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Messages - wds

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776
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock dropped the classic view
« on: January 27, 2016, 22:40 »
The classic view tastes great, but the new view is less filling.  :)

777
Photography Equipment / Re: Sensor quality vs lens quality
« on: January 27, 2016, 22:36 »
If's it's a quality lens, with proper technique, you should see a difference (the higher density APS 20mp would look more detailed than the cropped full frame)

778
Shutterstock.com / Re: Wishes for 2016
« on: December 25, 2015, 09:06 »
FT accepts editorial stills and video!

779
I've mostly quit microstock. I still have a few hundred images left down from a couple thousand and haven't submitted anything new for a couple years.

I remember not long after I first started micro in 2007 how I used to check several times an hour and would get so excited watching the sales downloads and earnings go up. I thought at that time there was huge potential and that I could retire on this at some point. Today I really don't even bother to check the micro earnings anymore.

I believe there's still potential in micro for the image factories who can pump out images by the tens of thousands. I only have time to create a handful of images a day and the return isn't there anymore so it no longer make sense for me. I also believe there's still opportunity in macro for the right images with the right agencies.

I've been focusing on my own website and am excited again. I'm no longer concerned with ambiguous royalties. I get 100%. I set my own pricing of dozens or hundreds of dollars instead of a few dollars or a few cents. I have control over my copyright and where my images are used instead of unclear or even unannounced partnering deals. I get renewal revenue for when the license the customer purchased expires instead of perpetual no limits usage.

I'm thankful to micro for giving me the opportunity to learn the business. But time to move on.

How do you market your site? Is that a big expense for you?

780
General Stock Discussion / Re: Is Shutterstock for real???
« on: October 09, 2015, 09:53 »
The "sharpness" thing is definitely kind of wacky. Some reviewers seem to reject for "not in focus" on images that are clearly quite sharp. Just sharpen them more to the point of verging on being oversharpened.

781
Hi wds,

Here is how my income is spread over the agencies:

Shutterstock 40%
iStock (incl PP, subs and getty) 27,9%
Fotolia 10%
123RF 6%
Bigstock 5%
Pond5 5% (almost just video sales)
Dreamstime 5%
Depositphotos 3%

Canstock, Veer, Alamy - almost no sales

I think the sales varies on the different sites dependent of the contents of your portfolio.

I use Stocksubmitter for upload to all sites. Uploading to 10 sites takes the same time as uploading to three sites.

Hope this answer your question!

Regards,
Kjetil

Quote
Thanks for the feedback
What has been your experience income wise of the the "big three" (SS, iS, Fot) vs. the smaller players? In your view is it worth bothering with the smaller agencies?
Thanks!

782
Kjekol,
I just sumbled on this post and I was wondering what your experience has been so far after leaving exclusivity. Have you matched your income by uploading to many agencies?

Also, how are you finding Octopus? I am looking for an submitting site and I was curious to get your opinion.

tx!

Thanks for the feedback. What has been your experience regarding income from "the big three" (iS, SS, Fot) vs. the smaller players. Are the smaller players worth the overhead of uploading to?

Hi Newby 514,

Sorry, I saw your post just now. This is a bit difficult to say because iStock sales was decreasing for me in the end of 2012 and in 2013.

I cancelled my istock exclusivity march 2013. It took me until the end of 2014 to get a "normal" sales level on all the new agencies. Now I have approximately the same return per image as the good days at iStock (2012 - Q1, 2013). So better than being exclusive at iStock these days I guess. Many say their sales at istock are slow now.

At Istock I earned almost everything in two genres of photos. Now I earn in different genres on many agencies.

My conclusion is that I don't regret to be non-exclusive.

Regards,
Kjetil

 Thanks for the feedback
What has been your experience income wise of the the "big three" (SS, iS, Fot) vs. the smaller players? In your view is it worth bothering with the smaller agencies?

783
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia Payouts - Paypal Overhead Cost?
« on: September 29, 2015, 13:50 »
Thanks everyone. I'll just try it and see what happens!

784
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia Payouts - Paypal Overhead Cost?
« on: September 29, 2015, 09:38 »
If I earn 100 and request payout, I get 100 on my paypal account. So, Fotolia doesn't charge anything, but paypal does, when I withdraw money to my credit card.

Well they kind of are charging something. By not having a system to generate checks or direct deposit, they are saving money on staff and putting the cost burden via Paypal fees on their contributors. A bit disappointing.

Does anyone know how Skrill compares?

785
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia Payouts - Paypal Overhead Cost?
« on: September 29, 2015, 09:07 »
In my case, I would have the Paypal account attached to a bank account number, no credit cards involved not sure if that makes any difference. It just seems unfair in that Fotolia seems to be asking me to fund their payout system via this cost. Kind of hard to believe since SS and iStock don't do that...in fact they generate paper checks for free if you so desire. That is why I am hoping I am missing something here.

