The "quality" of things such as ape family:


bear:

and  tiger with ice cream cone:


don't even come close to meriting inclusion in Vetta IMO. Forget that iStock wouldn't accept those at all from a regular contributor as they appear to be based on a vector original, but how does it help the site as a whole to charge $125 for one of these turkeys? Buyers see this and it devalues the rest of the work in Vetta, much of which is excellent.

This is all relatively new - from the end of last month. What a total travesty of any pretense of inspection standards. Getty/H&F is just milking whatever they can get from iStock's traffic with no regard for the site's future. They should hang their heads in shame.

ETA: I looked at the rest of CSA images' portfolio, not just the stuff that showed up in the zoo search, and they have some very nice work in amongst the standard, unremarkable (i.e. absolutely main collection) illustrations. My point about automatic Vetta for things that don't merit inclusion still stands, but I did want to note now nice some of their work is, even if it isn't really Vetta.

Firefox 7.0.1, google Chrome 15.0.874.121, Safari 5.1.2 (6534.52.7) all on mac 10.6.8

No weekly limit on any of them since the update

I looked at MicrostockSolutions' web site, but I have no idea which sites, specifically, would be "a who's who list of Big 6 microstock image agencies" to quote from their promo. I'm almost certain that would not include iStock, who for all their faults are still in the big 6 by anyone's measure.

Having an outsourced operation probably explains the rather inconsistent reviewing at PhotoDune.

I'm continuing to see sales at PhotoDune and so I'll upload regardless of the reviewer quality. However the site owners might want to consider what they're doing to the site by leaving themselves without content that other top tier sites have. Remember that forum post on PhotoDune where a buyer said "This site needs more images"?

My balance doesn't square at all with the overnight sales that are showing in my_downloads. It did jump up and down a bit yesterday PM so at this point I'm really confused and have no idea at all what the right number should be.

Two weeks is nothing - I have files that on Friday will have been sitting there for 4 weeks. I also can't see if or when I can submit any more images as the display has gone (and that was reported right after the site came back).

I think I'm going to give up on Veer for a few weeks and try again in the new year by which time I hope they'll have made things work again.

I'd love a feature that just let you have the files automatically deleted after a week or two. Optional of course. I am not going to make changes to files except in the rarest of cases - and all the current soft rejections I'm just deleting. So I just want the files to go away like hard rejections do without any action on my part.

The reality of life as a new site is that when you say in a soft rejection that, for example,  you want a series of four season views split up into individual images, that just isn't going to happen. Obviously each site has its own set of criteria, but the further you stray from the typical requirements, the less likely you are to get contributors making modifications.

In another case you soft rejected an isolated holiday garland shot straight down but on a diagonal suggesting it should be straightened like a crooked horizon (but somehow the others in that series, all shot the same way, were approved). All the shots should have been approved or rejected as there were only different colored baubles.

I guess the second suggestion here is that you need some sort of spot check on the reviewers as the current situation is highly inconsistent - all sites have a little of that, but yours seems to be more so than usual.  I'd expect that there be an audit of the review process to make sure it's working consistently. In the future, some sort of formal appeal (rather than contributors asking in the forums) might also make sense.

... You seem to think that just because something is made of pixels, it costs the same as the next.  Well, it doesn't.  Life is rough.  Use the filter like a big boy.

I'm not the person at whom the comment was directed, but I think the point you're missing is that this "take your medicine and don't complain" approach might work if a buyer had no choices, but when you have one (or several) working sites from which to choose, why would you stick with the site whose interface is confusing, or annoying or both?

iStock has not defined some wonderful new UI paradigm with the price slider; even the people who suggest it should be used don't generally praise it. It's a rather unfortunate compromise design that is based more on what iStock wanted to steer buyers to (after 6 months or more of just ignoring requests to be able to filter out Vetta and Agency images).

Those of you taking a "pro slider" position can argue all you like with buyers or other contributors about how good you think it is and how buyers should just stop fussing, but as long as Getty hasn't bought up all the competition, buyers can shop elsewhere if they don't like what iStock's offering. I just don't see how this wilful dismissal of buyer complaints can lead anywhere good.

Given the buyer had 500+ credits still to use, I find it hard to believe he closed his account - doesn't anyone wonder why it's gone away?

Mine comes and goes - at least in the last couple of days that's been the case. I haven't done anything either (unless Lobo has bought the site from Leaf in which case I'm doomed

I can't say why, but my guess is that they don't have enough good content for the site. They tried to entice iStock contributors but many weren't interested for one reason or another. They haven't (yet) enforced participation on iStock exclusives, but they have on Getty contributors and iStock independents.

Can't compete with SS without content (I don't think they can even with the independent content that is on iStock as SS has so much more that IS doesn't have, but that's another discusssion).

Hearing that someone bought a license, even an extended one, for which the artist (photographer) probably got paid $20 or so and then selling prints for "hundreds of euros" leaves a real sour taste in my mouth. It doesn't seem right that everyone makes a killing EXCEPT the guy responsible for the image.

If the cost of the materials (canvas, frame, printer, ink) and labor to print the image with adequate quality control, which isn't just a push the button and forget it except at low end places like Wal-Mart, are factored in, the site selling the print isn't making a a killing, but just a profit on their sale. That seems OK to me given that they have to buy an XL size to make a print.

No new images made it to Thinkstock/photos.com yesterday but one more this morning - we're up to 11 now!

The estimate of 24 years was way too short

I'm curious to know if anyone here is actually using (or has used) a keywording service and if so, what their opinion is of the quality of work done. For the OP, based on his IS portfolio, it seems the type of work where there is some reasonable chance of a service being able to do a good job. Mostly studio shots so what you see in the image is all you have to write. Although they just guess model ages/ethnicity based on looks?

With shots of places or specific technical areas (medical, dental, industrial, etc.) it isn't clear to me how any keywording service can do the work. They can't know, and if they guess wrong, checking and correcting would seem to be nearly as much work as doing it in the first place.

Given that the keywords are the most important thing after the image quality in getting sales, isn't it a tough thing to outsource?

Sorry I can't help with a recommendation as I haven't ever used a service