I noticed an annoying thing when uploading photos taken with my Sony cameras (either A7Rii or A6500).  Caption metadata that has been added to the jpeg is lost.  This does not happen when I upload files from other camera brands (Panasonic or Canon).   Similarly, when I upload Sony files to any of several other stock agencies, they get the caption data.

If I use DeepMeta, Istock gets the caption even from Sony cameras.  However, I find that a pain to use.

Has anybody else noticed this, and found a workaround?

Generally, I find uploading to Istock to be more time consuming and bothersome than other sites.  As a result, I upload to them more sparingly, focussing on files that I think might sell better there.

A peculiar thing has happened.   Two of my photos that were marked as accepted about a week ago have not shown up in my portfolio.  I notice now that the typical notation is accepted/published, while these two languish with just "accepted" beside them.

Has anybody else encountered this? 

Recently in each batch uploaded, I have been getting one or two files with a "file transfer error," where I am asked to resubmit.  I never had this until about two weeks ago.   Is this happening to others, or is there some problem with my browser or connection?

I'm a Canadian contributor who received a notice that my form had expired.  The new form is much more complicated than the old one (actually, just much longer -- most of it doesn't apply).   I found this page to be a very useful guide on what to fill out:

http://ontariotaxmen.ca/w8-ben-e.htm

If you don't fill out this horrible form, US tax will be deducted from your revenue even though you live in a tax treaty country that exempts you from US tax.

In 2016, Fotolia was paying relatively decently, with no sales under 33 cents.  All of a sudden, this week I have had several photos with sales at 23 and 24 cents. 

Does anybody know what's going on?

I went for about 10 days without any sales shown, and finally got two.  I'm hoping it's all just a database error that will be corrected.

 My statistics page at http://www.dreamstime.com/stats.php still shows zero sales and zero accepted in September, when in fact I have had several new files accepted.

Hi All,

I'm only in my second month as a Shutterstock contributor, with just over 100 files on-line at this point.   I'm fairly impressed with the rapid pace of sales so far.  If that could be extrapolated to a larger portfolio, it would make my income per photo at SS more than double what it is at iStock, where I have been contributing for a few years, and have a large portfolio.   That seems out of keeping with the 100/67 ratio shown in the poll at the side here.   

I'm curious, however.   Is there something that streams newly accepted photos to customers, so that the download rate is more rapid when they are new? 

Oddly, some photos that are among my most popular at iStock have hardly sold at SS, whereas a couple that haven't sold at iStock are among my most popular at SS.

Very often, when I want to check something (e.g., my credits), the 123RF website asks me to type in a security code that appears as a graphic on the screen.  This is after I have already logged in.  It claims it won't ask me again unless I log out, but in fact it does do so, and often two or three times a day.   Is that happening to everybody, or is it something about my computer?

It appears to be serious security overkill on a website of that type.   My on-line bank and brokerage, where there is a lot more money at risk, don't have anything like that.   I assume it would be a turn-off for buyers as well.

Recently, I decided to try a few editorial submissions.   One was rejected because the date I put in the caption was two days different than what was in the exif.  It was just a background photo, and hardly newsworthy.   (And how do they even know if I have the date set correctly in my camera.)   Another one was rejected because I put the date first, instead of the name of the city.   

Their regular rejections are bad enough, for nearly imperceptible noise, but their editorial rejections for details in captions are beyond belief.  Oh, and they don't let you edit the caption once it's in the queue, in case you notice there's something wrong with it.

Not only are they treating their contributors like dirt, but they are wasting their own resources by having their reviewers look at the same thing over and over again.  However, I will spare them the trouble, since I'm not resubmitting anything to them for the pleasure of getting 19 or 26 cents per download.

I have had several editorial photos accepted, but I see that they have not gone live.   They don't show up as part of my portfolio, and they don't come up in a search.    Has anybody heard about when they are actually going to go on sale?

I've had reasonably good luck with selling editorial at Dreamstime and Bigstock, and I'm happy to give 123RF a chance as well.    I find that there is very little rhyme or reason as to which editorial submissions each site accepts.   Some of my best editorials (in my opinion) have been rejected at Dreamstime and/or Bigstock, but I'm pleased to see that they were accepted at 123RF.