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Messages - Perry

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1401
Alamy.com / Re: RF - Alamy and others
« on: July 08, 2008, 13:54 »
I think selling same images at such different price points is stupid and immoral.

1402
ImageVortex.com / Re: First sales
« on: July 01, 2008, 06:43 »
Wow I could not believe my eyes when I got a sale at Imagevortex.
A small web image sold $24.50 if which I get 70% (= $17.15)
I uploaded this image in 2005 and it has had a whopping of 2513 visits.

I'm still blown away by this :)

1403
Alamy.com / Re: Portfolio
« on: June 19, 2008, 06:40 »
You can either use "Manage images" or search your name on the front page. There's also a "My Alamy Homepage" that easily lets you search your portfolio.

1404
Alamy.com / Re: Portfolio
« on: June 19, 2008, 03:25 »
It's easy, just click "My Alamy" on the front page, log in and you can access all info.

You can find views on "Alamy Measures (beta)"

1405
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStockphoto and Google image search
« on: June 19, 2008, 02:19 »
-

1406
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStockphoto and Google image search
« on: June 19, 2008, 02:18 »
I never tried that, but if this is an issue for you, why are you in IS?

I'm on IS selling images, not using it as a personal portfolio. It's my choice to be anonymous, byt the system seem to "leak".

As for why images show despite your name isn't there, it probably is, maybe where you can not see (metadata, EXIF data)

Yes, but I have tried to search the pages troughly, checking image metadatas and everything... I just can't find out where my name is hiding.


1407
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStockphoto and Google image search
« on: June 19, 2008, 02:13 »
Have you had customers complain about finding your images on istock?  Hopefully your microstock work is different enough from whatever else you do that it shouldn't be an issue...?

No, they are not complaining. I think many of them would not complain, just move somewhere else. I don't know if this has happened or not, it's impossible to know.
Ans yes, different images on every price level and photography type. That's one of the problems. When I google hundreds of my mediocre microstock pictures pop up, I would really not want them to represent my work.

Every "real" macrostock agency I'm familiar with seem to respect their contributor's privacy, so that aliases can really be used. Most microstock agencies does this too, except iStock, crestock and featurepics (in their watermarks). The latter two could be fixed by using just my first name initial as my first name.

1408
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStockphoto and Google image search
« on: June 19, 2008, 02:04 »
There is an option to hide your real name and it was created for exactly the reason Perry is upset about. Go to your control panel on iStock. Click Contributor and you'll see a drop down labeled "display copyright owner". Choose member name rather than real name.

That's exactly what I have done a long time ago (a couple of years ago when they introduces that feature), but still my images keep popping up, even all newer images.

1409
iStockPhoto.com / iStockphoto and Google image search
« on: June 18, 2008, 16:29 »
When I googled my name in google image search I got horrified when I noticed that my iStock images turned up. And I have no explanation why that is so, the source code of the pages doesn't even have my name on them, and they still turn up. Why is that?

I'm getting very frustrated with this, I'm even planning closing my account with 1000 images (what a pain it was to upload them!) if I can't get my images removed from the search results because selling my images for peanuts really hurts my other photo business :(

Have you noticed this? Is there something that can be done? Or is it adios, iStock?

1410
you mentioned difficult to catch shot.

but something like say "birds" is very common in micro.
but what if it's a lucky shot, like capturing the bird taking off in flight, like really closeup with fine details,etc...
right down to the splash of the water...

would this still be RF? or would it be too restrictive or specific,
and would be wasted in RF.

It all depends. If it was a great image of a rare bird taking off in flight it would definitely be RM.

1411
iStockPhoto.com / Re: IS - sales slowing down?
« on: June 16, 2008, 11:55 »
I'm down 50% from last month... This can't just be normal ebb & flow. I don't even think it's all summer slowdown, all the other sites are doing reasonably well.

