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676
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia Composition image... No watermark...!?
« on: December 21, 2011, 06:11 »
Firefox 8.0, Chrome 16.0, IE7 - all display the image WITH watermark.

On 3 machines I have various versions of Firefox 8.0, 7.0 and 4.0. All show crappy pic + old watermark.

677
General Stock Discussion / Re: Camera Settings, YOU MUST SEE THIS
« on: December 16, 2011, 20:37 »
Watched the first one................somewhat funny. You can tell it's a spoof cuz she speaks on camera fluently and with little mannerisms to give you the idea she is a housewife. After one minute of the next one (#6) I got bored and turned it off.......... not remotely funny. If people are convinced by this stuff, then it's easy to see how simple it is to fleece them with Nigerian/Russian 419 scams.  ;D

678
I got an "Error 404 - Not Found" when I clicked on your link.

Me too now. Sorry about that. Should be able to view in my Picasa folder:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/un2nB6Jr97OIxCjfCjGcEDU5Bl8b8KDaycplAH1lsfQ?feat=directlink

680
Just lucky that they don't have to worry about hanging chads. ;D

681
I see from the views/downloads on Fotolia that those 'Infinity Collection' images do sell a little but I do find that a little strange because Fotolia promotes itself as being cheap whilst in search a number of these infinity images come up on every page and for an XL download the cost is anything but micro.

Why would anyone choose to pay such a high price for an RF file? Some images are very good but there's also a lot that have been almost duplicated in micro and could be had for a 'normal' RF price elsewhere in Fotolia/Shutterstock etc. Beats me.

682
Money laundry...

I was thinking something along those lines ... or maybe a tax dodge where you buy the photo for $4M, donate it to an art museum and get a charitable donation receipt for $6M ... perhaps after waiting a year or two for the photo to "appreciate".

When I see such an absurd price being paid for something then it makes me think that something complicated and devious is going on which involves government tax laws.

There is, of course, one angle that could be looked at. It's the one in which 'assets' like stocks and property only get bought in rising markets based on the greater fool theory..........ie there's always a bigger fool who will pay more than you paid for an 'asset' in a rising market. Suppose that the buyer of that work is a collector who already has some other works by the same artist bought at a much lower price but he needs some extra collateral for a large loan. He wants the highest price possible so that his collection is worth more . Lets just imagine that as a collector/dealer that he knows a few people in the same position. They all get together, pool some loot and decide to bid on the latest offering at auction. But contrary to normal practice, they don't want the work to be bought for the lowest price but the highest price and they decide between themselves what the price will be. Or maybe they involve a rich patsy, talk up the work until the guy must have it whether it costs $ 2 or $4 million, once committed, he's gotta have it so they bid it up against him. Once the auction is over and the highest price ever for a work by that artist has been established, the 'club' has collections/collateral that maybe just multiplied in value by a factor of 10.........everybody happy..........you bet your life they are. ;D

683
If we can't see it's value as art, then it must be because we don't understand it. :)

Or.........You obviously don't have enough money to make it worth my while talking to you. Greater fools to fleece! G'day!  ;D

684
General Photography Discussion / Re: printing greeting cards
« on: November 11, 2011, 07:47 »
Getting cards printed is not a problem with companies like Vistaprint. I got some cards printed to use as flyers/leave-behinds to direct potential clients to my site/albums. Only cost 25 incl. postage and VAT for 100 and if you order 500 it's even cheaper. They were A6 full-colour and printed on one side. For zero extra, they'll also do you a black text on the back. My design was entirely mine and done in PS.

But selling 'em is an entirely different matter. My bro-in-law made around 20 panoramic cards of a local tourist attraction (windmills etc) and had 1,000 of each card printed to cut down on the cost/card. He did, with difficulty, find a retailer at that same tourist spot to take a selection of his cards (he had to provide the card rack). After 3 seasons, he just about broke even and still has thousands of cards left over!

The major card producers tend to provide the retailer with the racks and return to check that you haven't got someone else's cards in them. They replenish sold cards and return your money for unsold cards at the end of a year. Used to be a good business to be in until everyone started sending cards via internet and using social media. Definitely not worth the effort any more. IMHO that is.

685
Phew. What a relief............the bankster and hedge fund managers bonuses must still be intact.

Not so much about the photo but look how I outbid everyone.  ;)

686
Adobe Stock / Re: Price set back to 1 Credit
« on: November 06, 2011, 11:17 »
Quote
It used to be 1 year, and then they changed it to 6 months (I don't think that was even announced properly). 1 year would take into account seasonal sales at least. 6 months is just ridiculous.
Yep, poor from their point of view too. I can imagine that a lot of seasonal is bought as a download rather than a sub.