786
Adobe Stock / Fotolia Payouts - Paypal Overhead Cost?
« on: September 29, 2015, 08:58 »
New to Fotolia. They only payout royalties via PayPal or Skrill. Looking into this, I discovered that Paypay will charge a 2.9% fee on monies transferred to my bank account. So if I have $100 in royalties, I will only see $97.10.  I am in the US.

  - Am I missing something here?
  - Is Skrill any different?

Thanks.

787
So, I just left a note in Title/Description that music notes have been changed and they still rejected images. Probably they didn't even read that. Any ideas what else could I do?

Create a property release with the relevant info.

788
General Stock Discussion / Re: Editorial shots - where to put them?
« on: September 14, 2015, 11:52 »
I put all mine on alamy, they might not sell for a year or more but when they do, they can make more than hundreds of downloads with the micros.

Does alamy require exclusivity for editorial work?

789
Adobe Stock / Re: Will Fotolia Ever Have Editorial Content?
« on: September 12, 2015, 13:41 »
So increasing your chances to have more sales is a bad idea?
It's not increasing your chances.
If the files aren't available at one site, buyers who need them must look elsewhere, where suppliers might actually make more per sale.

Like where (for editorial) ?
Alamy, Getty, iStock ...

Not sure I'm following the reasoning...how does this reasoning differ for non-editorial content?

790
Adobe Stock / Re: Will Fotolia Ever Have Editorial Content?
« on: September 12, 2015, 13:28 »
So increasing your chances to have more sales is a bad idea?
It's not increasing your chances.
If the files aren't available at one site, buyers who need them must look elsewhere, where suppliers might actually make more per sale.

Like where (for editorial) ?

791
Adobe Stock / Will Fotolia Ever Have Editorial Content?
« on: September 11, 2015, 16:08 »
iStock and Shutterstock both have  editorial content. Has Fotolia ever discussed the possiblity of having Editorial content?

792
General - Stock Video / Re: Flickering light in my studio outputs
« on: September 09, 2015, 07:50 »
It's gotta be the LED lights "flickering" beating against the frame rate of the video. If the LEDs and the camera framing "phase" happen to be insync, flickering will be minimal, but as they drift apart, flickering gets worse. Try going to all incandescent lighting.

793
General - Stock Video / Re: Flickering light in my studio outputs
« on: September 08, 2015, 21:25 »
- What do mean by "the light in the camera"?
- I would guess that any flickering was due to the LED lights having an issue. What model make are they?

794
Part of me is wondering if this might be new pricing. Remember how long the $9.99/month deal was a "limited time offer".

795
Thanks. Seems strange.

796
Is it possible to change a file description after it has been accepted?
It seems you can only change category, keywords and pricing. The title/description field seems to be locked out. I made a minor typo and want to change it.

797
Shutterstock.com / Re: New images hardly sell
« on: August 13, 2015, 17:02 »
Maybe they changed the algorithm so you have to "give it more time"? How long has this been the case?

798
iStockPhoto.com / Re: istock exclusivity question
« on: August 07, 2015, 22:28 »
Didn't you just start a thread about how terrible iStock was and how there are no sales there?  No sales on istock, no sales anywhere else.  Maybe move on to another hobby?

by the way, this is nat a hobby for me, this was main income source for me past years, I have almost 5000 microstock images...

Do you already have your entire library of 5000 images on other sites? If not, get it all uploaded and give it some time as others are saying.

Hmmm....that sounds like a sure way to get 4,999 images buried in the search.

There are thousands of images uploaded every day. Whether you upload 5 images or 500 in a day, each of your uploads is competing with thousands and thousands of other new uploads. So how is it any different if you upload 5 vs. 500 a day?

799
iStockPhoto.com / Re: istock exclusivity question
« on: August 07, 2015, 12:12 »
Didn't you just start a thread about how terrible iStock was and how there are no sales there?  No sales on istock, no sales anywhere else.  Maybe move on to another hobby?

by the way, this is nat a hobby for me, this was main income source for me past years, I have almost 5000 microstock images...

Do you already have your entire library of 5000 images on other sites? If not, get it all uploaded and give it some time as others are saying.

800
how do you enter your keywords?

I do mine in lightroom and have always used 'multi words' or whatever you want to call them, and they've always survived the upload process into the SS content editor staying as "national park" or "evergreen tree" for example. I just checked.

maybe it's the program you are using. if the software automatically converts a space between words into a comma or semi-colon, that would probably be the source of the issue. Have you tried making quotations around your 'multi-words' in your software? That should fix the issue.

I use Lightroom also. In fact, on initial upload and when viewing in SS's "images to be submitted" the keywords aren't broken up, it is only upon actual submission that this happens.
I also do all my uploades via ftp.

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