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Messages - Les

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76
General Stock Discussion / Re: Better understanding editorial
« on: April 17, 2013, 06:53 »

One consideration is the quality of those old images. If they were shot with a 35mm camera,  most likely the scanned material wouldn't satisfy the latest acceptance criteria.

EOS 1RT & EOS 1RN, - Velvia and Extachrome 100 - Fuji Drum-scanners.  Producing images up-to100mb at 300ppi. 

Digital results far surpassing many of the 'main stream' digital cameras that are accepted by agencies today.
A large portion of my online ports are scans.   I have had far less scans rejected than digitally shot images.


The question is not the quality of the work, it is the legally acceptable usage.

Based on my own experience, I found out that most of my old 35mm images were rather soft.  As at that time I photographed mainly to produce images for slide presentations and small prints, the softness in those applications was not a problem and not even visible. Looking back, I would attribute the softness mainly to the rather poor quality of the consumer lenses I used with the 35mm equipment.
So the poor quality of old 35mm images was not necessarily caused by using film, but rather by using inferior equipment and possibly incorrect technique. Sometimes, even the photo lab messed up the films. 

In contrast, my images from 6x9 and 6x17 cameras were captured on large format film and with much better lenses, and as Darren points out, they sometimes produced sharper images than one can get today with many digital cameras.

77
Quote
What do you after you make your website to sell your pictures ?

I would move to some warm island and wait for enough of those 99c payments to open a Tequila bar.

78
General Stock Discussion / Re: Better understanding editorial
« on: April 16, 2013, 23:25 »
Some years back (before digital) I spent a few weeks touring Scotland photographing castles.  This was at the time just a pet project as I am a bit of a history buff.

When I started uploading to agencies I submitted some images of famous buildings (certain London landmarks) where the building was the main focus of the shot, not just part of a landscape.  The images were rejected as I did not have Property Releases (Yes I did submit them as RF)

I have read so much now on property releases on different sites, and some of them seem contradictory,  that I'm now slightly confused.

So am I right to understand that if you upload an image of a copyrighted building, for example the Chrysler in New York, that as long as it is uploaded as an editorial image only and not RF then all is well in the world?

Thanks in advance for clearing things up?

One consideration is the quality of those old images. If they were shot with a 35mm camera,  most likely the scanned material wouldn't satisfy the latest acceptance criteria.

79
I'm also surprised about the time you are spending on the smaller sites. I submit to 20 or so, and the smaller ones are updated with 50 images, say, in no more than 5 - 10 mins per agency. My images are already keyworded, sometimes I have to add a release, but I don't submit to any site that requires more than a bare minimum of effort.

Those $10 returns add up after a while and they obviously continue even if you later decide not to add more images.

Steve

Conceivably, this practice can rob you of more than $10 for the same images on higher priced sites.


80
General Stock Discussion / Re: The Texture Store
« on: April 16, 2013, 23:15 »
For now, yes. We want to keep it simple and be a no brainer choice.Most 3D artist don't need high res anyway.

We might make the $1 offer for small sizes later on and introduce a $2 price for full res.

The biggest mistake a new business can make (for that matter, even an established one) is to price their goods too low. Just research all failed microstock startups.
 

81
I don't really see the point. Don't we already know what is good and bad with most sites? And, anything that most people don't know about will never get enough votes to be statistically significant.

If these become the official industry awards for micro sites will start sending people here to vote come polling time.

A side benefit could be a lot more contributors finding out about the forum, therefore becoming more informed about what is going on with micro in general and the alternatives out there. It could be another small catalyst to change.

I guess it's just me, but I think most of these companies suck. So, I shudder at the thought of them actually receiving positive awards for that.
Exactly!
Utmost caution should be exercised in wording the poll questions.
"Which is better" can be in the microstock world often stated more appropriately as "which is less evil".

82
General Stock Discussion / Re: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
« on: December 27, 2012, 12:29 »
To all my fellow stock shooters - good and valid for many years to come.
File in your legal form library along with the model and property releases.

Approved by my lawyer.

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday practised with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practise religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee .

* By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal.
It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting.

It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Best Regards ( without prejudice )

Les

83
Today, one of my images (black silhouetted object placed in the middle of a white background) was rejected because of:
Composition--Poor framing, cropping, and/or overall image composition
Yes, a highly coveted isolated object just waiting to be cut out and placed on another canvass.
 
Before I resubmit it, will it be enough to move it horizontally to the left or right third, or should I offset it also vertically?

BTW, I noticed that today the SS shares dropped about a dollar. Could be, that was the real rejection reason.

