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Messages - OM
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701
« on: September 24, 2011, 19:57 »
Could someone who has reached the ranking (Emerald I think) that enables them to double or triple their credits please check:
A photo(s) that has not sold in 6 months with less than 5 sales
to see if the price has dropped to level 1 with that little red box stating something about not changing the price until it has more than 5 sales.
Valid for any contributor at any level. Interestingly, it was valid after 12 months of no sales when announced..................musta snuck in the 6 months while no-one was looking. In the event it should happen to you, it's up to you to notice the 5 sales and request that the image be returned to original status. Not automatic. HAL 9000 doesn't do that. 
702
« on: September 24, 2011, 19:49 »
Has anyone ever had a straight answer from FT regarding a 'thorny' problem? They could reduce contributors to white from gold/emerald etc but you should never expect a detailed reason for their doing it................cuz then you might be able to fight them in court..............so they won't. By keeping it arbitrary and unspecified, they can shaft you but keep others that earn more for them. JIMHO.
703
« on: September 23, 2011, 18:42 »
Alien Bees are supposed to produce 5600, and that's where I set my white balance in camera. (Okay, 5560, which is as close my my D300 lets me go.) According to what I've read on Buff's site, Bees vary their color temperature a bit as you adjust power, but not enough that I've noticed an issue.
Buff's new Einsteins are supposed to be more color accurate across their power range. They have two modes: one that sacrifices flash duration for color accuracy and a second that gives you very fast flashes for stopping action at the cost of some variation in color when you vary power.
I think it's only a feature of very expensive studio flash generators such as Broncolor Grafit that allows a very fast flash speed with constant color temperature. The thing not to forget is that adding a light modifier such as a softbox to a flash unit will decrease the color temperature and if you're using a brushed alu beauty dish + softbox on another head, then the light color may vary but maybe not so much to cause real problems unless the softbox fabric is old and dirty. I would always do a grey card/white diffuser exposure at the beginning of a session and adjust accordingly to save time in post processing. Another thing to watch out for if you're using budget (nasty very cheap) softboxes is to check the diffuser cloth for UV emission. (Use one of those forged bank note detectors in a darkened room........if the softbox glows purple, then you'll never get a good skin color when it's in use on a model Same goes for shoot through umbrellas.....check 'em first).
704
« on: September 23, 2011, 17:29 »
Nikon SB26 and later have built in slaves and should suit. Dunno what they go for nowadays 60-70 I think.
705
« on: September 19, 2011, 04:42 »
Thanks for that info, Lisa.
706
« on: September 16, 2011, 13:35 »
How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance.
Simply like this:
Since the relaunch of the site, there are 28 images featured in the newest uploads section. Three of those are visible on the front page for a couple of hours, sometimes all day long. Those are the images that get lots of views and sometimes more than 20 downloads on their first day on the site. It happens to a lucky few every day now...
Yup, excellent explanation. It was just my fantasy after all. Ignore all my prior ramblings. Thanks.
707
« on: September 16, 2011, 13:32 »
So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code.
Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.
I don't see gaming the system as "smart". I see it as dishonest. Not to mention very, very risky. People have had accounts closed for similar types of behaviors.
I view such a method as being dishonest too and wouldn't do it, as I already stated. No doubt it is risky but in these hard times much seems to depend these days on whether it's 'just not done' or whether it's downright illegal /forbidden. Is there any rule when buying a sub that says that you can't use all your downloads buying just one contributor's images multiple times? Or just to be safe, you get a proxy to buy a sub and download mostly your images multiple times plus a few of someone else. At what point does FT accuse you of being a proxy for a contributor gaming the system that they created for their benefit? As I said, it's all my own fantasy. No evidence only observations and questions.
708
« on: September 16, 2011, 11:47 »
You know, Ive been 4 years with FT and I still havent a clue of how they work this, beats me.
