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851
« on: February 08, 2009, 18:02 »
It's always fun to read old threads. At least, we know the answer on this one...  So I'll put this out there. Well, since they finally put up their about page...is Snap Village a microstock or midstock?
852
« on: February 08, 2009, 16:53 »
Eeeks! That was sure close. I can't believe he casually takes a shot afterwards. Not really. I've been trained as a diver-rescuer and only once had to use the paramedic training in a bad traffic accident. At the moment itself you act like in a reflex, and you do what you have to do. The shock comes later.
853
« on: February 08, 2009, 16:45 »
Probably the poor reviewer was thinking the same, but come on guys... Don't forget where we are. This is microstock, the revenue offered is too low for such a high needs. These shoots fit perfectly in any micro/macro library without doubt. Yes they are great stock. The flaws are minor and very easy to correct and resubmit. But then, this was on Crestock, and I won't comment on that site any more.
854
« on: February 08, 2009, 11:31 »
Both have blown-out hilights (you should shoot night images at dusk, not when it's completely dark) and the second one has a tilted horizon. Correct, that was my very first impression too without reading your comment. A horizon should be perfect 0 degrees, or far off. If you lose pixels at the border, they can easily be cloned in, certainly in this image. As to blown-outs, the OP should check the raws and do a -3 development. If he has no raws, it's quite easy to put in a gradient since the form of the lamps is quite simple.
855
« on: February 06, 2009, 19:26 »
Here is an another example, but now I am not sure about the isolation. I mean her hair on the top of her head. Hair is a mess to isolate by dodging. You could just eleminate the small hairs in the separation and follow the main outline. 
856
« on: February 06, 2009, 19:06 »
In fact, one couple was used in a vitamin catalogue. The catalogue stated in the fine print that all the people in it were actually taking their vitamins. My model called up and told them he and his wife were in their catalogue and wanted their free vitamins. They received a box full of vitamins the next week  Hahaha, I need to remember this one! I'll try to take a shot of myself in a business suit next to a parked Maserati. Who knows...
857
« on: February 06, 2009, 18:52 »
@FlemishDreams - did you actually take that photo yourself Of course not. The image is from a major newspaper but I cropped it to fit here. If it was somebody I knew or he wasn't a "celebrity" now I would never post his image for privacy reasons. He was a good student at school, comes from a normal family, never gave trouble, just had a history of some depressions. Unlike most serial killers he didn't attempt suicide. Mystery... Most relevant BBC article (click).
858
« on: February 06, 2009, 16:53 »
The simple truth on Flickr - another Valentine illustration 
859
« on: February 06, 2009, 16:48 »
I came back to ask you about DT!
Have you looked at your ports on DT today?
Have they changed the preview as well? (to a slighter lighter gray than IS)? Yes DT has the obituary frame too suddenly. It must be a conspiracy between DT and iS! There are light designs (like DT and iS) and dark designs (like MostPhotos). It hurts the eyes when you enter deviant color or luminance schemes.
860
« on: February 06, 2009, 13:54 »
Dank je wel! Graag gedaan  You must have had a lot of patience waiting for the sun to be exactly there, right season and right time of day. Or is it a sunrise? 
861
« on: February 06, 2009, 13:51 »
Anton, you're right, my stats are finally back and updated too. And sales were higher than expected!  Same here. Buyers must have woken up after the year-end recess and Chinese New Year. It's the same on SS with On Demand sales daily and one extended 4 days ago. Only DT drags its feet this month. On topic: I don't like the black border around the pop-ups. For people shots, it looks like an obituary.
862
« on: February 06, 2009, 13:29 »
Anyway, I am eager to see how it all plays out. If things go well, it could mean big changes in my future. As designer or as contributor? As far as I can distill it from this thread, Veer used to be an RM agent and will now venture in RF microstock with a separate collection. Search engine etc... will be different. They have no real experience with RF microstock and they are relying on the debris of SV to provide them with the know-how. Don't know if that's an asset since on the IT side, SV wasn't that knowledgeable. When Getty bought iStock, they got a mature product. I can also deduct from the thread ( ready after summer) that all the IT machinery for RF microstock on Veer as well as the workflow has to be developed/rolled out yet. Many contributors that withheld massive upload by the rather unpleasant upload experience at SV will flock at Veer en masse, like it happens with every new microstock agency, so they will need loads of inspectors. Finally their traditional RM contributors might not be so happy about the invasion of cheap microstockers, since some of what I saw technically would never make it to the "traditional" RF microstock. The current "Indie Dream" on the Veer photography frontpage would most probably be rejected for bad cropping, bad composition, shallow DOF (the hands) and hard on-cam flash. Just wait and see I guess.
863
« on: February 06, 2009, 12:47 »
Wow, I feel warm and fuzzy already? Did you go to that ski cabin near Mt. Baker too?
864
« on: February 06, 2009, 12:32 »
Images with suits have a very long shelf life. The only thing that changes a bit is the width of the pants under the knee, but you don't see the feet on many business shots. Jeans are timeless, with the same restriction. Cellphones are the biggest worry since you can easily date an image by the look of the cellphone. The same is true for laptops and computer screens, but to a lesser extent. CRTs are out now, Flatscreens are in. (1)
T-shirts is a big headache shooting young adults since they love designs and logos on it. Plain T-shirts are also very hard to find so I bought some myself as props.
