One of mine here being used on a NatWest Bank debit card

http://adaptcard.natwest.com/ViewDesign.aspx?ID=4492&type=1&category=402

I think blue channel noise is down to the Bayer pattern of CCD sensors and the fact that blue data has to be interpolated.

I suffer with it on my Nikon on certain shades of blue sky and use a custom setting on my Noiseware plug-in to get rid of it.

I couldn't vote because on one site I deleted all my photographs and my account and on the other I've left them there but stopped uploading.

SS       39%
StockXpert     30%
IS        13%
DT         9%
FT         5%
BS         3%
123RF    1%

Quote from: leaf on March 31, 2008, 11:22

Quote from: PecoFoto on March 31, 2008, 10:43

Quote from: Arian on March 31, 2008, 09:54

3) It is not true that sales has been suffering because of the ratings. Those figures are not public, where did you get that from. Second of all buyers don't see any comments, ratings or index. How can they then be affected.

They may not see them but they affect how high up your images appear in a search.

arian is the owner / rep for most photos.  he just said that the voting has very little affect on the rankings of your images.

I've been very happy with the votes I've received.

I have noticed though that a couple of top stock photographers have received ridiculously low votes on some of their top images. This my be out of jealously or the people voting may just not like the photo.

Perhaps Arian could introduce a feature whereby if you vote lower than a 5 you have to include a comment to say why. This may stop voting for purely malicious reasons.

Quote from: PecoFoto on March 31, 2008, 10:43

Quote from: Arian on March 31, 2008, 09:54

3) It is not true that sales has been suffering because of the ratings. Those figures are not public, where did you get that from. Second of all buyers don't see any comments, ratings or index. How can they then be affected.

They may not see them but they affect how high up your images appear in a search.

Quote from: Arian on March 31, 2008, 11:15
Then I reffer you to the first point that I wrote..

Quote from: Arian on March 31, 2008, 09:54
I think I have said this a thousand times now here on this forum, but I do it again.

1) The ratings and comments does not have such a big impact on the index. Number of sales and views from buyers is the big variables.

You have made a valid point to ditch the voting and rating system if it has little effect why keep it?

Quote from: Arian on March 31, 2008, 09:54

3) It is not true that sales has been suffering because of the ratings. Those figures are not public, where did you get that from. Second of all buyers don't see any comments, ratings or index. How can they then be affected.

They may not see them but they affect how high up your images appear in a search.

Quote from: rjmiz on March 30, 2008, 00:07
Eugene, brace yourself for the news. As a photographer you are utterly a failure. Give it up.
The MIZ

I think you're being a bit hasty, take a look at the guys website.

http://www.eugenefeygin.com/

I think MostPhotos need to take drastic action  - ditch the voting system and the comments, cull all the photographs that are not technically good enough at 100% and employ reviewers to maintain technical quality.

The site looks more like RedBubble than Alamy or Johner.  I think they need to decide if they're an art gallery that sells photographs or a stock photography agency.

Quote from: Arian on March 28, 2008, 18:46

We have had some pressure from the buyers side to make this possible or else they will turn to sites like these below to name a few where photos are all without watermark:

http://www.alamy.com/

http://www.sxc.hu/

http://www.johner.se

With respect you cannot compare MostPhotos with image libraries like Alamy and Johner, I feel their client base would be totally different to yours.  They are more likely to be selling to large institutions and publishers who need high resolution images for editorial purposes.  Clients are more likely to be account customers rather than making purchases with a credit card.  Making watermark free comps available would probably not have an adverse effect on sales.

Alamy also monitor publications etc for copyright violations and act swiftly should they find an image being used without a license.

Alamy are bringing back watermarks sometime very soon -

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/03/11/2723.aspx

Stock.XCHNG is a sister company of Stockxpert. If Stockxpert who watermark their images feel they can compete alongside their sister company I'm sure in time MostPhotos could as well.

I feel you should make removing the watermark optional.

Thanks Adelaide

I've only just quickly read that thread, but the impression I got was that most people wanted to keep the watermark or at least have the option so to do.

Quote from: Arian on March 27, 2008, 22:18

And what has MP done:
http://www.mostphotos.com/forumviewthread.php?thread=1328

5) Photo-buyers want
They don't like watermarks. They want to be able to download a low-resolution sample to see if it suits their design ,before they go for the real stuff.

Mostphotos has done this
An active buyer that have credits on the site, will be able to see the photos without watermarks. This is a new function that we will add soon. The matter has been deeply discussed on the microstockgroup.com.

Have I missed this discussion on watermarks?

Quote from: suwanneeredhead on March 25, 2008, 19:11

Quote from: RT on March 25, 2008, 18:42

Quote from: mwp1969 on March 25, 2008, 18:29
Many of these buyers have commented on the fact that they find photos at MostPhotos that they do not find elsewhere.

They should employ reviewers then !!!!!!

NO... that's the point... reviewers tend to reject images that the buyers WANT... buyers are changing their paradigm to want shots that don't look too highly polished or overprocessed... reviewers are kind of stuck in that plastic-perfect "look" that the microstocks have long chased after.

This is the good thing about MostPhotos! Buyers want to be able to look at images that did not go through that narrow funnel we know as the approval/rejection process at the microstocks.

If buyers want something different to microstock then sites like MostPhotos and PhotoShelter offer these sorts of images.  However, unlike MostPhotos, PhotoShelter check for technical quality etc.

There are some really impressive 'arty' images on MostPhotos that would look great illustrating a technique article in a photography magazine.  It's only when you look at some of these 'arty' images at 100% that you realise that they are technically flawed.  Then there are the ones that have just had a couple of photoshop filters applied to perk up an otherwise poor image.  Of course a lot of them would be still be adequate for web use so it's possible they may have a commercial value.

