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Messages - Argus
1
« on: February 12, 2017, 05:11 »
It's quite possible, however it keeps getting harder every year in my opinion. You can still do it, but be prepared to put in a lot of hours. A lot also depends on your talent / workflow (automate whenever possible, use your time efficiently ...). Good luck!
2
« on: June 03, 2016, 03:27 »
I think I have a pretty good idea why his/her account was terminated.
I don't think he was stealing from other contributors at all. I think he took public domain images and sold them on SS. My guess is that he took a NASA image(s) and tried to make money off of it. Yeah, a lot of people do it, but that doesn't make it right. Those contributors will eventually face the wrath of SS.
When you try to sell what doesn't belong to you, you're playing Russian roulette with your account.
I think NASA images are allowed, just as long as you mention the origin. I had a quick look on SS and found this portfolio: http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-1284574p1.html Almost everything you see there has been copied from NASA, which I think is fine, as long as it's mentioned in the title.
3
« on: May 21, 2016, 15:35 »
I only use FTP for uploading & have noticed the same: some random images (occasionaly, not that much) disappear in the process. Personally, I find it much easier to use FTP, so i dont bother with the site uploader.
4
« on: September 26, 2009, 13:39 »
I've submitted a few vectors/photographs in the past & vectors allways sold more. However, complicated vectors usually take a lot more time to create then photographs 
5
« on: September 26, 2009, 13:26 »
Interesting I'll keep an eye on BigStock to see how it goes .
6
« on: May 20, 2009, 14:35 »
You make valid points and I can understand why your system works for you. But in the long run quality will always shine and while it may take longer to build such a portfolio, it will produce excellent results over time - IMHO of course
Possibly, but as it is now i'm getting better results with quantity Of course if I ever get the impression that spending more time on images will generate more cash, then i'd shift tactics in no time. I guess you are not going to reveal your secret how you can upload nearly 20 images/illustrations every single day for 2 years straight (rejections not counted).
On a 10 hour working day, that's 2 images per hour including keywording. If you count 3 minutes for keywording, that's another 1 hour a day just to tag the images. Then you still have to categorize them.
Are you on life support or do you ever leave the house to go shopping for food? 
I get dizzy uploading 10 a day to all the agencies including keywording and categorizing...
Keep going.
Ahh well umm.. welcome to the new and exciting world of delegation. Last time i keyworded and categorized an image by myself must have been over a year ago You'd be amazed at how much time you can save by outsourcing a few boring/dull tasks. Exactly what I thought when I see 10.000+ images on Dreamstime of which less than 2% had 10 or more sales. There are certainly quite a few brillant images among them. Why not drop the other 98% and double the amount of work spent on the rest...
The problem is a bit you never know in advance what those 2% will be. I have some weird (in my opinion) good sellers and some very bad sellers that I thought would make it to the top. And the weirdest is they are largely different at different sites. So how to chose? I don't have a clue.
So very true, some images may be popular with oh lets say DT, while others may be popular on FT and so on.. it's pretty random.
7
« on: May 20, 2009, 05:49 »
Wow, those 27 uploads have 1356 downloads. istock should be trying to get your portfolio on their site.
Less is more
Exactly what I thought when I see 10.000+ images on Dreamstime of which less than 2% had 10 or more sales. There are certainly quite a few brillant images among them. Why not drop the other 98% and double the amount of work spent on the rest...
Because that images are sold for miserable 30-50 cents commissions to authors. And, please learn a bit of economy before you start to speak loud.
In mass there should not be found one of your quality images - if you have two, five or six thousands images you will have more sales. It is the way things are set up. No one and nothing can change that volume has advance over quality on microstock!