Les, just make sure the object is not too small in comparison to the white area. Not from this site, but I had a rejection because the size of the object fell below the size of the acceptable image size. Can be due to lack of such a description it might have been rejected with this note. Not saying it is, but just check  ;)

Thank you for all the comments.
In this case, the reviewer was just sloppy, incompetent, depressed, or mad at the whole world because of the recent drop of his Apple stock portfolio.
 
1. The object was actually quite large
2. The background was pure white - no off-white, light gray. I filled every available pixel with 0,0,0 white.
3. In the previous batch, there was a similar isolated object processed in identical way and that one was accepted.

It will be resubmitted as many times before, and most likely accepted second time around. Regrettably, rejections like this are a double waste of time - for the contributor and the reviewer as well.
Or if the reviewer is paid by piece (same payment for acceptance or rejection), he just generated for himself another unit of work for his next batch. That could be a good reason after all.

 

84
Thank you.
Indeed, I wanted to know the minimum image purchase price, since I wanted to calculate the base price required for the 8 cents royalty.
Armed with that information, and assuming a generous 16% commission rate (NOT purchased through Partners Program), it's now easy to calculate that a buyer has to part with $0.50 to generate the aforementioned 8 cents artist's royalty. If purchased through the Partners Program at the same $.50 base price, the already miniscule royalty would decline even further.

85
Quote
When IS were giving 20% to contributors, most people were happy as sales were great, now they give as low as 15%

Even 15% wouldn't be so bad. But once they figured out a legal way to form "partnerships" and skim away even more from the contributors, that allowed a quiet transition from merely a comfortably sustainable M.O. to something really lucrative (and I didn't mean lucrative for the contributors).

What's the minimum cost to buy a small/extrasmall image?
If it is $1.00, and contributor gets $.08 from the sale, that would translate to 8% royalty. If the image costs the buyer $2.00, the effective royalty is only 4%. Very profitable, indeed.
15 percent of 2 dollars is 30 cents.  (2 x .15 = .30)   What "partnerships" are you referring to?  The minimum cost is around 46 cents (I have never heard of lower).

Minimum cost of 46 cents?

I presume, you are thinking about the artist's royalty (commission), not the image purchase price. If so, this is unfortunately not true. Indies at IS are sometimes paid only 8 or 9 cents per image.

IS calls it "Partner program", other agencies may call their partners in crime "affiliates" or "distributors". The split between the hosting agency and distributors depends on the particular agency, but effectively the money is taken from the contributor and given to the distributor. In case of Alamy, their new contract for images sold by distributors specifies the split as follows: 30% to Alamy, 40% to the distributor, which leaves 30% to the artist.

In case of IS, the 8 cents image royalty would be substantially less than 30% of the image purchase price.

86
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When IS were giving 20% to contributors, most people were happy as sales were great, now they give as low as 15%

Even 15% wouldn't be so bad. But once they figured out a legal way to form "partnerships" and skim away even more from the contributors, that allowed a quiet transition from merely a comfortably sustainable M.O. to something really lucrative (and I didn't mean lucrative for the contributors).

What's the minimum cost to buy a small/extrasmall image?
If it is $1.00, and contributor gets $.08 from the sale, that would translate to 8% royalty. If the image costs the buyer $2.00, the effective royalty is only 4%. Very profitable, indeed.
 

87
I am sure you aren't the only exclusive happy, enjoy while it last, hope its forever!
Funny I see somebody gave me a minus for posting something positive and someone gave a plus to the guy posting a bad sale, not surprising though there seem to be a lot people on here now that are happy when others do poorly.
Maybe because the topic of the thread is: Which Agency IS the most Stingy and Cheapest? 

88
I got today from IS full eight cents ($.08) for an image.
Here is your answer.
 

89
Today, one of my images (black silhouetted object placed in the middle of a white background) was rejected because of:
Composition--Poor framing, cropping, and/or overall image composition
Yes, a highly coveted isolated object just waiting to be cut out and placed on another canvass.
 
Before I resubmit it, will it be enough to move it horizontally to the left or right third, or should I offset it also vertically?

BTW, I noticed that today the SS shares dropped about a dollar. Could be, that was the real rejection reason.

90
General Stock Discussion / Re: Just had to share this...
« on: December 11, 2012, 04:22 »
Looks like the Statue of Liberty - just the carrots are pointing the wrong way.

91
General Stock Discussion / Re: Alternatives to Alamy?
« on: December 07, 2012, 04:32 »
Well, nonexclusive RM is as good an oxymoron as military intelligence.

The reason, why the agency takes as an image as RM, is that they can track and police its use.
By the way, RM used to stand for Royalty Managed.