Quote from: jorgeinthewater on March 26, 2008, 17:57

I just noticed a photographer with more than 900 images online that has been blasted to a 1.5 index and 99 % of  his images show a -20 on the little thingy on top...

By the way all of the images that I have online have been reviewed on other sites and are selling there. I'm not dumping my hard drive into MP.

One of the regular posters here has received some very low votes which are totally undeserved. They are from a gentleman who is obviously very jealous of her style and professionalism.  She has over 1000 images in her portfolio so to find the person giving these low votes and block him before he wreaks havoc on her rating could take sometime.

Like you I'm only uploading images that have been accepted at other stock sites.  It does look like some people have not been able to resist the temptation to upload images that they know would be rejected for technical reasons elsewhere.

Quote from: mwp1969 on February 07, 2008, 05:59
#14 There is a "Hall of Fame" page which appears to be those with the highest Point Totals from all of the rating, and feedback that I spoke of earlier which generates points.

Mark

This seems to be based on comments made and votes cast rather than the quality of a persons portfolio.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 26, 2008, 18:57

I didn't dare to make a comment about the infringement. Looks like the type that will flood you with ones 

This is just like on eBay, consequently the feedback system doesn't work.

It's probably to late now but if they are not going to employ reviewers to vet the images perhaps it would be better to only allow the buyers to vote or just base it on sales.

I just translated some of their pages with Google. They're owned by the Dixons Group who own Currys and PC World in the UK.

They don't rank very highly on Google as yet but it looks like an interesting site. The majority of my sales on Fotolia sell to France and Germany so it may be worth uploading at some point in the future, but for now I think I'll wait and see how they develop.

It's back now!

Quote from: epixx on March 16, 2008, 17:28
I still believe that SV can become a success, but they need to take care of some major issues. One thing that is extremely irritating, is the way they treat images from a 6MP camera: they are sold as medium sized, 1600 x 1200 pixel photos. That obviously reduces the potential of the photos considerably, particularly when the same photos can be bought at full resolution elsewhere.

I took it up with support, but they said they had no plans changing their routines. That's the way of a real amateur   

I agree and yet those same 6MP images could be interpolated and uploaded to Alamy at a resolution of 5114 x 3400 and pass through QC with no problems. So why can't SV use them at their native resolution?

Quote from: sharply_done on March 15, 2008, 22:40

My biggest issue with them has to do with keywords: they typically (though not always) rework keywords, removing "good" ones and adding "bad" ones.

I have had the same problem and contacted support. They agreed that the keywords added by them were poor and apologised.  It's possible to add keywords manually one at a time, but to remove inappropriate ones or change the category then you have to contact support.

Quote from: madelaide on March 15, 2008, 22:10

I really appreciate how German designers give credit to photographers!

More here including one of mine 

http://www.loesungs-akademie.de/impressum.html

Yes check the box to indicate one is required if you're not sure one way or the other. And if you don't have a release then check the box to indicate this also.

As long as you're honest you're in the clear, it's the buyers responsibility to check all releases are in place before using the image.

How big is the sphere?  Would it fit into a light tent, you can get some that have a small flap to poke the camera lens through?

Quote from: Lee Torrens on March 08, 2008, 22:57
Alamy Terminates Contributor Over Model Release

This topic gets more and more interesting!

In this case the photographer said that he DID have a model release when he didn't, but it's interesting in the context of the apparent relaxed attitude to model releases at Alamy.

Yes, Alamy don't require you to upload a release but if you say you have one then you better had!

I've just been doing some management work on my images at Alamy and noticed a change in the wording regarding property releases.

It now reads -

"Does this picture contain property that needs a release for commercial use?  Yes/NO"

Previously the question was -

"Does this picture contain property that needs a release? Yes/No"

Quote from: Waldo4 on March 08, 2008, 17:03
The trouble is the "this is not stock" rejection that I face on 60% or more of my shots at Fotolia (I have considered dropping them as the amount of time spent uploading is an absolute waste of my time, it'll just be rejected anyway, if not, it won't sell). 

Don't give up on Fotolia, like StockXpert it's not unusual for people to get rejections for "not stock". Most of my sales on Fotolia are in Europe usually to online estate agencies, travel agencies and web site designers.

Take time to have a look what is selling at each site.  What sells on one site may not sell on another. At one site this month I have sold one photograph nearly 100 times on another just once, yet they were both uploaded the same day.

As I said before if your images are more fine art or creative try Photoshelter or MyLoupe.

All the best.

When buying a LCD monitor try to avoid the ones used for gaming as these are likely to be 6 bit, they have a fast response time (5ms) that is needed for games.  These are not so good for photography as the colour reproduction is not as good as they use dithering to produce all the colours - 16.2 million.

The best ones are 8 bit with IPS - In-Plane Switching. The response time of these are slower (20ms) but the colour depth is better - 16.7 million colours and the viewing angle wider.

A quick way to tell which you have or when buying is to move up or down, left or right if the contrast changes as you move then it's more than likely a 6 bit monitor.

I'm still using my trusty Taxan CRT monitor but if I was to buy a LCD it would probably be a Eizo.

Quote from: Lee Torrens on March 07, 2008, 00:44
Wow, I didn't know that!  Alamy clearly views the sophistication level of its buyers very differently to microstock agencies.

I think Alamy has a very different client base - institutions and big publishers who buy images on account rather than businesses paying by credit card.  The majority of their sales are editorial although they want to attract buyers from the commercial sector.

Lee, you might find these four videos of Alamy's recent contributors seminar of interest. -

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/01/14/2594.aspx#

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/01/14/2594.aspx#


http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/01/14/2594.aspx#

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/01/14/2594.aspx#