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Messages - Elenathewise

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826
General Stock Discussion / Re: Getty getting sued by photographers
« on: November 04, 2008, 11:45 »
Wow - sometimes I wonder what's in their heads... (Getty management). RM was always priced higher than RF since the customer would pay for exclusive rights to use the image in certain industry for a certain time - like a year for example. Now imagine you got 2 dollars for that RM use, which means the image is basically locked for entire year. That's all you get from that image for entire year! Managing rights also means you have to keep track of which images used where and for how long - which is also an overhead. And this is all for as low as 2 dollars!
Boy, if I was in RM business with Getty, I'd definitely join the suit.  Prices do drop with advancing technology, but this is plain ridiculous.

827
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Can inspections become more inane?
« on: October 29, 2008, 20:06 »
ah what's the point...

828
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Can inspections become more inane?
« on: October 28, 2008, 12:10 »
Yup  I had that too.... In my case i was shooting something on white and it was quite tight, so I increased the white background just a tiny bit around the edges to give a bit more space around the object. Rejected for "upsizing"! And yeah, just submitted a panorama stitched from 3 images - wonder if it's going to be same thing.

829
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Can inspections become more inane?
« on: October 20, 2008, 08:42 »

Not that it is my image, or any of my business:-), but couldn't help myself... The TV design to simplistic?... What about those amazingly complex photos of the calendar pages that you have recently got approved on Istock? I mean, wow.... :)

If you want a critique of that TV, I'd say you need to work on it more.  It looks like a black rectangle with a blue rectangle, a curvy line, and oval and another square underneath.  Too simplistic.  I know the other sites will accept almost any illustration, but iStock likes their submissions to look like you spent a little more time on the design. 

Same for that universe/earth picture.  The styles of the background and the planet just don't mesh at all.  You've got this somewhat realistic background, and then the shiny plastic earth with no clouds.

I don't think those rejections are at all surprising.  Discouraging to you though, yes.

830
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Can inspections become more inane?
« on: October 20, 2008, 07:49 »
I wish Istock realized how bad they are hurting themselves with their policies. By rejecting good stock images or severely limiting non-exclusive submissions they are losing millions of dollars. I have a backlog to submit to them of about 3000 images that would have earned THEM at least 10,000 a month. By allowing me to sumbit 30 a week (and I am a diamond member) and rejecting half of it they are robbing themselves of profit.
Most professional stock photographers can not afford being exclusive to any site, especially in microstock. Istock has a few exclusives that submit excellent images (like Lise Gagne), but I wonder if they realize that they would increase their income 10 times by being non-exclusive. In a way we are lucky that people like Lise are not competing with us on other agencies:) However, apart from these select few, most of Istock's exlusive content is not impressive at all - so by limiting good non-exclusive content they are purposefully and consistently decreasing the quality of their library....
The disambiguation system they got from Getty is totally unnecessary pain in the neck and not only useless in increasing search efficiency, it actually hurts it. I mean, look where this "wonderful" system got Getty itself and others that tried to adopt it (like Photoshelter that just went under).
And this is all too bad, providing that Istock was a pioneer of microstock industry, but looks like it is now is being strangled by their own corporate inefficiency, bureaucracy and shortsighted decisions.

831
SnapVillage.com / Re: How many customers does this site have?
« on: October 07, 2008, 14:23 »
I have most of my portfolio there, not all since it's a pain to upload. Making about the same money as with Crestock. Will they stay in business or not - who knows:) but yeah I have also read that Corbis itself never showed profit, and they are still there....

