Hi Miz, Great tutorial how to get rid of dust! I like to shoot macro photos but the dust and scratches are big problem allmost all images (when 1:1 bigger zoom ratio)(used healing brush before). I have to try this out myself. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

br, MJP

Slow sales there, but it beats LO every month with same amount of images online . Usually reviewing times are quite fast (same day to same week). Pays in euros which is also good.

br, MJP

CCK: I agree what you said about necessary knowledge.

I just try to ignore votes given by other users since there is lot of people who just give your images random numbers (from 1 to 10 depends on case).

I only try to give good points to images what I like and have enough knowledge to do so. I have very limited knowledge what is called ART or what image has commercial value so it is very hard to give realistic points to images. I know little bit on certain areas and try to find images which have these qualities and give points to these images.. Bashing others work and also doing it without leaving a good critique is just bad behaviour and does not help anyone.

br, MJP

Due nature of internet I enabled watermarking on my images on MP because I do not want to my photos stealed or do not like to idea that will hurt my sales in other places (people will download non-watermaked images and use them on web pages, blogs, corporate work etc without paying nothing to photographer or agengy ).

Ofcourse you should listen buyers opinnion, but without photographers you can't sell anything.

Maybe you can introduce cheaper low-res images (e.g. 2-4euros range, which can be used by people who do not wan't to use watermarked versions for their sketchs and draft designs. Or maybe you can introduce somekind of reserve system where user pays image but if he/she does not like the image on some reason (e.g. problems with comp/ customer do not like etc) the buyer can return the image and get 80-90% money back and the 10-20 goest to photographer to ensure somekind of payment. This kind of model reduces risk of getting the non-watermarked low-res images for free.

just my 2 euro cents:)

br, MJP

Thanks for the tip Leaf. I will check this out today.

Update: Tested the program yesterday. And it has everything I wanted and lot more. The full version is very cheap also (around 24euros or something like that) and have many useful features I have not think about before.

Had to use the trial version (30day) to get more information but my initial experience was good. If it works ok after 30 days(no side efects, no hangups etc) this is definetly a must buy program.

br, MJP

Hi all,

Thanks for clarification about alamys upscale process it helped a lot. Have anybody anything about question number 3. I posted. I have plans that every macro images is different from micros (no same session images on micros etc).

Madelaide: What other sites than alamy your are submitting?

br, MJP

I have upgraded my computer (whole system) to Windows Vista 64-bit version few weeks ago and I have to get new backup program, because the latest Nero bundle did not include BackitUp program(which was great).

I need full backup capability with incremental daily backups taken on NAS drive (it can be accessed via mapped samba drive or by over ftp). The system should include verify option to ensure data integrity. The amount of data needed to backup in first place is somewhat 400 gigabytes, and the backup should not be compressed to ensure easy access to backup files (reading too many cases that backups are taken but they are useless or broken since its hard to test actual backuped data).

My backup system includes 1 terabyte NAS drive for backups, USB drive for secure off-site backup(bank vault) (raws&jpegs only).

If there is any good programs please let me know (free opensource or commercial ones)...

Thanks in advance,

br, MJP

Few % better than in december (which was horrible month), but nothing positive on it. Started uploading more images and the SS is getting better and better. Also noticed that last 100 images I have uploaded to Istock has no sales at all (thats bad).

br, MJP

redhat: Thanks for your kind comments. Ofcourse I will make my own decission, but I'm just asking others opinnion (and learning by other succes and mistakes) to make best decission on based information.

br, MJP

Quote from: massman on January 15, 2008, 20:08
Here are my figures from LO for the past 18 months or so.

Portfolio - 154
Views - 235056
Sales - 114 (including 1 EL)
Received comments - 16
Given comments - 5

One file in particular has done very well for me with 208698 views and 54 downloads

Who knows how it works.

Make of it what you will, but as others have said, with such an easy upload system and a friendly review team, it's no hassle to upload.

How to hell you get some many views ? I have had only total of 4747 views so far:) and only 52 sales.

#  Portfolio  (1147)
# Comments (11)
# Received Comments (28)
# The Odditorium (6)

So something is wrong with my images.

I LO site is neat and fast nowdays, but I hope sales will pick up some day...I will continue to upload new images and hope for the best.

br, MJP

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to best way to get start working with alamy. I have though several ways, but not sure which one will be the best for 1-2 year time line.

background:

I will start producing new higher quality images on specific category only. (I have come to two categories: food and fine dining (including wine, alcohol, gourmet and dining related life style images) or bio technology and biology/medical related images (access to labs etc are possible but may cost some amount of money). I can also finance little bit the image production (e.g. renting probs, hire models, hire chefs etc) but not in massive scale like Yuri like to do . Quality not quantity is the key and lot of work to do.

and now the questions:

1. Are the selected categories good enough or should I get better focus. I'm familiar with food stuff, but not with medical ones (I have friend who can arrange these things and help me out, but he wants his share of the sales, but thats ok to me).

2. RM or RF or both?

3. If I choose RF, is it still wise to sell same images in with (Finnish) mid-stock company (end user price level is 80-200euros).

4. Selling same images in micros are out of the question ? (downscaled, lowres?)

5. Anything else I should know/remember?

6. Is my current images good enough? (look links to portfolios from signature).

7. Other similar sites?

thanks in advance,

MJP

Very low sales there.. I have been member about 1year and 4 months similar. Now I have over 1100 images online and only got ~50 sales (60$ or similar). I have over 500 credits from their upload campaign but can't use them on side sales because I need another 50 sales.. Only 2 sales within last 30 days (60 cents total). Even the Snapvillage have this much sales with few images online . The LO site is great but the sales are very low. I will keep my images there to get payout later on this year. I do not have time and skills to write massive amounts of comments which eventually drive traffic also to your own portfolio as well. I hope they stay in business long enough to get my first payout:).

br, MJP

Opted out too. Had only one subs sale there (need to upload more images to get some sales on the future).

