MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - RT

Pages: 1 ... 24 25 26 27 28 [29] 30 31 32 33 34 ... 77
701
Microstock Services / Photoshopmagic
« on: October 26, 2010, 13:58 »
Just had this email from a company trying to sell me their services, it reads:

To xxxxxxxx,

  I have some great photos. How and where can I sell them? I don't have a lot of time but I'd like to make some money. What's a good place to start?"

 Are these your questions? Well then your search ends here. We are a one stop solution for all your Post Production requirements.

We at Photoshopmagic offer our customer a number of services to help you sell more photos online by providing solution about the business, with complete focus on Microstock. With a Optimum Quality of keywords and trained staff to upload them to your account raising the acceptance ratio of your account.

Below Mentioned are the services provided by us:-

1)      Online Uploads
2)      Keywording (Images, Videos, vectors etc.)
3)      Online Submissions
4)      Optimization
5)      Stock Management
 

Online Uploads :- Click your photo graph and allow us to do the sale for you including retouching and raw processing or can just give us the retouched images and we will upload them on the desire Microstock  website thus you can give all of your time to do more shots and save time.

Keywording :- Keywords are the most  important  components in a image which actually decide the market value of a photograph and choosing them wisely  decides  the sales of a photograph .we here are specialized in advance vocabulary  used to search a image on stock sites  we are providing keywording services at a very affordable prices.

Online Submission: -   We have a trained staff to take care of the entire online Microstock website, which will take care of all unfinished & pending images. So you dont have to worry about any pending images because of model release or some missing keywords or inappropriate titles.

Optimization: - The images already online but no sale. We have the solution get your images optimize with us and see the difference in the sales graph of your images.

Stock Management: - We take care of the entire stock site which is online by looking at various issue like Rejection, Duplicate images, Model Release management, FTP and many more.

For further details please contact: -
Punit Patel
+91 9320209128
www.photoshopmagic.co.in
 

    

I especially loved their statement about keywording, here's an exact copy of the text on their site (except I've put a few choice words in bold) for their keywording services:



KEYWORDING :
This is an extremely important process for every photographer who is interested in selling thier images in the vast market of stock agencines to earn a STABLE, CONSISTENT and LONG TERM INCOME. Usually the observation and reviews mention most of the images are rejected because they don't have the keyword as per the stock standards. This is frustrating specially after spending so many days and several hard workign hours the effots are gone in vain.
All the images when clicked they just have the names as per the setting in the camera. Here we add titles, descriptions and relevan keywords since we already know all the stock agencines standards it makes it easire for us to keyword the images reducing the chances of the images getting rejected.




So it's something to consider if you want "thier" "relevan" services before uploading to the "agencines" after having spent much "effots" and long "workign" hours behind the camera, it will sure make things "easire"

 :D :D :D :D

702
I've also seen that fotoliba will sell them as RM rather than RF, see here: http://www.fotolibra.com/about/heritage.php.


They certainly wouldn't be my first (or even in my top 50) choice, if you're going to go the RM route why not put them on one of the top macro sites.

703
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Buyers Bailing on Istock
« on: October 25, 2010, 13:52 »
I would like to see this issue covered tighter by all the agencies, what seems to be the trouble with that.

Jonathan,

I'll put aside the opinions of others about your knowledge of whether people falsify releases or not, I won't even comment about your 'bat phone' direct line to the agency owners.

But in regards to this part of your statement that I've quoted above, in an ideal world I'm sure we'd all like to see this happen, but varying data protection laws around the world and a real life practicality issue means that it'll never be foolproof, even Gettys guarantee doesn't actually mean much because they can't guarantee the information, they're just insured against it.

704
General Stock Discussion / Re: New microstock agency.
« on: October 25, 2010, 12:24 »
I must admit the commission levels look interesting although I'd be concerned where you're getting the revenue to run and market the site when you're paying up to 70% in commission.

Without a decent marketing campaign how do you intend to get the sales, oh and I think it would be important to let people know how much the images are selling for as I couldn't find any info on the site.

Something I'll keep my eye on though.

705
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock's Agency Collection Pricing
« on: October 25, 2010, 12:15 »
I don't dispute that it's a fine ordinary stock image - I just dispute that it in any way merits the high prices of the Agency collection.  It's not exceptional in production values IMO.

As far as the ethics of posting someone else's work, I'm not sure how we have any sort of discussion about what Getty's doing in dumping its content on IS without having examples.

Maybe you should read the iStockphoto definition of the agency collection, here's a snippet that might help.

How is the Agency Collection different from Vetta?
The Vetta Collection features risky, artistic imagery, and rewards contributors who invest more into the production and execution of unique concepts. The Agency Collection is focused on more traditional life-style imagery, with an emphasis on specialized regional content.


As for ethics, the person has uploaded a perfectly acceptable stock photo to a stock agency, just because you don't like the way the agency you're exclusive at has priced that persons work doesn't ( IMO ) make it justifiable to be singled out for criticism on an independent site. Did you make the same post on the iStock forum?

