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Messages - tubed
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126
« on: February 22, 2009, 22:48 »
I'm no expert on these kinds of shots , obviously there are some well diffused light sources in use, but I think the main 'trick' to the first 2 shots is simply that there are so many white objects in the photos. That also helps bounce the light around. I agree with previous posters that they aren't great photos, they have blown-out areas which sort of hurt my eyes. But high-key looks happy, and the stocks want happy.
Your funny!!
127
« on: February 21, 2009, 17:20 »
Got mine today as well 
128
« on: February 21, 2009, 12:10 »
Reason im asking is because firstly the price the images go for sure surely buyers would go to microstock agencies and before you say yes I know the size of the images are larger on alamy. Ant
Hi Ant,
Most Microstock sites do not have editorial content and the images are mainly Royalty Free.
So your conclusion is not really true, as Alamy sell 78% of images for editorial use, and about the same percentage as Rights Managed (79%) and Royalty Free (21%).
So you can say that the Buyers and image usage is often from different type of company, first it is a bit confusing as to why the buyers prefer RM surly RF is cheaper you might say, but in a lot of cases you would be wrong, a news story about refuge collection they may require a spot size image for a single use and a limited run, this is often less that a small RF image on the traditional sites and the chance is they may never need to use this particular image again.
Take the credit crunch you may not find an image of the RBS or Northern Rock on the microsites but you will find many on Alamy, so most news stories will have an appropriate stock image on Alamy.
As to Sales this will depend on your portfolio, mainly content, type of image, how good you keyword, and if they are looking for and at your images amongst the 15 million others, if you upload an image of "The London Eye" yours would join the 35,000 other images that match the search, so you need to look at the All Alamy measures data, look at the search terms as a guide only as these are just from selected buyers, do lots of research looking at Sunday Newspaer Supplements, Lifestyle magazines, Travel magazines etc:, then you need to use tight keywording as spamming will hurt your Alamy Rank, but the more you put in the more you should get out.
Here ends this reply
David
This pretty much sums it up real well.. Alamy is really heavy on editorial, so I would think of it in those terms when building a portfolio.. Their commercial images are somewhat outdated for the most part and have to compete with the micros collections.. Someone here on this forum that is very versed in the macro market as well as entering strong in the micro market once told me I don't know how those guy's on Alamy make it.. I'm not sure concentrating on Alamy with commercial images is worth it, although things may possibly change with their new commercial collection setup.. But noone really knows how that's going to turn out.. I think travel and editorial is worth uploading.. As far as sales there, it is slow but one sale from an image I took in Ireland made me $270 recently.. So one sale is much better than months of sales at certain micro agencies.. Also remember that quite a few people are uploading their micro images to alamy and that will in the future have an effect on the way the sites direction goes as well.. Buyers will eventually figure out that the images are in both places and get turned off..
129
« on: February 20, 2009, 01:51 »
From the way Litifeta is talking here he wants a ecommerce site that he can market direct to.. Am I wrong? Hence he doesn't need a site that already has traffic, just the ability to sell.. Unless I am reading the above statement wrong..
Why not just email the shots then? If he has enough volume, he can set up his own domain and install Coppermine Gallery with a cart. That's cheaper than an 150$ SmugMug account and you don't need to pay Smugmug an extra 20% on sales.
Isn't that what I suggested? Use his own website and use paypal checkout? No fees other than a transaction fee..
130
« on: February 19, 2009, 22:08 »
I was wondering if anyone had success using PhotoShelter as their ecommerce site for direct sales?
I have an idea I believe I can market direct to buyers but it is unsuitable for micro, in fact most of the agencies reject these images. All I want is an ecommerce site to sell from.
Tell me your stories please.
From the way Litifeta is talking here he wants a ecommerce site that he can market direct to.. Am I wrong? Hence he doesn't need a site that already has traffic, just the ability to sell.. Unless I am reading the above statement wrong..
131
« on: February 19, 2009, 21:33 »
Why don't you just use your own website and use a paypal checkout system? You can use it like a shopping cart and you just pay the paypal transaction fee..
132
« on: February 19, 2009, 13:21 »
I have sent emails to contacts at both Getty and Veer to bring it to their attention.. Where is Brian (Veer)? They have Veer images as well..