They once explained it in relation to subscriptions. Your ranking has little to do with it (unless that's changed). Visibility
By following the rules above, you will achieve a better visibility. But there are further tips to increase your visibility:
1. By allowing the sales in subscription you will improve the ratio sold/views for each one of your contents. When a subscription customer wants to buy your image and you dont allow the sale in subscription, your content will be marked at 0 sold for 1 view. The ratio sold/view is an important criteria within our search engine. Images that are sold each time they are viewed receive a better visibility in the results page. So anyway I've made a bit of a 'research' project of this recently and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few pretty smart FT contributors out there. Whilst most including myself whine about newly accepted images never being seen and, of course, not selling, there are others whom I suspect have applied the system to their own, considerable, advantage. How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance. Similar sort of thing happened with the same photographer's non-food shot one week later. IMO there are only a couple of ways of achieving this: either there are loads of customers out there hanging on your every upload and waiting to pounce or.................you do a bit of self-promotion (tax deductible) and buy a sub for a month (or get someone to do it for you). Remember, the object of the exercise is to get to page 1 in the search on the basis of relevance, popularity and downloads as fast as possible. With your sub contract for $200 you may download as many as 750 images in a month. Start downloading certain selected images of your own............and earn back your sub at 29 cents per sale (silver rank). Probably means working weekends (60 downloads) if you want to make a profit but that's not really the idea. Feel a bit queasy about embarking on this enterprise? Get someone else (or a company) to buy a sub with unlimited users......costs a little more but enables you or your proxy to mail everyone you know to go buy a designated file with attached subs code. Don't get greedy, don't download all your 750 image entitlement thus leaving a fair bit of subs profit on the table for FT and I don't see anyone objecting! All purely hypothetical, mind you........I'm not doing it. Don't upload enough per month to make it worthwhile but there may be others for which this would work.
709
« on: September 16, 2011, 10:54 »
a sinking boat
You didn't really want an answer to your question, did you?
710
« on: September 15, 2011, 16:00 »
Unable to upload file: vector.zip, reason: Image dimensions are below minimum requirements.
Unable to upload file: vector.svg, reason: Maximum file size exceeded (must be <= 2 Mbytes)
completely meaningless
Something on their forum about a change in vector file uploads ('Sticky' posted on the first page by a moderator). Don't do vectors myself so I'm unsure what the change was........summat about an increased size of jpg to be sent with vector file, if that makes sense?
711
« on: September 15, 2011, 15:53 »
Withdrew from subs 3 weeks ago after they lowered the price and had no sales for a week..........started to get worried until sales started trickling in again plus an EL sale (very infrequent). Still the EL sale is equivalent to around 80 subs sales so I can afford to stay out for a while.
712
« on: August 28, 2011, 05:57 »
Realtime! You must be joking! The tag cloud with the most frequently searched keywords hasn't changed in the last three years. 
Yup Also, I'm not really sure whether the first 6 keyword order really is of importance. What does seem to make a difference is the title and that's not even spelling-corrected!
713
« on: August 28, 2011, 05:35 »
Mind you, considering the mentality of some new contributors to FT, you have to wonder whether their supply of newbie hopefuls will ever dry up. Recently, I saw one complaint on the FT forum of a newbie who had submitted an image which was promptly rejected for sale. Their complaint was not that it had been rejected but that after 2 days it wasn't even visible in the 'FREE' section despite their having ticked the box 'Place in free section in the event of rejection.'
714
« on: August 27, 2011, 19:01 »
The "stop uploading new images" drive seems like a great way to suffocate a greedy website slowly but surely. Their customers will pick the lack of new content up and move to other sites. BUT, how many contributors are represented on this website who will actively participate in such a drive, compare to the total number of contributors. If the drive is only from us here, it might not even dent their new uploads that much. How to get a large proportion of their contributors to participate, I think, is the challenge......
It will be a slow process as many FT contributors have complained for months of lack of views/sale of their newly uploaded work!
715
« on: August 25, 2011, 07:36 »
How do I know whether I have a EURO account? The Credit balance does not show any currency symbol.
I can't find that info on the new Fotolia website. Anyway, it you subscribed through a European website (fotolia.de, fotolia.fr, fotolia.ie, ...) then you have Euro; If you subscribed through fotolia.co.uk you have Pounds, through fotolia.com you have Dollars. You will find out at next payment as well.
The other(more recent alternative) is that your Fotolia address begins with http://eu.fotolia............and the site and keywords are in English, payout in Euro.
716
« on: August 23, 2011, 17:44 »
Well, seein' as how I'm still totally exclusive at FT (out of pure laziness), I have the option of withdrawing from subs entirely. Tried that once before but went back in, due to an increasingly poor position in the search. New work wasn't being seen and I believed at the time that appearing in subs also did bring in some buyers of dl's.
