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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
2726
« on: March 06, 2008, 22:42 »
I'm getting a difference in colors between PSE 5 and every other image viewer. PSE tends to render skys with a slight purple-ish cast and when I save and open the jpeg in Windows viewer the sky has a cyan cast.
I picked up a monitor calibrator and it improved the monitor coloring but didn't get rid of the problem.
After messing around with PSE settings, I changed the Color Settings to "No Color Management" and now the colors match perfectly. But, what exactly does disabling color management do? Will this somehow cause a different problem later? Any ideas what's wrong here?
Workflow is - open sRGB NEF/RAW with ACR and save as a 12 jpeg.
2727
« on: March 04, 2008, 06:04 »
IS is more picky. FT is more inconsistent.
2728
« on: March 03, 2008, 18:04 »
A tumbleweed rolled past me as I was deleting my images.
2729
« on: March 02, 2008, 16:25 »
If I may ask, how many of you have seen a dip in sales lately?
Are you exclusive or not?
My earnings are up 60% over January and downloads are way up. One thing I have noticed is that the last week seemed to be the attack of the XSmalls. I'm hoping at least some of these are buyers trying the XS and then buying a larger size.
2730
« on: March 01, 2008, 14:43 »
100% agree.
And I also refuse to let SS or any other site dictate my workflow. Good images will sell no matter what.
SS isn't dictating your workflow but should you ignore buying patterns and how they affect your sales? Karin, you're a reviewer. Am I missing something you can shed more light on about this?
2731
« on: March 01, 2008, 09:13 »
Looks like I'll be adding another Alien Bees 800 to my collection this month 
Got my first AB800 a couple of days ago.
2732
« on: March 01, 2008, 07:12 »
So ... I gather that the overwhelming consensus here is initial exposure of an image plays at best such a minimal role in its long-term performance that I'm wasting my time by trying to maximize and/or control it. True?
Absolutely not true, depending on the site and the quantity of similar images being uploaded by other contributors. You are correct in thinking that to maximize performance that images should be approved during primetime. So, here are a couple of scenarios for SS: 1. Timed uploading - Image gets approved on a Monday afternoon. Buyers who use the Newest First search option will see your image in the first few rows and will download it like crazy for the entire week because it's new. It has been downloaded so many times that it's now showing high placement for the buyers who use the Most Downloaded search option. Although it drops off the New Image search, it sells well because it continues to show up high for the Most Downloaded search for its keywords. 2. "Whenever" uploading - Image gets approved on a Friday evening. It sits all weekend on the New Image list with few to zero downloads. Because it hasn't had any downloads, it doesn't make the Most Dowloaded cut for its keywords and is now pushed off the New Images search results by the gazillion other images being uploaded. It now starts its downward spiral into the search abyss 50 pages back where few buyers bother looking. The one caveat is the number of competing images being uploaded. If it's a popular subject that has a ton of contributors uploading, you may only have a day or a few hours before you're pushed off the New Images search. If it's not a popular subject and few people are uploading similar images, the image will probably stay on the New Image search for days or weeks. But, if it's not a popular subject, it probably won't sell well anyway. So in summary, a potentially good selling image may sell like crazy or crap depending on the momentum it makes when it's first approved.
2733
« on: February 29, 2008, 21:31 »
Overall earnings were up 20% for another BME. IS continues with excellent growth. SS sank like a brick when I had to take a break from uploading due to my day job; not a real encouraging sign for long term earnings growth potential. FT continues to impress. DT, well not sure what to say; up and down. BigStock is up and down, StockXpert just doesn't like my stuff. 123RF really woke up this month.
I'm at the point where, unless something takes a drastic downturn with IS, I'm strongly considering going exclusive sometime mid-2008.
IS 67% (up 60%, BME)
SS 11% (down 60%, WME)
FT 8% (up 60%, BME)
DT 5% (up 70%)
StockXpert 1% (down 70%)
BigStock 4% (up 450%, BME)
123RF 4% (up 800%, BME)
SV 0% (0 about sums it up)
LO <1% (down 50% from almost nothing)
AB 0% (dead, never had any sales, removing images)
FP 0% (dead, never any sales)
2734
« on: February 27, 2008, 23:10 »
Great concept and capture!
2735
« on: February 27, 2008, 06:43 »
Even more weird, the day I replied here about this I started getting regular downloads again. FT is doing good this month minus the dry week. It's tied for 2nd place with SS and every month continues to have a BME.
