230 photos
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13 downloads for $11.90
23 blog comments
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and   1 brand new  irrelevant odditorium post..

with 2 more pix just put in for review 10 minutes ago.

I like LO....   But I was dissappointed by today's thread that generated this poll. If the currect sales pace continues, I'm still 4 years and 5 months away from the opportunity to take advantage of the sideshow offer. With current sales pace, I'm only 4 years and 6 months away from my first payout....  Hopefully, the pace will pick up to match my sales rates elsewhere...

  since I'm not a designer nor buyer, I might as well use up my tokens and see if this sideshow thing will make a difference....  however,  I am a doubting thomas...    -tom

Hey Tom, I saw that too...
....I agree that there should be a filter - I almost sent a note to the admin, but wondered what good it do.  I can't imagine that most stock models would want their nudes to be frequented by young boys, etc.

Thanks Pixart...   Hey, everyone that ever logged onto the internet knows you can look at anything you want with a click of the mouse...  and folks who want to look at it can veiw it until the earth crashes into the sun..  I'm just concerned about the folks that  choose not to look at it.     I'd just like to see the admins on these sites consider those designers and buyers that don't want it jammed in their face. 
     I know where to click to see nudity if I choose. I know where to make a simple click to buy it if I want.   I just don't want it to jump up in a place I shouldn't expect it, especially if I'm showing my kid the pretty pictures of flowers.
      You know, I've tought about writing the admins too... but in light of the past few days postings here.... I don't think I'd want to risk getting asked to leave for questioning a policy...........   and I will surely NEVER  mention a site by name here again.   
        Keep the nudity where we know where we can find it,  not mixed in with the pictures of children at play, the flower gardens and illustrations of dollar signs and flowcharts.   It's a simple matter to put in place. Most sites have the wisdom to do so, others should learn from them.  -tom
     

First off... I am NOT a prude...  In fact, I enjoy good  B&W landscape style nude photography,  pen & ink, and pencil nude art.

However,  the other day, my wife went surfing into a certain site that most of us here belong to.  She did so with my grand daughter at her side.  Going to show grandpops photos. 
     When clicking on "newest photos"...  the page filled with nudes.  And not simple nudes, rather nudes with the model in suggestive poses.  I am not suggesting that it was porn.... but somewhere out there is a line between the two ...and I realize that that line moves up and down the scale based on each person's perspective.

Many sites have their nudes on some kind of filter so that they cannot be accidentally accessed.  I suppose my point is this.

I think nudes, all nudes, should be under a filter,  or a secondary button. They should not be thrown in with "newest" or "most popular"  or other prime search categories.  They should be in an area where the specific buyer of nudes simply has to click one or two extra buttons. Why?
   Since all folks have different sensibilities about nudity, this would protect all. We all know that you can access hardcore porn just two clicks of the mouse from this page.  Will an extra button stop the 12 year old boys from taking a peek? Of course not.
    It would simply help folks who don't want to see it, from worrying that it might show up on page two of their search.
   
    As said earlier.. most sites have this feature, but not all the prime sites. 

Okay,  I know I'll get my head handed to me for this one...    LOL 
  - tom

p.s. Just remember,  I'm not a prude and I'm not suggesting anything on any micro that i've visited is porn.  Just thinking about those folks that don't want to see any nudity  or to avoid the accidental situation that my granddaughter experienced..  that's all.

I'm very new to IS so I don't know what the standard was "before",  but I am very pleased with very low rejects.  I've only 2 pix that were totally rejected as "not stockworthy".  Funny,  one is my 2nd highest grossing photo everywhere else, but, it's their site, their choice,  I'm not complaining about it.
    I did have several rejected and was asked to correct and resubmitted for acceptance.  3 were rejected for 'trademark infringement".  I was amazed!!  On 2 of them it was for an  Adidas logo on the model's sock. You had to blow it up 300% to see it.  Now that's quality control.  Of course, 50 seconds in photoshop and they were gone...  none the less...  I was impressed with the extent to which they went...  no other site picked up on that.
    I'm sure my rejection rate is low because I will only upload what SS and StockXpert have accepted. These pix have been thru their grindhouse already.  I also do not find the new upload process that much more tedious than  a couple other sites.  And I think I'm liking that keyword program.  .....whats more,  I still have no idea what disambiguation is... LOL      -tom

I emailed support and they did it.

