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Messages - w7lwi
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151
« on: May 17, 2015, 20:25 »
Reliable income stream is the important thing here, unfortunately for many of us at some point we are running to move backwards - or in my case walking...
SS is definitely turning into Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass (I don't remember which). As the Red Queen said to Alice, "If you want to stay where you are, you must run as fast as you can. If you actually want to get anywhere, you must run twice as fast." Or to put it in SS terms: as Jon said to all the contributors, if you want to keep the same royalties, you must shoot and upload as fast as you can. If you actually want to increase income, you must shoot and upload twice as fast.  
152
« on: April 27, 2015, 20:28 »
Lee, I see by my stats that I've exceeded the payout threshold again. However, I've yet to see an e-mail letting me know I'll be getting a payment next month. Is this a new policy as the last time I hit payout I got an e-mail almost immediately after passing $100 (payout ended up quite a bit higher than that as the $100 mark was in the middle of the month)?
153
« on: April 14, 2015, 11:24 »
154
« on: March 27, 2015, 18:21 »
Wow! Canva has just about caught up reviewing my entire portfolio, including submissions from late last week. 100 approved today alone.
Good job Canva! 
Yes, having completed the backlog we're now working through the files uploaded while we were reviewing the backlog. We're going through contributor by contributor in the order of signup, so early adopters like yourself are already up to date. Hopefully only another few weeks before we're up to date with everybody.
Lee, you indicate the backlog is complete; however, I still have 14 images from last October/November marked "processing" that have not been reviewed. Why have these not been resolved and when can I expect to see these reviewed? Should I just say to h*ll with it and upload them again?
155
« on: March 25, 2015, 11:25 »
w7lwi, did iStock actually threaten to remove your portfolio if you didn't comply with their SEO directive?
No. Nothing about any sort of "incentive" in the e-mail. I was just brainstorming different ideas of what they could do to try to get us to do their work for them, both positive and negative. Couldn't come up with anything positive. No carrot and stick, only a possible stick.
156
« on: March 24, 2015, 10:58 »
I received the e-mail, but if they think I'm going to waste my time redoing everything then they must have been smoking those funny cigarettes. If they really want us to do something, then they need to give us an incentive, some motivation. The promise of increased sales is a non-starter on their site. Higher commissions ... doubtful. 100 percent of nothing is still nothing. Honestly I can't think of anything that would encourage me to go to all that work on their behalf. Threat to remove all images ... HA!!! That's almost an incentive to continue doing nothing. At least I wouldn't have to spend time removing images. They would do it for me. 
158
« on: March 08, 2015, 12:44 »
A few years back I needed to purchase two fluid heads and tripods for video production. I ended up with the Manfrotto 501 head and 3283B tripod. I know the tripod number is an old one, but I believe they still carry it under a different number. The only caution is be sure whatever tripod you get, it will accommodate the head. The 500 series heads will not mount on all tripods, so be sure your tripod is compatible.
159
« on: February 27, 2015, 18:17 »
Lee, I just checked my port and was pleased to see that most of the older images that had been "in review" had been inspected and approved. Only one "hard" rejection and one "soft" rejection. Still 4 images pending review, but those are the last 4 uploaded last November and will likely be inspected shortly. One question though. I still have 12 images marked "processing" These are all old images, uploaded before any of the images that were just reviewed. I had previously expressed concern about these but was told they would be reviewed along with the others in this new "oldest first" scheme. Now it appears they are still being overlooked. What is being done with regards to these older images that have this odd designation?
160
« on: February 26, 2015, 19:28 »
If Getty declared chapter 11 and contributors lost their royalties, how many would pull their portfolios, assuming they could? That would leave Getty with only their wholly owned collections. Hardly enough to interest potential buyers, except to buy off individual collections piecemeal, or realize sustainable sales levels. What would happen to iStock is problematic. It's possible they could be sold off as a standalone agency, but given their present situation that could also be an issue. Would contributors also start to bail from them as well?
Any way you slice it, it's not a healthy situation.
161
« on: February 23, 2015, 11:56 »
Just had my once-a-week check of DT and was surprised at the dozen or more $2.00 downloads over the past seven days. What made it even more surprising was several of them were first time downloads, not only for DT, but for all other sites where they are up. It will be interesting to see where they end up being used.
162
« on: February 20, 2015, 15:00 »
OK I was finally able to get in. BIG MISTAKE! With the low Friday sales showing I'd have been better off ignorant of what was going on.
163
« on: February 20, 2015, 11:08 »
I've been unable to log in to SS this morning as the CAPTCHA screen is not coming up. The I.D. and password screen appears, but the area where CAPTCHA usually shows is blank. If I just fill in the I.D. and password I get the message that the security code is incorrect. But since there is no place to enter the security code (or see it for that matter) I'm pretty much dead in the water.
Anyone else seeing this or run across this before?
164
« on: February 08, 2015, 16:32 »
I had two sales on GL last week; however, those were the first in a month or two. I'm less than a dollar away from payout. Once I reach that (if ever) I need to decide whether or not to stay with them. Doesn't cost anything to just leave images there, but if sales only come through once every few months, it could take years to ever see another payout. And the way things have been going there's no assurance GL could last that long. Without the ability to upload fresh images, it's almost guaranteed to stagnate.
