Quote from: Fyletto on September 29, 2011, 22:18
Well, well, if it is DP the big guys like Yuri are under the threat as well. And I see Fotolia putting them back to white as funny... Ha ha, this could be the last thing Fotolia might do before falling under the level of those small sites they are challanging now.

Last post from Chad on FT................no Murphy even on the big boyz! Still no sites mentioned.

QuoteWarren Millar
29/09/2011 21:57

be very interesting to know if some of the very top sellers here also sell images with the so called "Cheap sites" ....... are they also under the same restictions then CHAD ?
   

THE CHAD
30/09/2011 00:47


Warren it applies to all members even the top sellers.

Rimglow not sure what you mean by partner programs?

Chad Bridwell

Quote from: gostwyck on September 28, 2011, 20:21

Quote from: Microstock Posts on September 28, 2011, 20:02
'Admin' allows Leaf to make posts here and take on certain duties. Apparently they're very good friends.

But we were hacked! Who knows who's running the place now? 'Admin', as you call him, might be some Bangladeshi geek controlling us all from his bedroom.

The mind boggles.

THE CHAD is on FT forum delivering his message but, as you might expect, no names of agencies are named.

QuoteTHE CHAD
27/09/2011 20:38

Hello Fotolians,

It has come to our attention that some new agencies are selling the same contributor content at prices far less than most other microstock agencies. We feel that this is bad for both photographers and stock agencies. We do understand photographers are free to choose their own destiny in a free market economy, and our intention in these actions  is to encourage everyone to support fair pricing for customers and commissions for contributors. Only a handful of sites and contributors have been identified thus far, and we will communicate with them before taking any action.

By sponsoring and uploading to sites that undercut prices, photographers put the whole industry in jeopardy - and we feel our duty is to take action. If the community agrees with our approach, the status quo remains. If the community wants to place down pressure on pricing, we'll adjust accordingly, as a measure to be fair and respectful to our costumers and stay competitive . Keep in mind that when rankings drop, the ability to charge more for images goes away - and that hurts everyone's bottom line, including ours .

Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com

rimglow
27/09/2011 21:47

Please advise us what sites you are talking about. How are we to avoid these sites if we don't know which ones you consider unfair?


godfer
27/09/2011 21:49


Chad, could you tell us which agencies you are referring to?  It is sometimes very complicated to work out exactly how some of the sites compare against each other and I would hate for any of us to get put down to white level just because of  contributing to a site where we probably aren't making any money anyway,
thanks
mandy


Jim Barber
27/09/2011 22:13


I don't remember seeing this in the contributors agreement. Does this mean that you are expecting us to work under the constraints of exclusivity without the benefits? This is a very confusing policy. What sites are you referring to? What price level do you consider unfair?


Cory Thoman
27/09/2011 23:42


Hello Mr. Pot. Meet Mr Kettle.  lol

Darla Hallmark
28/09/2011 16:17


If you pay attention when submitting to sites, you will KNOW how much they pay.  Set yourselves a minimum acceptable price, and stick to it.

Especially, don't give your stuff away in one place, if you are selling it in another.

rimglow
28/09/2011 22:31

If we are to be unwilling participants in a war on other sites, I would like to know who I'm at war with. Maybe they're friends of mine. I support Fotolia, but you are going to have to name names.

No names so far..............do you really expect names! Everything is nice and arbitrary at the moment.........you get downgraded and they never have to tell you why specifically and you wouldn't be able to take legal action IMHO.

Quote from: Pixart on September 25, 2011, 01:11
Could someone who has reached the ranking (Emerald I think) that enables them to double or triple their credits please check:

A photo(s) that has not sold in 6 months with less than 5 sales

to see if the price has dropped to level 1 with that little red box stating something about not changing the price until it has more than 5 sales.

Valid for any contributor at any level. Interestingly, it was valid after 12 months of no sales when announced..................musta snuck in the 6 months while no-one was looking. In the event it should happen to you, it's up to you to notice the 5 sales and request that the image be returned to original status. Not automatic. HAL 9000 doesn't do that.

Has anyone ever had a straight answer from FT regarding a 'thorny' problem? They could reduce contributors to white from gold/emerald etc but you should never expect a detailed reason for their doing it................cuz then you might be able to fight them in court..............so they won't. By keeping it arbitrary and unspecified, they can shaft you but keep others that earn more for them. JIMHO.