Somehow i doubt that will ever happen  BTW I'm not sure about other people but i'm pretty convinced I would make less $$$ if i would spend more time on single images. Let's say i spend 3-4 hours on an image which nets me 100$. Pretty cool, but in that very same time i could easily produce 50 simple images that earn 4-5$ each and might have bigger sellers among them. Also there's a lot less risk of your images getting buried in the search engine since you've got more of them. (again this is just my personal experience/idea, i'm sure other people have different ideas). I remember spending an entire day on a single file which sold.. 0 times and ended up in me deleting that image alltogether 
8
« on: May 20, 2009, 03:03 »
Trying to get a basic/simple rastered image on iStock is imo.. close to impossible and extremely frustrating  I've got 15.000 images on SS (and usually over 10.000 with other major sites) while iStock has so far accepted 27 LOL  On the bright side: life has gotten a lot less frustrating now that i've stopped regular uploads on iStock and plan to stop uploading alltogether No more cursing on best match changes/horrific uploading/weird policies/insert other complaint 
9
« on: February 11, 2009, 05:53 »
I usually do all of my keywords in Photoshop, but i'm sort of tempted to get started with irfanview. Batch-keywording sounds nice for sure
10
« on: January 05, 2009, 15:18 »
I never set any 2008 goals so that's kinda hard to judge, but these are some 2009 goals: - Reach 20.000 images - 50% extra $ - Have fun at what i'm doing
11
« on: January 01, 2009, 12:02 »
Happy New Year for everybody! And here's to a wonderfull 2009
12
« on: January 01, 2009, 11:59 »
Overall i'm pretty glad with 2008 (big jump from 2007 but i had nowhere near the amount of images in 2007 as i had in 2008) but i am sort of disappointed with the last few months which saw a steady decline in $. Still, i'm happy with my earnings.
13
« on: November 25, 2008, 05:05 »
Amazingly this month looks to be slightly better then october (but hey that doesnt mean much at all since iStock is still one of my worst performers)
14
« on: November 25, 2008, 04:59 »
Amazing results and quite funny to watch
15
« on: November 04, 2008, 12:22 »
In my experience the only way to make some decent money with microstock is hard work.. there really is no shortcut or get-rich-quickly scheme. Do you want to make money doing this? Then start setting goals like shooting x amount of images and actually go for it . Focus, shoot (or design) and upload
16
« on: November 04, 2008, 12:16 »
iStock has been my worst performing site since.. umm.. ever. That hasn't changed since the latest best match change. I'm guessing that's sort of a positive thing
17
« on: November 04, 2008, 12:13 »
I got the note as well and i still trust StockXpert Communication should have been better but things seem to be going in the right direction so i'm happy.
18
« on: October 29, 2008, 01:12 »
Did anyone else experience new images not showing up in the search? I got a whole batch approved on sunday evening/night and they *still* can't be found when you search for them (this is after waiting for 3 days). Anyone else having the same problem?
19
« on: October 22, 2008, 03:48 »
Well i've got JUI sales for 17,18,20 & 21 so i'm guessing those are being registered as they should be. But I am getting slightly annoyed with the lack of photos.com sales... this is closing in on 3 weeks without sales showing up in the statistics which is IMO taking a bit to long. I just hope it won't take much longer to have this bug fixed.
20
« on: October 10, 2008, 07:51 »
Nice to see how things change. Makes me wonder how sites will rank in.. oh let's say 5 years time. I'm having high hopes for Stockexpert to keep rising (like it doesfor me in the past few months) but really anything could happen. Maybe even a new startup that proves to be really succesfull (ok not very likely but who knows!)
21
« on: October 10, 2008, 07:37 »
Well dang i really should check my stats more carefully. Downloads stopped working for me in the beginning of october as well. But since they are allready trying to fix the bug, i'm not really concerned Thanks for letting us know, Steve.
22
« on: October 10, 2008, 07:30 »
Yup, if you want to know which of my images were rejected at iStock just take a look at the first few pages of my SS port. That should give a general idea. But i also upload some less popular ones if i think they make a better shot at being accepted at iStock (usually the duller ones with plain colours and layout) And I definately agree with iStock losing customers because of this policy. I mean.. there really is a market for this type of images but as long as iStock prefers to reject them.. well people have no choice but to look at other sites. Bad policy decision if you ask me 
23
« on: October 09, 2008, 06:01 »
I don't post a lot on this forum, but i do read it from time to time.. i'll miss his posts and sense of humour. R.I.P. MIZ
24
« on: October 09, 2008, 05:55 »
Well frankly i'm beginning to care less and less about istock and am seriously starting to consider to just dump them alltogether since:
1. iStock ranks at the very bottom in terms of $ every single month
2. They don't like my images (that's their good right of course), meaning i've got 12 accepted files on iStock in contrast to 10.000 on SS!
3. To much time spent on uploading (just to have the majority rejected)
All in all.. to much frustrations and to little revenue to justify uploading..i'll give it a few more extra months but honestly my patience is running out.
25
« on: October 01, 2008, 12:43 »
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