Yuri Arcurs
Vphoto
helix7
moori
sharpshot
lumina
lathspell
brm1949
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
rene
madelaide
Kiya
ason
epixx
mjp

Just uploaded part of my portfolio over there (1100 images). Easy upload system is big plus and I was able to upload images quite fast. Now I'm waiting sales... (I know it will take time, but I hope get nice amount of EURO(s) over there during this year .)

Updated my image count:

Yuri Arcurs
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
Smithore (596)
rene
sharpshot (2756)
ldambies
epixx
latex
FlemishDreams.
RTimages
Vonkara
helix7
Travelling-light
Mjp (994)
northflyboy
ason
sorsillo (538)
boatman
Alex
Eco
Rozmaryna (68)
Pixelbrat
Read_My_Rights (277)
vphoto
faber (300)
dbvirago
cmcderm1
boryak
HughStoneIan
digiology
moori
pixart
fauxware
rosendo  (313)
Lukasphoto
aremafoto (2147)
IKOphotos (1842)
Kiya
erwinova
Velvia
DanP68
Jorgeinthewater

Joined on the list.. Will send downsized images to SS (what is the best resolution to downsize to maximize sales (I'm using 5D at moment))?

br, Mikko P.

---
Opted out.

Yuri Arcurs
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
Smithore
rene
sharpshot
ldambies
epixx
latex
FlemishDreams.
RTimages
Vonkara
helix7
Travelling-light
Mjp

Quote from: rimglow on December 24, 2007, 17:52
I shoot products. F.32 @ 2- 4 seconds, using tungsten lights.
Canon 1Ds Mark II.
Canon 90mm Tilt lens.

http://www.featurepics.com/Authors/Images.aspx?id=445.

to rimglow:

Very nice gallery. Can I ask more details about your setup and post processing? It seems you have several (I count three, did I count correctly  ) softboxes (front and back of the subject), but do you shoot  over a clear plexi glass or do you glue your object top of the stick or similar solutions to help isolation proces? What kind of post processing you do to get "cartoon/hand" drawn feel on your images?

Thanks in advance.

br, Mikko P.

edit: I shoot normally manual mode (125/ F5.6-16 with studio lights). AV-mode and manaul mode when shooting landscapes.

2007 goals were to pass 500$ barrier from micros before end of the year (passed in august). The year 2008 have little higher for microstock :

- 1000$/month before next fall from microstocks
- Remodel my garage to home studio (planning starts january and should be ready at summer time)
- Add 1000 images to my portfolio.
- Focus more and more on food & still life photography
- Buy tilt and shift lens and learn to use it

And maybe get more non-microstock related photography income as well.

br, MjP

- Photoshop CS3
- Capture One 3.7 (for raw conversions)
- Canon DPP for tethered shooting under MS Vista
- WinSCP (for FTP uploads)

Maybe I need some noise ware (still using cs3 noise reduction filter).

br, Mikko P.

I wanted you to know that I just received PayPal payment from HAAP Media USA (stockxpert). The payment was requested on weeked (3 days ago). So everything seems to be working now.

best regards and happy holidays

- MjP

Hi,

Thanks for the comments.

The site is under "construction/beta" status and this was the first version, it will evolve. I will include google ads there in future too, but try to minimize their presence much as possible. And I try to get more real content online soon (more images, more textual content).

My focus will be to build nice portfolio and have nice discussion going on in the blog so I can learn new stuff and maybe others too .

Hi,

Can I ask for your comments and critique about my new web-site (beta stage at the moment).

The site URLs are www.mjp-photographs.fi and www.mjp-photographs.com .

If you have suggestion or problems connecting or viewing the site please let me know. The server is located in Atlanta/US so it should be fast for US users, but if you use it somewhere else please comment about the connection speed. The site is designed to be a portfolio site,  referral site and blog about my future work on food and still life areas(photography and cooking).

best regards:Mikko Pitkänen / MJP-Photographs

My domains are: www.mjp-photographs.fi and www.mjp-photographs.com. In late of this summer  I decided that it is time to get more serious about this photography thing. So I set up "company" under the same name (MJP-Photographs).

I know little about book keeping etc, but I outsourced things like that to bookkeeping agency (expensive: yes, quality: newer get to this level in my own). This is not yet my full time job but maybe some day it generates enough credits to allow me to do so. The name is registered as: "Private person carrying on trade", its like a normal company but in a very small scale and the taxing is different from other business forms. I do not know is there similar company/business forms in states etc.

The name comes from my name initials. It's bit a lame, but I hope I get nice logo sometime and I try to build web-site for it. Now the web-site is down, but I try to get something for it in next few days.


OT: Is there any logo designers out there? If you are interested design a log please send me  mail.


br, Mikko

5 sales in September wit portfolio over 1000 images. September was better than august (1 more sale).  So I need 61 downloads to get to spend over 500 tokens I get from uploads from last year... So no sideshow feature for me until year 2009 at this sale&view speed.

Is anybody traded their gift tokens with other members (e.g. I buy 100 of your images and you buy 100 of mine.. both have payout, both have sideshow enabled)? (or is this restricted by user agreements or something) Or should there be a option to enable the sideshow directly with e.g. 100 tokens or something.

Hi Leaf,

Here is one from my portfolio:

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=4066933

Thanks in advance,

br: Mikko P.