I always liked moaners better than screamers.

She could be on the board of Spacex Falcon Heavy, heading for greener pastures.

From November 21st through November 28th, Topaz is offering 75% off of all of their traditional plugins in the full Topaz Plugin Collection
The plugin Collection includes 17 Topaz Products including the Topaz Studio versions of Impression, Clarity, Detail and Simplify. (over $1000 individually) for only $249.99. As an added bonus you receive also some useful pro adjustments in Topaz Studio from Impression, Clarity, Detail and Simplify

Here's the link: Topaz Black Friday Sale

Use the coupon code 'BLACKFRIDAY17' to get your 75% discount.

For limited time, Topaz Labs is offering their new and improved Impression "painting" plugin at 40% off.

Here is the link:
TOPAZ IMPRESSION

Topaz Impression Painting filter is now available for $59.99US (regular price $99.99)

Recently, Topaz released also a new version of their CLARITY contrast enhancing plugin. You may want to look also at that program.
All existing Topaz users get their updates as always for free.

From April 11th through April 16th, 2017 Topaz Labs is making available their complete collection of artistic filters and photo enhancements at 40% off.
The entire collection includes 17 programs/plugins in total, some of them functioning also in standalone mode.

Here is the link:
TOPAZ COMPLETE COLLECTION

Use the following discount coupon to get the complete Topaz package at 40% discount
SPRING40

If you already own some of the Topaz plugins, use also the provided link.
Then you can sign on with your name and password, and you'll get a partial credit for the previously purchased single plugins. You will get also 40% discount for the remaining balance, so the complete package price will be even  lower.

Make sense.
At the going acceptance rate of 1 million images per week, they'll need more space to store all these assets.
Even memory companies are forced to add more capacity by going vertically.

Happy New Year to all Direct and Exploited-by-agencies sellers!

It might be a good idea to split this thread into two - one constructive and optimistic, and the other one critical and reminiscing about all previously failed projects. But no intermixing allowed! (unless you walk the full El Camino de Santiago trail to do a proper soul searching before switching to the other camp).  We could even call them Yes and No groups.  Or "We Can" and "No way Jose".

I have a hunch which of the two threads would be more fun and live longer, but I'd been known to bet on a wrong horse before. Paradoxically, so did over 60 millions of other optimistists very recently.

Quote from: Leo on December 29, 2016, 05:41
There are no cost effective ways to sell video directly which is primarily my interest. I've tried the few direct sell platforms that support video and they are very expensive and clunky. I love Leo's idea about using YouTube for previews. Built in promotion (YouTube videos rank very highly in google searches) and the cost of bandwidth from playing previews is eliminated. I'm interested!

I had checked into it and seems possible to use the youtube API (so the software does it for you, you don't have to upload/link yourself) https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos/insert

The downside of that youtube *might* be restricted in certain countries. I've heard that often in this forum. Is that still the case?

Some countries, like China, ban youtube and vimeo altogether.
Others countries, i.e. Germany, censor certain American (and maybe other) video+audio productions. I don't know if the censorship applies also to other items.

Quote from: Leo on December 27, 2016, 11:07
Just to be clear, this will not attempt to be an agency or connect users (no co-ops) but rather a perfected sell-direct solution that keeps things simple and productive for artists. There will likely be a community for support and fun available right through the software, but that will not be a primary focus.

The community forum is quite important and I recall that in the heydays of Symbiostock, the forum was a great help in getting many members operational, and it also served as an effective recruitment tool for new members. There was a tremendous spirit and solidarity between the Symbiostockers (until the whole thing fell apart).

By the way, the very first and very simple Symbiostock forum platform was the best.

Leo,
What's the status of the new site?

Today (just for 24 hours!), Topaz Labs is offering their Impression "painting" plugin at 40% off.

Here is the link:
TOPAZ IMPRESSION

Use the following discount coupon to get the Topaz Impression Painting filter for $59.99US (regular price $99.99)
IMPRESSION12

Today (just for 24 hours!), Topaz Labs is offering their DeNoise plugin at 40% off.

Here is the link:
TOPAZ DENOISE

Use the following discount coupon to get the Topaz Noise Reduction plugin for $47.99US (regular price $79.99)
DENOISE12

Topaz Labs has released a new version of their artistic filter Impression plugin. Until July 7, 2016 the new Impression program is available at 40% off ($59.99 instead of $99.99). Impression 2 now includes among other features 140 effects and integrated masking.

Here is the link:
Topaz Impression

Use the following discount coupon to get the purchase Topaz Impression for $59.99
"2IMPRESS"

If you already own Impression, use the provided link for a free upgrade. You can also try the software free for 30 days.

