|
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 - PigsInSpace
101
« on: September 04, 2017, 21:37 »
After a little over two years, I've hit payout on Dreamstime, in large part thanks to what I think was a single person who boosted my typical daily sales count by about 1,000%. I suspect it will take a little less than two years to hit payout again.
My question is - how stable is Dreamstime? Do I want to maintain my account with the idea they'll still be a player in 2019, or is it time to close it down? The primary reason I'm asking is I don't know what would happen with balances if they were to shut down.
To be clear - I know nothing more about the company than everyone else here -- that they've been loosening license terms because sales haven't been what they wanted.
102
« on: August 04, 2017, 22:19 »
I feel you. The end of July was bad for me, but it ended up being my second best month ever thanks to a couple big sales earlier in the month. It's a crazy world...
103
« on: July 17, 2017, 15:02 »
At the beginning, they were trying to get their rental program off the ground by forcing people. Now the program has lots of subscribers, perhaps they will be concerned about the money they're leaving on the table by not selling licenses - or about putting Affinity Photo out of business.
I sure hope they don't try to go after AP. I really detested PSE when I was using it and I wouldn't go back to it even as a stand-alone program, much less a subscription. AP is much, much better.
I'll admit I do my work in Elements and am largely satisfied. It doesn't have CMYK or the basic vector tools full Photoshop has, but for regular photos it competes above its paygrade, at least for me. One thing that is a challenge is using both Elements and full Photoshop. For some strange reason some of the keyboard shortcuts and menus are in different places...
104
« on: July 10, 2017, 10:42 »
From the title, I was sure this thread was going to be about an airport security guard trying to confiscate your camera.
105
« on: July 01, 2017, 22:21 »
I've always sort of assumed as much. Granted, the header information would mostly just make clear the file was saved in Photoshop, and that could mean you just resized it.
106
« on: June 25, 2017, 14:52 »
I'm migrating from a PC and am looking for a good photo management program. I'm not big on the Adobe subscription model, so Lightroom is out.
On my PC, I'm still using date coded folders and manually sorting things, but thought I might try out something different on the Mac.
While I like the built in Photos app, that it hides the original photos in bizarrely organized subfolders makes it useless to process the initial Raw photos in Nikon's NX software or to use Xpiks to upload them to stock sites.
What are others using?
107
« on: June 23, 2017, 18:56 »
I closed my account within the last couple of weeks but still got one. I filled it out, and was honest about why I left. I suspect nothing will come of it, but I can help.
108
« on: June 10, 2017, 01:39 »
With the newest 32 bit version of Xpiks, when I open the Suggest window to search for keywords, I receive an 'SSL connect error' when I try to use iStock or Shutterstock's search functions. Oddly, it works fine if I select Fotolia. The error doesn't occur in the previous version I was using 1.3.3.
109
« on: June 07, 2017, 19:12 »
I officially submitted a request to close my iStock account. I said I would give them two months after the unification, and I ended up giving them more, although that was only because I had a payment issue that wasn't their fault that I wanted to fix before I asked them to close my account.
Two cents for a download is a joke. Maybe if it had been a rarity, but it just happened too much.
110
« on: June 05, 2017, 15:40 »
On the FAT32 issue - the partition size limitation is a relatively recent thing. I think Microsoft wanted everyone to switch to NTFS, so they restricted Windows from creating partitions larger than 32 gigs in FAT32. It's an artificial limitation that you can overcome if you use a different program to format the drive.
111
« on: June 01, 2017, 13:35 »
My number of sales was down a bit, but it was my BME because I got a few unusually high dollar (for me) sales.
112
« on: May 10, 2017, 20:00 »
Does it say somewhere in your account?
Check "My Credits".
An extra video sale for me.
Thanks. I never would've found it otherwise.
113
« on: May 01, 2017, 15:10 »
At long last, I finally got a sale on Alamy.
114
« on: April 09, 2017, 22:21 »
Yeah, I think it was a wrong decision to include the iStock portion of the take in the new reports. When you realize how much you're not getting it's not encouraging.
115
« on: April 09, 2017, 22:20 »
I was briefly really excited that this was going to be something that improved on their recent changes, some of which have been good, some of which have been annoying. Then I realized I had no idea what the Payment History page even was. Improve the Earnings Page! I've never used the Payment History page.
116
« on: March 27, 2017, 21:11 »
Generally it doesn't make a difference, the price is the same regardless. Except! On Fotolia I occasionally get a sale where the price is based on the image size. I only even noticed because I had two images from a series purchased simultaneously one day. I had inadvertently forgotten to downsize one of them, and made more on it as a result.
117
« on: March 23, 2017, 15:41 »
Could just be a bad reviewer. When I have photos rejected, I'll look them over and if I think the rejection is bunk, I reupload. Usually they get accepted the second time around.
118
« on: March 20, 2017, 23:33 »
I can't license the iStock images anywhere else, but I'll have to rethink leaving images there. Who'd have thought that a Thinkstock sale at 28 cent royalty could look good???
Tossers!
Why can't you license iStock images elsewhere?
119
« on: March 20, 2017, 23:32 »
I got a 2 cent commission. I told myself after looking at January's numbers I would give them two months, just in case January was a fluke. This month 46% of my sales were under $0.25, which is making it hard to even want to stay for month number two.
120
« on: March 13, 2017, 15:06 »
I just sent in my taxes. I had to use Excel Sales Spreadsheets for Pond5 and iStock. Not ideal, but it is what it is. I know they're accurate, and if I ever needed to, PayPal no doubt has records backing it up.
121
« on: March 12, 2017, 19:17 »
I had some long pending files along with a few others I hadn't gotten around to tagging. I finally tagged them and submitted them and a couple days later everything was approved all at once. I've been wondering if they hold off on processing images from an account if it has other un tagged photos.
122
« on: March 10, 2017, 00:03 »
You've got some great photos on Instagram. I'd put some of them on micro stock. Also, buyers generally want photos that have extra saturated colors. I ratchet up the saturation on everything I sell (except editorial). Unless you're going for a more somber mood deliberately, making the photo look like the best possible version of the place you're at is the thing to do. Obviously not every day has perfect sunlight or clouds, but you can make just about anything look better with simple photoshop effects.
Most of my images are landmarks and nature. I'm fairly casual; my portfolio is only about 300 images; I shoot stuff as I go places and upload it. Last year I probably had about 1,000 sales across five platforms, although I'll admit 40% of that is one image.
123
« on: March 07, 2017, 12:35 »
I think closer to 30 seconds is better, even though buyers are likely to only use a few seconds. My shortest video is six seconds, and I never really thought it would be downloaded, but it was today for the first time. Go figure! It's a building shot and someone walked into the frame that I didn't notice. Only six seconds was actually usable as a result.
124
« on: March 02, 2017, 17:00 »
In case you're reading this on a mobile device -- it doesn't look like the change has happened there, but the desktop site is doing what it should be!
125
« on: February 25, 2017, 02:49 »
I have no idea. It seems like a reasonable conclusion, that it was related to the switch. There's always the off chance that I somehow changed the box myself by accident.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