832
it all may be true, but what are you doing to do about it? Their search engine, they can do whatever they want with it:) They are trying to maximize their sales, not yours:)

833
About refund - this is silly, too. Prices are different in the industry, and even if you only shop on "macros" you can find a non-exclusive RF image with price difference of 50-100 dollars. You think customers keep looking for cheaper price and ask for refund all the time? If this was the case, non-exclusive content would simply be a non-existent concept... 
If PSC is so concerned about refunds and customers finding images cheaper elsewhere, they simply should stop being non-exclusive. Be exclusive, and sell RM mostly (which i think they do anyway), and don't have illusions that  customers who want "good images" don't go to microstock. I mean, let's be realistic.
They want to find ways to be "different" from others, you have to be special to succeed when you start the business - but so far their main differences are extremely time consuming and annoying disambiguation system and pathetic attacks on microstock. Oh, and effectively changing the exclusivity policy retroactively.... way to go!

834
They are weird people. How do you guarantee that your images are not selling for less than 50 elsewhere when with majority of agencies you don't have any control over pricing? I am sorry but that's moronic. Prices change all the time - they go down on macros and go up on micros. The only way to guarantee what they want is to be exclusive to them - ha ha good luck with that. (and at the same time they say they are non-exclusive.... hmmmm......)

835
Adobe Stock / Re: sales on FT since search engine change?
« on: May 17, 2008, 18:13 »
My sales on FT are about 50% down too:-(

836
LuckyOliver.com / Re: LO closure 'the first of many....'
« on: April 16, 2008, 13:50 »
I wonder what really happened. You don't go ahead and do a major upgrade if you're thinking of closing down the site. Even if he run out of money for the marketing why not keep the site alive with skeleton crew like many of the small ones do and keep looking for financing? Fishy. Probably a human factor - someone decided to pull out their money/support. Or something like that. Happens all the time.
Ah well - too bad, was one of the better new sites.

837
Off Topic / Re: Anyone have assistant?
« on: April 12, 2008, 21:11 »
... but I still find that the post-processing is a personal part of the image-making process and I am reluctant to delegate this to someone else. ...

yeah same here... can't give up control:) but really sometimes I do to images something a hired person would never do. You can give directions to hired person, but what if you not sure what to do with the image yourself?... many of my bestsellers actually happened from playing around with the image and seeing what works and what doesn't.
However I do have help with submitting - my BF handles that for me, and some other business related stuff. But processing and keywording - all me.

838
General Stock Discussion / Re: iofoto: year 1 report- updated
« on: February 19, 2008, 23:48 »
Thank you for sharing this Ron! The download ration month to month match mine almost exactly.
I am very surprised by the division of income that you are experiencing. Mine are like this:

Istock: 40%
Fotolia: 20%
Shutterstock:14%
StockXpert: 7%
Dreamstime: 6%
123RF: 2%
Crestock: 1%
Bigstock: 1%

Other mid/micro: 9%

Thank you again for your comprehensive report! Very interesting reading!


My guess is SS that good for Ron for the reason they favor new images...  you've been there for quite a while Yuri:) People that upload new big portfolios there have huge returns in the first few months, and then it slows down. Plus, number of images they have on each agency can be different. My breakdown is very similar to yours - the only thing that keeps Istock from being number one for me is their silly very small upload limit for non-exclusives... did you manage to get that increased for you?

839
General Stock Discussion / Re: How hard to get in ?
« on: February 19, 2008, 12:01 »
I would consider a couple of points before I would try to "get in":
1.The revenue you can get from microstock is at least the same but in many cases much more than you can get from working with macros with the same number of images. It depends on what kind of stuff you do of course - but for regular plain non-fancy commercial/business/advertising stuff micros provide much better return.
2. It is a huge pain to submit to most macros - compared to that, submitting even to Istock is a breeze! The amount of bureaucracy you have to deal with is unbelievable. I suspect that spending that time producing more images makes more sense.
3. Many of macros require exclusivity - which means you'll be totally dependent on how their business is doing. All eggs in one basket kinda thing. Which I personally don't like.
So, I wouldn't call it a "step up" really. I depends on what kind of images you produce - if you're doing celebrity shots, editorial stuff, sports, events - there is a chance you'd do better on macros, I have heard people reporting that. It's not that hard to get in  - but it has to be worth the effort.
Personally I tried to work with some macros and midstock, and most of them were a disappointment - too time consuming, sales are few and apart. For the stuff that I do microstock is the best (so far:)), and I do get kicks from getting those "thank you" emails from people who would never be able to afford a nice piece of photography work otherwise.
As to what Yuri/Jacob does, I don't think it is hard for him "to get in" into macro business, maybe hard to do it on HIS terms:) And I am pretty sure he does some of it, but also I am pretty sure he knows pros and cons of it too. Micros are not inferior to macros - they are just different, like Wallmart is different from a fancy high-end department store... who do you think makes more money?...;-)