I posted also a short summary with some examples on my blogsite:
advantica.wordpress.com/2016/06/29/topaz-impression-2

From May 3rd through May 22nd, Topaz Labs is making available their complete collection of artistic filters and photo enhancements at 40% off.
The entire collection includes 17 programs/plugins in total, some of them functioning also in standalone mode.
Personally, although I tried most of their programs, I like and use mainly the following plugins on regular basis - Remask, Denoise, Clarity, Detail, Adjust and Impression.

Here is the link:
TOPAZ COMPLETE COLLECTION

Use the following discount coupon to get the complete Topaz package for $299.99
SPRINGSUMMER2016

If you already own some of the Topaz plugins, use also the provided link.
Then you can sign on with your name and password, and you'll get a partial credit for the previously purchased single plugins. Then you will get also 40% discount for the remaining balance, so the complete package price will be less than $299.99.

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 23, 2016, 02:48
723,000 is nothing 825,763 new stock images added this week. 10 million new photos every 12 weeks. Carry on.

At this rate, soon it will be a million new images per week (over 50 millions a year). And that' s just one agency.
If this trend continues, it won't be too long before the collection expands by 100 millions per year.

QuoteBy that little estimate 51% of those images never sold.

and only 20-25% will be ever sold.     

Yes, this past week the (investment) stocks fared much worse than microstock.
In microstock, the accumulated profit can't get any smaller (could be, because it is so small to start with).

QuoteThis is the most intresting:
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3026732p1.html
He started 2015 and, have 76 000 icon? Why?

76,000 on Dec 3 and 94,000 five weeks later.  Super productive!

I trade stocks occasionally. Beats microstock.

Just checked the competition. FT is a close second with 827 thousand tomatoes, followed by IS with 491 thousands, and DT showing 431 thousands. Alamy has paltry 271,550 and GI doesn't even show the count.

However, that's nothing compared with Google archive. On this January 1, 2016, Google search engine returned in 0.39 seconds over 67 million tomato pictures. Seems like a big and vibrant market.

Quote from: Rinderart on December 16, 2015, 22:08
And 1,016,200 are tomatoes. dont reviewers have a To many on site rejection reasons. When I reviewed they did.

I'm quite confident that with the recruitment of new contributors and rewarding the image factories for their output we can get that count in a few years to 2 million.

Looking at it from a different perspective, 1 million images are equal to 10,000 pages, each with 100 thumbnails. And some of them are actually quite nice. A cinch to go through.

If you have 10 of your own tomato images there, you'll have a 0.1% chance that someone after perusing 10,000 pages will see your image. Of course, if you add another 90 tomatoes tomorrow, you'd raise your chances to full 1%. However, when the collection reaches 2 million, your chances to be found would go back to 0.5% (unless you add another 100 plump tomatoes).  Never ending circle!   

Quote from: stockyme on December 28, 2015, 19:57
December  slump is a fact, I am was regular sales until 15 December now a days I barely get 1 or 2 sales in a day... Anyone have idea when this slump will be over?

December slump is indeed a fact. That's just one established and logical cycle within each calendar year.
Another undisputed fact is the long term continuously declining sales curve. This is also logical and well documented.

An idea that one day this slump will be over and the sales levels will return to previous years is a pure fantasy. Not healthy for budgeting and development of a Five Year Plan. Medical professionals have a fitting term for it - they call it "poor prognosis".

QuoteI wonder - does anyone seen or read any kind of stats or analysis of how many stock photographers are there now? (Comparing how many were eg. year, two or three years ago.)

Surely, there are more registered contributors today than a few years ago - more newbies and also more large volume factories. And a good chance that many long-time artists in the middle group are submitting fewer images than before. Consequently, most production increases are coming from the factories and the new recruits.

However, far more important are the numbers of total images and yearly additions both of which are known. And those figures  don't bode well for any of the three groups.

QuoteQuestion for you - If we offered 60% or 70% plus royalties to contributors on a limited number of files (100-500) for a year or two, would that be enough to get you to "bother"?

The idea is naive, ridiculous, exploitative, insulting and in the long term - plain suicidal.
60-70% royalty sound fine, but not if it is limited to a year or two and only so many files. For the agency, it takes a year or two to get a traction and sell anything. For the contributor, it means selling maybe a handful of images in the first couple of years before the royalty rolls down to 30% or less, so there won't be any incentive to keep uploading new images.

You really have to think with a longer horizon than a year or two, and instead of grabbing an easy profit from the contributors come up with some innovative way to lower the operational costs and at the same time maximize the visibility and reach of the agency. Definitely not renting the office space at the most expensive tower in the town.

Expensive experience - Linhof camera scammed with failed payment

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=106604.0