arrows?  what arrows? 

Your a funny man! 

-Larry

No red or green up and down arrows this month for the earnings ratings?

When do we get them back?

It is my number one reason to visit this site.

-Larry

For BigStock this April was the best month earnings in about a year! I think BigStock is not only coming back, the upswing in sales for me has been rapid over the last few months.

Not dead yet! Still kicking and getting stronger day by day. However I do hope you quit uploading there .... less competition for me.

-Larry

Quote from: Lcjtripod on April 21, 2010, 18:30

Quote from: mwp1969 on April 21, 2010, 17:33

Quote from: donding on April 21, 2010, 16:26

It's almost been a month and not one. What is going on??

Perhaps someone tripped over the "turn images for sale off" switch  

-Mark

I must be doing something wrong ...... 32 sales so far this month.

-Larry

Larry sounds like your doing something right... I just have never went for a whole month without a single sale there. The sales have always been steady. I'm thinking hard to remember rather I said something wrong to the wrong person so they hit the "turn off sales button"

I have about 2,000 more images on BigStock than you do. That alone is a big factor. Your port is nice, just make it grow. Sales will follow.

Regards,
-Larry

Quote from: lisafx on April 19, 2010, 13:20

If the sites want to continue to get high-production conceptual shots involving props, models, locations, etc.  they will have to continue to compensate photographers enough to make it worth doing.    If they don't, then they will go back to being libraries full of flowers, cats, and travel snapshots.  

You're partially right about the flowers, dogs, and cats. But I don't think people will yank their portfolios. They'll stop submitting and leave their portfolios there. Most of the fresh content will be newbie snapshots of flowers and cats. The rest will be stale technology and models with outdated styles.

I think a few factors are going to change things fairly soon. Contributor profitibility, agency relations, and recovering economy.

Sounds like unprofitible contributors are already jumping ship and focusing on other areas.

Contributors are getting tired of getting their T&C getting regularly changed to their disadvantage.

And I think a lot of people dove into micro to help pay the bills to weather the economy. When things pick back up and people are back to work are they really going to spend as much time on micro to make pocket change? And even if sales pick up and agencies make more you can bet that they'll cut commissions again.

You and Lisa NAILED IT!

Amen

-Larry

Quote from: Noodles on April 18, 2010, 16:48

Quote from: Lcjtripod on April 18, 2010, 15:27

Before I retired 15 years ago I made 250,000.00 plus per year as a wedding photographer. I had 10 photographers working for me. So the money is there always has been and always will be.
But not selling RF images for .25 Cents each. Needless to say I do not need the money from RF sales.
-Larry

Microstock keeps wannabe photographers away from where the real money is - I see no problem with this 

Every microstocker I know (who are doing it for a living) shudders at the idea of doing weddings. That's what many of them used to do and they are so glad to give it up.

You can certainly make decent money doing weddings but that's because it's a horrible job, that mostly has to be done during anti-social hours, that any half-decent photographer would gladly do anything else instead if they could get the same money. Same with having commercial clients. Who needs all that hassle __ the ever-changing briefs, chasing the money, dealing with the unwashed masses of the public, etc, etc?

That is why I hired photographers to do the work. I ran the studio and collected the money. Lived well and spent my spare time in the woods shooting wildlife in Montana while my studio was in New York. Just because your in the business does not mean you personally have to do the dirty work.




Just having fun in Montana.

-Larry

The big up loaders are finding out that you can not pay models and others to put the images on sites. They are losing money. The fix is: Stop uploading and paying people and just collect your earnings from each site.

I uploaded zip from Jan 1 this year and did not stop earning money at all.

That is my thoughts on the big up loaders.

The micro market has already been ruined by dirt low prices, each site trying to under sell the others and pay the photographers less to cover their losses. They make less and we make less. Many of the sites will fail and go broke very soon. Another bad point: Free images on every site to attract the low payers or no payers to the site. NONE of my images are free on any site and never will be. Thousands more are stolen every day and the sites do next to nothing to stop it. Ever hear of a image theft being fined or put in jail for copyright theft? NO. So why pay?

When I sold stock photos in the 50's 60's and through the early 80's NONE sold for less than $100.00 for RF images and RM sold for $200 to $5,000.00 per image. Calendar and greeting card companies never paid less than $500.00 for an image. Book covers $250.00 and up. Now they get them for less than a cup of coffee.

The Internet ruined it all. That is why I have lost nearly all interest in up loading any more to any site. I can sell Cd's full of images on Ebay for $25.00 per each for low res shots RF and not give a crap what they actually do with them. They do not get my best, only my rejects the ones I did not ever try to up load. Junk.

Sorry to sound sour but those are the facts. I for one just don't want to work for 5 cents an hour.

Larry

Confused... rene starts the thread talking about uploads by the �big guns� and soon everyone is talking about tax! 

Also called getting off topic. And I for one lose interest in the entire thread. The TAX posts should be cut and pasted into a new thread. That way the original post could be commented on.

My 2 cents.

-Larry

I am not on SS but my BigStock sales are running double last months. I sure hope it gets better than it has been as the last 4 months have been in the gutter.

Time will tell.

-Larry

Quote from: lexius on April 02, 2010, 06:45

Hi,

i have to deal with fringe and complex chromatic aberrations. Do you have good tutorials / books to recommend on this topic?

I do mostly of the things in Lightroom but when the distortions get nasty you can�t fix it in Lightroom anymore. I am not a Photoshop Guru, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Alex

Alternative you can invest in prime lenses = less or no chromatic aberation.

Patrick.

Digital Photo Professional also corrects the pincushion and barrel distortion of Canon prime and zoom lenses. I forgot this: It corrects for peripheral light fall off also. (Again with one click)
With prime lenses and DPP you have the best of both.

-Larry

No arrows all blank earnings ratings this month again.

Oh well, I bet that most are down.

For me my only up sites are DT and BigStock all the rest are in the gutter.

-Larry

Sales at CutCaster! What sales? With about 500 images and many moons of uploads = ZERO Sales.

I guess I should stop shooting Golf and start shooting Motorcross Races.

Disappointed,
-Larry

Nearly 500 images and still zero sales.

The future of RF images does not look very bright to me. Too many .25 cent and free images. I am buying a new large format printer, mounts and frames and getting ready to hit the Art Galleries again. I have made more money there in one summer,  than all the RF I have shot in the last 4 years.

This is the slowest December in four years.

I will soon delete all images on all sites that have never been sold to keep them out of the Free RF Market. I cannot take free to the bank.

I do not wish to work for such low wages!

All of the RF sites listed on the right side of this page are in a race to go broke by offering lower and lower prices. I think the crash has begun.

-Larry