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Messages - Mantis
5176
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:54 »
No hostility at all. It's not us vs. them. I was poking fun at the OP is all. Surprised you thought that comment seemed real.
5177
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:21 »
Fairly simple. Designers can take your color image and make them B&W, Sepia, or whatever. You limit the image usefulness in most cases by doing that. Give them the full monty and let them be the manipulator. Your images will be more marketable that way.
Ahk, good point. It's just that my main interest in photography is landscape, icons (buildings ie- Eiffel Tower) and animals. I find taking black and white and sepia shots more interesting. Also it seems that selling microstock photos mainly evolves around what the industry wants and less what you want to shoot, but that is fair enough.
This is a general rule. Doesn't mean your shots won't sell. Just that, "IN GENERAL" submitting pics in their native format of color is the most acceptable way to go. Give it a try. Part of stock is testing new ideas, concepts and styles.
5178
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:14 »
You're basing your assumption on the idea that price is all that makes buyers happy, when it isn't necessarily so. You can't fit everything above the fold.
Well, not really. I did mention quality....maybe I should have added composition....all I am saying is that there are some pretty competitive images with the upper echelon price points that don't get poop for placement when they should. Agree, though, that given all the collections you have to have a happy medium.
5179
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:10 »
After browsing through varies microstock sites I found that there are only a few amount of photos with effects such as Black and White, Sepia, Negative ect.
This leads me to two questions of curiosity, Why is this? and Do effects not sell as well as colour?
If anyone has an answer, please feel free to share 
Fairly simple. Designers can take your color image and make them B&W, Sepia, or whatever. You limit the image usefulness in most cases by doing that. Give them the full monty and let them be the manipulator. Your images will be more marketable that way.
5180
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:08 »
It's all or nothing with regards to exclusive images. YOU are exclusive or YOU are not exclusive. I think you can get all the answers by looking at the application and FAQ for iStock on the website.
Dreamstime and Fotolia also have exclusivity but they allow individual images to be exclusive.
Thanks for the reply traveler, I shall browse through the FAQ now.
@Mantis
Some of the questions are simple yes and no answers, but I am mainly interested in hearing experiences from exclusive photographers and images.
Thanks for the help
Here's why you are wrong in asking for this. Several contributors here WERE exclusives and no longer are. You would be wise to freely accept their opinions on the good, bad and the ugly of exclusivity. Otherwise you are only seeing one side of the story.
5181
« on: July 14, 2011, 19:04 »
Hi All,
I am planing to start selling some of my photos soon. I was wondering if selling photos in the lower earning tier is worth it? and which lower earning microstock sites are best to upload and sell on?
Kind Regards
-WD
If you are going independent then you need to decide if all the upload work is worth your time for a few buck a month. You need EXCELLENT images with large volume to make a nickle on these low tier sites. Start out with the top 3-5 first then when you have nothing to do, upload to low tier sites. Be careful which sites you upload to. Deposit Photos, for example, doesn't rub right with some folks. All up to you.
5182
« on: July 14, 2011, 18:56 »
I'm sure if you research a bit, you can find the requirements for exclusivity.
But yes, you will need to show some technical and conceptual skill to be accepted as a contributor to start.
I am aware of the quality images need to be. Like I said earlier I would like to hear from exclusive photographers about the questions I asked 
Thanks
Sean is exclusive. Why do you only want to hear from exclusives? They will pollute your brain. Why put up a poll for "exclusive" or "non exclusive" if all you want to hear from is exclusive. I'd reword and rephrase exactly what you are looking to gain from this thread. Very unclear as to who you're asking to participate and what you are looking for.
5183
« on: July 14, 2011, 18:02 »
'Can we please drop the fiction that best match has ANYTHING to do with what buyers want?'
Actually, I think the relevancy factor does a pretty good job of showing what other buyers were happy with. Within that, the mix of collections is what it is.
The best match was clearly designed for revenue push given all the different collections, not what makes buyers happy. I mean, why on earth would they put an image of equal quality with equal keyword quality at a fraction of the price (say, from an independent) on the back pages if this image were to make the buyer happy because it's cheaper? It's crystal clear that the best match is #1. revenue push; #2. what the customer wants.
5184
« on: July 14, 2011, 17:52 »
Normally I would blow off the, Best Match issues and sales are falling, complaints and whining. It's never ending, so like rain, no one notices another few more drops here and there.
Well it's official now. I haven't had a download on IS in 30 days!
Small collection or not, I've never had a dry spell for that long. Considering I've had the same pictures and at least some monthly downloads for years, I can only guess, that I don't exist and I just haven't realized it yet, or sales have fallen off a cliff! (calling all Lemmings) Not one CrapStock shot sold in a month? Impossible!
Wait, when Mostphotos passes IS, we'll all know it's the end of the world!  (is it 2012 yet?)
