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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
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876
« on: April 06, 2013, 21:46 »
Thanks PW,
I had to re-read your post a couple of times... I kept getting caught up on your comment
"The problem I've found with macro is only my totally unique images or highly conceptual images sell."
My bad  , I kept reading it as MICRO, not macro. Makes sense once I correctly read what you wrote!
So your vote is go exclusive with iStock? Another person suggested that also.
Well, I'm exclusive but I wasn't suggesting that for you. I think as a whole whether you go IS exclusive or go indy with a few different sites you should be able to pull in the figures I quoted. I'm doing okay as an exclusive but I would suggest reviewing all of the posts about what's changed over the past couple of years and decide for yourself.
877
« on: April 06, 2013, 17:52 »
Don - I'd agree with some of the other comments here. You have some nice work and talent so getting $1 per image per month would seem reasonable. If all of your images are the quality of the ones you've shown a couple thousand images should be producing a couple thousand dollars a month, not a couple hundred.
I'm a Getty house contributor and also Istock exclusive. The problem I've found with macro is only my totally unique images or highly conceptual images sell. And producing unique stuff is becoming pretty difficult or costly.
Of all of the art websites only Fineartamerica has worthwhile for me.
Good luck!
878
« on: March 24, 2013, 19:12 »
879
« on: March 16, 2013, 12:49 »
Have any of you actually worked with consultants, or served as consultants yourselves? I've done both, and the quality of consultants' work varies pretty much like any other kind of service. It depends as much on how the hiring firms describe what they want done and how they want the results to be delivered as it does on the ability of the consultants. Even the best and most honorable consultants have to deliver news in a way that will be accepted and stand a chance of getting them additional work, which means not telling the client that their kids are ugly and they dress them funny. It's a balancing act, but one that helps the client more than being brutally honest.
I've been at places that hire consultants, and I've even been a consultant on a few memorable occasions. It's a job like any other, but one that has special challenges due to its short term nature. In this case I'd say that the exercise is a waste of time and money, because I believe iStock already has their mind made up before it starts. That's not the consultant's fault, and if they try to budge iStock in the process, they'll try to do it in a way that doesn't preclude further work from iStock and Getty. We'd like them to be more direct in their advice than they probably will be, but I understand why that's not likely to be so.
As a consultant for one of the world's largest companies I'd also question whether any of you have ever served as a consultant or hired one. If you never have, to make such assumptions is pretty absurd. For Istock to hire consultants they, or Getty, have likely realized they aren't making progress in the right direction with buyers and have run out of ideas that are producing positive results.
880
« on: March 07, 2013, 20:01 »
Never got a reply to my email. Shall I submit again, or wait a little more? Anyone else didnt get a reply?
Try sending all cat pics and you might get a reply. 
881
« on: February 26, 2013, 23:13 »
I had a both the 24-105 and 24-70 mk1 and had mixed feelings about the 24-105.
Like icefront said, I found a lot of the images I took past the 60mm point were a bit soft. Even at F8. 24-60 was nice, sharp, and contrasty. The lens let me down enough that I picked up the 24-70. Great lens. Sharp at just about any length and aperture.
I'd also agree with the 17-40. Love this lens. Corners are soft but the center is as sharp as a prime. I got some fantastic pictures with it. Has never let me down.
What about the 28-300?
882
« on: February 23, 2013, 07:47 »
I've been with Photoshelter for a few years and am happy with it overall.
It's a complete service including hosting. You sign up, choose a plan, choose a template website layout, and upload photos. No coding is needed but if you move up to a higher plan you can custom code it if you want to. You also don't need a domain name but with a higher plan you can choose to use one. The standard name is yourchosenname.photoshelter.com.
It's pretty easy. You can create categories, drag and drop photos, create RM, RF, and Personal Use download pricing. Printing is mostly automated and is handled by places like Adoramapix and my experience has been very good with it.
Some of the downsides. Google seems to have a love/hate thing with Photoshelter. You either get great indexing or really bad. So knowing SEO helps. Like most technology there are some ongoing bugs and features that are slowly being worked out. They have a forum so you may want to spend some time there. You also need to drive your own traffic to your site. They provide the platform, you do the marketing.
Hope this helps.
883
« on: February 15, 2013, 18:54 »
I've found the same problem with my 900 pixel FAA images on Google Images. The watermark is near useless and can either be easily cloned or cropped out.
I've found quite a few of my images on the Internet that are cropped almost perfectly to cut off the FAA watermark. Hmmmm.
900 pixel images are a Small size on IS so with all of the XS and S sales we get this is plenty big to satisfy most web usage for thieves.
FAA's attitude in the past has been dismissive with "watermarks hurt your sales" and "we're not changing it." And a lot of FAA contributors don't care if their images are stolen. Seems pretty crazy to me. Why bother selling anything at all then? Why not just give it all away and let people use your free images to make prints?
People are stealing my images through them and they don't seem to care. And I make more in stock in a couple of days than I make with them in a month so I think FAA isn't leaving me with much of a choice.
884
« on: February 15, 2013, 18:39 »
... Google Images seems to do a pretty good job of weeding out duplicates.
I suggest you to have your preview images that are available on your personal portfolio website in little bit higher resolution than they are available anywhere else. Search engines prefer higher resolution images vs. lower resolution images.
Good point, thanks.
885
« on: February 15, 2013, 18:38 »
I'm working on building traffic for my personal site and noticed Google Images seems to do a pretty good job of weeding out duplicates. So if I have images scattered at Zazzle, Red Bubble or wherever, it's probably shifting traffic away from my personal site. And I'm competing against myself.
