoom in a lot (illustrations or photoshop) so the smaller tablets work fine.
I've been using a tablet for about 12 years and couldn't imagine working without one any more, but I know some people have tried and really don't like them.
5570
« on: March 05, 2012, 12:03 »
Great timelapse! Were you using an Omnitracker on the bridge sequence?
Thanks! The bridge sequence (at. 0.28) is a sequence of full resolution raw images with a digital zoom applied in post processing. One of the challenges of doing these while traveling is that I'm not carrying heavy gear, so I need to find ways of adding motion while still just using the camera and tripod.
Great timelapse. I especially liked the "light tunnel" effect at the beginning. Thanks for posting that.
5571
« on: March 04, 2012, 23:34 »
I am sorely tempted - I have so many times tried to use touch gestures on my Wacom 3. Perhaps some terrible "accident" can befall my trusty tablet...
5572
« on: March 02, 2012, 16:46 »
I think the thing that bugs me is that they added things like picture styles, HDR, and other kiddie cam crap (OMG a RATE button) to a camera that was previously a more professional tool. Its like they are shifting markets for the 5D, and not in a good direction. How likely is it that someone who wants to be able to rate their images in camera will shell out $4299 for a 5D III with lens?
Regarding the rate button, I gather from dpreview's blurb that this is targeting pros who use Lightroom as the rating info is read by Lightroom. The idea is you make your selects and "maybes" on the camera and LR keeps that info
5573
« on: March 02, 2012, 01:50 »
I think the autofocus system in the Mk III is the most interesting thing to me (I don't shoot video) but I don't see anything compelling me to dump my Mark II in the short term. Given the number of new items - new sensor, new shutter mechanism, etc. I'd certainly wait to let other users debug the glitches (my Mark II had to go back to Canon within a week for a fix, and I had waited until Jan 2009 before getting one). It does seem they were aiming mainly at video users though...
5574
« on: March 01, 2012, 16:38 »
Wouldn't it be easy enough to just not have the anonymous data shown at all?
If you want to see your data, then everyone else can see it too.
Put ads on there too if need be.
It's a shame it's all just gone.
I don't think that would work - pretty soon you'd have someone with 4,000 downloads as the top seller But wouldn't it work if everyone was anonymous except the person logged in? You'd see your rank and whether you were up or down, you'd see what sort of uploading those above you were doing. The only thing you wouldn't know without a ton of leg work on your part (which should be enough to discourage lazy copiers) is who the various people were.
5575
« on: February 29, 2012, 18:28 »
I beg to differ! Sean is an excellent example of how to make a living as a full time stock photographer
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