SV can be criticized  for many thing, but most of them, I've learned to live with, and sales seem to be increasing anyway. There's one thing however, that I find so outright stupid, from a photographer's, a designer's as well as from SV's view, that I feel something should be done:

Medium resolution at SV is 1600x1200 pixels, which is around 2MP. Very small, and not enough for a good quality, full page print. Large resolution is 3000x2300 pixels, which is just under 7MP.

That means, that images from 6MP cameras, and there are lots of them about, some of them of very high quality, which would normally print very well full page (A4 format), are reduced to the measly 2MP size (or at least, that is how it looks to the customers).

An obvious result must be that designers fail to download images that may or may not be large enough, but since the designer can't know that, it's safer to go somewhere else. In the end, all involved lose. The photographer, because he loses a sale, SV likewise, and the designer, because he has to search further for a usable photo.

I tried to take this up with SV support around 6 months ago, but to me, it seemed like they didn't understand what I was saying. Does anybody else have thoughts around this?

Until recently, I received an email every time (like once per month) I had a sale at Crestock. However, when I checked my account there today (to see if it could be true that I had zero sales so far in March, just like in February), I actually had a couple of sales at the beginning of the month, but no emails.

Anybody with similar exprience?

I've stopped  worrying about rejections at SS, but some of them are more funny than others. Here's one from today:



Reason:
Poor Lighting--Poor or uneven lighting, or shadows. White balance may be incorrect.

I have considered different ways of improving the lighting in the photo. Asking the sun to hide behind a cloud to give a cooler, more even light could be an alternative. I could also take my studio strobes up in balloons on each side of this yellow one, to get correct studio lighting and not the unreliable sunlight I've used for outdoor shots previously.

Since the WB "may be incorrect", painting the sky in the correct SS-blue, is probably also a good idea.

On the other hand: all of this might cost more than 30 cent, so I'm not sure if I'm going to do it   

Another 30c added to my piggy-bank. It's not my best day at LO, far from it. There have even been days with sales of more than a dollar. With this latest sale though, LO is even comparable to IS, bringing the accumulated sales since February up to just 15% under my sales at IS. It must be said though, that in the case of IS, that was the sales for today only.

Oh well... tomorrow is another day...   

Does anybody have an idea what is happening at iStock? I try to browse through their forums, but apart from the usual "you're doing a great job!" and "I'm proud to be associated with iStock", there isn't much to find out.

Fact is:
- upload limits are at the bottom level
- review times are longer than ever
- technical problems are coming and going on a weekly basis, and at the moment, the statistics aren't working
- my new photos aren't selling at all
- my total sales have been going down every month since May, and so far, September represent another significant dip

A year or so ago, iStock looked more or less invincible, and although I've always found their attitudes (and their commissions) somewhat lacking, their sheer size has made participating there rather obvious. Now, they look like an old communist regime: big, bulky and slow, and with decreasing impact on the outside world.

I guess nobody here have the inside information needed to tell what is really going on over there, but what about some qualified guesses? Any ideas?

While I like the layout and concept of LO a lot, after six months, my commissions there are lower than those at stockphotomedia ant featurepics, the other bottom-feeders among those I upload to. I suspect that even Crestock will make me a millionaire before I reach my first payout at LO.

Is it only me, or do others feel the same???

I can't sort "my uploads" after "Last Download". Does anyone else have that problem?

Does anyone know how long time it takes to get paid at StockXpert? I requested payment to my Moneybookers account early Monday morning this week (26th), and got a message on my monitor that it would take 3 days, but so far no money   

I mostly enter current thread from the front pages. When I've finished reading a thread, and if I don't want to post anything to that thread, it would be nice to have a link back to the front page at the bottom of each page, since some of these pages are rather long.

Is it possible? It would save at least me several seconds ever year that I'm not sure what to do with yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something   

I just had my first sale at Paxxion. EUR 5.00 minus PayPal fee. Still it adds up to more than USD 6. It's impossible to say what the future brings on the basis of only one sale of course, but it does mean that they have at least one customer   

So far this month, I'm 80% above January for all agencies combined, in spite of no EL's and nothing else in particular. Just very healthy sales all over. But there's one exception: at StockXpert, I hardly have any sales at all this month ($3.50 so far). Not that I've had huge success there earlier, but it has been hovering between $10 and $20 each month since September last year, and my portfolio has increased a lot since then.

Has anybody else seen the same, or is it just me who need to pull myself together and upload some really sensational images.