Quote from: ShadySue on March 23, 2011, 17:48

There has been an ongoing $0 sale issue.
It looks like Getty Images is the most likely answer for the OP. The images were only put up on Getty at the very end of January, and February sales aren't due to be notified until the end of March.

Really? It's never sold at all (apparently) in 15 months on IS but as soon as it gets to Getty it sells almost immediately. Possible but hardly likely.

Considering that Istock can't even build a secure site or a working search engine and simply gave up attempting to produce real-time statistics 3 years ago ... why would anyone assume that their sales reporting system was particularly robust? Istock have got plenty of form when it comes to accounting 'errors' that just happen to be in their favour ... but not so much the other way.

I'm surprised the OP hasn't yet contacted the magazine to find out where and when they bought the license.

Oh, I'm not defending iStock. Just the possibilities.
I believe from hearsay that if CE are looking into it, they ask you not to contact them yourself.
Of course, it could just as easily be that it is a genuine sale which hasn't been reported to the tog.

The thing is, these targets could be motivating for some and demotivating for others. If some see that they could reach the next target they could beaver away, competing with other suppliers for the few spaces at the higher rate - and to make 'them' more money, of course.
If some see, realisitically, that they are very unlikely to reach the higher rate, whatever stage they're at, they could just say, what.
They were far better having people co-operating to raise each other.

The point when my photography really turned the corner was when I learned to see "quality of light", not intensity, quality.  One morning, yes, morning, not evening, go out before the sun rises; sit in a chair and watch the light change.  Watch the change from purple to red and yellow to brighter shades of white; do no leave your chair till the sun is 15 degrees above the horizon, roughly 9 am.  Every once-in-a-while, close you eyes to blank out everything; then open them and look at the light (not the sun, the light).  Notice the shadows, the softness of the light, the feel of the light, and so on.  It will not come the first time, it may take 100 times but once you train you body and eyes to see the light, your images will change because you have changed.

Excellent advice, but it depends on where you live: if it's here, it'll need to be well before 6 a.m. nowadays (we just had the equinox), and the sky/light will just get paler and paler grey. Also, if you're in a valley, as I am, the light intensity will be strong before it gets to you (depending on the direction of the valley, I guess!).
You may need to make a special trip. Or it may be right outside your door.
OTOH, if you live near the equator, that will all happen within about 10-15 minutes: pitch dark to 'harsh' within 1/2 hour.

Seems to have been an enormous best match change this afternoon, at least in a couple of my 'test' keywords. Looks like 'slider in the middle' has lots more new files on the first page; slider at the right favours downloads and new uploads are way down.
Oh, just tried a different keyword, and although the slider position gives a different sort, neither favours new files.

Quote from: ShadySue on March 22, 2011, 05:07

Quote from: aeonf on March 22, 2011, 03:35

Could some one please explain me what makes illustration Vetta different from photo Vetta ?
Why so much negativity against it with illustration but not against it regarding photos ?

When photo Vetta was introduced, the deal for producers was much better, then having lured us in, they shafted us.

Yes i know this, but now its the same deal for illustration and photo vetta. so why not rebel against photo vetta as well

You can start it, if you like - I'm banned.
Plus I can't see iStock quaking in their shoes if I threatened to pull out of Vetta. It needs to be a seriously big hitter with lots of high-sesling Vetta pics; also that they wouldn't like to delete or ban in case they pulled their port or became independent.

Ah, but remember there are some buyers who always ask for more serious expressions.
Submit both, but leave some time between uploads.

I did a search for one image that was accepted yesterday using words that bring it to the top one to five images on top of page one on Shutterstock and Dreamstime (even after many months online) and after going through 7 or 8 pages on IS, I still couldn't find it.

It's always been around 24 hours between being accepted and showing in your port. Now it's taking between 24 and 72 hours to get from acceptance to portfolio and then it might take up to another 48 hours to show in the search. But that's not consistent. Sometimes it's 24 hours in port and in search. Must just depend when your acceptance comes in compared to when they update things. Or something.

Why don't they just have fields that you fill in eg.
day
month
year
town/city
state
country

Then they can put in what ever h#ck#ng order they want. Of course that would make sense and will not be adopted.

I suggested that to the leads right when the programme was rolled out. As you say, too sensible. And too easy: that's web 101 and the iStock webbies have to be 'cutting edge'.

Had another strange one today.
Rejected for different date in EXIF and in caption.
Oh, ditsy me, I thought.
So I resubmitted, and the date in that auto-populated 'date created' field was the same as the date I'd put in the caption. Checked the rejection notice again, and it said that the EXIF was different. (I just take the date from the 'date created' into the caption). Checked the file EXIF in Bridge, and right enough it was one day different.
AFAIK, that hasn't happened before. I had another rejection a couple of weeks ago, which was a no resubmit. The inspector also pointed out I had different dates, but I put that down to my carelessness and didn't check.
How on earth can that happen?
So I changed the 'date created' field and the caption to be the same as the actual EXIF data, and put a note in for the inspector.
That comma is still killing me. Although I was trying hard to remember, I had another 'comma' rejection today. After I resubmitted it I checked my queue and found 8 out of 38 where I'd forgotten the bl**dy comma, and (as we can't change captions) I had to cancel and upload them again, in case I got the inspector with the comma obsession (the others don't seem to mind).

If you want to engage with an ethical, generous photo agency, put your stuff with Alamy. They let you keep 60% of what you earn and then they hand over most of their 40% to medical research. And - amazingly - they find that doing so is "sustainable", even though their turnover is much lower than iStock's.

Oh that would be soooooo ideal: if only it were sustainable for contributors too (haven't had a sale there for a month now).

Deactivated files are showing in lightboxes, though unpurchasable.
E.g. here's one - the images were accepted last year, then deactivated for IP, I have reuploaded them as editorial, so two of several images are showing.
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/7851533/#10c45393
I'll leave it like this for illustrative purposes, then I'll take them out of the lightbox in a few days. I clearly didn't think to bother to take them out of the lightbox when they were deactivated.
Might affect other people too: I saw a post in the iStock forums. I don't think they're showing in ordinary searches.

I've experienced delays when the batch ended up with 'partially failed' status. In every case this happened, it was because of 'file processing error' in one of the files in the batch. Which I assume means some type of technical problem with the file itself (rather than the photo content of it). I also assume that in this case the batch goes to some other queue.

Yes, that's maddening when your batch was held up for something which wasn't even your fault.

Don't even get me started on bankers' bonuses, e.g.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12663730