Well done! That's great.   

Sorry to disappoint you dbvirage because you are a great person, but that photo doesn't use the your photos that you point to. I ran a comparative program that says that you're photos are only a 10% match to the photo. So, there is a 90% chance that you are not the father.

Wow! DNA paternity tests on photos     That's a new one on me.

I like http://www.smugmug.com/

I use it for private photo sharing. Look and feel can be customized, access restricted, upload originals, no advertising ... their forum is not bad too 
However, they have a yearly fee depending on account type.

It looks like a great site. Is it worth the annual fee?

I have no problem with their rejection rates at all. My view is that in the end it's their business so it's their decision what they accept/reject. Like a writer can't criticize a magazine for accepting/rejecting a piece s/he wrote.

I have also learned a lot from rejections and hope I will continue to learn. I believe that my photography is better for it.

What I do have a big issue with is their terms of exclusivity. Sure ... they can ask that an image is exclusive to them. That's obviously legitimate. But what they want is the photographer to be exclusive to them. That is ... if you become exclusive with iS you must not submit RF images of any sort, anywhere else in the world. Not even if they're totally different to what you have on iS.

What right have they to impose that condition? Who do they think they are?

That's like a magazine saying to a writer "you can only submit your work to us".

Now ... let's follow this logically. If a writer writes articles exclusively for one magazine then s/he is very likely to be an journalist employee of that magazine (assuming s/he can be published elsewhere if s/he wishes) and receiving a regular salary.

Are exclusives employees of iS?

No. The majority of them are still freelancers, at the mercy of 'ebb and flow', but on top of that they've had their hands tied by an unduly restrictive condition. I'm not even sure the restriction couldn't be legally challenged in some countries.

I don't know if anyone has read the novel about rabbits called 'Watership Down'. It's a great story about two wild rabbits seeking a new home because their old warren is about to be destroyed.

At one point the two wanderers come to another rabbit warren where all the rabbits are beautifully fat and sleek, but there's a strange mystery about them. The fat, sleek rabbits won't talk about it, and there's an air of 'not asking too many questions' and 'not rocking the boat' in the warren. The rabbits there are a bit too sycophantic, a bit too 'yeah ... it's great here'.

Then the two wanderers discover the secret. The farmer feeds the rabbits in the warren in order to fatten them up. Then once a week he takes two of them and kills them for the pot. No one knows who is going to be taken next ... and no one talks about it.

For some strange reason, when I was considering iStock's exclusivity deal, that story came into my mind. I wonder why.

Basic 101 workflow rules : (seelctive) noise removal, adjustments (ALWAYS use layer adjustments for Levels etc., as they do not change the actual image,but save the adjustments in a new layer), then save as PSD.
You should also create a new layer with the sharpened version of an image...

Bit of a newbie question here ...

I understand that making adjustments in a different layer does not change the actual image. But then some agencies require that the images submitted have just one layer. So you have to combine the layers you've been working on ... and the image is changed, no?

So what's the advantage of working in layers?

I'm a non-exclusive, and my sales have shown a steady downward trend since the big shakeup ... even though I've been disambiguating (horrible word) as fast as I can bear to (it's a total pain in the posterior).

As far as I'm concerned, IS is going on the back-burner. There's no way I'm going exclusive, given the way they treat their contributors ... the lifeblood of their operation ... and why . should I for the measly rates they pay? I actually went from a bronze to a silver canister with them a short while ago, and have only just noticed. That's how much I care.

This whole exclusive/non exclusive thing smacks of Getty, trying to control the entire stock photo market ... and the photographers.

iStock seem to attract a fawning, sycophantic crowd of photographers. Just look at their forums. They announce a cut in uploads and immediately the threads fill up with "GEE! WOW! Thank you. Thank you, iStock! These new limits are SOOOOO cool!" messages. Beurk! Excuse me while quietly vomit in a corner.

I'll continue trying to take the best photos I can and submit them exactly where I want. And if Getty/iStock doesn't want them or won't let me upload them because of some measly limits ... their loss.

Did some more searches every first page were all exclusives ? 

You probably had lousy sales yesterday because it was Thanksgiving in the States.

I wonder ... maybe they've tweaked their search algorithm to favour exclusives. I mean, those photographers who've thrown their lot in completely with iStock, particularly the ones with huge portfolios, must be pretty sick about the 'disambiguation' hassle. I find it a hell of a lot of work disambiguating my portfolio of some 600 images. If I had several thousand with iStock, and was exclusive, I'd be sick as a parrot.

Maybe iStock has thrown them this perk as a sweetener.

The plot thickens ... 

Nice detective work Eric. 

I see that the original post has now been edited to remove all the "I was contacted by the creator of mystock today  ..." baloney, which seems to confirm that this was a fake piece of news.

I'm steering clear of the site. I don't really trust someone who hides their identity in that way.

I mean ... if you've started a new stock site why not say so and be proud of it? What has the guy got to hide?

What's the fee for PayPal? I've never noticed one.

As far as I can tell, if you're outside the States, PayPal is a lot better deal than cheques. Try to cash a cheque here, in a Swiss bank, and they take about half of it as something they call 'commission'. (No wonder the ports in the south of France are stuffed with bankers' yachts.)

No great loss as far as I can see.

On several occasions I went out and took photos specifically for requests and posted them. They never got chosen ... fair enough ... but the challenge was worthwhile, and it boosted my portfolio.

However, most of these the requests just seemed to fizzle out. It was never possible to see which image was chosen, so the learning aspect was limited. It would have been good to see which image did win and maybe get a better insight into what buyers are looking for.

On BS, are you talking individual sales? I'm  not selling any more  shots, but most sales now are $1 rather than $.50

Yes, I've noticed my sales picking up at BS too. It seems to be a combination of more individual sales (I have had 3 already today, which is unprecedented for them), and quite a few for the $1 rate now.

Mind you, as the sales started to pick up I began uploading a whole lot more, too. So I guess that came into it.