Has anyone seen an increase in ELs on SS or is it just my lucky couple weeks?  I have as many in the last 9 days there as I've had in the last 18 months.

I can see www.shutterstock.com but I can't hit Submit.shutterstock.com  Is submit down or is it my issue?  Thx.

Our signatures all say "hiddenhiddenhidden" where the post icons used to be?  I have seen them under our usernames for awhile now - and today it's all in our sig but instead of actually showing they say hidden.  Did I miss something?  (probably)

Det var Arian h�r fr�n Mostphotos.com

Ville bara informera att vi fr�n och med nu och fram till sista juni erbjuder 40% rabatt till alla som k�per bilder p� faktura. F�r att k�pa bilder p� faktura skickar ni bara ett mail till mig s� att jag kan l�gga upp er som fakturakund.

Vi har �ven nyligen byggt ett adult filter som jag ville informera om. Sen vill jag �ven bjuda in dig till forumtr�den d�r jag har postat mina tankar och funderingar kring filtret. Skulle vara kul att h�ra din �sikt.
http://www.mostphotos.com/forumviewthread.php?thread=1400

Hoppas i varje fall att du gillar sidan. Har du fr�gor eller id�er s� kan du alltid kontakta mig.

Ha en fortsatt trevlig dag.
Mvh Arian

There are only a few steps to microstock photography, essentially.  Goes a bit like this:

1) Conceptualize & schedule model for shoot.
2) Shoot
3) Edit the images from the shoot.
4) Keyword & IPTC for the images you edited.
5) Upload images to various sites.
6) Submit images once FTP�d.

Honestly, 1, 2 and 6 aren't usually bad (6 is harder on DT and FT though)  So the main question is - how can you speed up the editing process?

I think three places:
- Learning photoshop hotkeys, shortcuts, actions, etc.
- Taking better images in the camera
- Taking the time to figure out what you're spending time on & how to remove those steps.

(this is what I blogged about today on N2M and I have a backlog of 900 images so this is what's on my mind)

Someone here was dogging FotoMind for their nudity on the site.  Does MostPhotos have any clauses about uploading parts full on?  Because honestly, what buyer in their right mind is going to search for _____ and find a full on shot of a woman spread out and say "oh, ok, this site works for me at the WORK COMPUTER where I buy images"?

I mean ... just ... WOW.

I saw some stuff I don't need to be seeing.  lol  And I'm not by any stretch "prudish" lol

Ok, what are the minimum payouts across the board?  I'm going to try & find some of these answers too but I think you guys probably know already better than I do.

Shutterstock - $75 with Paypal, $300 with check
Istock - $100
Dreamstime - $100
Fotolia - $50
StockXpert - $50
123RF - $50 with Paypal, $100 with Moneybookers
Bigstockphoto - $30
Crestock - $50
FeaturePics - $50
SnapVillage - $10
Canstock - $50 with Paypal, $100 with Moneybookers
Albumo - $75
MostPhotos - $
Zymmetrical - $10
Panther Media - �30 (around $47 currently)
YayMicro - �30 (around $47 currently)
FotoMind - $100
Image Catalogue - $75
StockRiot - $50

Feel free to add your favorite agencies as well or update the info for me.  I'll try to keep a current and ACCURATE list here.

I just finished scheduling a BUNCH of models for this coming week and thought I'd share where I got them all.   The full post is on my blog but I thought I'd post some of it here too.  The "..." tells you where I cut down.

1) ModelMayhem - ....To find models in your area, click Browse, then choose your criteria.  I always keep it as open as possible, sorting by �recent activity� so you know they�re still on MM actively...

2) Craigslist - ...We got the basic structure for (our ad) off of the LuckyOliver forums, adapted it to our needs, added some of our photos from stock shoots and we try to tell everyone straight up front what the shoot is going to be like so we don�t get a lot of rejected models...

3) Friends - ...The best tip I got was from (I think?) Andres Rodriguez who said he asks models at the end of a shoot if they know anyone who�d like to have some fun & do a similar shoot...

