I don't care so much about the images being displayed as long as they're not avail for purchase. If I get turned down for exclusivity because of it, then it's a big issue. I'm waiting to get an answer from Istock admin on that.

Quote from: FD-amateur on April 06, 2010, 03:44

Quote from: bosharpe on April 05, 2010, 07:56

I'm looking into insurance at the moment to cover my (expensive) 5d MkII and a lens I'm buying (either the 24-104mm or 24-70mm).

Off-topic: don't buy the 24-70 but buy the 24-104 instead. I saw full size images of both and they are equally sharp. I have the 24-70 and the range of 70 is just a bit too short for portraits. Moreover, it's very heavy and feels like your (light D5II) cam is out of balance when handheld. Ask Patrick and Lisa. I think Lisa has both.

hmm I think you are right in some respects. The 24-70mm is faster and by all accounts better image quality but the kit lens does have IS which suits me because I'll be doing a fair amount of handheld work.

I switched from 24-105 to 24-70.  Agree it's a better lens for a lot of reasons.  Lack of IS hasn't been a problem.

No it was never there. Just another deceptive way to get people to click referral links or check out blogs. It's an April Fool's Day joke. Ha ha.

But then again it wouldn't surprise me either. Getty has so much money to burn they can just buy up the competition.

Fine!! spoil my fun!!  
Don't drag Lee through the mud, he's not aware of this.

I don't know what you guys are talking about! it's true, I wonder who's next?

I don't believe there is an opt out option. It"s a:  "You're either with us, or you're not".

Well, if the stock sites aren't doing anything about this ,than maybe it is pointless. How can you stop it? I went through the first 10 pages and found a bunch of my images, not about to start emailing everyone, would take forever. They would probably just show me the finger anyway. Best solution is to protect your future and don't sell Subs, or live with it ,because it's not going to stop unless the sites get involved. Not even sure if that will help.

Quote from: cdwheatley on March 26, 2010, 16:08

I haven't uploaded anything since December, preparing for exclusivity. Sales are still strong at dreamstime even after deleting a small portion of my port. Average royalty per download has been above $2.00 since dec.

Wow, this is surprising.  I have never had a RPD over $2 there, even before the royalty cut. 

I hadn't uploaded there in several months too and sales were slowly dropping. This month I started uploading again and sales have picked up.  I assumed there might be a connection.  Maybe not?

Kone, you and I have the same number of years uploading, same acceptance rate, and roughly the same number of images in portfolio.     Weird that we are experiencing such different results.  Must be down to subject matter or dumb luck...

Thanks, Kone  Yep, Istock, I wasn't aware there was another site worth going exclusive with 

Lisa, I was surprised also, prior to December it was closer to 1.5 RPD.Commissions have been higher than normal, also been seeing lots of random Tiff sales for $10.00+ royalty. I had no idea they were even selling these until I saw one. Doesn't really make sense since the file is converted from JPG, does it? Actually sales #'s are a little down but money is stable. I thought things would be much worse while waiting for the hold to expire. Another thing worth mentioning is, this is generally when my sales start to pick up, peaking in June.

Just curious as to how other photographers minds work 
Do you always use a shotlist?
Do you stick to your shotlist?
What do you do when things aren't going as planned? Do you move on to the next shot, or do you try to make the shot work by looking at it from another angle, or changing something?

Designing a shot in your head, or on paper does not always work when on location, for whatever reason. I started thinking about this while going through today's shoot. Oddly enough, all of my best shots were of variations of my original idea, not planned for.

So, I'm thinking of 2 rules here.
1. Make a shot list
2. Don't be afraid to throw out the shotlist and try not to get frustrated when things don't go as planned, something good might come of it.

Love to hear some opinions on how you approach your photography workday 

I dunno, I had two images of beaches reported for the keyword "beach".

It looks like the download option is removed. 2,000 micro images. Must have a subscription somewhere.

Quote from: fotografer on February 28, 2010, 02:59

Why would we want to encourage people to see the potential of this business?  All that does is create more competition.

Quote from: deyu16 on February 27, 2010, 21:56

I started this post ................. encourage people to see the potential of this business!!!!!

Do you think that your idea is right??.. If everyone thinks like that the world will end soon, there will be no jobs, not education, not development..! If you have knowledge and don't want to teach anybody?? Life ain't correct that way, not just in stock photography..!! Sharing is very important, it wouldn't be nice to be old and think that we haven't help anyone, doesn't matter the subject!

Of course there are certain persons that want just referrals and so on, but honestly making 200$ like deyu16 and myself aren't done with just a day of work.. first you can do some research then TALK!

I wonder if inviting people to the party is actually helping them at all. They get false hopes, end up spending a bunch of money on equipment, spend a lot of time trying to copy bestsellers, end up frustrated and quit. Ok, maybe only 90%. Would rather help an old lady cross the street. I don't think guys like Yuri are afraid of the competition. It's just numbers, 500,000 contributors= piss poor RPI for everyone. I would recomend micro to someone who I thought had a lot of talent and was in need, but I wouldn't BS him a say it's easy money. There are any number of jobs that pay better for most.

All good advice above.

I try camera raw first. If that makes it worse, then fix in photoshop.

Lens correction filter on a separate layer, paint over problem areas.
if that doesn't work??

saturation layer, set to closest color, red, green, magenta etc..select eye dropper on far left of saturation control palette, select problem color on image and reduce saturation, invert and paint.
If that doesn't work??

saturation layer, reduce saturation, invert and paint.

clone tool reduced opacity.

Paint brush, select closest color, reduced opacity.

duplicate image and slide it left, right, up, down,  just enough to cover problem, invert, and carefully paint.

There are a lot of ways to deal with the problem, sometimes a combination of techniches is what is needed. If you are patient you should be able to save almost any image.