|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - old crow
26
« on: July 23, 2014, 06:10 »
I think they have already made their investment back and are just raping it. Anything they can come up with that makes a little money is just a bonus, and this is where it gets dangerous. After buying a company, making your money back, then squeezing out every penny, what would you do with the site to make one last ditch effort before throwing the carcass in the trash ? What happens to Getty when istock collapses ? nothing !
These companies may have expexted a contributor revolt long before this and are amazed that actual humans still contribute for this amount.
27
« on: July 22, 2014, 19:22 »
Is the collection destroyed, could they have somehow placed a rating on each image so they could at some point reverse what they did??
It would be massive to re-evalute every image and keyword in the collection.
28
« on: July 19, 2014, 06:22 »
Keep pissing people off, one of these days some smart person is going to see a chance at instant success just by offering all the contributors respect of not bending them over and going at them anytime you want more money. Some day somebody might just get an attourney and all this crap and all these lies are going to step on some anti trust law.
And also someday some of these contributors are going to figure out that their hanging on to the lies for a few pennies is what is allowing these companies to treat them like whores.
Grease up people, it's not going to stop here.
29
« on: July 15, 2014, 12:10 »
I think the economy is still sputtering along on 5 cylinders. The DOW may be at an all time high but that is because of quantitive easing (money printing).
The economy in my eyes is still sick, it never really came back to life and it also changed the spending habits of a lot of people forever. Some businesses may be doing well but others are still struggling with the great recession.
30
« on: July 14, 2014, 15:00 »
""Hmmm, if you limit it to exclusive images how do you prevent contributors from "dumping""
As stated, it is to be a well curated collection, you can't dump garbage there.
31
« on: July 14, 2014, 05:53 »
Do you want to be unique and limit the normal mega dumping of images onto a site? Make every image exclusive ( image not artist ) to the site. Good artist, well curated and image exclusive, that should be a calling card. It may initially stunt the growth of the collection but that would do 2 things. It would give the site and staff time to get up to speed correcting bugs and it would ensure a long term commitment on the sites part. It would also allow for a smaller startup staff/cost.. People that are expecting to get higher pay should expect to provide a much better product for it. This would give the collection a truly unique appeal to the customer and a sense of respect and dedication by/to the artist.
If FAA had this mindset it would be better off today. Hint,,, Keep an open mind to expanding in the future as a curated wall art printing service of high quality.
32
« on: July 10, 2014, 05:57 »
A new agency would desperately need startup money. It needs the mindset of the originator of stocksy (with a larger collection in mind) , a staff to curate, and the software to run it along with the advertising.
No agency is going to get off the ground without every image being screened. Fine art america's growth is stunted because it is full of useless images, it's basically a printing service anyway. The same with non-screend stock. The collection must be high quality images on an outstanding website .
Stocksy sells the better cooked images of the stock world. The originators knew not to try and outsell the 99 cent Mcdonalds double cheeseburger. All they had to do was sell the big delicious 1/2 lb bacon supreme with great beef on a special bun. The money was better, the staff was smaller, the headaches were smaller. Why try and sell cheaper than all the rest of the restaurants on hamburger row. Even if you do somehow make it, your profits are terribly low, workload is high and product is crap.
The collection must be curated which means
there must be a staff which means
it is going to have a to be a business which means
it is going to have to have capital.
The website needs to be awesome as well. I can not believe how cluncky shutterstocks website is. In fact, a lot of really great companies have really crappy websites.
33
« on: July 07, 2014, 18:50 »
Thank you
34
« on: July 07, 2014, 15:33 »
Stocksy seems like a great agency. You simply need a stocksy style agency with more common images/themes. Think of how many contributors would jump to an organization that takes their well being in consideration. The end to many oraganizations could actually be an agency that paid contributors more, that would be ironic, an agency that pulled all the images away from the others simply by paying them more  Would you go exclusive for 30-40-50 % ? Symbiostock was close but needed a common webpage and reviewers with a percent of profits to the agency. Full disclosure: I am not a stocksy contributor and I do not think my work is anywhere near good enough to even apply.
35
« on: July 07, 2014, 15:11 »
Are there any internal key word links that the agencies do automatically, such as sand and dirt ? Or is it all up to keyword skills? The keyword generators, are they problematic and cause rejection? Some of the stuff key generators do seems odd. How do I educate myself on keywords that are neccessary but most new folks wouldn't even think about?
Thanks for your help.
36
« on: July 01, 2014, 06:29 »
The massive collections growth at istock, why? Was there even one reason for it. Has it had a benefit?? The massive black hole as it is known seems to have damaged istock, both for contributors and customers,, I wonder how it has been for istock profit. It seems all of this could have been forseen by anyone, everyone. It is however still occurring right, why?
37
« on: June 30, 2014, 15:39 »
Several times inside agency forums I see customers complain that images are getting to expensive. Can someone explain this, do the customers realize who are in the forums and how much they get?? What task are they accomplishing that they're budgets are stretched ?? If they are using that many images there business must be good right.