4) Anywhere - ...Try this - �Hi�uhm, I�m a professional photographer and I think you�d make an awesome model.  I�m going to give you my card & let you check out my stuff online.  Call me if you want to get together for a free shoot.�  Then walk away.  Make your site good enough that people actually call, too! ...
-------
Anyways, hope that helps someone - we are going to be ridiculously busy this week but I'm pretty far behind in an upload contest so I need to get working!

~m

...pending.

123RF - 39 pending
Bigstock - 42 pending
Canstock - 99 pending
Crestock - 65 pending
Dreamstime - 65 pending
FeaturePics - 65 pending
Fotolia - 32 pending
FotoMind - 11 pending
IStock - 20 pending
LuckyOliver - 65 pending
Shutterstock - 48 pending
StockXpert - 109 pending

How long is long enough to think I did something wrong at StockXpert?  I have 5 batches ready to go.  They say pending on my main page.  Is that enough?  All the rest get reviewed fairly quickly (except CanStockPhoto).

We've tried to upload 15 per day everyday this month - I guess this is the backup we're giving ourselves!

This post is a post I just finished writing on my microstock blog.  It's a TON of info and since few people currently read the blog, I thought I'd share it here as well.  I hope it's of interest!

Method: I uploaded the same 28 images to all of my sites.  I timed the FTP (all were the same), the "processing" time on sites that have such a thing, and the actual time it took me with my current knowledge of each system to get through and submit them all for review.
---------------------
The first thing I learned after timing the FTP upload is that all sites were the same - they can accept our images as fast as we can push them.  So about 21 mins for 28 images all around seemed to be almost dead-on for every agency.

123RF
Processing time on site: 3 mins.
Categories & Submission: 2 mins.
Total: 5 mins for submission and 26 minutes for 28 images, start to finish.  Because there are no categories and I used IPTC data, there was really nothing to it.  Adding the two model releases were very simple and would be simple even if I had all 28 images as MR.

BigStockPhoto
Total: �File uploading has been temporarity disabled to allow us to reduce the number of files waiting review in the Approval Queue.�  Unfortunately due to a technical issue and backlog of files, BigStock was not available to do this test.  They are normally very quick and I am interested when they come back up to finish this.

CanstockPhoto
Processing time on site: 12 mins.
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 16 mins. While it took 16 minutes to process these images, I thought about my affiliation with Canstock.  As anyone who�s read this blog knows, I�m not fond of this site anymore.  I like Duncan.  I think he�s a nice guy.  16 minutes to process is 3 times as long as 123RF took and I make about 1/8th the money on the same images.   This is officially my last upload to Canstock until I have minions uploading for me.

Crestock
Processing time on site: 11 mins.
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 15 mins.  The processing time was long at Crestock and I know my approval rate is going to be low compared to other sites.  The process was EASY however and 4 mins to submit is fairly quick.  I don�t mind the upload process here so if I can get fewer rejections and more sales, I�ll be entirely happy with 15 mins per 28 images or roughly 120 per hour.

Dreamstime
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 12 mins.
Total: 12 mins. Dreamstime was a fairly quick submission process to me.  I dislike categorizing, especially on multiple sites because you need to learn what they each consider categories and there�s no way to embed categories.  Otherwise it�s not bad.  Considering how much income I�ll get from these 28 images compared to something like 123RF, spending 2.5x the time is worth it.  My income on Dreamstime this month is going to be roughly 20x my 123RF income.  So 3x the work is more than adequate although I�d love this to be a 3 minute upload of course.

FeaturePics
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins. If my current earnings weren�t $0.00, I�d say wow!  Right now I�ll say it�s simple.  It takes me 5 mins per 30 images to submit including a couple with MRs and all the smoke missing its IPTC data etc.  This is a site that 50 of a single theme could easily be submitted in 10 mins or less.  That�s extremely quick and I�m happy with FP so far this way.

Fotolia
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 9 mins.
Total: 9 mins.  Given my batch of recent rejections, I was actually hoping Fotolia would be a touch quicker.  I also HATE that I can�t figure out how to attach a model release if I forget it during submission.  That basically means I have a rejected photo and I have to reupload it.  It�s SOO infuriating when you WATCH yourself make a mistake and have no way to instantly fix it.  Other than that, doing batches at Fotolia is fast.  Doing a bunch of random stuff is MUCH more time consuming.  I did smoke and textures and then a few random ones - the smoke & textures flew in no time.  The random stuff took most of that 9 mins.