A way to safeguard your investment in a shoot is to change wardrobe in between and reshoot the poses with plain generic clothes and with fancy fashion that is more dated.
---------
(1) Dating a movie is easy by the cars, cellphones and computer screens.
865
« on: February 06, 2009, 12:19 »
I do like the term "pixel peeker". I'm always puzzled by a rejection for pixel distortion. When I zoom in at 800%, they all look perfectly square to me
866
« on: February 06, 2009, 12:07 »
If you don't like your images to be used like that, don't make images that could ever be used like that. Yes, your revenue will decrease if you take this tack, but so will your problems and stress. You can do this by limiting poses and situations. In my experience my models like to go much "farther" than I deem good for their own interest. There is not much that can go wrong with a model in business suit, but the proverbial sexy girl in bikini will be all over the net in facebook, friendster, and with amateur collectors.
867
« on: February 06, 2009, 11:55 »
Out of interest, why do you continue to visit the site that you keep saying charges too much and also 'makes you puke'? I think he mentioned the forum. I'm allergic to their forums too, so I just don't read them. But I do like the iStock technical tutorials a lot.
868
« on: February 06, 2009, 11:31 »
I agree with your concerns and it certainly is making me wonder about the whole notion of micro as a viable business. As your own example illustrates, this has nothing to do with microstock per se.
869
« on: February 06, 2009, 11:23 »
I think it's time to dust of my old draft post titled 'Microstock for the Mainstream Press'. Maybe an industry timeline to accompany it - good idea. A graphic timeline would be fantastic and most instructive. I loved the graphic timeline in the Economist or WSJ of the banking crisis last year. It was very instructive to see who toppled who and when. You could also represent the agencies by bars according to # pictures online as measure for their size. The Wayback machine can help.
870
« on: February 06, 2009, 11:03 »
Anyone can help me on these too??  All CD drives I've seen have a small opening somewhere, where you can put in a tool like a long thick needle to unblock the mechanism. If that doesn't work, find the little screws on the bottom that hold the drive in place, then slide it out. For IPTC, it might sound stupid, but don't you have a friend or acquaintance with a PC you can go there and use Irfanview quickly? If you have the keywords and description ready in a text file that could be done fast. Or you could go to a netcafe with a USB stick and do it there. Sometimes, you have to think out the proverbial box...
871
« on: February 06, 2009, 10:51 »
I do light selective sharpening by the supersharpen workflow (the Miz described it) in the lightness channel alone (convert to Lab colors) in a layer under the original.
If it's a landscape, I set the opacity for the original on top to 80%, but only for the land part and avoiding smooth gradients like sky and clouds where the added noise will be most visible.
For portraits, I use a soft erase brush 15-20% on the eyes, lip cracks and the nose opening (points of attention focus). Vonkara: on an isolation, never sharpen the borders to white of course. After flatten layers, I zoom in 600% (yes I'm a stupid pixelpeeper) and I blurr the single black pixels here and there with a soft brush 2px. The eye white gets blurred a little bit too with a larger brush.
872
« on: February 06, 2009, 10:36 »
I worked with cerebral palsy children 8 years ago, and it's very difficult to see the inability on a still image. You would see it on a vid clearly since they are also spastic and they have odd eye movements. Stock is about what any average viewer can see immediately in the image, not all the circumstances or conditions around. The easiest way to picture disability is in a wheelchair or something very clearly visible at first glance in a still image. What if I used this kid as a psychotic serial killer?  He actually is. He broke into a nursery two weeks ago with a large knife and a bullet proof vest, and he butchered a ward and 2 babies and injured many others. He had a plan to intrude other nurseries in the neighborhood, and he heard voices. I you want an image to depict psychosis and a serial killer, this is not an image to chose.
873
« on: February 06, 2009, 10:13 »
I see a lot of non-designers who are underwhelmed, but speaking primarily as a designer, and secondarily as an istock exclusive, this is the most exciting news I've heard in a while. I will be watching very closely how this all unfolds, so I hope you all will be bringing lots of reports.  Thanks for your invaluable input as a buyer about Veer. Funny it wasn't mentioned here before as an outlet for contributors. I've always been a Snap-sceptic based on their slow progress on the IT side, like watermarks and FTP. Looking through what Veer has to offer, one gets the impression the content is far off from "traditional" microstock, like the isolated girl with headset. Do you think Veer is open for such content? Contributors that never uploaded to Snap might be encouraged to do so to Veer.
874
« on: February 06, 2009, 10:05 »
Cool it down guys and gals, life is too short to biatch around There should be a good article around about the history of microstock. If not, is there a Lee Torrens in the audience?
875
« on: February 05, 2009, 14:10 »
What do you think? And what do they..the agencies..think?? No agency will take the heath for an independent contributor. That's the price you'll have to pay for uploading to multiple agencies. You can't simply prove that your image was downloaded from agency A when you also upload to B..Z. If you are exclusive on one agency, they will take action. Dreamstime does, for instance. I guess iStock does it too. Let's not exaggerate warez and pirated IP. Almost never, the downloaders would have bought the real product. As to images, what can a "sharer" do with it? Use it as a screensaver? Legitimate businesses need the guarantee that an image is properly licensed, and the possible gain of 50$ (best case) doesn't balance the loss they would suffer when they would use pirated images and they were exposed. Microstock is not a consumer product, but a business product.
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