There are times I feel as though half the forum is biting their tongues, kicking the dog and everything else to keep from cussing these people out. Some of this stuff is used in big places.
Maybe I need a lesson in who buys images, how much they cost the customer and what types of customers there are. Sometimes I wonder if some guy with a BMW M6 in his driveway is complaining of image cost.
Thanks
38
« on: June 22, 2014, 18:00 »
After the dollar photo club punishment to several members, are you afraid the agencies are watching and you no longer speak freely?
39
« on: June 22, 2014, 11:58 »
The first thing that must be done is to spread the word with a level head and a long lasting effort to create unity and slow change..
The community must come together with a vision, then it cvan proceed forward.
Attacks and anger will only disolve the hearts and cooperation of the community. There must be a voice, just like MSG has gathered this community..
40
« on: June 21, 2014, 19:09 »
Photographers are supposed to see the light, I guess in the literal sense only. Prices have gone down, down, down and special offers have poped up. Some photographers that said they would never ..... actually did, others sold out, others changed, some quit. The ever changing landscape of microstock keeps people asking why did they, how could they, did they just do that. Shutterstock was always the rock of gibraltor. Going public made Oringer and others very rich. It reminds me of young people with internet start ups that grew the business then sold out. In an article by xconomy, Oringer says the reason for going public was to elevate Shutterstock. http://www.xconomy.com/new-york/2013/05/23/ceo-jon-oringer-speaks-about-deciding-to-take-shutterstock-public/Now some of the profit goes to share holders, will any more of it ever get to contributors?? Is the truth right there in front of everyone and no one wants to see it, was there some true substance to going public? Everytime I see an article asking about unionizing photographers several people jump in and kill the thread and make the OP feel ashamed. Then I saw that everyone had actually unionized after all, It was called the dollar photo club union, and it got results. What is a union? dues paying line picketing sign carrying auto workers that need a shave ?? Maybe there is more than one kind. The ride from here on out is going to be rough, unlike mustard and ketchup that need to be manufactured, driven to the store and placed on the shelf, digital images never go away. Microstock photographers are being lead around by the nose, and the *B*****s* that are getting rich do not give a *d** about you. Now can you see the light 
41
« on: February 22, 2014, 07:19 »
2 things about tablets, there is a plastic cover that you can purchase that will basically eliminate nib wear. I do not use my tablet alot but it does not seem to hurt the pressure sensitiviy too much, (some people on the internet say to cut your own nibs using weed eater line .065" nylon). My CTH670 Create is like sandpaper. Also, if you get a tablet either get one that is wireless or be ready to buy a longer cable, waucom provides an incredibly terribly short cable for some reason, never figured out why such a great tablet company would make such an idiot move as a 2.5 ft cable, probably to sell the 50$ wireless add on.
42
« on: February 19, 2014, 07:09 »
Now that I opened the door, what is the current feel of oversaturated colors (within reason) at SS. I know they were the in thing before what about initial subm ??
Thanks
43
« on: February 18, 2014, 07:12 »
Thank you, I will do that shortly.
44
« on: February 17, 2014, 13:38 »
SHS, I went crazy with trying to get every shadow out, then I started looking at images for sale on the microstock sites, and many images have some light / soft shades of shadow when on white background. I am now gun shy of submitting but when I compare my images to others mine are actually pretty good. I just have to get over being too picky.
45
« on: February 17, 2014, 10:17 »
"On White" should not look like a badly isolated image though"
Thanks Sean,
SHS, as I see it, on white is an object photographed on a white surface and may include some mild shadows and detail (tablecloth etc). Isolated, is exposed and shot to eliminate shadows and show no detail, it is sort of blowing out the white area,
clipping path, is the art of removing an image and placing it on a different background or leaving it with no background so the customer can choose the background.
46
« on: February 17, 2014, 09:22 »
Thank you.
47
« on: February 17, 2014, 06:57 »
I see that SS appears to like very bright images. Do they accept on white or must it be isolated ?? Still gathering images for first 10.
Thanks
48
« on: February 15, 2014, 18:41 »
""Thanks old crow. I just tried. It works.""
Glad I could help.
p.s. That cockroach of yours has become a mascotte ! ! !
49
« on: February 15, 2014, 14:00 »
In PS Bridge Menu go to Tools = Photoshop = Load files into PS layers (or just load images into PS in sequence)
once in photoshop highlight all layers then go to
Edit=autoalign, choose type , I used auto, this takes a few minutes,
Edit- auto blend = stack images, (get a cup of coffee), look closely and be prepared to repair on complicated images.
I once aligned 18 images with this method 23" x 162" a 2.034 gb tiff. I found out jpeg has 30k width/height pixel limit. Be prepared for PS to get squirrley with big jobs.
50
« on: February 09, 2014, 10:21 »
Editorial will only crowd source until some actress or actor gets publicized and the images turn out to be fake. Editorial crowd sourcing will change very rapidly after that. Imagine a nuclear explosion occuring somewhere only to find it was hoax by a group of people all reporting a mushroom cloud from different angles.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
