Why use the proprietary PSD format? TIF is open format, lossless too, and has about the same size. I have to admit I use zipped TIF (which is more compact). For photos, why should you save layers?  The flat TIF is enough, unless you do illustrations.

I save: the original CR2, the untweaked JPG from cam, and the final TIF with all the edits. From there I can generate the JPGs for upload. I save on external disks, at least 2 copies. On average, I obtain 30 Gig per month like that, that's one extra 1TB disk per year. Considering the price of disks, that's peanuts.  

Bigstockphoto was always very low earner for me, but I had a payment almost every month. In December I have 0 dls. It has never happen before (I'm here for over 2 years). Looks like BS is slow dying.

After more than 2 months of image pending, my 500+ photos only approved 2... so sad.

Somebody just asked me to comment here so I figured I would...

Our stock photo section took off like wildfire in just the last couple of months and we've had more submissions than we expected in such a short period. That's a good thing and we know many of these new images are from the members here on this forum. So, let me say thank you to those that are getting in on the ground floor with us...we appreciate your early support.

Now, the big question everyone has is on sales, or lack of in some cases, right? Just like we said from the start a couple of months ago, stock photos are new to The3dStudio.com and we never intended to be an istock overnight. We don't intend to ever be an istock for that matter, it's just not what we are about here, but I think our stock sales will see some great increases in the next few months as we ramp up our advertising campaigns.

In the past few weeks we've seen great increases in stock sales and we are very pleased with that trend but that doesn't always translate into 1000 sales for every single seller every month. Part of that is just simple supply and demand and our supply shot up almost overnight and now we are starting to focus on increasing the demand. I can sell 100 images in the next hour but that doesn�t mean every photographer will get 10 sales or even 1 from that simply because we have a very large library from many contributors so the sales are more spread out than they worth 1-2 months ago.

Our intent from the start was to focus mainly on getting new contributors at The3dStudio.com for the last few months of 2009. We have been doing that while we continue to improve our stock upload tools, categories, search features, and so on. We�ve also added our �x-small� 400 pixel size for a $2 purchase along with an Extended License option that we think is an industry best and offers something other sites do not. Next up is a very major site design upgrade and this is very much focused on the custom side of the site as we continue to improve their experience�I can�t give away too much yet but it will be a much cleaner design, will be wider, and will have increased thumbnail sizes. It�s all coming soon.
From there our plan has always been to focus 2010 on bringing in customers and that plan is still 100% on track. We have some various advertising campaigns that will be starting then (some have already started) and this will help us bring in more customers.
I know some people like to �wait and see� and either won�t add any images until they hear of increased sales or maybe they only had a small percentage of their collection until they see an increase. While I understand the logic behind that, the flip side is that the more images we have the larger we become and the faster we can bring in customers. If you have images to add then we would love to get them added, it�s a very fast process and once you�ve done that you don�t ever have to touch them again. You have nothing to lose but a little bit of your time, and a very small bit at that.

So, I will end this overly long reply with a thank you to those who continue to support us. It will be worth your time in the long run but we aren�t here to compete against istock, shutter, or any other stock site. We�re doing things differently and different can be good if you give it a chance.

Really extremely useful info about the drivers Denis.  Thank you!

Just as an update, my HP Pavilion Elite arrived.  I spent about 20 hours over three days trying to get it configured with my software, etc., and on support calls because the thing was so buggy.  

It kept freezing up at random times, for no apparent reason, along with other strange things like the video card blinking off and then recovering, internet access one day and none the next, etc.  Just a whole lot of issues.

Their support was just awful - their only solution was to keep having me do system recoveries, which of course wiped out 6 hours of work adding software and configuring the thing the way I wanted it.

Finally I returned it.  Googling HP Pavilion Elite with the i7 processor it turns out that apparently they have faulty mother boards.  There is a class action lawsuit filed about it.   I am breathing a big sigh of relief that I sent it back rather than continuing to do system recoveries forever until the return period expired.  

After some research I have ordered a Dell XPS 9000.  It appears much better reviewed than the HP.  Keeping my fingers crossed this will solve my speed problems.  Hopefully I will be able to stand looking at the fugly red and white case...