165
« on: February 01, 2015, 22:48 »
Lee, thank you. As I mentioned there are only one or two (or thereabouts) images in the cut-out queue. I'll e-mail you their I.D. numbers separately. As to the others, I'll wait patiently for the backlog to be caught up.
Got them, thanks. All fixed up.
All is good. Appreciate the help. Cheers
166
« on: February 01, 2015, 14:58 »
My payout selection also did not come up, but I went ahead and manually selected it and filled it out. Everything was fairly straight forward.
167
« on: February 01, 2015, 14:56 »
Lee, thank you. As I mentioned there are only one or two (or thereabouts) images in the cut-out queue. I'll e-mail you their I.D. numbers separately. As to the others, I'll wait patiently for the backlog to be caught up.
168
« on: January 31, 2015, 22:14 »
Lee, I've got several old images (September/October vintage). Some say "in review", Others say "Processing", And one or two that say "Pending Cutout."
The in review I understand.
The pending cutout images were part of some of your early-on problems. These, like others already approved, are PNG images with clean edges and transparent backgrounds and should not be in the cutout queue.
Those marked processing were also part of the early-on problems. Their status was changed from whatever they were originally to "processing" and have been sitting ever since. I have no idea what the term "processing" represents.
I assume those marked in review will be handled in due course. I'm most concerned about the other two categories. Will they be reviewed, like others, in the order they were received or are they lost forever and should be uploaded again?
169
« on: January 26, 2015, 21:33 »
Guess what ... it's against the law to operate a drone in Washington D.C. Since when is a law against something going to stop anyone? It's against the law to do a lot of things, but some people still do them. Or, as Captain Barbosa said on the first Pirates of the Caribbean, "they're more like guidelines."
170
« on: January 24, 2015, 16:12 »
Just my opinion, but I believe they got out of SS for financial reasons alone. Look at where the stock price is now as compared to where it was and what Insight Venture paid for it initially. Also look at the environment SS is presently working in ... Adobe's purchase of FT, lower subscription prices at other sites, the DT and Getty/iS deals with Google, etc. As I recall, the initial stock price (for insiders, not us) was somewhere in the $15-$17 range. It rose to well over $100, then settled back in the $70 range. Recently it has taken a tumble down to the mid $50's. Likely Insight took a look at where they are now and did an analysis on where they felt the business/stock price would go in the near future. Their conclusion was (in my opinion only remember) the stock was not likely to appreciate much over their event horizon so they went ahead and bailed out, collecting a pretty decent return over their initial investment.
As to Hellman & Friedman, I think the term that better describes them, among others, is Vulture Capitalists. I don't believe Insight Venture falls into this group. They haven't done anything, that we are aware of, that any prudent financial capital firm would not have done.
171
« on: January 23, 2015, 21:44 »
ftp://Yeah, there's a program to help with that. It costs a fair bit, though, and I can't remember the name just now.
I think you mean Lightroom Timelapse:
http://lrtimelapse.com/
I installed the demo but haven't tested it yet.
Do you need to have Lightroom installed to use this or is it a stand alone program that will work with Photoshop? Also, has anyone outside of the EU purchased this? U.S. or ??
It will work with Adobe Camera Raw. Basically, you make all your adjustments to images in ACR by cutting and pasting .XMP data. When you go back into Lrtimelapse hit update and the software will read all the .XMP changes and create smooth curves. So you are back and forth between Lrtimelapse and ACR. It's a pretty easy program once you understand how it works, there is a learning curve though at first. He has some nice tutorials that explain it step by step. There is also a gizmo called "Promote Control" that will handle the bulb ramping iso ramping which makes editing a lot easier.
If interested, here is a couple day to night I did a while back with lrtimelapse/promote control. They both have some issues, but you get the idea. I'm still learning how to do these.
Thank you.
172
« on: January 22, 2015, 18:29 »
Yeah, there's a program to help with that. It costs a fair bit, though, and I can't remember the name just now.
I think you mean Lightroom Timelapse:
http://lrtimelapse.com/
I installed the demo but haven't tested it yet.
Do you need to have Lightroom installed to use this or is it a stand alone program that will work with Photoshop? Also, has anyone outside of the EU purchased this? U.S. or ??
173
« on: January 11, 2015, 20:36 »
I only check IS on Sunday evenings so between January 4 and today I had several PP sales (reported) but no sub sales. Overall I have so little activity on IS I probably should only check it monthly. 
174
« on: January 11, 2015, 20:30 »
I just had what appears to be an unusual series of downloads (for me at least) on DT. A single image downloaded as P-EL in three different formats: medium, large and extra large. Anyone seen this before and/or should I anticipate one or more refunds in the coming weeks? Images were downloaded on the 8th, so it's been a couple of days.
175
« on: January 03, 2015, 11:43 »
I'm an exclusive illustrator and although I have a small port I haven't had such a sales drought for several years with a port a tenth the size. No sales since mid Dec.
I can't help feeling there is something more serious going on than just a holiday slowdown.
Same problem here, only as an independent and with photos. Last sale was during the second week in December. Month was moving along, albeit slowly, up to that point and then ... brick wall. Zero sales ever since.
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