Quote from: disorderly on September 15, 2011, 13:36
Alien Bees are supposed to produce 5600, and that's where I set my white balance in camera.  (Okay, 5560, which is as close my my D300 lets me go.)  According to what I've read on Buff's site, Bees vary their color temperature a bit as you adjust power, but not enough that I've noticed an issue. 

Buff's new Einsteins are supposed to be more color accurate across their power range.  They have two modes: one that sacrifices flash duration for color accuracy and a second that gives you very fast flashes for stopping action at the cost of some variation in color when you vary power.

I think it's only a feature of very expensive studio flash generators such as Broncolor Grafit that allows a very fast flash speed with constant color temperature. The thing not to forget is that adding a light modifier such as a softbox to a flash unit will decrease the color temperature and if you're using a brushed alu beauty dish + softbox on another head, then the light color may vary but maybe not so much to  cause real problems unless the softbox fabric is old and dirty. I would always do a grey card/white diffuser exposure at the beginning of a session and adjust accordingly to save time in post processing. Another thing to watch out for if you're using budget (nasty very cheap) softboxes is to check the diffuser cloth for UV emission. (Use one of those forged bank note detectors in a darkened room........if the softbox glows purple, then you'll never get a good skin color when it's in use on a model Same goes for shoot through umbrellas.....check 'em first).

Nikon SB26 and later have built in slaves and should suit. Dunno what they go for nowadays €60-€70 I think.

Thanks for that info, Lisa.

Quote from: Pheby on September 16, 2011, 19:02

Quote from: OM on September 16, 2011, 17:47
How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance.

Simply like this:
Since the relaunch of the site, there are 28 images featured in the newest uploads section. Three of those are visible on the front page for a couple of hours, sometimes all day long. Those are the images that get lots of views and sometimes more than 20 downloads on their first day on the site. It happens to a lucky few every day now...

Yup, excellent explanation. It was just my fantasy after all. Ignore all my prior ramblings. Thanks.

Quote from: lisafx on September 16, 2011, 18:01

Quote from: OM on September 16, 2011, 17:47

So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.

I don't see gaming the system as "smart".  I see it as dishonest.  Not to mention very, very risky.  People have had accounts closed for similar types of behaviors.

I view such a method as being dishonest too and wouldn't do it, as I already stated. No doubt it is risky but in these hard times much seems to depend these days on whether it's 'just not done' or whether it's downright illegal /forbidden. Is there any rule when buying a sub that says that you can't use all your downloads buying just one contributor's images multiple times? Or just to be safe, you get a proxy to buy a sub and download mostly your images multiple times plus a few of someone else. At what point does FT accuse you of being a proxy for a contributor gaming the system that they created for their benefit? As I said, it's all my own fantasy. No evidence only observations and questions.   

Quote from: lagereek on September 16, 2011, 07:27
You know, Ive been 4 years with FT and I still havent a clue of how they work this,  beats me.

They once explained it in relation to subscriptions. Your ranking has little to do with it (unless that's changed).

QuoteVisibility
By following the rules above, you will achieve a better visibility. But there are further tips to increase your visibility:

1. By allowing the sales in subscription you will improve the ratio sold/views for each one of your contents. When a subscription customer wants to buy your image and you don't allow the sale in subscription, your content will be marked at 0 sold for 1 view. The ratio sold/view is an important criteria within our search engine. Images that are sold each time they are viewed receive a better visibility in the results page.

So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.

Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.

Quote from: vanias on September 16, 2011, 13:01
a sinking boat

You didn't really want an answer to your question, did you?

Quote from: vanias on September 15, 2011, 16:28
Unable to upload file: vector.zip, reason: Image dimensions are below minimum requirements.

Unable to upload file: vector.svg, reason: Maximum file size exceeded (must be <= 2 Mbytes)


completely meaningless

Something on their forum about a change in vector file uploads ('Sticky' posted on the first page by a moderator). Don't do vectors myself so I'm unsure what the change was........summat about an increased size of jpg to be sent with vector file, if that makes sense?

Withdrew from subs 3 weeks ago after they lowered the price and had no sales for a week..........started to get worried until sales started trickling in again plus an EL sale (very infrequent). Still the EL sale is equivalent to around 80 subs sales so I can afford to stay out for a while.

Quote from: Pheby on July 29, 2011, 23:33
Realtime! You must be joking! The tag cloud with the most frequently searched keywords hasn't changed in the last three years. 

Yup

Also, I'm not really sure whether the first 6 keyword order really is of importance. What does seem to make a difference is the title and that's not even spelling-corrected!

