Okay, that makes sense. You should be able to give yourself a raise pretty quickly with microstock. 

That's a ton of noise reduction so unless you just applied applied it to the sky (where I can still clearly see  noise) I would be concerned that it ruined the detail in the other areas. If so, you reduced the noise but now may get an overfiltering rejection.

You need a DSLR. Even a cheap used one from a few years ago like a D50/D40 or Rebel XT/350 would be a huge improvement.

First photo is cute but it doesn't say anything to me. It seems mismatched. Her expression feels like "I'm embarrased to be doing this". She's also directly looking at the camera which just isn't working for this image. As others have said it would be more time consuming to extract her from the background, unless the designer was already using a dark background. Go with white.

Image of the boy is closer to having a stronger presence to it.

Quote from: lumina on January 22, 2008, 13:59

My average per time worked is around 1,5$/worked hour/month

This number is the most important one, in the end...

If the return per hour worked really worth it... That is what each of us has to figure out with our own numbers and our own data.  And if that return satisfies us... Interesting...

How is this calcuated? Does this take into consideration that the image continues earning after the work has been completed?

I feel contributors are mainly in control of their earnings and returns. There will always be buyers who have a need for images and eventually the industry will stabilize. Until then, it will be an interesting ride.

A high percentage of $500 DSLR toting newbies give up from being rejected too many times or no sales. Or they continue submitting to sites where there aren't any buyers. Either way, the euphoria wears off.

Search engine tweaks are increasingly geared toward pushing viable images that have high view/sales ratios to the top while the others get pushed down into the abyss.

Also, the current state of the economy (at least from my view here in the US) will be pushing down marketing budgets which will drive buyers to more affordable options for their clients.

Overall I think there's plenty of demand. Entrepreneurial contributors who are driven, insightful, adaptable and committed will see improvements in overall earnings and returns even if the market does get saturated.

Isn't the D3 Nikon's equivalent?

5D is a mid priced full-frame. D3 is over twice as much.

vonkara, you can not expect some serious sales with 100 images in portfolio.

What happens when you hit over 100 images that sales suddenly improve?

I think that's going along the lines of the new "fresh" look. Are buyers getting tired of perfectly staged smiling faces?

With all of the recent talk about tightening of release requirements, what types of things would or wouldn't require a property release when shooting at a hospital?

This is not a realistic number according to whom/what? I've been around here long enough to see feedback over and over again that on average a microstocker will earn $.50 to $1.00 per portfolio image per month accross multiple sites.

So, according to this, figure a 500 image portfolio should earn $250 to 500 per month, or $3,000 to $6,000 per year, on average.

Sure, there will be some photos that sell like crazy and others that don't. The measurement is average income per image based upon total portfolio.

If I misunderstood this info, than I'd love to see some some stats of more realistic numbers.

I am going to upload a lot of RF to Alamy and other higher paying sites this year.  From what I have read on the Alamy forums, the earnings can be good. 

My situation is different as istock makes up a low percentage of my earnings, around 15-30%, probably because they have rejected lots of my best selling photos and illustrations, so it isn't worth sacrificing RF earnings from all the other sites.

One of their best match search changes halved my sales last year and that would have been a disaster if I had been exclusive there, so I doubt I would do it even if their earnings were higher.

It's really interesting how diffferent sites have different earning levels for everybody. IS and SS are rocking for me. DT and FT are doing okay. StockXpert and SV are showing potential. The rest are pretty low.

Earnings at Alamy can be good (they claim average of $16 p/i/p/y) but I was surprised to see figures that on average traditional stock photographers make $1 per image in their portfolio per year. At first I thought "that's about the same as microstock". But wait a minute. That's per year, not per month! That's 8 cents per month, where micros seem to be 50 cents to $1 for most people here. If I calculate my earnings based upon this month, I'm at about $25 per image per year with micros. So I'd guess the chances of making comparable earnings at Alamy today aren't realistic, unless you're a superstar. What I do see with Alamy is a higher price structure, very strong and consistent revenue growth, different buyers, and a very impressive management team. So over the next few years as they continue fine-tuning, I'm thinking Alamy will be a much stronger player with higher average earning potential. I like what I see.

I'm getting very tired of submitting to multiple sites that provide low returns, and SS - the only other site that provides high return - has lately been giving me all sorts of crazy rejections. I originally planned to go exclusive at IS after I hit diamond, but I'm now considering making the jump when I hit gold next month. If the current prices keep up, I'll be averaging $1.90+ per DL ... can't beat that!

I'm thinking the same thing. Just like you said I'm getting tired of all of the other sites and their low earnings and quirkiness. The returns are little to nothing and I feel that time could be used more effectively where I'm seeing growth and potential. IS and SS are over 80% of my earnings.  But... even after I had an EL at SS this month (SS is doing really well for me) IS is still beating SS for earnings.  If IS keeps up like it has it could be 60-70% of my earnings within the next month or two. I'm re-evaluating my thoughts on exclusivity.