Thanks, that's exactly what I did and...  they repsonded in less than 24 hours. And if anyone from USPS is secretly on MSG,  I appreciated the response. 
              Now on to the next one.    -tom

The best way to see these in my experience is to blow the image up to 200-300% or even more, and look at edges.

Agreed!  The more I move into this business the more I have to dive into my pix.  100% used to be the measuring stick.  That is not necessarily true any longer with many sites.   
   Since I got onboard with IS.... I have to dive in deeper.  My first batch submitted to IS had several rejections of pix that sell very well on SS, DT and sold on FT.  IS has a feature where they send you a slice of the image showing the area of concern.
    I was amazed at what they found.  And to the point,  I had to blow up to 200 & 300% to see the problem.
     I now review everything at that magnification before submitting there.    -tom

The new feature is a drop-down list of keywords based on the keyword you entered. It's implemented in such a way that you can either use it or ignore it......................Sure, it eats up time, but I only upload 3 images there per day, so it isn't that much extra time. It's useful in that it can also "suggest" keywords that you may have missed.

I'm new to IS, so I've no clue what you folks were going through before. I don't know anything but this pull-down keyword feature.  I'm only into my second batch of 15 and....  I think I like the feature.  Same as SharplyDone, I'm only loading 3 or 4 a day there. Just tonight I was loading & thinking, I really don't spend much more time in the IS process than  I do on many other sites. 
   What I don't like about IS is the category pick... who what where when why & what the heck am I doing?  I find it difficult to plug in many of my pix .     and...  I still don't know what the heck disambiguation is, hey, I can't even spell it.
    What I do like about IS is....  with only a little over 20 pix onboard, I'm selling already.  And,  my rejection rate is low.  Hope it continues.  -tom

Quote from: sharply_done on April 12, 2007, 11:12

I've been here only a care while, and it's rather obvious...

Bizarre behavior: The word care is supposed to be the word s-h-o-r-t. It won't change, even in this post, unless I spell it with hyphens!

I am currently rolling on the floor in laughter.    ROFLOL    I just posted on another thread and have been spending the last 20 minutes or more trying to fix   a    "short"  that keeps coming up   "care".    LOL LOL LOL....   I finally had to rewrite the paragraph and make my point without using the word  "short".   

I really enjoy MSG.  I thank Leaf for his patience. 

Hey... I just realized when proof reading this that even here   s-h-o-r-t
will probably come up care unless I go back and do this...   s-h-o-r-t...
LOL LOL LOL

modify: hey, it came up 'short'    ...how about that?

I'm on the flip side of the coin: my earnings at DT are up by 32% this month.

Likewise.   My DT sales are up as well. I'm not going to be retiring any time soon on my DT sales, however, they are up.
       I am a bit concerned now after reading all of this thread and the response from DT.  Why?  Many of my recent sales are  "older" pictures posted upwards of 5/6  months ago. Pix that had never sold before.  I hope that this trend does not cease due to some program that now  'dis-favors' older pictures.   Seems to me, if it sold today, age doesn't seem to matter, it must still be relevant to someone.  On the other hand, I understand there has to be some kind of  'shelf-life'  on these things.
     