840
Adobe Stock / Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
« on: January 30, 2008, 09:47 »
Fotolia is doing really great for the past few months... At this point, it's number 1 earner for January. Go Fotolia Go!!!:) 

Overall rank     12
7 days rank    9

Climbing up slowly...;-)

841
Mostphotos.com / Re: first sale
« on: January 25, 2008, 15:44 »
I had a few sales there. Getting 12.50 Euros per sale is nice, but they don't come often.
The non-review policy lets in sometimes some god awful stuff, but then it's my personal opinion, maybe someone is looking exactly for that:) I am definitely happy to have all of my work up there.  Also, with their ranking index - people do unsightly things, like original swedish photogs ranking down everything that is not swedish, or another example  - I had a few pics with dogs and they got ranked down severely by a person whos tiny portfolio is only dogs ... annoying really. I know you can block users if you thing they just want to get rid of competition, but hey I got other things to do than to track down these people.
I mean, if statistically there are more decent people out there than not, that kind of indexing would work... hard to tell:) I have tried ranking images there myself but then stopped because I realized that my criteria is too high. It's very subjective. So, maybe a better way to go would be to do something like Alamy, based on views/downloads, not on the fears of a person that worries that their dog pics won't sell...;-)

842
New Sites - General / Re: Who has most potential for 2008
« on: January 22, 2008, 12:24 »
Will over 5000 images in my portfolio I think I can make a statistically sound prediction.... :) Among the new ones, I would vote for SnapVillage, LuckyOliver and .... umm.... well... Crestock (although their 25c subscription sales is what carrying them forward right now, I don't see it lasting or leading to serious growth). 
As to the Bigstock, my sales there are 30% down of that it used to be. Nice site, but they do need to invest in advertising more and attracting traffic. Sadly, Canstockphoto is 50% down of what it used to be... same problem there seems like.

Among the "big-6" ones, Istock is ahead of the game, followed closely by Fotolia. SS is a disappointment - still selling, but I do see a noticeable decline. 123RF has been doing better and better, I would hold hopes for them too. Both DS and SX are consistent, not doing worse, but not doing any better. I wish they showed a bit more of a growth.

843
Shutterstock.com / Re: Beware of Shutterstock
« on: December 28, 2007, 13:39 »
Nice to hear they finally got to you with the explanation. It shouldn't have taken all this trouble tho...

844
Shutterstock.com / Re: why shutterstock?
« on: December 27, 2007, 22:55 »
I have 5000+ images in my portfolio and I get usually 250-300 dls a day on SS, can be 350 on a good day. HOWEVER, for the last few months Fotolia and IS (where I have only half of my porfolio due to non-exclusive upload limit) have been approaching SS earnings. Dreamstime and SX are doing very well too.

I am also worried about subscribers building up their own photo banks for a ridiculous price. I don't know how many actually do that, but if it was me buying I'd definitely try to use up my subscription to the fullest....

I put a lot of effort in my work and spend big $$ on professional equipment. Yes subscription dls do add up, but I am seriously  thinking of stopping uploading to SS for now. Apart from the cheap payouts per image they seem to be very disrespectful to the photographers and sometimes outright insulting (see another thread about closing a contributor's account). They do not seem to care to retain top sellers and hard workers, thinking (I am guessing here) that their crowdsourcing model will work with thousands of small hobbyists submitting a few images a month, being happy to make their payout once in a while and to see their images for sale.  Maybe it will, but then it wouldn't be a place for me.
I do see other agencies growing and becoming more professional and consistent, working with their top contributors and top sellers. I was hoping that would happen with SS but nothing has changed there....  It just may happen that they will end up being left behind if they don't change their attitudes.

