I dropped my exclusivity there two weeks ago ( i have to wait another two weeks to get crown removed)
I'm note sure that I will stay there  with my files at all, since I  found to difficult to accept new ASA.

to build  a union isn't that difficult,  but its difficult to make it big enough.

I have been deleted  all my files from fotolia about 6 weeks ago, and my ranking was about 100 overal at that time.
just for fun i checked my fotolia account and im fall down overall to  125th place, but strange thing that my 7 days rank is 1825, without sold photos for more than 5 weeks

After few years with shutterstock i made decision to go exclusive with Istock. Its not just about the money, there is something more hidden there. After constant pursuit for more and more new images i think there is a big chance that quality of your photos will suffer. Shutterstock is very hungry beast which is difficult to  feed after some time, for example  for few days a had about 200dls a day, week after about 60- 70 if i didn't upload new stuff.After reaching more than 4000 images in my gallery i could say that a had similar income  as i had with first 1000 photos. So i think in a long run shutterstock cant be a good solution, its good for beginners  or for some speedy money, but thats all. My 0.2$

I opt out subscription  at same time as most of guys here, at any moment i didnt want to change my decision, funny part is that my earnings are double for last 3 month, despite big slow down in first month opt out.

Usually i had about 20 dls a day, but last weeks about 2 to 3 which is a huge drop. My ranking  is about 100 or less on weekly base, now is 245, overall  ranking from 101 drop to 104. Istock exclusivity is even more close now

I'm definitely against subscription, could be good for istock, could be good for buyers but cant be good for contributors.

Im i photographer only, but sometimes i had to buy photos for my friends designers. Istock is last place where i would like to buy, but at the end most photos i bought  there. They have better quality  especially if you need for printing, easier to find what you looking for. recently i bought photos from 123rf and they are not suitable for printing since photos of 12MP(not isolation) was heavy only 550kb completely wash out details. from Dreams time i bought two photos, they are unnecessarily oversharpened with halos, also not suitable for printing. I bought one from Sxpert and it was ok. Against my will I had to buy 8 photos from Istock and all of them are good.
If you have decent budget for project, price difference is not that huge if you could get what you want.

I like Capture one a lot, but Lightroom is my choice for now, there is more option to control your images, only thing which i miss from Capture one is  superb skin tones. Im using new Imacs with 4Gb ram and aperture  is to slow  comparing  other two.

Im a contributor on 123 for a two years, but today i  wanted to by few photos from there. I was surprised when i got photos of 12MP  and they are only about 500kb. As i working with same camera canon 5D I know how big files are. Forget to say that i bought files in ultrahigh resolution. So if is anyone interested to buy  images from them to be printed  they will get them in quality thats is not suitable for that purpose.  

Quote from: lisafx on March 24, 2008, 22:43

Quote from: Aurelio on March 24, 2008, 21:10
exclusive photographers on DT will become so rich!!!
Exclusivity on Dreamstime is one of the funniest joke  in micro-stock business

Aurelio, just curious, what is your gripe against dreamstime?  You have complained about them both here and on their forums but I haven't read anywhere what your specific problem with them is...?

Dear Lisa maybe you have good experience with DT, but I don't have. I have to many subscription sales in last few month, generally sales with  them are so low comparing competition.
I cant change the keywords! Many of my images been keyworded by DT keyword masters and now i can't change any of them because someone reported bad keywords, waisting of money!!
I wrote to them few times to change my username which is by typing mistake Airelio (should be Aurelio) and nothing happen.
They dont want  let me to leave , they have to keep images for at least 6 month as they said to me they are so strict about that rules. Another thing for closing account, any other agency will close you account if you ask them by email or  something, on DT you have to disable you images one by one, for someone like me who has more than 3000 images its really time consuming, you think thats fair?

Occasionally  i got 0,21 or 0,25 $ for download, thats really  humiliating , i would rather give them for free. This is just one of the reason why  i don't work with them anymore, unfortunately i have to be there till may (6 month rules)

exclusive photographers on DT will become so rich!!!
Exclusivity on Dreamstime is one of the funniest joke  in micro-stock business

Believe or not  for a few times I had  files with no views but one or two sales, how? dont ask me, I have no idea

I have no regrets opt out, for me it works well. Selling images for 0.30$ or even 0.21  on Dreamstime  its not a way to sell my work.

My average for February was 0.79$, march is 0.80$ for first two weeks.

Quote from: AAC6D63 on March 16, 2008, 19:23

Quote from: Aurelio on March 16, 2008, 11:45
but i have to wait until may, because of their rules of keeping images for 6 month.

Have you tried emailing them and asking them to let you go early? It would surely be against their reputation to keep you against your will. Whatever any actual rules. I can't believe that they would do that - it would be so old fashioned and pointless.

The web way of doing business is that you keep your customers and contributors because the relationship works for everyone. It's about you all liking each other. Companies that don't do it like - well they don't get it IMO.

Is Dreamstime a US company in any sense?

I phone them for few times,  same answer,  yes you have to wait for 6 month
Dreamstime is Romanian company with one office based in US, but most employers are in Romania where they have head office

I have about $ 300 a monthly incomes from dreams time, and definitely im going to close my account there, soonest i can, but i have to wait until may, because of their rules of keeping images for 6 month. They are on market longer than fotolia and stockxpert but  they been overtaken by both in terms of incomes and traffic. Owning to the actions of the owners they are not going to grow fast enough to stay in race like serious player.

From my experience opt out was good decision, downloads are the same or slightly increased,
most important earnings  going up

I'm using two 24"Imacs one is glossy  other one is a mat, both calibrated with eye one and my acceptance ratio is almost 100%

1111
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20367

In my opinion  there is no big difference to buyer  is it image cost $1 or $5  or even $10. Price is so low anyway. Of course there is always some buyers who would like to have the price low as $0.10 but they are minority. You have  sites who selling images $79 per year subscription (10images a day) thats could make price low as $0.02 but  still they don't have many costumers. Istock has biggest price for images but still they have more buyers than any other micro. I think there is a lot space for price to rise

its a bit tricky to learn how to use itag , but im not typing keywords  at all!

Im using Itag, which is fabulous. I had that program for a year on my computer but i didn't spent enough time to play with  program. Couple month ago I get  few advice  how to use it,  from then I spending far less time for keywording

Stockxpert is  my favorite  for a few reasons. Easy upload, fast review,good sales etc..., but I didn't like when they started with subscription. If I put opt out I thought thats not gonna change anything, but if many of us do the same thing thats will be different. At least StockXpert is fair enough to have option out, I would like to see same opt out on Dreamstime since i have a lot of subscription sales there lately.