FotoMind
Processing time on site: 1 minute!
Categories & Submission: 7 mins.
Total: 8 mins.  FotoMind�s total is superquick especially when you consider two things: 1) they are getting new servers next week which should make the site move even quicker.  2) I messed up somehow.  My IPTC data was not on title for many of these images and I kept making a mistake of not removing the & keyword here so I had to resubmit the images some times 2-3 times.  I probably could have done the entire submission in 6 total minutes so that is very close to my 123RF time, which is fastest so far.   I�m very happy with the FotoMind upload procedure.  I also read something about we can categorize after acceptance?  I�m not sure how this works but if true, once FotoMind rejects more images, you could save SO MUCH TIME by categorizing only those that were accepted.  I�m amazed that other sites don�t let you do this.  (Chris if you want to comment, I know you�re going to read this - let me know what I�m meaning here�I know there�s something like this.)

Istock
Start to finish on Image Manager: 29 mins.
Total: 29 mins.  Ok, I�m going to share some honesty here.  I�m happy with 29 minutes for IStock.  I honestly would have guessed it taking at least 45 if not 60.  AND I think I can get faster.  I�m not used to using their system so I�m guessing 28 images could be done in 20 mins.  Given that I make a lot of income with them, I am actually going back on my word here and resuming Istock uploads effective today.  I will get myself a nice long queue going to submit 20 at a time.  I don�t hate Image Manager .5 as much as I did the last one.

LuckyOliver
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins. Blazing quickness!  The only reason this wasn�t 100% FASTER even was the same issue with the smoke�s IPTC data.  It must be incorrect as multiple sites have now had issues with it.  If the IPTC data was correct, this would have taken ONE MINUTE to do all 28 images.  LO�s speed is very very VERY hard to beat.

Shutterstock
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins.  Considering sales, considering everything else - Shutterstock is definitely one of the best �per hour� moneymakers on microstock.  BY FAR.

StockXpert
Processing time on site: 1 min.
Categories & Submission: 5 mins.
Total: 6 mins.  I think.  I�m still learning StockXpert�s site - I have 3 images that weren�t reviewed in my last batch.  No clue why.  I just �submitted� the 28 images, I think?  I have had sales there now so I did something right once.  IF I just did it correctly, same series and similar images are SUPER easy and StockXpert and different images are much more difficult.

I will be tracking my acceptance rates at these sites as well for this batch so you�ll know if I uploaded 28 to SS and all get rejected but I sell 10 of them next month at Dreamstime, what we actually make per hour including rejects.

Most important stuff I learned:

- REALLY check IPTC data before uploading.  I must�ve given myself an extra hour of work all total in fixing my mistakes.
- Istock isn�t as bad as I remember.
- Depending on rejections and income in the future, Crestock may not be the site for me.

Final Times for 28 images:
Lucky Oliver - 4 mins.
Shutterstock - 4 mins.
FeaturePics - 4 mins.
123RF - 5 mins.
StockXpert - 6 mins.
FotoMind - 8 mins.
Fotolia - 9 mins. 
Dreamstime - 12 mins.
Crestock -  15 mins.
Canstock - 16 mins.
Istock - 29 mins.
Bigstock - pending

I just joined FotoMind about a week ago when I saw it on the sidebar on this forum.  I am happy to report that them having "93 images for sale" as someone reported is now *dramatically* incorrect.  LOL  There are just about 60,000.

Another person on here reported that they'd had images in the queue for something like 3 months.  I have had 110 reviewed in the last week with the longest being in queue for about 20 hours.  Sounds like someone had dinner that night.  Otherwise it's been 8-10 hrs tops.

AND - I got my first sale there today.  I've not been on the site long so that's encouraging.  It was a .90 sale so currently with 110 images online at FotoMind, I'm beating my Canstock portfolio this month with 123 images online.  I'm also beating Bigstock (36 approved) and Crestock (49 approved)  lol

So there's that - FotoMind, maybe check it out.

There's a link on the right side if you don't want a referral link.  Otherwise, mine is http://www.fotomind.com/index.php?referer_id=796 if you got value from this info.