Fotolia is pretty good at this sort of stuff. >:(  To the best of my knowledge, I never received notification of the change. Just came across it one day on FT site and saw that it had been changed from 1 year. Remember they also offered to give 50 cents for any images, unsold for 2 years, when placed in the 'Free' section. That was originally valid for 2 years but then they surreptitiously changed it to 5 years in 'Free'. I can also remember all the misinformation given as gospel from FT contributor support (UK) regarding the correct form to be filled in by European contributors for taxation/exemption by the IRS. They said to fill in a form which required an original signed letter from Fotolia and $100 in fees to the US IRS.............and then FT issued a few copied letters which, if sent with the form after paying $100, were rejected by the US authorities anyway because it wasn't the correct form in the first place.

687
Adobe Stock / Re: FT views bug
« on: October 26, 2011, 04:05 »
My views for September were half those of August but actual sales in value remained the same or went up slightly.

Same for this month. Views halved, sales down a little. Funny bizniz init?

688
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia just seems to have increased prices
« on: October 26, 2011, 03:55 »
I think that the subscription price hike is recent, after the site was re-designed. It's almost as if FT has exchanged USD as its standard currency on which everything was based, for the euro. A one-month sub in is now 199 but I don't know if that's changed...........anyone know?

Had a night to think it over and the increased price of FT subs must have taken place at the same time as the contributors got their double whammy.
Before the new site layout, there were 2 subs types: Standard sub for 750 downloads/month @ up to 'L' size for $199 and a Premium sub for 750 downloads/month @ 'XL' size and above for $249. On August 16th, FT informed contributors and subscribers that the 2 subs packages were to be merged into one and that subs commissions would be standardised at a lower rate than even the standard subscription rate prior to the change. Thus allowing subscribers to download even the most massive files for buttons!

Re. question on vectors:
Quote
Our daily subscription plans give you access to high-resolution images, vector illustrations, and even videos (1 "M" resolution video = 5 downloads).

689
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia just seems to have increased prices
« on: October 25, 2011, 18:35 »
I think that the subscription price hike is recent, after the site was re-designed. It's almost as if FT has exchanged USD as its standard currency on which everything was based, for the euro. A one-month sub in is now 199 but I don't know if that's changed...........anyone know?

690
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia partner sales
« on: October 15, 2011, 08:47 »
The highest prices you see on that site are for large canvas 'art prints' which are effectively inkjet prints using chromogenic inks (very expensive). Now, if you look at the price of posters from the same image you'll see a price of around 60 for a 160cm print. These are presumably printed with normal printers inks which do not have archival longevity and are much cheaper to produce. However, there's no way the printer can be paying the FT EL rate as that's usually more than the print price for silvers, golds etc. So, my conclusion would be that they're using XL/XXL downloads for these prints, canvasses etc and if they can use this type of download, they can just as easily use a subscription to get that file size from which they can download 750 files/month and for which the artist receives between 25-45 cents/ download depending on status.

You see, images are effectively free these days!  ???   

691
A nice craiglist ad :)
Quote
I am a photographer and since people are always looking for free shoots I assume that they must also do their job, or provide their services, for free.

I am looking to hire all types of people to do all sorts of jobs for me, as long as I do not have to pay anything. Just think, you will gain more experience, and I will put the word out for you and let everyone know what wonderful work you do. This opportunity will bring you a ton of unpaid work, but everyone will love you. So if you have a job or service you provide, and will do it for free, please let me know, because I am sure I have work for you and will hire you in a second.

Feel free to email me with the service you can provide, when you can start, and please include references.

I look forward to you free service.

Thanks,

:)
http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/tlg/2613342389.html


Quite a progressive business if he's looking for models. They start off plump and curvaceous, lose weight from lack of food and go from ideal to emaciated and then die. Always a niche 'art' market for photo's of corpses on slabs..................wash, rinse, repeat. ;D

692
Mebbee he got a free sub too for writing nice things. ;D

693
Sooo trippy. What is FT saying here, I mean, if we are concerned about "destructive retail pricing" Fotolia will be about the second of the many sites we submit to to be dropped. I'm not sure how their minds are working on this one if at all.
Again, if they were one of the higher priced agencies it may make a bit of sense, but they have been leading the race to the bottom as far as the retail price goes. Suddenly now that their bottom line isn't sustainable it's a problem. They've had no concern at all about our bottom line all these years. I don't know where they get the balls.

Corporationthink..........an alien concept for most other earthlings!