LOL! This is so typical. Dismiss the complaints of others as whining until the same thing happens to you. Then it is a real problem. 
^^ stole my thoughts to a tee.
5185
« on: July 14, 2011, 17:41 »
Interesting....
Uploaded 46 images on June 27th and they got reviewed yesterday July 13. I had 5 accepted - all but 1 were rejected for "minimal commercial value". Some of the same images commercially available on DT, IS, SS, etc.
I guess it's one way to clear the queue
Not sure if I should take 123RF seriously.
Their site is hard to navigate, although I appreciate Alex coming in to try to bring a solution. However, their acceptance is usually pretty fair. I have had images rejected for LCV and other reasons but not too many. There have been a few times where I got a lot rejected by some reviewer with a hard on for my submissions and I resubmitted them, all got accepted. Once got a $30 EL not too long ago. Just goes to show you that reviewers should not be inspecting for LCV unless it's a floating turd in a toiled bowl...  But then again that one may sell for $500 on Alamy. YOU JUST NEVER KNOW!! I wouldn't write 123 off. Maybe post some of your work here for us to look at. I'll admit that my sales at 123 are nhot great, never have been, but are fairly consistent, so I can rely on them when I run my spreadsheet every month.
5186
« on: July 13, 2011, 07:51 »
Up a tad by 7 bucks. Made $23 last month and $30 this month. Big whoop.
5187
« on: July 12, 2011, 18:53 »
Interesting. Let's see how long this lasts.
5188
« on: July 11, 2011, 18:10 »
Perhaps the company has been too lenient in the past on quality.It has a huge library now and if it continued accepting the majority of content submitted by its contributors the quality would be diluted.
If as the majority in this thread suspect,the inspection has got harder,i would except the new standard,learn it and match it .Simple.
Good luck in that. We don't know what the standard is and seeing some of the rejects the top echelon gets smells of SS incompetence. There is no pattern other than random. We've asked over and over again for Anthony to define some kind of standard so we can comply and upload to those standards. They come out and say to "just shoot better stuff". What the Fk is up with that? They must be taking lessons from Istock.
Who is Anthony?
Please dont bring another agent into the debate.Thanks
Honestly, don't tell me what to do. I don't march to the beat of your drum. And to educate you, Anthony is one of the head guys at SS and he manages the inspectors, so he is a viable name to mention here.
5189
« on: July 11, 2011, 16:11 »
Perhaps the company has been too lenient in the past on quality.It has a huge library now and if it continued accepting the majority of content submitted by its contributors the quality would be diluted.
If as the majority in this thread suspect,the inspection has got harder,i would except the new standard,learn it and match it .Simple.
Good luck in that. We don't know what the standard is and seeing some of the rejects the top echelon gets smells of SS incompetence. There is no pattern other than random. We've asked over and over again for Anthony to define some kind of standard so we can comply and upload to those standards. They come out and say to "just shoot better stuff". What the Fk is up with that? They must be taking lessons from Istock.
5190
« on: July 10, 2011, 19:58 »
I've come to the conclusion that the rejection reasons given are irrelevant. It now seems to be up to reviewers to decide whether or not they feel the collection would benefit from having something. If they think so, it gets accepted, if not, they hit a random rejection button.
Of course, some rejections will be for the given reason, but once something is good enough in technical terms, it then runs into the "do we want it" layer of reviewing.
DT's "too many of the same thing" when you have three completely different views of a subject may be irritating (and stupid) but at least you know what is happening.
I'm not doing this long and it's only a hobby but what you say is pretty obviously what's happening. I suspect reviewers have giidelines to work to and this is company policy - still has to be some room for personal judgement within these guidelines which explains why there is a degree of inconsistency.
There's not a lot of traction in your statement. In the case of SS there's blatant misuse of the rejection button...no guidelines, no public policy and a lot of personal judgement that's completely unwarranted. Anthony Correa of Shutterstock should be: 1. Ashamed of the "law" he's created 2. Quit if these random crap rejections are being shoved onto him Having perfectly good images, marketable, and high quality are overrun by we "want to create the illusion that we are hard on image submissions so we can attract more buyers" when in reality it is a disservice to the buyers and photographers.
5191
« on: July 10, 2011, 19:41 »
ALL of mine are from people in poor countries. Not trying to start anything here, just telling you that they are from India and other world regions where 2 cents added up times 10,000 = a lot by some of their standards. And what pisses me off the most is that DT is asking US contributors to be nice to the flagger if we get flagged. I had two more worthless flags today. Fk em.
5192
« on: July 10, 2011, 19:37 »
No, not me.
5193
« on: July 10, 2011, 19:34 »
The reality is that the whole * industry is changing. So many factors enter into sales volume. Here are a few and please feel free to add.