Here are the responses.. From Veer:Hi Robert, Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! I have asked our global channel sales team to look into it to make sure they are not re-sellers before we take action. Take care, Lindsay From Getty:Hello Robert, Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I'll have our legal team look into it. Mary Velasco Sales Executive Gettyimages.com and Punchstock.com Getty Images
133
« on: February 19, 2009, 12:22 »
I have sent emails to contacts at both Getty and Veer to bring it to their attention.. Where is Brian (Veer)? They have Veer images as well..
134
« on: February 18, 2009, 11:32 »
This is one more push towards me focusing more on macro agencies and less on micro.. We seem to just keep getting shafted more and more.. It's unfortunate..
135
« on: February 16, 2009, 12:47 »
I recently decided to give microstock a try, just for the heck of it - not expecting make any money. I got approved by Shutterstock and IStock, and put about 20 photos on those sites, along with Dreamstime and StockXpert.
In the first couple of days, to my surprise I sold a few. After that, nothing - things went totally dead.
I'm guessing that people on the 'subscription' plans make frequent passes through the recently uploaded images and grab a few that catch their eye, just so they feel they're getting their money's worth. And after my photos slid off the "recent" pages, they vanished into the vast cloud of millions of images enjoying eternal rest.
Am I right?
Yeah pretty much.. You will maybe get lucky and get a few that are downloaded alot in the first few days to get the most popular area, but the rest will slide away and only get the random downloads.. Istock is not as bad as SS for the newest first search but they all depend on how many dl's you get, to reach into the other searches..
136
« on: February 14, 2009, 20:07 »
They mean to make commercially safe images. To make sure your not lying you will need to upload model and property releases to get your images into the commercial collection..
137
« on: February 14, 2009, 20:03 »
Hmm... methinks perhaps it is time to upload to CanStock?
I remember they went through a major rejection phase when they were acquired. Is it still as rigid?
Don't think they have ever rejected anything of mine..
138
« on: February 11, 2009, 20:21 »
Yeah, I'm starting to see an increase as well.. We'll see..
139
« on: February 08, 2009, 23:35 »
No, most of the design firms I have worked for are split at least 50/50 maybe even more on the female side in graphics department, more males in the programming area.. But the guy's are the ones that take a quick peak at the sexy model photos =).. I've noted an interesting phenomenon.
I shoot female models mostly and I believe that they are all attractive.
When I upload them I generally get a mild number of views, in the order of 10-20.
BUT if I upload a model wearing a bikini all of a sudden the views skyrocket!
One file recently garnered over 200 views the first day it went live.
I can only surmise from this that most designers are heterosexual males 
140
« on: February 05, 2009, 16:56 »
Any chance there will be a tiered system, that certain images and or contributors will be able to submit to the veer macro collection as well?
141
« on: February 03, 2009, 14:03 »
DVDs and CDs are typically the WORST way to store backups and anyone with ANY experience in professional backup & restoration will tell you to avoid it like the plague unless it's your 3rd backup option.
Agreed.. CD's and DVD's have an actually fairly short shelf life and there are an array of elements that can corrupt or destroy them..
142
« on: February 02, 2009, 01:29 »
I'm a bit surprised that someone would share such valuable information, secrets, ideas, etc., that would directly have an impact on their income. Sure we can speculate about how much of an impact this thread will have on the OP's income, but I thought it was common knowledge that sharing some basic info is pretty harmless, while showing your all of your cards is entirely different and not too smart. It's hardly arguable that posting about a particular image selling well will no doubt result in at least a few copy cats producing their own version of that image, along with the usual slew of "inspired" images that will dilute that segment of the market even further.
I think he is focussing on attracting traffic, to attain advertising and refferal income.. Guess his data shows that will be more profitable than the image sales??
143
« on: February 01, 2009, 21:56 »
Yes.. I love my 5d and it does the job well especially for stock..
144
« on: February 01, 2009, 21:48 »
145
« on: February 01, 2009, 17:29 »
Well, the most correct way would be to have a camera that already outputs that size.. But to upscale, I use genuine fractals.. It has a much better output algorythm than PS bicubic alone as well as other options.. I have tested them side by side and GF is a better final image..
146
« on: February 01, 2009, 17:25 »
Thanks a lot ma that is a big help. Sounds like a lot cheaper route to go and we could just keep the back up drives off site.