1412
I think that's a bit too theoretical. If you want a natural looking portrait you should use a lens that allows you to stay at a natural viewing distance from the model. When you look at a persons face you stand 1-2 meters away (1 meter=intimate, 2 meters="normal"), and when you want to see the whole person you stand 3+ meters away. Then you just have to pick the lens that allows the correct cropping. Usually that's around 85-100mm on a full frame camera. Focal length doesn't change the perspective or looks of people, distance does.

1413
Alamy.com / Re: How do you prepare photos for initial QC?
« on: June 11, 2008, 16:02 »
Then I tried to export as 16-bit TIFF, load in PSE upsize to 5050 with bicubic smoother, convert to 8-bit and save as JPG. Still rejected as too soft.

What camera are you using? Are your images sharp? (sharp lens, no camera shake...)

Even if Alamy's rules say "no sharpening", I don't think that apply to raw images. Raw images need some sharpening while converting. In DPP I use sharpness level 3 (scale is 1-10) that seems to be the preset. All my images have passed QC.

1414
Alamy.com / Re: How do you prepare photos for initial QC?
« on: June 11, 2008, 12:31 »
You can get 50MB file in 16 Bit at 300 PPI by upsizing to 3650 (Long side) X 2427 (Aprx short side).

Have you really got such small images trough Alamy QC? (Those are only 25MB 8bit)

The image should be 96MB 16bit (-> 48MB 8bit)
I upsize my 5D files in DPP using the batch function and I type the long side to be 5020px.
I think DPP does a good job when upsizing.

1415
helix7, are you saying everyone that pays for a high-end RM image are "wrong" ?

1416
(is there a way to delete a message on this forum?)

1417
If the image fits the ad, who cares how much it cost?

The microstock image could in the worst case scenario be used by a competitor. Or even just some other company. That would cause confusion and damage the brand. The whole ad could be seen as a negative thing.

That's why I'd pay a bit more to get a RM image that isn't everywhere.

As I said, I use microstock images, and sell my photos both micro and macro. I think we need different prices for different imagery.

1418
I try to divide my images as following:

Microstock RF:

-no people shots. If I was a model for someone I'd like to know that the images cannot be used forever over and over.
-images with not-so-perfect lightning
-generic, "universal" subjects
-images that are easy to produce very fast, low production value

RM (almost my all macrostock images are RM):

-people shots
-technically good shots with good lighting
-special subjects (they won't sell as microstock anyway)
-"lucky shots" special moments that are hard to capture
-images that are hard to produce, high production value
-editorial photography
-"creative" and "artsy" shots (that would propably be rejected by microstock inspectors anyway :))

What comes to imagery from Niagara falls...
Word "Niagara" returns 4569 images. On iStock there are 466 matches for "Niagara".
It seems like a well covered subject on both sites - that makes it a tough competition.
I'd say you have to have very good images, maybe from some special angle and/or the best light - otherwise the images could only be a waste of time. I'd still post the best images to macro and the b-grade ones to microstock.

1419
Miz has some good points in the first post.

I don't really care for any hobbyists that don't calculate their ROI (Return Of Investment). It's really hard for us others to compete against people that work for (almost) free.

I do both microstock and macrostock (with different images, of course). Because of the falling ROI I'm starting to get the feel that selling images for peanuts has been a fad and I'm moving my efforts toward macrostock more and more. Microstock sites are going to flourish, but I'm suspecting they won't feel as attractive to the most skilled and talented shooters anymore.

Even in the future microstocks are going to remain as a handy outlet for "grade b" images.

People, don't sell your best images for $0,25 when you could get $250 a pop.


1420
I'm a microstock photographer, but I'm also a macrostock photographer.

To addition, I'm also a graphic designer. I would never use microstock images to anything important, ie. big clients with big budgets, on brochure covers or such.
Using a microstock image that has sold 1000 times could hurt the brand, I'd even be very cautious for any RF images.

Besides it's about the mathematics: If an ad space in a magazine costs - let's say $10,000 - paying $1,000 for an image isn't really that much. It's lot better combination than $10,000 ad space and a $5 image.

But there are lots of low budget projects and a need for generic images and elements where microstock does come in handy.

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