How much did you make on the sale of this photo?  Just a few cents/dollars?

Has anyone tried to clean dust off their Canon Digital Rebel xTi yet?

If so, what was successful for you?  Did you use a bulb blower with much success?  I'm going to need to clean it well now as I'm starting to use isolated white backgrounds, and stuff is really showing up!

Hi all--another newbie question here:

How do you guys keep track of files pending, deleted, and approved.  I have been keeping them in a table in microsoft word, but it is starting to get quite extensive and was wondering if anyone has any tracking software or a better homemade system for this.

Thanks!

I know you should separate all keywords with commas, but should you put phrases in quotation marks?

i.e. alley, alleyway, "back alley", bin, etc

I've noticed some sites take them and some sites break up the quoted parts.  Is there one system that works for all sites?  Are the commas enough?  I think fotolia rejects phrases if they are NOT in quotes ie. "black and white" -- without the quotes, it will add black --- and ---- white as separate keywords.

What do you do?

I know you should separate all keywords with commas, but should you put phrases in quotation marks?

i.e. alley, alleyway, "back alley", bin, bins, city, dirty, "run down", dumpster, dumpsters, garbage, gutter, lane, polluted, road, street, urban, industrial, industry, construction

I've noticed some sites take them and some sites break up the quoted parts.  Is there one system that works for all sites?  Are the commas enough?

Hi all,

As a newbie to stock, I spend most of my time typing up photo descriptions, keywords, and titles in a Microsoft Word table that I use to save and track info to resumit my images to different stock sites.

Now I am starting to read more and more about software that helps store and sort images and their IPTC data.

Can anyone tell me more information about how this works, pros and cons of using it as opposed to my archaic system, and possibly suggest some (hopefully free!) software that I could use?  Once I've inputted this type of data, can I still upload using the simple "web uploaders" on most sites?

Any info or advice is much appreciated ...

-daintee

Quote from: tan510jomast on July 20, 2008, 17:39
you're in my old home-province of alberta. so you're within travelling to the rockies where there are lots of different more sellable subjects to take photographs of.
pauliewalnuts is right, your portfolio is a well covered subject, and unless it's something unusual, it can be lost in the gazillion of photos .
try looking for other uncommon but sellable subjects. as i said, you are in an excellent province . if you have a car, you should not have problem finding the right subject within a day's drive. good luck.

Thanks for the tip, tan510jomast.  However, I don't think I'd have much more luck with mountains than I would with flowers, etc.  And trust me, I didn't shoot the flowers for stock; I shot them for other projects that I've had over the past few years (re: gardens, etc), and thought I would upload them for the heck of it. 

I do plan to shoot more, and to get into some lightbox techniques soon.  I know that it is also a numbers game.  Thanks, all.

Quote from: Seren on July 20, 2008, 14:17

Quote from: daintee on July 20, 2008, 04:35
For example, in the past they accepted several animal photos that I know were horribly overexposed, and people were buying them for whatever reason (shortage of such pics, maybe).

You shouldn't have uploaded these shots in the first place.  If YOU thought they were bad, then they didn't even pass YOUR quality control.

The entire photo wasn't awful; the lighting could have been better.  One photo I'm thinking of in particular is one of my most viewed and downloaded on several sites.  So it has value to someone--to a lot of someones in fact!

I did shoot these this way on purpose as I liked the effect ... but maybe it's just me!!

Sorry, PaulieWalnuts, but did you mean that in a good or a bad way?  Do you mean soft as in too blurry, or as in alright?

here's an example of one of the photos I'm talking about (accepted quickly to FT):

http://www.fotolia.com/id/8368477

Hi guys,

I've been at stock photography only very part time for about the past year or so, and in the entire year, I've made under $50 on all my sites combined.  I still don't have a ton of images and I'm sure this is probably part of the problem, but if anyone could give any reinforcements or criticisms of my portfolios/images, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks a lot!

-daintee

Hi everyone,

Despite not being one of the "Big 6", BigStock has always been my best moneymaker.  They are good about accepting the majority of photos that I have uploaded in the past, even ones that I think aren't particularly good, have limited commercial use, etc.

For example, in the past they accepted several animal photos that I know were horribly overexposed, and people were buying them for whatever reason (shortage of such pics, maybe).

However, lately I have been using a better camera (upgraded from 4MP to 10MP), more careful composition, etc.  I recently uploaded what I thought were twelve of the best photos I have ever taken (great range from landscapes to good commercial subjects to special interest objects, etc), and ALL 12 got rejected today!

They gave the same reason for all 12 being rejected:  Reason: Blurry: Image is not very crisp or is blurred when viewed at full size.

I know for a fact that these images (and their subjects) are not blurred AT ALL when viewed even up to 100% or 200%!  One or two incorporate extremely deliberate DOF (in my description I even say "this item is shot clearly in the foreground, with a softer view of X in the background") to make it clear that this was deliberately to bring focus to the subject, etc.

This is very frustrating.  I am considering re-uploading in a little while but splitting these photos up to do them one at a time.  Do they have a better chance of getting through one at a time without one certain reviewer rejecting them ALL for his/her personal taste?  I know that some of these would be very good sellers, and they have all been accepted at FT and IS, which is much more uncommon for me.

Any other thoughts or similar experiences?