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Messages - tanedesign

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iStockPhoto.com / Re: Independents - do you plan to leave Istock or not?

« on: August 30, 2011, 08:46 »

Im an exclusive, still dont like the way this was put and I think exclusives will be hurt too, less people will be willing to pay what a good work is worth when you have the option of having it for pennies. Right now Im in the process of being a total independant, get a representative and quit microstock for good. Lately exclusiveness means 1 to 2 sales per day, a couple of months ago my files "suddenly" stopped selling and I have hardly any views in my new files. Before I used to have an average of at least 14-20 downloads per day so right now its almost as if I were a brand new contributor with no portfolio. Its very very strange, no summer slow down has been like this before, specially when summer is almost over and instead of seeing sales pick up they have lowered more than before. And now this...after that survey....

Newbie Discussion / Re: Improper image isolation

« on: March 04, 2011, 13:29 »

I always use the pen tool and then might do some retouching if needed (when cutting hair for instance). The magic wand only if Im doing a quick job just to see roughly how something would look isolated.
Sometimes a too crisp border doesnt look good either so you have to do some feathering to the selection before taking out the backgroud. For me a good isolation is something quite hand made,no magic formulas or fast tricks if you want good results!
you dont nessesarily have to uplad the images on perfect white, you can let the buyer know in your photo description it has acutting path in case the client iinterested in isolatingthe image.

Selling Stock Direct / Re: Places and ways to sell your images direct

« on: March 04, 2011, 13:08 »

Can you sell vectors in these places? I guess this isnt an option if you are an exclusive artist to a microstock bank, right?

General Stock Discussion / Re: Feb 2011 microstock earnings

« on: March 02, 2011, 22:03 »

Im an illustrator, my feb. was pretty lousy. Maybe if due to RC I hadnt lowered my royalty rate, my earnings would have matched last year´s. Only a couple of days of march have gone by and if they are representative of the rest of the month Id better go out of this business as Ive had hardly no downloads,it seems like someone turned some switch and my portfolio went off! Its truly discouraging. There was a time when I an average of 15 DL per day, with some months of even higher daily scores, now Im "happy" if I see 7.

iStockPhoto.com / Re: Anyone cancel exclusive contract yet?

« on: March 02, 2011, 18:39 »

Quote from: JoeLena on January 27, 2011, 22:08

Thanks everyone so far. Lisa and Jo Ann, good stuff. I guess I should have made more clear I was looking for first hand experience of people who had been exclusive until the last few months at IS. Still on the fence, been really happy so far as a Gold level contributor, but dropping from $2000 a month to maybe $800 this month is disturbing. Most likely will see what Feb. brings and go from there, just not too optimistic about IS with all of the site issues. Just don't don't think they have the expertise or motivation to get it back like it was. Not wearing any rose colored glasses about how great it is at other sites either, but need to try and make up the difference if I can.

My story is similar, I "was" gold,now Im a silver equivalent and I totally halved my IS income, and from what march looks like so far I think Ill even a more major cut this month. Im absolutely worried and have started looking at others ex exclusive stories as Im considering ldropping my crown too. Im a bit scared about how much time it takes one to really start earning significant money, I rely on this for my home income.
I m an illustrator, so I think itmight be even harder.

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