Unicorn,

a few questions if I may... sorry if they are answered somewhere on your site, I couldn't find them.

- what functionality is disabled in trial version vs full one? Or, if it's full-functional, what differences are there?
- is it Java-based? If not any specific environment requirements?
- Where do usernames/passwords get stored? This is safety-angled question, and as you no doubt understand quite of significance.

Strange... takes me right to Raw Camera page. Not sure if being registered has anything to do with it

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3822

I have a suggestion to all who doesn't think it's an inappropriate choice of images. Instead of doing exactly what this divisive contest theme provokes us to do, let's try little test for ourselves. Imagine that photo of Dubya is combined with several others united by partiotic/military content: soldiers running in the field with weapons, "mission accomplished" being announced on the carrier, inspired faces of pilots etc. Wouldn't you consider it totally inappropriate endorsement of current goverment policies? Inappropriate not because policies are bad but because it's divisive, inflammatory, soaked with agenda and simply doesn't belong? If you would, then admit that this is your political inclinations that make current choice acceptable to you. Or, if you are so unbelievably impartial that rather represent population of Mars, nor Earth  - wouldn't you at the very least shake your head and ask yourself why in hell photoagency would want to drive the vedge between people of different political convictions who are united by photography?

And please, do you really believe in this "it's just 6 pictures"? crap. If you can't see the message in that lineup, you haven't read any single newspaper last 7 years, nor watched TV. If you have, then this hardly can be said in a good faith and rather reflects your approval of the message. But approval or disapproval of it is not the point at all. Look: contest barely started and already does just that right here - divides people, provokes heated political debate, makes some want to "defend their convictions"...

Really, leaves bad taste in my mouth...

Quote from: Bateleur on November 13, 2007, 23:19


How interesting that you interpret six unrelated pictures, one of which is George Bush, as a 'political statement'.

You didn't say 'environmental statement' (there's a picture of a polluting chimney), or 'militaristic statement' (there's a war plane) or anything else.

In fact, it's not a statement at all. It's just six pictures. You can interpret them any way you want. Or no way.

But I guess you have already interpreted them for us ... Or Bush polluting the world, or Bush bombing the world, ad infinitum.

Come on. They're just six pictures. That's all.

Nobody can be that naive. many can pretend though.

This choice of images is distasteful and inflaming regardless of political stripes. It would be just unpalatable if it were a photo of Hillary Clinton.

Regardless of whether conestants are free to choose which source images to use, this is very poor taste and extremely offensive. I can't believe it's not obvious.

There is a link My Images Downloaded now in the menu. Looks like all the functionality is restored

Quote from: leaf on November 10, 2007, 12:20

Quote from: zymmetricaldotcom on November 10, 2007, 12:05
It definitely isn't free in Canada, I have to pay around $20 CDN each month to the medical services plan.  I was globetrotting and forgot about that and got a serious backbill once i was back on the grid.    Now, compared to the 500 euros my German friends pay, it's nothing.

I'm guessing that is for some sort of insurrance you have which would cover extra things like making prescription drugs cheaper or free, or cheaper/free dental and such.... or perhaps depending on the province you are from.

I lived in Saskatchewan Canada for the first 26 years of my life and never paid anything for medical things (hospital fees or insurance)

leaf,

that's not an insurance that one is free to have or not. That's premium on basic insurance that you had for free in Saskatchewan. BC has this premium, Ontario implemented it a few years ago too. Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba don't have it, not sure about Alberta and Atlantic provinces. So, while the visit to a hospital is free, in some provinces you pay more than just taxes. Also, there is difference between what is actually covered and what is not between provinces - certain tests and procedures may be covered in some and require payment in others.

Just saying it's not that straightforward.

I have, although by no means it could be claimed very scientific... but IMO, good enough for practical purposes. I took several pics with and without Hoya Pro1 Digital UV, some in cotrolled lighting and some outside, as fast as I could to avoid drastic changes in lighting. Then at 100% placed color samplers in hihglights, shadows and midtones and compared readings. Difference was within negligible, IMO (say 228/235/218 vs 226/235/215). I didn't see anything different in terms of sharpness.

I guess it's worth it to spend 10 min to test one's particular filter/lens combination. As far as I am concerned, it's nothing to worry about, I wonder why pro- and contra-filter sides wouldn't post tests to illustrate their concerns or lack thereof, simple enough to do

How are the sales over there for those who joined recently? Any feedback guys/gals?

Quote from: HughStoneIan on November 02, 2007, 04:28

Quote from: pr2is on November 02, 2007, 00:47
Elena... I looked at your portfolio and I am sure I know the reason. Reviwers looked at your work and said "you know what, this gal is too goods, she must be stopped or at least slowed down, lest she instills inferiority complex in most of contributors"...

Well, perhaps that is said in sarcasm, but consider this possibility:  an SS reviewer who is also a submitter decides after seeing Elena's 50 submissions that he (the reviewer) has the same ideas as many of Elena's latest batch but knows that her images are far superior to his, and so rather than letting hers go through, he just hits the "reject" button for various reasons thus eliminating some of his own competition.  Wild idea??  Maybe not---who is actually supervising all these reviewers???

Ummm... since you omitted the part of what I've written that refers to humor, I find it necessary to clarify lest I be seen as consipracy theory monger or subscriber - I am neither. That was not "perhaps sarcasm", that was 50% joke and 50% word of support for Elena.