At most of these places I make a small percentage of next to nothing an make an occasional sale. I'm considering dropping them to see what happens to my personal site traffic where I can the majority of the profits.
Anybody else noticed this Google Images de-dup thing?
Hi, I don't understand what you mean by "Google....weeding out duplicates". How is this reflected in the Google search results? Also, are there features at Zazzle etc that you don't have on (or can't access from) your personal web site, or is there another reason you place images at these sites?
Regards
Let's say you sell all of your images at 20 different stock websites, print on demand websites, art websites, and then your own website. Google Images indexes all of these sites so technically if you have one image at 20 different websites it should show up in Google Images 20 times. This isn't what I've found. GI seems to pick one image from different sites so there are no/few duplicates in it's search results. This means if you are trying to sell images from your own site that these other sites are actually competing for search result space against your personal website. And I would guess that you get less personal website traffic as a result. So you're competing against yourself by having images all over the place. And these other sites make so little for me that I'm wondering if I should dump them to get that traffic to come to my site. Make more sense?
886
« on: February 14, 2013, 19:38 »
I'm working on building traffic for my personal site and noticed Google Images seems to do a pretty good job of weeding out duplicates. So if I have images scattered at Zazzle, Red Bubble or wherever, it's probably shifting traffic away from my personal site. And I'm competing against myself.
At most of these places I make a small percentage of next to nothing an make an occasional sale. I'm considering dropping them to see what happens to my personal site traffic where I can the majority of the profits.
Anybody else noticed this Google Images de-dup thing?
887
« on: February 09, 2013, 16:51 »
Hey thanks everyone. Great information. A lot of stuff I didn't think about.
888
« on: February 08, 2013, 06:25 »
Large format is a film size not a print size. I thought someone here was printing large format negatives, which would have been far more interesting.
Okay then, could you contact Canon, Epson, HP, and all other printer manufacturers and ask them to stop using large format wording? http://usa.canon.com/cusa/office/products/hardware/large_format_printersOh, and just for you, I'll do a post on large format negatives just to make sure you have something interesting to read. 
889
« on: February 07, 2013, 23:07 »
It's your call. Your money. "Beloved" makes it sound like it's something special. If so, do what you feel is right.
890
« on: February 07, 2013, 20:46 »
I know very little about the print business so thanks for the information.
I've been running some numbers and it looks like ink for an 8x10/8x12 is about $1.00 on average. So a 40x60 would be about $10 in roll paper and $30 in ink. Plus operating costs, printer cost, etc.
The two professional print shops I use charge $90 for a 40x60. So a little over double markup seems about right. And the double markup appears to be consistent with most sizes. So minus hardware and operating costs, self printing is around half of the cost compared to the cheapest print services.
891
« on: February 07, 2013, 09:20 »
C'mon folks! If someone offered you $50 million for your website which one of you would have turned it down? Nobody.
Plus, if he didn't sell out he may not have enough money to do something like a Stocksy.
892
« on: February 07, 2013, 09:15 »
Anything over standard 8x12. I've been looking into printers that will print as large as 40" wide to do 40x60's and anything in-between.
Just researching right now and trying to find a sweet spot. Like does it save money, what size do people buy most, ink costs, paper costs, etc.
893
« on: February 07, 2013, 08:51 »
Interesting but nothing to say that he won't be a sellout again.
Even if he did, at minimum this could be a disruptive model to turn around the pattern of how contributors are being treated elsewhere. But Bruce started something when nothing existed. Now there are a small group of sites with a stranglehold on the industry. He will need to come up with something pretty amazing to break back in and get decent market share.
894
« on: February 07, 2013, 07:49 »
My print sales are picking up so I'm looking into buying a large format printer to do some of the printing myself. Any recommendations on what to look for or avoid in a large format printer?
895
« on: February 07, 2013, 06:05 »
Very interesting. His non-compete must have expired. It's showtime!
896
« on: February 05, 2013, 19:05 »
Contract? We don't need no stinking contract.
897
« on: February 05, 2013, 19:04 »
I can't believe getting financially squeezed dry wasn't #1.
898
« on: February 05, 2013, 19:02 »
It was only a matter of time before they started looking to squeeze every extra penny of profit out of the company.
The easiest place to start is wringing contributors dry like every other place else has. Begin with the low impact stuff like referrals. When that isn't enough, start taking benefits away. When that isn't enough, drop commissions and raise prices and say "but you make the same money". And on and on.
Deja Vu
899
« on: February 05, 2013, 06:29 »
http://contributors.gettyimages.com/img/articles/downloads/FINAL%20POSTED%20Yahoo%20Contributor%20Launch.pdf
This has some information but doesn't specifically say what the royalty rates are.
So they're ready to "begin reporting royalties"? This seems carefully worded. So does this mean they've been earning revenue since last summer but we're just getting paid moving forward? Or we'll be paid on revenue since last summer?
Your question should be answered in here.
So it looks like we'll be backpaid.
Royalties> you should expect to see your first page-views report from Yahoo in about 6 months. Were developing our joint reporting tools and as soon as they are ready, youll see the first several months activity and then see reports monthly thereafter.
900
« on: February 04, 2013, 20:49 »
So they're ready to "begin reporting royalties"? This seems carefully worded. So does this mean they've been earning revenue since last summer but we're just getting paid moving forward? Or we'll be paid on revenue since last summer?
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