         Long upload times?  Low approvals?   What are you going to do? It's the nature of the business.
        Uber-folios,  one-man shows....  what are you going to do?  Nature of the business.
         Keeping integrity?  Lie thru your teeth?  ...  What are you going to do?  It's the nature of  every business.   
         You could go on for days picking apart every facet of a business and how it deals with it's customers, contributors and employees..
       We pick and choose what and who we think we want to deal with.  If later we feel the deal went sour...   we have two options.   Bear with it or bail out.  Yeah, you might have to wait 6 months to bail out, but you knew that going in. That's the chance you took.
        It didn't take me long to learn that. The number of people on this planet that actually do succeed in 'fighting city hall',  fighting 'the man'... are very, very, very few and far between. Same here in this situation. Their lawyers are more powerful and more plentiful than yours.
     Micros I have a problem with, really, any business I have a problem with...   I'm not going to waste a lot of my time hacking it out with them.  I ask once, I ask twice.  If I still feel I'm getting jerked around, blank 'em.  I  leave.  I'm biding my bailout time with a few micros right now. In their case not due to any disputes,but simply because they don't sell my pix.  When the limits up, the delete button gets active for an evening and the email  goes out to withdraw my name from the site.
         It ain't no biggie.  There are plenty of places to sell your work and microstock is not the be all end all of outlets for your photos.  I'm making far more outside of the micros than I do in them.

         I can understand the anger,  disappointment. whatever, that some have flamed on about in these related threads.  And I can agree with much of what was said.... and,  disagree with much that was said. 
         The photogs made some strong and valid points.  The  'company'   likewise made some valid points.

But in the end...  it's their company and they can do whatever they want. 

       By day I train low & middle managers for a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company.  There is something in their employment agreement each employee reads and signs.  It is also in the business agreements they make with their vendors and customers alike. It's something like this...

"   .................... reserves the right to change these policies at will and without the need to provide any written or verbal notification in advance nor to advise any participants prior to those changes. "

If anyone wants to work for them, buy from them or provide for them, they agree to that  condition. 

That's the way it is.   If DT wants to change on the fly,  that's their right.   Like it or not.  Right or wrong.  Ethical or not. 

When we sign up with any micro,  we click on that box saying we agree to their terms.  That includes the ones that they decide to change later at their will.

As for me,  I am not totally happy with what I've read on either side.  Photogs and DT have both put some doubts in my mind. Time will tell.

 None-the-less,  I won't be leaving DT any time soon.  If my work sells there, swell for me and swell for them. If my work should stop selling there....  hasta la vista, baby.

 If the day should come  that I've had enough, that's the day I stop uploading and start the 6 month countdown.  No biggie.

Dudes and dudettes of discontent....  Do you actually believe Coke would care if you called them up and said, "I'll never drink Coke again"?  You'd be like spit in the ocean... of no concern.  The only way you could beat Coke or, for that matter  Dreamstime, is if  EVERYONE pulled their photos... and that .......just ain't gonna happen.  Spend your life on really valued things.

You're wasting your valuable life time.  If you're ticked,  let 'em know  by pulling your own plug.  Just keep in mind,  they aren't going to miss you.  On the other hand,  .......you won't miss them either and your life will be a lot less aggravating.

Peace      -tom

Today after a year on this site I gave up on it and ahd them delete my account and photos.

tsmarkley...  how easy was it to do...  did you manually delete your 'folio... or are you trusting them to do it?  I'm ready.... I hit a year in june, but... why wait...      -tom

The camera thing is for rating other people's photos. The rating use to be considered as part of the best match algorithm so it was important for other people to rate your photos. Currently the Best Match search doesn't depend on the ratings so it is not important, however who knows if it will tommorow. After all, they seem to make a major change to the algorithm once a month.

Thanks, yingyang0!!    -tom

March is in the bag.....
site      Quantity pix       % Total $
                  sold                   
SS              75%            SS     45.6%
DT                8.3%         StockXpert   19.1%
BigStock              6.4%         DT     15.5%
StockXpert              5.7%         BigStock   13.3%
LO               2.0%          LO       3.2%
123             2.0%          IS        2.0%
IS                  .6%         123      1.3%   

 Just got on IS,  minimal 'folio
 SS maintained top simply due to pure volume of sales at 25 cents.

In terms of $ per shot...   StockXpert was best return,   with IS second.
....I've got some high hopes for IS....

  NLS, FP,  USPS  and FT zero sales.   FT account inactive at this time.

Let's hope April will be better.      -tom