Mind you, considering the mentality of some new contributors to FT, you have to wonder whether their supply of newbie hopefuls will ever dry up. Recently, I saw one complaint on the FT forum of a newbie who had submitted an image which was promptly rejected for sale. Their complaint was not that it had been rejected but that after 2 days it wasn't even visible in the 'FREE' section despite their having ticked the box 'Place in free section in the event of rejection.' 

Quote from: CD123 on August 27, 2011, 23:08
The "stop uploading new images" drive seems like a great way to suffocate a greedy website slowly but surely. Their customers will pick the lack of new content up and move to other sites. BUT, how many contributors are represented on this website who will actively participate in such a drive, compare to the total number of contributors. If the drive is only from us here, it might not even dent their new uploads that much. How to get a large proportion of their contributors to participate, I think, is the challenge......

It will be a slow process as many FT contributors have complained for months of lack of views/sale of their newly uploaded work!

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on August 25, 2011, 06:53

Quote from: Noedelhap on August 25, 2011, 05:18
How do I know whether I have a EURO account? The Credit balance does not show any currency symbol.

I can't find that info on the new Fotolia website. Anyway, it you subscribed through a European website (fotolia.de, fotolia.fr, fotolia.ie, ...) then you have Euro; If you subscribed through fotolia.co.uk you have Pounds, through fotolia.com you have Dollars. You will find out at next payment as well.

The other(more recent alternative) is that your Fotolia address begins with http://eu.fotolia............and the site and keywords are in English, payout in Euro.

Well, seein' as how I'm still totally exclusive at FT (out of pure laziness), I have the option of withdrawing from subs entirely. Tried that once before but went back in, due to an increasingly poor position in the search. New work wasn't being seen and I believed at the time that appearing in subs also did bring in some buyers of dl's.

My ratio of dl's to subs has now crept up to 7:4 but those dl's bring in 9X the amount of money that the subs do. A couple of years ago, I had looked at stock as a method of subsidising my State pension in 5 years time. Haven't got many images and I'm not a big uploader but I was considering putting in more effort to more uploads as my monthly income was increasing steadily and was around €80/month in February 2011 when FT messed with the search engine and reduced commissions in March. Now I'm lucky if I earn half that and the income trend is down, not up.

Fortunately for me FT is just pocket money compared to paid commissions so I'm going to say 'eff'em'......if they want my stock material, they can pay for a dl They're cheap enough anyway as the majority are rated at one basis credit, although I'm allowed to charge 2. If buyers won't pay for a dl, well, too bad for me. The amounts involved are so small that it's really not worth worrying about.

As an aside, there's little point in getting above bronze or silver at FT now because although the commission percentage rises, the basic credit multiple is now is maximised at 3 (same as Silver). It also strikes me that some potential buyers are OK with a 2 basic credit but when it's 3 and you need an XL size........24 credits is a lot to fork out! (Thinks to self, maybe that's why FT encourages subs by making them so cheap........get 750 XL's for less than it costs to buy 10......download only the 10 you need for $200.........FT gives the contributor their $3+ and kachingo......$197 earned. Everyone is delirious.........'cept the creator)!

Noticed this link below........'Fotolia raised subscription prices'.......2008.

http://www.stockphototalk.com/phototalk/2008/06/fotolia.html

Backt o the future. 

Mustabin what six months since the 'rewards' were last lowered?

Can you feel it? Yup!

QuoteWe've worked diligently for the past few months adding new features to make the site more convenient for both contributors and artists. With this latest release, we're also revising our subscription plans to be in line with what's happening in the marketplace. As a result, prices and commissions have been adjusted accordingly. Please take a look at some of the highlights:

Quote from: Graffoto on August 04, 2011, 07:44
Wow, just wow.

Big brother is here and he is a criminal to boot.

Quick everyone put on a burka, its the only way to be safe any more.

Why do think Big Brother wants to (or already has) banned the wearing of them!

Quote from: cascoly on August 02, 2011, 19:25
CGI but still clever:

Take a look at HEMA's product page - just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens...
DON'T click on any of the items in the picture, just wait...

http://producten.hema.nl/

Brilliant. Dank!

I can just see the agencies telling the Greek contributor with 'plasticine man' images that they could no longer carry his portfolio of under 300 images despite his top ranking on all the stock sites.

Interesting article on a book blog about the counterfeiting of books and re-selling as e-books.

http://blog.bookmarket.com/2010/05/amazon-kindle-swindle-authors-people.html