92
General Stock Discussion / Re: PicturEngine: Some thoughts
« on: December 05, 2012, 02:05 »
Quote
Until either such time as the site is proven to work for us or until they reduce their asking price, we can control which microstock site we upload to first, because the first site our image is placed on, will be the one that is indexed at PE, giving us all a chance to direct the buyer to the microstock site who gives us the most favorable return.
What do you with the existing images?
It would be better if Picturengine could override "the first placement" and instead used the "preferred site" (our own platform) for the image indexing and display.

93
General Stock Discussion / Re: Check Out PicturEngine
« on: December 05, 2012, 01:57 »
Personally, I wouldn't call it "surcharge".
Processing or handling fee sounds just fine and that's what it is.


94
General Stock Discussion / Re: The end is nigh. What will you do?
« on: December 04, 2012, 00:38 »
Maybe new specialized agencies catering to niche markets will be born - for farmer's produce, dentists, hand-shakers, glamour, smartphones in hot tub, vampires, ...

95
General Stock Discussion / Re: Check Out PicturEngine
« on: November 29, 2012, 02:22 »
Quote
if paypal is the ONLY payment method, then no problem, but if buyers can also pay in a way that doesnt encur paypal fees, then it's a violation of the paypal terms to have the buyer pay a surcharge
You may be confusing Paypal with eBay. eBay indeed forces the sellers to absorb the Paypal fees.
On the other hand, sellers who advertise their goods on other platforms, such Craigslist, Photography Forums Buy&Sell sections, etc. are routinely adding 3% for Paypal processing fees.
 

96
General Stock Discussion / Re: Check Out PicturEngine
« on: November 25, 2012, 01:22 »
Justin,

if we register now for the advertised Black Friday-Cyber Monday trial RM/RF version, can we later switch to our own platform (i.e. ktools or Photoshelter) and still retain the "BetaRegistered" status?

97
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy cutting all commissions by 10%
« on: November 24, 2012, 19:20 »
Quote
I don't understand the need of having re-distributors in these "acces for everybody" internet days. It was more undesrteable ten or twenty years ago, when customers had to be reached through  more pedestrian means.

Because its one of the legal and safe ways how to take money from their contributors.
Just form (or indirectly join) another company and fund them with money taken away from original investors (graphics artists and photographers).

98
Quote
Yes, PictureEngine has talked to Ktools about getting something working (that's what they told me) but it would still require ktools to create the output (at least for it to be fully supported by ktools).  Ktools seems pretty swamped with it's updates and features (not to mention fixing the search) that I'm not holding my breath on how fast it will be implemented.
This seems to be really poor planning. If Ktools thinks that they can make their program work with PictureENgine, it should be incorporated into their road map plan, and announced so. Of course, competent search is very important, too.

If we knew, that the link between KTools and PictureEngine is coming soon (in the next release), we could start loading our images into KTools, and be ready for that next step. I'm sure that with a concrete time plan, and assurance of both companies that they are committed to mutual cooperation, many contributors would sign for both services, and give that needed boost to them.
On the other hand, with no information forthcoming and only vague promises, nobody is going to waste their time and money.

Ktools and Picture Engine, if you are listening, get together and make it happen.
 
 

99
Thanks Lisa,
I agree that Picture Editor isn't there yet. I'm hoping to talk to the creator of Picture Editor this week, and find out where they are, and how much longer it will take. I will bring up KTools for you. I checked out your website and wondering why at this moment the way your set up that Picture Editor wouldn't work right now?
I know it's in Beta testing, so throw it up and find out if it works or not. I'm not saying jump ship right now, I'm saying test it out.

As for everyone here, I'm saying get your ducks in a row.... Not to jump of the Agency bandwagon just yet. I'm saying get yourself ready! Get a website that will host your images and price them the way you want, and will deliver them to your clients and deposit the money directly into your bank account! Photoshelter does that right now!

Wait for someone like Picture Editor or another web person to build a search engine, that will find our images and our images only. Someone that won't use the Agencies, but just all of us banded together!

Will it take time, yes...but what are you supposed to do, continue taking less and being treated each year more poorly? Wake up... get a clue the writing is on the wall for all of us!

Really the writing should be on the wall for all the Agencies, once we stand up and tell them the shove it!

Are you talking about PictureEngine or is Picture Editor yet another option?

What is the principal problem with supporting KTools under PictureEngine?
Are these two companies talking to each other? If those two programs could work together, both companies would surely gain many independents as clients.
 

100
General Stock Discussion / Re: Hot microstock concepts for 2012
« on: September 27, 2012, 19:25 »
Quote
I'm sure the agencies feel that weeding out the old junk would be prohibitively expensive

Not necessarily, you just run a batch program that looks at the history of each image every night or once a week.
Dreamstime is automatically deleting old images with no sales in four years. Gradually, the criteria could be raised even to images that sold in the early days but haven't sold in last five years or so.

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