694
Adobe Stock / Re: How to cancel / delete account?
« on: October 02, 2011, 19:24 »
sorry to dig up an old thread.. but this was the closest to what I was looking for so thought I'd just add my question here..

if I want to remove a bunch of images on fotolia do I have to do it one at a time?  I tried selected all the images I wanted to remove but once I had them selected there was no option I could find that would allow me to do something (like delete) with the selected images.  what's the point of being able to select multiple images if I can't do anything with the selected images?

If you want to delete everything, ask support to do it for you. If you wish to leave some images, get a large pot of coffee and make a start on deleting each image individually.

695
+1 to all the last 3.

696
What if I undercut Fotilia's price on photos sold from my personal website?   Will I have to raise my prices to match Fotlia's?

Not if you don't tell 'em!  ;) Seriously though, FT has to police this measure that they've announced and remember, it's arbitrary. My guess would also be that it's illegal anyway. Since when, as an independent supplier of a commodity/service, can you be forced to reveal who all your other customers are and at what price you supply them?

697

I'll believe that Yuri's being downgraded when I see it. No way will he bow to pressure from Fotolia. Be aware that this can "apply" to Yuri and yet he can just go on untouched because the rule says it's entirely at Fotolia's discretion who they choose to penalise. It isn't "If you do A we do B" it is "If you do A we can decide whether or not to do B".

With a load of legal wrangling, it could take a few years..........by which time Yuri is a TV CELEB and then it wouldn't matter so much.  ;)

698
Well, well, if it is DP the big guys like Yuri are under the threat as well. And I see Fotolia putting them back to white as funny... Ha ha, this could be the last thing Fotolia might do before falling under the level of those small sites they are challanging now.

Last post from Chad on FT................no Murphy even on the big boyz! Still no sites mentioned.

Quote
Warren Millar
29/09/2011 21:57

be very interesting to know if some of the very top sellers here also sell images with the so called "Cheap sites" ....... are they also under the same restictions then CHAD ?
    

THE CHAD
30/09/2011 00:47


Warren it applies to all members even the top sellers.

Rimglow not sure what you mean by partner programs?

Chad Bridwell

699
'Admin' allows Leaf to make posts here and take on certain duties. Apparently they're very good friends. :D

But we were hacked! Who knows who's running the place now? 'Admin', as you call him, might be some Bangladeshi geek controlling us all from his bedroom.

The mind boggles. ;D

700
THE CHAD is on FT forum delivering his message but, as you might expect, no names of agencies are named.
Quote
THE CHAD
27/09/2011 20:38

Hello Fotolians,

It has come to our attention that some new agencies are selling the same contributor content at prices far less than most other microstock agencies. We feel that this is bad for both photographers and stock agencies. We do understand photographers are free to choose their own destiny in a free market economy, and our intention in these actions  is to encourage everyone to support fair pricing for customers and commissions for contributors. Only a handful of sites and contributors have been identified thus far, and we will communicate with them before taking any action.

By sponsoring and uploading to sites that undercut prices, photographers put the whole industry in jeopardy - and we feel our duty is to take action. If the community agrees with our approach, the status quo remains. If the community wants to place down pressure on pricing, we'll adjust accordingly, as a measure to be fair and respectful to our costumers and stay competitive . Keep in mind that when rankings drop, the ability to charge more for images goes away - and that hurts everyone's bottom line, including ours .

Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com

rimglow
27/09/2011 21:47

Please advise us what sites you are talking about. How are we to avoid these sites if we don't know which ones you consider unfair?


 godfer
27/09/2011 21:49


Chad, could you tell us which agencies you are referring to?  It is sometimes very complicated to work out exactly how some of the sites compare against each other and I would hate for any of us to get put down to white level just because of  contributing to a site where we probably aren't making any money anyway,
thanks
mandy


Jim Barber
27/09/2011 22:13


I don't remember seeing this in the contributors agreement. Does this mean that you are expecting us to work under the constraints of exclusivity without the benefits? This is a very confusing policy. What sites are you referring to? What price level do you consider unfair?


Cory Thoman
27/09/2011 23:42


Hello Mr. Pot. Meet Mr Kettle.  lol

Darla Hallmark
28/09/2011 16:17


If you pay attention when submitting to sites, you will KNOW how much they pay.  Set yourselves a minimum acceptable price, and stick to it.

Especially, don't give your stuff away in one place, if you are selling it in another.

rimglow
28/09/2011 22:31

If we are to be unwilling participants in a war on other sites, I would like to know who I'm at war with. Maybe they're friends of mine. I support Fotolia, but you are going to have to name names.



No names so far..............do you really expect names! Everything is nice and arbitrary at the moment.........you get downgraded and they never have to tell you why specifically and you wouldn't be able to take legal action IMHO.

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