IMO, the reason for this out of norm acceptance rate for this particular case is exactly what Elena said - natural inconsistency of the system where different sets of rules for different agencies are followed by different reviewers with different point of views and different degree of discretion. With so many "differents" in a single sentence we are going to obtain results that differ from agency to agency, from reviewer to reviewer and from case to case. While in a big picture results are consistent and predictable (i.e. great stock photgrapher will always have better overall acceptance rate and sales than mediocre one), on a case by case basis results may be more random. This is close to your standard odds theory where you can predict the outcome in a statisticaly valid sample that is big enough, cannot predict each particular case.

Elena... I looked at your portfolio and I am sure I know the reason. Reviwers looked at your work and said "you know what, this gal is too goods, she must be stopped or at least slowed down, lest she instills inferiority complex in most of contributors"...

OK, my sense of humor is quirky and occasionally callous... Seeing your work, such approval rate makes not much sense to me either - I wish I was half as good

Good in theory Lee. In real life, Paypal will not allow you to link other than CAD currency account in Canada. I have USD account and wasn't able to use it for linking/withdrawals.

With the way USD is dropping - as soon as I can. Each day makes it cheaper si am better off taking it ASAP.

Here is a very fresh example for tracking how it happens.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=6374968 - just got approved. Image number is 6374968. Now, if you go to according category at  http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-6-Food-and-Drink.html and sort by Newest first - 10 Rows - small thumbnails, checking out the number will show that those in a first row are already in 639s. If my image got tagged by search right now, it would be in 10th row - that's where current numbering puts it. In a day or two when it appears, this spot will move down by a page or two or more, depending on how many images come in, get found by search etc.

To avoid any misunderstanding - this is by no means a conspiracy theory of any kind, just trying to understand how things work in my best money producer

That's probably what happens leaf - side effect of the reviewing practice that goes through one's images once they hit the queue with no regard for the submission time. Thus numbering order diverges from time of submission order.

Quote from: fotografer on October 26, 2007, 08:06

Quote from: pr2is on October 23, 2007, 17:32


How does it happen that images with higher numbering (submitted later) go through and appear in search earlier sometimes than images with lower numbers (submitted earlier)? (no, I am not conspiracy theory fan at all).

Are you talking about the popular search? If you are it is probably because they have already sold a few times.  If you're talking about the newest first search then I have no idea.

No, Newest first is what I mean. What happens is that when search engine finally picks up your image, it appears not in first page but whereevr the numberinbg puts it.  It's relatively easy to observe: write down the number of your newly accepted image, go to according category, in Newest first see the numbering for latest images. If fresh numbers are fery close to yours or already bigger and it takes couple days for search to pick up your image, you can spot two images that "fork" your number - one is slightly bigger, another is slightly lower. Your photo will appear between them eventually, and meanhwile they continue moving down as new photos arrive - in worst case out of those I tracked down, 6th page!

I hope it was understandable

Non-smokers are banned to watercooler area!

Fresh example of what I described above is from today. Image that I put in background category appeared today in search after little delay - on 8th page of search by Newest first. Granted, backgrounds is busy category, a lot of new images appear quickly pushing delayed one farther behind. Same image in its second category, Parks/Outdoors appeared on 3rd page. Only in search by its specific keywords it pops up on a first page.

How does it happen that images with higher numbering (submitted later) go through and appear in search earlier sometimes than images with lower numbers (submitted earlier)? (no, I am not conspiracy theory fan at all).

Pixart... StockXpert?

Wrong topic?

Quote from: leaf on October 23, 2007, 09:44
well it will take all images to get from 'reviewed' status to 'online' status so no matter how long it takes, you will still get the same amount of time in the 'spotlight'

This may not be as straightforward leaf. From what I observed lately, if there is too much time between acceptance and search tagging one's images, they will appear not on first but sometimes as far as on third page in Newest First by according category. The reason for this is, images appear in an order of their numbering, and while image sits in twilight zone, already accepted but not seen by search yet, numbering moves ahead. Then it pops up inbetween accordning numbers, thus its spot is not necessary spotlight. I did encounter this situation couple times lately, and it certainly lowers visibility of new images and quiets down that famous "new uploads spike".

It's not easy to track down how much time is too much as it obviously depends on how many images are coming in the according category... would be interesting to hear about other's experience.

Same here, arrived today, from Oct 5

Not sure what the big deal is... Visitor who is not logged in is likely just browsing having no intention to buy images and often not even realizing where he is - surfed, saw some picture, saw it's watermarked, shrugged disappointedly and clicked away. Let him drop a penny while clicking. Real customer searching for an image to buy won't see ads, thus no danger of him getting distracted... which is not real danger even if he does see an ad anyway. I mean, if he came in to find a photo and saw an ad and clicked and never returned - his attention span is one of a moth, he would have forgotten to click Confirm or Submit or whatever they click as last step

Quote from: leaf on October 04, 2007, 14:28
just a question there pr2is... is lemon charlotte cake healthy?  I can't say i have had it so i don't know.

Hey, that's whole wheat cake!

On serious note, I had the same concern, then decided healthy red wine and strawberries should overweight... feel free to dump it if you assign different weigths to components

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=4043950

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=4043006

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=3610062

Thanks Leaf

I am Oly 510 user and quite happy with it. Be aware though that it's not your choice if  you are comfortable staying with mainstream only.