1. Flood of contributors
2. best match changes
3. Acquisitions
4. Wringing money from contributors to appease the [excessive] profiteer owners
5. Wringing money from buyers to appease the [excessive] profiteer owners
5194
« on: July 10, 2011, 08:28 »
Flat rate works best for me. $50-$100 for 3-4 hours.
5195
« on: July 09, 2011, 20:21 »
5196
« on: July 09, 2011, 20:03 »
To give an example of how bad things are for some of us emeralds, last year in June I made over 1500$ this year I made less than 500$. This has hit me really, really badly. Dt has been able to make up for it a bit but obviously not nearly enough.
Did you upload regularly? Did you not do something you used to (getting the best models, locations, lighting etc) or do you think it's completely FT's fault?
Oh come one now. He said it was nothing irregular. And even if he did sway far from the norm, would it be that bad giving his current port? I think there's a lot to be concerned about here.
5197
« on: July 09, 2011, 13:41 »
No complaint regarding the artist, but I was surprised to see this as a stock image.
The author has many other cartoon strips of this character.
Isn't that duck copyrighted? Daffy Duck from Warner Brothers? Is this an editorial type image?
5198
« on: July 09, 2011, 08:34 »
Normally slow. I upload there as a low priority. And now I see they are starting to do these LCV rejections. Funny, within the first week of uploading one specific rejection, I've had dl's on IS, DT and SS with their LCV rejection. Just goes to show you that they simply don't know what is LCV and what's not. There's a different reason why LCV is being flung but I don't know what that reason is.
5199
« on: July 08, 2011, 19:37 »
@lisafx
Maybe I am not seeing the whole picture here, and if you as an Emerald contributor have experienced this, who am I to try to argue with that? It's a fact, and it must be a nightmare and I honestly wish you hadn't experienced these troubles.
What I can't understand though is why FT would be selective and set back some Emeralds (on purpose??), and not others? In fact, you seem to (almost) imply that ALL (I know, you said "many", not all, but it kinda feels like it ) Emeralds have had these problems, which I just can't believe.
Nevertheless, there is obivously a large number of contributors on your level, that HAVE in FACT seen those problems - which is scary. Maybe I'm naive to assume that all Golds, Emeralds etc. that stay silent are still having amazing sales. The more I think about, the more confused I get. LOL
I am just going by the accounts I have read and other contributors I have talked to. Perhaps this isn't the complete picture, but I have found these methods of information gathering to be effective in the past. When I am experiencing something unusual, and the other high level contributors I talk to are experiencing the same, to me that paints a pretty persuasive picture.
But you're right - the only sales that really matter to me are my own. And they suck at both Istock and Fotolia. If it was only those two sites I would conclude that my portfolio has aged too much, or my concepts are oversaturated, or maybe I just plain suck. However sales at SS and DT keep booming along at a very good rate, so that defeats that theory.
If you check out Alexa, or Google analytics you will see these exact same trends - IS & FT down, SS up, and DT level or slightly up.
Lisa, What's interesting about your graph is that IS and FT have almost the same trend (if you were to plot a trend line), only diff being the $ volume. And since FT seems to follow IS's piss poor decisions it doesn't surprise me. As far as quality vs volume vs concept vs keywording, they all play a relevant role in getting sales but best match shifts can be the umbrella factor that drives sales by a long shot...as I think you've pointed out. FT, for example, could concoct an algorithm that favors new contributors (not new contributions) and then take those newbs with zero dl's and prioritize them to the top. I am involved with developing lead scoring criteria at work and I am telling you that one click of a button can change the whole ball game. This is to say that best match shifts aren't accidental and that this is part of stock that we as contributors can't control, plan for or defeat by a strategic shift.
5200
« on: July 08, 2011, 19:25 »
This is a tough business. It's almost a situation where contributors need an avenue to quantify for reviewers how well images do elsewhere or the research one conducts to validate image usefulness. I have had arm wrestling matches with Shutterstock over image usefulness and usually they don't care what you think. It's go with the flow and shut up or keep complaining but we're not listening. Like Alex said, the different reviewers with varying experience yield varying results. That's an opportunity for improvement. I do like IS acceptance criteria which for the most part is accept anything that meets technical quality standards. Then leave it up to the buyers to decide. I've seen lagereek's port and it is fantastic. I see his frustration because it's probably 10 times more than mine.
Hi!
Appreciate kind words about my port! ofcourse Im not leaving! but yep, its frustrating alright. I like this site! but I be damned if I understand their reviewing policies. BTW. I didnt know this check-box system, did you?
Yes, but it is a bitch to use and it isn't simple. You have to navigate to the right page and have all the right things checked upfront. If you don't you have to navigate away to correct whatever check box you missed, then navigate away again (using a completely different URL I might ad) back to the upload page. Very poor design, in fact the worst of any site in my opinion.
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