Found in Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/image-libraries-become-laughingstocks-for-advertising-industry/article17710066/?click=dlvr.it

Topaz Labs is currently offering a 50% discount on their DeNoise 5 (Noise Reduction) plugin. The special price is only $39.99 instead of regular $79.99 which is a great value for possibly the best noise reduction program. The current promotion runs from Mar 11 to Mar 31, 2014. To buy it at the reduced rate, use my referral link below:

http://www.topazlabs.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=861&url=http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise

and enter "mardenoise" as the 50% discount code

I posted a short review of Topaz DeNoise 5 with some examples on my blogsite 

http://advantica.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/topaz-denoise-5-50-sale-until-march-31-2014/


http://www.topazlabs.com/861.html

Les Palenik
(905) 773-0749
Blog: http://advantica.wordpress.com

I found on Amazon one of my images on a small travel/local interest book cover that has been published both as paperback and Kindle ebook.
The cover contains the book title, my image, and smack under the image is the writer's name. As it is customary on Amazon, you can display the "Look Inside The Book" section that shows the book cover in full size (in this case without any copyright notice).
 
I don't know if the image acknowledgment / copyright notice is included inside the book or not, but the present book cover design would imply that the image was created by the person whose name is underneath the image.

Is it legal not to include imagemaker's name and copyright notice on the cover? (maybe not so important in a traditional paperback book that can contain such information inside the book, but it's a different story with an ebook and its presentation)
 
Here is the link to the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Spotlight-Georgian-Cottage-Country-ebook/dp/B00AUZSA0W/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1392449770&sr=1-1&keywords=georgian+bay#reader_B00AUZSA0W

I'm looking at the Adobe's Camera Shake in PS CC, Topaz In Focus, and DeblurMyImage to fix some old images taken handheld with a long lens.
Is anybody using these tools and what's your verdict?

The current image categories are functional, easy to use by the authors and buyers, and work great.

However, since Symbiostock was designed primarily for the benefit of the artists, it doesn't have to be as restricted as the conventional agencies. I envision the underlaying image database as a powerful and flexible platform being able to store additional information that could add even more value to the system.

Specifically, I'm thinking about additional categories. For lack of better word, I'd call it artist categories, type, groups, or something similar. Maybe even two more fields - type and group.
The users wouldn't necessarily see or use it, but the contributors could use various codes to assign more meanings to their images, and then filter on it and possibly even perform other processes on the filtered sets.
For example, we could have various pricing codes, filter on them, and then perform a bulk price change. Or a "original" and "derived (cropped) image" category. Perhaps creation year or maximum image size. Color workspace and other technical data, such as camera, lens, or filer used.
Everybody hase different needs, but by adding a few extra codes / fields to the image database, we could configure and use the images creatively to make our "digital assets" even more useful and productive. Something between Lightroom and inventory item database.

Having those extra codes doesn't mean that they have to be used by everyone. Some people would find it vary valuable, some may never use them, and others might warm up to them once their basic site is up and running.

I was not sure if I should post this in Development, Suggestions, or Marketing, so the General section is as good as any.

At one time, I was quite happy if I could make my image large enough to reach the minimum size of 4MP.
Now, with large sensor cameras, we can get sharp files at 24 or 36MP, or alternatively, crop a large file in 6 different ways to make multiple subimages. Is it better to post just one image in the original large size (consequently making the individual objects and features in it perhaps too small for the thumbnails), or would you split the large image into several smaller images (so they would look bigger in the thumbnails)?
What's best for the buyer?

Obviously, buyers on the subscription sites will choose most often the largest available size and then they crop it any way they want, but in the Symbio marketplace they may select the smallest size that will do, so proper cropping may be more important.
 
Another issue with the image size is that I'd like to see more than 4 sizes available for the download, incl. panoramic format. I realize that we can specify the individual 4 images sizes, but right now, the difference between the last two or three image sizes seems too much. Having at least one more size would allow more flexibility in pricing. 

One more constraint with having only 4 image sizes is the fact that even if we submit the largest image available, that size may vary across the portfolio. For instance, some images were taken with a 6MP and some with a 12, 16 or 24MP camera. With the present setup, all these sizes in their maximum availability are priced on the same level.   

 

In my SYS setup, I selected ImageMagick option, but when processing images, the top line shows that I am using GD library
So, which one is it and if the Image Processing uses GD Library, how can I switch it to ImageMagick? Or should I ignore that message?

Below are the screen shots:

Thanks in advance,

Les

Yesterday, I encountered a problem when testing image downloading. The interesting thing was  that for a change, that problem was actually on the buyer's end, not on the Symbiostock website (of course, that didn't occur to me).

With Leo's help, who was able to download the image without any problems, we figured out the problem was related to some browser issue on my computer, and it was resolved by rebooting the computer and a fresh login by the buyer (I was the buyer).

Maybe this was just a freak coincidence (I was running multiple wordpress sessions on the same computer), but it occurred to me that in order to keep the buyers happy, it would be nice and helpful (I should say - essential) to have some trouble-shooting knowledge base also for the buyers (accessible by buyers directly or by the contributor who wants to help his customer).

Nothing worse than a dissatisfied buyer who after one bad transaction might never return to any Symbiostock site again. Especially if he spends just a few bucks on a bloggee size image, and after an aborted transaction he just writes it off and walks away instead of reporting the problem to the website owner. Situations like this might be invisible yet damaging for the whole network, while establishment of a Troubleshooting Knoeledgebase and reporting/feedback by the buyers should prevent problems, improve their experience, and entice them to come back.





 

 
 

If I want to add short blogs to my stockphoto site,
a) is it best to create a separate wordpress blog site and link it to the Symbio site via an external link or
b) can you use the Posts (or pages?) in the existing Symbio site and incorporate the blog structure (current and archives) in the menu?

I have an existing blogsite at www.advantica.wordpress.com, used for general blogging, but there I don't mix image pages and posts (images are included directly in the posts).

If I want to add blogs directly to the Symbio stockphoto site, should I write blogs as posts or pages, and how can I separate them from the image pages?
 
Thank you in advance,

Les