2737
« on: February 25, 2008, 09:03 »
Weird, me too. This month was going strong for me at FT with daily downloads but that came to a dead stop on the 19th. They had moved into #2 earner slot but with this dead spot SS is back to #2. Anybody else?
2738
« on: February 22, 2008, 20:37 »
Must be related
2739
« on: February 22, 2008, 13:08 »
But when the server monsters jump and down on your basket...
You have no eggs.
I would only have a few less eggs. Out of 11 sites, so far this month IS is over 70% of my earnings. From what I saw you're just coming off of IS exclusivity so it may take you a while to see where the sites fall in your earnings ranking.
2740
« on: February 22, 2008, 09:50 »
Because sometimes there's one basket where there are more people buying way more eggs than from any of the other baskets.
2741
« on: February 22, 2008, 08:41 »
2742
« on: February 22, 2008, 05:33 »
Where do you see this? I just checked the homepage and prices are still the same.
2743
« on: February 21, 2008, 06:11 »
Obviously it's a personal decision, but I'd advise not becoming exclusive.
Be aware that, unlike with other agencies that only require exclusivity for individual images, iStock requires complete and total exclusivity.
In other words, if you become an iStock exclusive you cannot (according to their legal terms) submit any RF image (even if it's rejected by iStock) anywhere else.
That's nowhere else ... no-where ... period.
See what you're doing to yourself if you become exclusive?
You can't submit RF anywhere, but you can submit RM to other sites.
2744
« on: February 21, 2008, 06:10 »
Pffft, don't bother with being exclusive. It's not worth it. I went exclusive for quite a while, and now I'm finding I'm making way more at other agencies.
How much you make probably depends on the individual whether exclusivity is worth it or not. Other than earnings, was there anything else you didn't like about being exclusive?
2745
« on: February 20, 2008, 21:30 »
Try the "Downloaded" link at the top of the page.
2746
« on: February 20, 2008, 21:21 »
It would seem to make sense that they should have explained to contributors exactly how their keyword system works and emphasized the importance of using it correctly. I haven't seen anything explaining this.
Buyers would probably find more relevant images and buy more, contributors would sell more, and FT would make more money.
So far this month FT is currently my #2 earner behind IS. I wonder how much higher my earnings would be now if I had understood the keywording from the beginning...
2747
« on: February 20, 2008, 21:07 »
Beautiful image but on my montor it looks very soft along with having a plastic quality to it which could be confused with the effects of noise reduction software. And yes, IS has said they are extra critical about accepting flowers. Probably because they already have almost 160,000 of them.
Did they tag it as as Can Resubmit or No Resubmit?
2748
« on: February 20, 2008, 18:28 »
I reordered my keywords a while ago and my downloads came to a dead stop. Given that I was getting regular downloads I can't imagine this was a coincidence.
I don't know if reordering had a positive effect overall but it definately seems to have had an immediate negative effect. Maybe recently they have continued to allow the reodering but lessened the impact it has on the search results.
Either way, it doesn't seem like a good idea.
2749
« on: February 19, 2008, 20:27 »
Some interesting figures, comparing my Jan 07 sales with the Jan 08 sales:
SS has increased by 15% from 07 to 08
The total of all agencies, except SS, have increased by 116% from 07 to 08
The SS part of my earnings have gone down from 47% in Jan 07 to 32% in Jan 08. I have not added any agencies with significant earnings the last 12 months.
This is in my view a rather dramatic development, and there's another side to it as well: as much as 36% of my sales at SS are vectors, something I sell very little of at other agencies. If I deduct the vectors, SS represents only 22% of my total sales, at least, that is the situation for for January 2008.
Are things going well in microstock? Yes, they are for me, but I'm not so sure about SS.
With SS, I've already run into what I've been hearing all along. SS needs to be fed regularly. I noticed that I upload more and more but get the same monthly earnings (minus an EL). This past month I didn;t upload much because of my day job. In Nov SS was 44% of my earnings. So far this month it's in 3rd place at 9%. For my images, SS doesn't appear to be a good prospect for building portfolio earnings growth. Seems like a transaction... if upload images, they sell. No uploads = substantial sales decrease.
2750
« on: February 18, 2008, 21:53 »
In my experience each site is different but I would say if something passes Shutterstock reviewers, it should have pretty good chances of getting accepted about anywhere else.
Everybody's experience is different. I think most of us have experimented until we found what sites fit our style.
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