845
Shutterstock.com / Re: Beware of Shutterstock
« on: December 27, 2007, 21:58 »
Yikes!!! Cashoran, please keep us posted on this. If that "professional" email you posted would be the last thing you hear from them, that is scary stuff!!! Basically telling you to bugger off without any reasonable explanation. If they don't show you the images that they think you copied and don't let you defend yourself (what if the accuser stole your images and decided to get rid of the competition??) then ya I'd take them to court too.
About technical support - they may have decent technical guys dealing with connectivity issues etc, but anything related to content.... what can I say can be much much better.

846
Shutterstock.com / Re: Beware of Shutterstock
« on: December 27, 2007, 12:02 »
Shutterstock are reasonable and professional people; they don't close accounts without good reason.


Sorry hatman can't agree with that - I do not call people professional if they never reply to support inquiries. I emailed support multiple times, tried to PM admins on reviews issues, I never got any reply. Either they have a problem with their support email, or they simply ignore emails from contributors. In any case, professional this is not.
I don't know what the story is here, but the contributor definitely deserved a better explanation, as do all of us by the way. If they post something here or on their forum explaining the incident and show us the photos/images in question, then I'll call them professional.
But my impression about them is they don't care about individual contributors at all.... like 'we'll have people submitting to us no matter what we do".

847
Bigstock.com / Re: 7 words!
« on: November 21, 2007, 13:55 »
Yeah, it's painful. I am kinda used to it now since I upload to bigstock on a regular basis. I think what they want is to give google something to chew on:)

848
iStockPhoto.com / Re: 100% disambiguated :)
« on: November 19, 2007, 09:35 »
let us know if it helps with dls... I never bothered with mine:)
I mean, their upload process painful as it is and royalties of 20% from an average 5 dollar sales per image - and they expect photographers to do all this extra work with keywords which in many cases doesn't even make sense. If they want to improve searchablity of their db I am perfectly fine with them spending part of those 80% they make of my sales to do it.

849
StockXpert.com / Re: Property Release on Residential Houses?
« on: November 18, 2007, 23:25 »
Thank you YingYang0 for the informative link! Here is what I found there:

Most of the time, buildings and other structures are not copyrighted, so unless there's a concern of misprepresentation, photos of these objects do not need property releases. And in such cases, uses of photos of buildings and animals can be used in most any context. For example, you can take a photo of Ross Valley Winery and license it to the city of Ross for a phone book. A release is not necessary, as this is a classic example of fair use. But, there are limitations. The same photo cannot be used for a book called, "History of Mondavi Winery," since the photo is not of that particular winery and would entail a misrepresentation of both companies.

And:
It is for concerns of mispresentation that people may opt for a property releases, even if one would not be necessary. That is, publishers often want to get permission from the property owner up front, before the image is used, as an assurance that they won't get sued later for misrepresentation.

So there, that explains StockXpert's (now part of Jupiter) and SnapVillage's policies. Just a safety net for them, not wanting to deal with lawsuits later. Silly, I say, but people have been known to go to court on even more ridiculous grounds... sigh... crazy world...:-)

850
StockXpert.com / Re: Property Release on Residential Houses?
« on: November 18, 2007, 12:00 »
Does anybody know the legal base behind all these property releases? I understand you can't sell photos of something copyrighted. For expample, lights on Eiffel tower are - so they can have monopoly on selling all the postcards and stuff (or at least have a part of that).
Now comes a little shack who-knows-where like in the picture above. Obviously, the appearance of this shack is not copyrighted, and I doubt very much that they are selling postcards or anything at all with their image. How selling that photo can harm the owner?
Just curious here.

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