My payout came through yesterday, it was requested on 13th Feb.

I have images exclusively at Fotolia and they are showing as available for download on pixmac site, so exclusive photos are available there not just non-exclusives. I tested the site a while ago by purchasing some of my own images and I still get the same commission as I would do if the image was sold directly from Fotolia. The sale displays in my sales member area as a purchase from/by Pixmac. I see no problems with this from my point of view.

Keyword order may not matter right now, but all fotolia's advice even now is to keyword in order of importance. At fotolia there is no way to add new keywords, and I'm not sure if the reordering function is working now but for sure there was a time when it did not work. If fotolia changes the search engine again to take only the first 7 relevant keywords then where will that leave your images if you haven't taken the time to put them in order of importance. Because it may not seem that it is important now, doesn't mean it won't be important at some time in the future.

Well done!

Quote from: loop on December 05, 2008, 22:22

At every micro site you and me will  have files that won't sell anyhing, zero, or one or two dowloands every six months. But obviously, nobody's files sell all only one time, not at SS not a IS, nowhere. So, you could sell the same file 500 times at a subs micro or 500 times at IS or to Fotolia or whatever, and you can get 0,30 dollars x 500 (150 dollars) or until 11 dollars x 500 (5,500 dollars). There's a difference. RPIS is not related with that at all, you're mixing things.

What I mean is that volume of sales is much higher from a subs model ... certainly I know for me that an image may sell 10 times on istock but that same image has probably sold over a hundred times on SS because with the subs model buyers simply purchase more than they would otherwise (subs allow for far more impulse buying for example) ... there is a reason SS is many people's top earning site ...I sell 3 times as many images on SS every month than I do elsewhere ...

But in the end sjlocke is right (not about SS - I disagree with him on that as it's a good money maker for many) - it does come down to comfort levels ... the great thing about all of this is we do have choices .... exclusive or not ...  that site or not .... subs model or not .... diversity is good ... choice is good .... I really hope this industry continues in this fashion ...

Unfortunately there may come a time when we don't have choices whether or not we want to sell through subs. I'm relatively new to microstock but has SS always offered the subs system? It is my understanding that originally subs were not heard of, until SS created the idea. Now I don't think there are many "on demand" sales at SS. I was a member at SS for a few months and I made one on demand sale during that time. All the other sales were subs. I removed all my images from my account there because I could not get around the fact that a large international company could pay 30cents for one of my images and use it for any purpose they want, possibly used as part of an advertising campaign that might earn them millions. It seems downright wrong and unfair. Even a religious group, charity, one-man business can afford to pay more than 30c for an image. Hell, I'm not asking $100s, I'm asking a few $s, is that not a fair and affordable price?

The trouble I see for the future is that other agencies, in order to compete with SS, are offering the same packages now. I can understand their move to this because how else are they meant to compete. One company has driven down the price and so all the others must follow in order to stay competitive. A certain agency I believe indicated some time ago that they would not introduce subscriptions, I don't have details of who said this and exactly what was said but I believe it was said because they, at the time, felt it was an unfair deal for the photographer. But sadly now they have also had to introduce subs, more than likely to stay competitive.

Will there come a time at these other agencies where an "on demand" download is a rarity?

I really don't understand why other photographers are happy to submit to subs sites. I really can't understand why someone is happy to accept 30c for an image when it's worth more. Perhaps the reason is that people don't want to lose earnings in the short term in order to make a change to the industry, a change that I believe is the morally right thing to do.

I absolutely agree that each person has his or her own comfort level and obviously many photographers and illustrators are happy to accept this deal.

I'd also like to mention something else as someone above mentioned being able to sell 1000 files from one shoot as opposed to selecting one file from the shoot and selling it for a higher price. I don't know one agency who will accept 1000 photos from one shoot without rejecting a good majority of them for being too similar. Also remember that it's not only photos we sell, I sell a lot of illustrations, some of which might take me a couple of days creating just that one image.

I cannot answer for anyone else but it would make me feel that my image has a fair and honest value. For me this is not about earning more or less, I would expect that if our buyer's budgets remain the same we would earn around the same, we would sell less images but we would earn probably around the same. It's not about total earnings, it's about feeling that our work is valued, it's about pride and respect. This is just my personal opinion and I expect that my opinion is in the minority.

Quote from: hoi ha on December 05, 2008, 00:24

I do know that we buy that many images because we can afford to with the sub plans - I also know that if we did not have the subs plans we would not be buying anything close to that many images - so I am not sure I agree that subs hurt the contributors - we buy hundreds and hundreds of photos we would never have purchased otherwise - and those are sales the contributors never would have had either ....     

That's my point: I prefer not to sell dozens of images, but just one at a fair price.  Whether a subs buyer uses all the images he buys or not, is irrelevant.  He has the images, he can use them, he pays too little for them.

Regards,
Adelaide

I absolutely agree with this.

I have the Canon 5D with 24-70mm f2.8 L lens and 100mm f2.8 macro lens. The 24-70mm is very sharp and a great lens as walk around, it is heavy but I cope okay with it as most of my work is on a tripod. It will get heavy if you're walking around a lot with it and particularly if you're carrying other accessories along with your camera and lens e.g. tripod, camera bag etc. It doesn't have image stabilisation, something to keep in mind if you want that, I don't need it so no loss to me. I do some table top photos with it mostly at the 70mm end and it can suffer from mild CA at 70mm but nothing too noticeable which cannot be corrected. I submit to Alamy so if this was a problem I'm sure I would have had rejections by now and to date I've had none. On the full frame 5D I would say (although I don't have experience of using this lens) that the 50mm might be too wide for most closeup table top and head and shoulders portrait photos. I nearly always use the 24-70mm at 70mm for this kind of work. It is a great lens for landscapes and I also do some home interior photos with it at the wide angle. The 100mm macro lens is perfect on the 5D for tabletop and closeup work/macro work. Also the 100mm lens is a great portrait lens, especially on the full frame 5D. The other lens that will compliment this camera well is the 70-200mm lens which is on my wish list for when I can next afford a camera equipment purchase.

I wanted to ask a question about Tin eye. I've been searching Tin Eye every so often to see if I can find some of my images in use. Every time and with every image I search it returns 0 results. Some of the images have been sold between 30 and 100 times and I can find them easily searching on google or yahoo using my name. So why doesn't Tin Eye return any results? Am I doing something wrong or is it just not very good yet. I am using the Firefox plugin where you need to right click an image to start a search.

but after looking at this thread I looked at their latest 300 uploads, and there is some very average images getting through... is this just luck? or are they exclusive? or is there some other secret?

Phil

All my uploads to Fotolia are exclusive and I get lots of rejections, mostly for too similar, so I don't think being exclusive makes it any easier. Through frustration I've stopped uploading photographs for now and only send my illustrations there. Acceptance in the past few weeks of those seems to be much better.

Thanks Alex, I will check them out.

Thanks Perry, I might do that. I was concerned about their upsizing policy though, not sure if I like that.