706
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock's Agency Collection Pricing
« on: October 25, 2010, 10:10 »
I happened upon this newly uploaded gem this morning. Not a horrible stock image, but nothing more than ordinary (and there is a lot more ordinary stuff in this contributor's portfolio).


Dumping this overpriced, run-of-the-mill content onto the site is just a horrible strategy. Even with some really great images from existing IS contributors going into Agency, the collection as a whole is just not worth what they're charging.

Until there's some simple way for buyers to just exclude this (without having to know to put &agencyCollection=0 at the end of their search string), they're going to get really p#*ed off. Right now there's no way to save preferences to exclude Agency or Vetta; and you can't do an advanced search until you have done a regular one.


Ignoring the fact that I don't think it's ethical to paste another persons photo and then criticise it.

I have to disagree with you on this one, the photo you've highlighted is a very useful stock photo the sort that sells in droves on macro, IMO it's a well executed lifestyle shot, as are the rest of this persons portfolio, and no I don't have any clue who they are other than to say they're clearly not new at this.

707
No one here seems to understand marketing.


Including yourself it would seem..... the idea of marketing is that it's aimed at potential buyers, this contest is for suppliers.


And, uh, why exactly wouldn't you want to keep your suppliers happy?


I didn't say that they shouldn't keep their suppliers happy, I was just pointing out that you were wrong in your statement about marketing because marketing is not aimed at suppliers it's aimed at buyers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

If you're going to criticise people on this forum who have expressed their opinion on something try and use the correct terminology otherwise it makes you look silly and detracts any value from your posts.

708
General Stock Discussion / Re: Poll: Copyright Registration
« on: October 24, 2010, 02:18 »
I don't because I'm not a US citizen.

Same here

The US might like to think they alter international law but fortunately for the rest of us they don't.

709
No one here seems to understand marketing.

Including yourself it would seem..... the idea of marketing is that it's aimed at potential buyers, this contest is for suppliers.

710
Adobe Stock / Re: FOTOLIA - NOW PAYING LESS THAN 16% !!!!!!
« on: October 20, 2010, 05:40 »
up this thread. anything has changed?

Yes the management at iStock read it and took Fotolia's lead!

(or in other words - just before you think it's safe to pull your pants up look behind as you'll see there's a queue forming)

711
@ Johnnie,

I notice you avoided answering my post in your most recent replies, from which I can only draw one conclusion!

Sorry but for me there's already enough sites that are paying us next to nothing, the advantage being they have the sales quantities to justify uploading there, as gostwyck has stated in his post above even at your quoted "average download of 2 images a week" it means we'd receive very little in return for our work and I'd be supporting a site that in my mind is taking a step backwards in the amount we're being paid in commissions by agencies.

Given the latest outcry over the iStockphoto commission cut I find it hard to believe any contributors that take this business seriously will support a commission structure such as yours.

712
@Whiz

Could I ask why you chose this route rather than using a site like Photoshelter, Zenfolio or Smugmug

Nice site by the way.


Mostly, I was just curious to see how complicated it would be to manage something like this myself. So far so good. And even if I do not make many sales, at least I can use the site as a backup depot for my images.

Thanks

@Pixart, Thanks for your reply too.

713
- It seems that a few of you have been calculating the cents per download based on the available maximum download numbers. With all respect this is an incredibly misleading and short sighted approach. Quite literally nobody downloads every available image. Indeed most use a tiny fraction of their quota.

Why such a high maximum then?

If 'quite literally nobody downloads their full quota' you should have no problem whatsoever lowering the available amount to a sensible level whereby contributors wouldn't end up in the possible scenario of getting the lowest commission rate available at any agency.

714
If it only went into effect October 7th then it wouldn't explain my poor sales in September.  Wonder if they did a reranking in Aug. or Sept.? 

You need to count back at Alamy, a lot of buyers have a 45day honour period, so in actual fact your poor sales in September are really poor sales from the July/August summer holidays period.

715
General Stock Discussion / This is how an agency CEO should act
« on: October 18, 2010, 13:50 »
Not mentioning any names here  ;) but this is how I feel every agency CEO should act in reply to their suppliers concerns:

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2010/10/18/4845.aspx

716
Hi RT,

  I did make the mistake in CEPIC and I wasn't aware of it. Time passes so fast I must work at being more accurate but I believe what I have shared over the years makes up for that one miscommunication and I will always try to improve my speaking and sharing of knowledge. CEPIC is a conference of just stock agencies owners not Micro stockers so hopefully the ears it fell on were not effected to much by my one mistake. I am human and capable of saying something out of context I think you see rebuttals in periodicals and television all the time from some of our leading information specialists so I don't think I am in a crowd by myself. Just to clarify this has been a good lesson once again for me here as it has made it even more clear that I must be playing my A game when sharing information no matter who the audience. I am glad it has all been cleared up here. If Miklav could change that mistake of mine on his blog maybe we can halt that one piece of information from spreading any further. You never know I might even have made the same mistake or another one when speaking in Russia but we'll have to wait and see, I hope that is not the case.