Thx Again,
AVAVA
or you can buy 7,500 standard DVD's...lol 
... that collection would be fun to search..
147
« on: February 01, 2009, 16:16 »
Thanks Tubed,
That was a Big help. Scared to even start looking at a group of drives for all of this. I imagine they need to be different then what I have to link together which is what I would love to do, some kind of SATA or something I would imagine. Is there anyway to take the single Tera drives I have and link them all and have them connected to their own computer and be able to search all my data?
Thanks,
AVAVA
Yes there is.. You could do that a couple ways.. 1. through USB hub (if they are external or inserted into a external adapter), you can connect them all through a USB hub (multiple USB connections) but for 60 hard drives you would need several of these. 2. you could use a storage rack to insert them all into like this this (uses RAID like I mentioned above).. There are also larger versions of similar towers - http://www.addonics.com/products/raid_system/mst4.asp
148
« on: February 01, 2009, 15:02 »
My Method is taken from the data centers I have worked with.. Probably the most secure method.. I use this for my images as well as my graphic and web clients files.
1. PC computer running linux operating system (virtually virus free)
2. 2 RAID configured hard drives (mirrored hard drives) so if one dies the other is exactly the same.
3. An external hard drive, inside of a fire proof safe that backs up nightly.
You could go 1 step further and create a tape backup, dvd's or another external drive that you change out every week or 2 that you store somewhere else.. (this would provide security from theft if your home was robbed).
Jonathan, you could use this method for your 60 tbs, just would have to buy hard drives with that capacity.. Or use several smaller capacity drives..
This is how most data centers protect server data..
149
« on: January 29, 2009, 22:27 »
I AM ALL FOR POSTING HELPFULL INFO AND HELPING PEOPLE WITH QUESTIONS ETC. ETC. I LOVE PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE..
Why all the shouting? You sound like some swivel-eyed, green-ink-writing nutcase to me.
You could help all of us by refraining fromsuch hysterical clap-trap.
Sorry, It's just everyone is totally ignoring these parts of my posts.. I am not against newbies, I am not against sharing info.. What I am against is people beating the drums to collect more microstock contributors to get more refferals. I said it like 4 times and yet people are still like - why are you so scared to share info? why are you so scared of helping newbies? That is not even close to what I ever said.. I bolded stuff I already said in other posts so people would stop ignoring it.. I will share with Newbs with collegues, whatever and encourage others to do the same.. If a newby asks me a question I have and will help them, never said otherwise.. But people have been completely ignoring those sentences in my posts.. The OP is not a newby. he's a site admin at one of the big 6 and he is here marketing his blog and drumming for refferals and Google advertising income (Google, banners and ads income is totaly cool with me) his traffic has nothing to do with it, I hope he has great advertising sales through Google, self sales, whatever and I hope he get's lot's of traffic.. I just don't like the microstock signup pimping. Some of his other blog posts are pretty good and I hope people get some use from them. Whatever, I am soo over this stuff.. I guess people can go ahead and twist my words how they like, I'm tired of trying to explain things people ignore, their only looking at the parts they want to see not the whole view..
150
« on: January 29, 2009, 20:30 »
People helped me too and I have helped others many times.. 4th time saying this I AM ALL FOR POSTING HELPFULL INFO AND HELPING PEOPLE WITH QUESTIONS ETC. ETC. I LOVE PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE..
My point in every post in this thread is (seems like people are selective reading).. I am not supportive of photographers out drumming up competition for refferals, and with false truths about how easy it is to make that money in micro.. Competition will come and that is normal and expected, but that doesn't meen I'm gonna get excited about someone out promoting a blog post that is clearly trying to attract people to sign up for refferals.. The title of this thread sais it all "make money shooting nothing".. I think the sites themselves do enough recruiting.. BTW AGAIN I like XposurePro's post about lightning.
I won't respond to any of the silly crapping pants and "good left hook" comments. I have not said anything here to insult anyone and am not going to start now, I have just been trying to arguing my perspective respectfully.. I don't expect everyone or anyone to see it my way (that's what's great about freedom) but I don't think that starting a high school e-brawl and chanting go get em' get's anyone many points..
I think Ive stated my points a few 3 or 4 times so I think at this point it's just going in circles so I am not going to waste more time repeating stuff. I LIKE SHARING! YAY 4 SHARING!! Not refferal Pimping..
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