My ratio of dl's to subs has now crept up to 7:4 but those dl's bring in 9X the amount of money that the subs do. A couple of years ago, I had looked at stock as a method of subsidising my State pension in 5 years time. Haven't got many images and I'm not a big uploader but I was considering putting in more effort to more uploads as my monthly income was increasing steadily and was around 80/month in February 2011 when FT messed with the search engine and reduced commissions in March. Now I'm lucky if I earn half that and the income trend is down, not up.
Fortunately for me FT is just pocket money compared to paid commissions so I'm going to say 'eff'em'......if they want my stock material, they can pay for a dl They're cheap enough anyway as the majority are rated at one basis credit, although I'm allowed to charge 2. If buyers won't pay for a dl, well, too bad for me. The amounts involved are so small that it's really not worth worrying about.
As an aside, there's little point in getting above bronze or silver at FT now because although the commission percentage rises, the basic credit multiple is now is maximised at 3 (same as Silver). It also strikes me that some potential buyers are OK with a 2 basic credit but when it's 3 and you need an XL size........24 credits is a lot to fork out! (Thinks to self, maybe that's why FT encourages subs by making them so cheap........get 750 XL's for less than it costs to buy 10......download only the 10 you need for $200.........FT gives the contributor their $3+ and kachingo......$197 earned. Everyone is delirious.........'cept the creator)!
718
« on: August 16, 2011, 09:28 »
Mustabin what six months since the 'rewards' were last lowered? Can you feel it? Yup! We've worked diligently for the past few months adding new features to make the site more convenient for both contributors and artists. With this latest release, we're also revising our subscription plans to be in line with what's happening in the marketplace. As a result, prices and commissions have been adjusted accordingly. Please take a look at some of the highlights:
719
« on: August 08, 2011, 12:17 »
Wow, just wow.
Big brother is here and he is a criminal to boot.
Quick everyone put on a burka, its the only way to be safe any more.
Why do think Big Brother wants to (or already has) banned the wearing of them!
720
« on: August 02, 2011, 17:59 »
CGI but still clever:
Take a look at HEMA's product page - just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens...
DON'T click on any of the items in the picture, just wait...
http://producten.hema.nl/
Brilliant. Dank!
721
« on: July 29, 2011, 16:54 »
I can just see the agencies telling the Greek contributor with 'plasticine man' images that they could no longer carry his portfolio of under 300 images despite his top ranking on all the stock sites.
723
« on: July 23, 2011, 06:53 »
I'm an FT total exclusive and if I do an advanced search for an image of mine which can only be offered through Fotolia, I came up with the following offer on one of my images: $26.44 for a 16" x 16" poster including $14.00 image license.
The image # given by VB is the same as the FT# of the image. The license fee is the price of an 'L' license for this image. This image does have an extended license option which I haven't modified to take account of my status but it remains $20 for the EL..................soooooooooo, they are not charging the EL price and only the 'L' price which, in this particular example, is the maximum size.
724
« on: July 18, 2011, 16:33 »
Can you or anyone actually explain what this dispute is about? The thread title says 'fraud' which obviously is something that does need regulation.
The blog referenced in the other post describes it this way:
"French law designated as void any sale of goods, product and services that is priced at infinitesimal price. For example, if one was to purchase one image on Istockphoto for lets say $5 and use this image for a book, a magazine, an ad campaign, a brochure, on a TV set, in a Movie set, over and over again for 70 years ( life of a copyright), it would amount for less than a cent per usage. Under this law, that pricing is so low that it would not constitute a sale. Thus become illegal."
By definition, such a law would make all microstock contracts illegal. Any image sold without predefined usage with a time limit would constitute an infinitesimally small price (less than 1 cent). One image at screen res for a site with 1 million visitors/year gets under 1 cent/use pretty fast even if it cost $1,000 to purchase. And don't mention subs pricing!
725
« on: July 11, 2011, 15:38 »
Cap'n Bob? Got a good funeral though. Pretence!
Once there was a media-mogul, he did everything in his power to make his business go bad and bad to the point where staff, etc, just packed up and left, didnt even wait for bonuses, nothing.
There was however a sinister method behind his madness and actions. He wanted to amalgamate his overseas businesses into a new Corp but without all the hassles and troubles from thousands of staff and unions for that matter. Stating that everybodies life would be so much better in the new company.
He purposley made life misserable for just about everybody, in the end people around him couldnt stand him and his cronies, they left or didnt care.
Then when all was quiet and nobody really didnt care, he made his move. I guess its not too difficult to know what that company was called? I said was called because two years later he went bancrupt for billions and preceded to take his own life. Too many debts, bailiffs and lawsuits.
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