Jonathan

No problem we all make mistakes, my initial thoughts were that someone else had misinterpreted your information and as a result my concern was that hundreds of innocent folk would be diving for their cameras in order to reap the benefits of this gold mine  ;)

717
General Stock Discussion / Re: HDR: Why all the controversy
« on: October 18, 2010, 12:20 »
It's just another tool, if the person who created the image is happy with the end result then who are we to argue. 'Pure' photography died the day they introduced chemicals!

Slightly off topic but have a look at this guys portfolio, he uses what he decribes as the 'magic cloth', I'm sure you could probably get a similar result using HDR, personally for me it's the end result that matters and in this guys case I think the results are spectacular.

http://www.icelandaurora.com/

718
@Whiz

Could I ask why you chose this route rather than using a site like Photoshelter, Zenfolio or Smugmug

Nice site by the way.

719
Jonathan,

Thank you for coming here to clear that point up, it was very easy for me (and I suspect anyone else who's been doing this for a while) to see that the figures quoted were wrong, and I owe miklav an appology as I assumed he'd got the figures wrong when in fact he got those figures from your cepic speech,  it's interesting to see that your philosophy is one of helping others rather than self promotion, my point is and always has been that giving information with the view of helping others is only beneficial if that information is accurate, it may only be 'one number' and I appreciate that you may put that down to a lack of sleep but that one number is very significant when it is the difference of 1 or 2 years, it then throws your comment of having "doubled" your investment over the period of "one year" out of the window, in this case it goes from a 60k profit to a 30k profit which I think in anybodies book is an important difference, especially if they are taking working capital into account.

People can draw their own conclusions as to whether your microstock experiment is successful or not, and you'll always have your fan club, but in the realm of 'helping' others to make that decision I suggest it would be better if the information you've decided to share was accurate.

Your correction in this thread has helped me make my own decision as to whether your experiment of uploading those type and quantity of images to microstock was successful, thanks for sharing.

720
He made his experiment in 2008 and he was talking about total return over one year. I suspect his monthly figures went down since then as he doesn't contribute to microstock any longer (but he is going to)[/i]

Well in that case maybe you should change this statement on your blog post:

"Microstock experiment Jonathan made was very successful. Jonathan produced around 3500 photos (meaning final processed portfolio); production cost was around $16 per photo (which is in microstock's standards but rather low for traditional stock). In one year time Jonathan got 200% return, i.e. covered the costs and got 100% profit."

You only need to take a quick look at his microstock portfolio to see that in 2008 he had nowhere near 3500 photos in his portfolio on any of the microstock sites (he hasn't got that amount today either!)

Maybe you should have asked him for a direct quote because anybody could easily work out from looking at his portfolio that those figures don't add up, I'm sure you didn't intend to do him an injustice.

721
General Stock Discussion / Re: Inspiration.
« on: October 17, 2010, 13:42 »
Bit OT but further down on the blog from the link you posted I see they did a bit of a quiz on the Statue of Liberty, I always thought the 'true' lady of Liberty was in fact in France and the one in New York is a replica!

722
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Holgs Is Featured Photographer
« on: October 17, 2010, 13:33 »
Well done hope it gives a boost to your travelling money.

723
So, he makes around 4700$ (9400$ with costs included)a month ((3500*16)/12)*2.


I all fairness I don't think you should start quoting figures like that, a quick look at his portfolio and download numbers shows that he's got nothing like that sort of return.

I just quoted this link:
http://miklav.blogspot.com/2010/10/jonathan-ross-in-stock-photography.html


Appologies I thought you'd made that figure up, as I said I can't see that he's making anywhere near that return over the period stated, plus some of the other numbers are out, I wonder if the interviewer misinterpreted his replies, maybe JR will come here and clarify it, you certainly couldn't blame any russians for wanting to get involved if they think that's the return.

724
So, he makes around 4700$ (9400$ with costs included)a month ((3500*16)/12)*2.

I all fairness I don't think you should start quoting figures like that, a quick look at his portfolio and download numbers shows that he's got nothing like that sort of return.

725
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock changing royalty structure
« on: October 07, 2010, 01:09 »
There is one microstock agency, which is not only microstock agency but has also so called traditional RF collection, which means photographer can upload both microstock and more expensive RF imagery into database. That is Pixmac. It has been working around 2 years but the people behind the agency are from image business and have had big professional agency for over 10 years. For example Corbis and Science Photo Library are now selling through them. I have my own collection there, too, and get 50 % from the sales, no matter if 1 or 1000 images are sold, same commission. They are selling DT, FT, Colossus, Moodboard, their own collection, Yuri Arcurs directly and many more, and it looks like new collections are coming in all the time. In Cepic I learned they have local offices worldwide (USA, France, Germany, UK, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, China, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Russia etc); local office means privately owned companies runned by people who have professional background, know their market areas and know the professional customers, make active marketing, have the website in local language, give personal service to users. They also launched this one-stop-shopping system which allows users to buy single images with higher pricing and not only credit packs. In Cepic it was said they are the only agency really making SEO, too.

Do you work for them?

Pages: 1 ... 24 25 26 27 28 [29] 30 31 32 33 34 ... 77

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors