Deactivated 10 files as a form of protest

Great to see Payoneer support in the forums here. As a Payoneer user myself I can only recommend the services you offer. I just wish you collaborated with the remaining top stock agencies.

Regards, Ljupco

Thanks guys. I've just sent an email to filesonic.

Regards, Ljupco

http://www.heroturko.com/stock-images-cd/transportation/1231465-motorcycle-images.html

Thanks, Ljupco

I'm interested Elena. You can contact me via PM for more details. Thanks, Ljupco

Do a search for Dell 2209WA. It's been discontinued but if you can find it, it's a great monitor for the price. Here's a link to a review: http://m.cnet.com.au/computers/339294389.htm?redir=1

I had suggested something similar several years ago, but nobody seemed interested/willing to embark on such a project. Too bad I can't find the post, the site doesn't let me go back that long ago. Photographers selling their own work on their on web site is the way to go in my opinion. Regards, Ljupco

I use Drobo and it's a joy to use. It stores and backs up data at the same time. I highly recommend it to anyone. Check it out here: http://www.drobo.com

I have just had my initial 10 approved and in order to decide whether to start the upload process, I need answers to couple of questions from Ryan or anyone else from Veer:

1. I filled in the Tax Form and after completion it said that it looks that I'm going to be taxed 30% cause I live in a non-treaty country. That's fine but am I going to be taxed only on sales coming from US (as it is at Shutterstock) or Veer will tax me on all my sales ?

Also, what about the Dash for Cash program ? Is Veer going to put a tax of 30% on that money as well ?

2. I see my initial 10 approved but I don't see any credits or earnings on my account, are you going to add them up after the Dash for Cash campaign ends or I'm not looking at the right place ?

3. I see a limit of 100 uploads per week and by then end of June there are 6-7 weeks left, does this means that I can't upload more than 700 photos ?

In my opinion, If you want quality images and consistent contributors, raise the upload limit and be more selective in the process of approving images. Also tax the way Shutterstock does, only on sales coming from US.

I see little incentive if I can only upload 700 images. When Fotolia did a similar campaign back in the days when it was a start-up, they didn't have any upload limits and it seems it worked for them quite well.

Uploading a whole portfolio to a start up agency without an incentive like this is a waste of time in my opinion. Sadly, I tried registering at their site but "an unexpected error occurred" several times. I'm going to give it a try later and see what happens. If they do not fix this, and the broken FTP people reported, dash for cash campaign will be useless.

If I were you, I'd offer him 40% of the profit and pay him around 50 $ a month so that he doesn't feel that it all might be a waste of time should you see no sales. Regards, Lj

It would really be great for us but only if stock agencies accepted it. With them being so strict nowadays, I do not think this is a wise way of spending 10 buccks.

Thanks for the explanation Gostwyck. I'm just amazed how these days the agencies have become so shrewed in trying to lower the commission for the photographer. It's just appalling. Any news from them keeps me wondering if they are going to try and lower the commission in another way. Sad but we have an option, carry on or just abandon them all together. Regards, Ljupco

I just sold a photo in a W-EL ( Web extended license ) for which the buyer paid 50 credits and I only got 12$ !!! I thought we get 50 % comission on all sales. The image is level 1 but this was still an extended license purchase. Is this normal or there was a mistake of some sort made ?
Thanks, Ljupco

Quote from: noam on March 12, 2010, 20:18
Thank you all.

The tilt shift effect (btw it's more just a tilt effect) was created on a video layer in CS4. After converting my raw files to jpegs, I open them as an image sequence in PS and can "play" on this layer for as much as I want. Than I export/render it as a quick time movie (jpeg photo quality).

It is looped few times in this YouTube presentation (hence the poor guy in the queue).

I have found few but still some tilt-shift videos both on istock and shutterstock. They didn't show many DL (on IS that is).

I will try to upload it. Hope to remember to inform you on how it will do.

Thanks for the feedback.

Noam

Great video. At first thought that genuine tilt and shift lens was used so, kudos to you for your PS skills Anyway I have two questions:

1. How many frames did you use for the final video ?
2.What was the time frame between each shot ?

Good luck with accepting it at the agencies.

That no one, not even a newbie, exclusive, non-exclusive should offer any of their images new or old to thinkstock ? Not even to test out the water (If I ever get to understand this).

We as photographers are hurt on so many levels by this and that opting-in is just like digging your own grave.

They not only offer 0.25 per image, but also are introducing the lowest photographer commission across the industry. You'll get 0.25 even if they sell a single image or a bundle of images, like Shutterstock's On Demand for example and that's far from 20 % commission.

Also by inviting Istock customers to their new founded site, it only shows that the owners do not give a * for anything except their own profits. Many people at Istock signed up for exclusivity only to realize that their own company is sending the customers elsewhere, another site where prices are much lower. Not good.

And the last thing we need is a new subscription site. Offering 0.25 per image in 2010 is just a joke. Hope they realize that.

I just can't understand the greed of some of the agencies. I mean as if they weren't making enough money already, they continually decide to cut photographer's commission.

I know there are expenses and salaries to be paid, but the only way to run any business is to weigh in the cost and the profit. If you're making profit, then try to expand to new markets if you want to increase the revenue, do not cut down your worker's salary !!! On the other hand, and I'm sure everybody would agree on this, If they decided to cut down photographer's commission so that they could lower the prices and bring more sales, then they wouldn't face this kind of backlash from the contributors.

It makes me sad to see this happening across the industry. It's not fun any more. We are artists and we shouldn't bother about the legalities, not to this extent !!! We shouldn't re-read the contract agreement in fear every time an agency decides to change something in the way they operate their business.

Slowly but steadily time will tell the good guys from the bad, and then it should come as no surprise that no one would want to work with them.

P.S. And Chad is a joke, do not trust anything he says - I have been waiting for him to answer my emails for months now regarding a breach of contract about some of my images at Fotolia, and he stll couldn't find time.

Quote from: sjlocke on December 24, 2009, 15:28

Quote from: ljupco on December 24, 2009, 15:08

Quote from: sjlocke on December 24, 2009, 15:00
Woo!  Free images!  Whose smart idea was that?

Isn't that how iStock started to operate ?

Yeah, 8 years ago!  And look where we are today.  No reason to go backwards in time.  Also, once the collection went past Bruce's images, you had to upload and be downloaded to get credits to download others' works.

I guess it was like that, but my point wasn't the need to start another iStock all from beginning, but to underline the things that startups like Youtube, Facebook, iStock have in common, and that is community work, lots of people willing to do something together, not for the money, but for the sake of doing it.

And we won't be doing it for the money, we will be doing it for a fair treatment, for a fair cut of the revenue.

Quote from: sjlocke on December 24, 2009, 15:00
Woo!  Free images!  Whose smart idea was that?

Isn't that how iStock started to operate ?

Quote from: sjlocke on December 24, 2009, 11:55
So, this all sounds like "Blend Images".  Group of photogs gets together, starts agency, splits revenues, etc.  I'm surprised someone hasn't come along to point that out .

Yeah it seems like that, but the only difference would be that it wouldn't be a group, it would rather be a mass of photographers - at least 30-50 thousand in my opinion for it to work. Then the game would change. We can offer the images slightly above the commission that we receive now, and we'll be much cheaper than the current stock sites and still retain the current revenue.

I'm also all for doing something. Remember, if someone told you several years ago that most of the people in the world would be connected via the Internet, and they would share their thoughts, ideas, pictures in a way Facebook operates, many of us would have laughed at the idea. I'm sure Mark Z. laughs at us now.

Quote from: fullvalue on December 19, 2009, 04:20

Quote from: elvinstar on December 19, 2009, 04:18
It looks like you're not buying the domain name, just the code that runs the site (which includes the photo). This allows him to sell this "website" over and over.

So he's selling a template?

Yeah, he is apparently selling a template. See here:

http://stores.ebay.com/Turnkeyfox

Anyway, I don't intend to do anything as it looks as the image was purchased in order to promote the template. I doubt that anyone who buys the template will leave the same image after he registers it with a different domain.

Thanks.

This guy is selling his web-site business on ebay along with my picture (the bike image). I guess this is against the rules right ? Not that I'm going to do anything about it, just wanted to know.

Thanks.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Established-Motorcycle-Parts-Website-Business-For-Sale_W0QQitemZ180429176355QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SRCH:US:101

http://themotorbikeparts.com/templates/motorcycle/index.html

I also  have some invites left, so if anyone is interested, send ma an email at [email protected] as I do not check my PM box very often. Regards, Ljupco

Then, if that's the case, I can host the images for you for free. I can make a separate gallery and you can set a password. Let me know if you are interested. Regards, Ljupco

Smugmug is just what you need. They offer private galleries which are password protected (you can even make them invisible to anyone else), they offer high quality prints, you can batch watermark your photos....etc.

Try it out for free for 14 days and see if you like it. You can get 5$ off the price by using this coupon : iRbJtfWaiNkKk

Here's a link to what I've build in a month :

http://www.ljsphotographyonline.com/