Dec
28
2011
Submitting to istock as a non exclusive contributor may cause strong diarrhea
In the beginning there was Istock. This was the first microstock agency. Istock changed the world of stock photography. If now I am a happy Shutterstock contributor, it is because of Isuck Istock.
Once upon a time, Istock ruled the world as the only existing microstock agency in the world. When competitors came to life, however, Istock went on being the best one: it had the most images, the better ones too, and a lot of contributors. Istock really changed the world and deserved to be the best. Until now… or, better, until a couple of years ago.
Basically, what they did has been killing new contributors, or non exclusive ones at last. If you remember well, last year I wrote that it was my second best agency, and the average RPD was the best out of the 4 agencies I worked with. But then, all changed. In a bad way, of course.
Here a brief list showing the reasons that why I don’t like them anymore:
- lame commissions: non exclusives get 15% for white levels, and 16% for bronze ones. But never fear: if you manage to get silver you can get a wooping 17%!
- I have seen a 0,08 $ sale. That’s crap. You’re kidding me or what?
- non exclusives count zero. best match will show Agency collection, then Vetta, E+ (exclusive +), exclusive, and then, maybe, non exclusive images. Maybe in page number 117 or so.
- reviewers would make Sergeant Hartman look like a wimp
- don’t ever use the word Business in a business image. It’s irrelevant, for them
- if you are a non exclusive contributor, you can only submit 18 images a week at base level, and 20 at bronze. You won’t get higher, though, so don’t bother asking how many are on silver
- the more you upload, the less you sell.
- uploading interface is the worst in the whole industry
- redeemed credits. Read here: http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1090
- when using DeepMeta to upload your files, often their system loses you model releases and you have to upload them manually. But if an image contains more than ONE model, you have to upload the photo again because you can only add ONE release per image through their website. That’s ridiculous
Iam not the best stock photographer in the world, but why did I have a great boost in sales everywhere this year except for Istock?
Thing go WAY BETTER is you get exclusive, but in order to do that you have to achieve a 50% or more acceptance ratio as well as 250 sales. How in the world can you manage to reach that number (I did it, of course, but it was in the past) if you just are not allowed to sell anything because of their crappy search engine? You can’t, right.
And why would you want to become exclusive anyway? Shutterstock can get you the same monthly income on Istock in about 3 days.
So is there something right with them? Surely, there is. It is the agency that treats better than anyone its exclusive contributors. But now… would you really want to become that? Would you really give up the incomings from the various agencies? I don’t think so. Or, at least, I don’t recommend it.
Dec
24
2011
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve written my last post here. I admit that I didn’t lust for it, but I have to say that it has been a very busy year.
As I wrote in the first part of the year, I decided to start a real studio for real stock images, abandoning my dear old textures, still life, and stopping taking amateur snapshots that didn’t sell.
Of course starting a real job meant paying models to shot images, a thing that I didn’t do before. So, while previously I managed to get images by spending 0 (zero) money, this year I and my partner have had to pay some nice bucks to get the job done. But it was worth the effort, I assure you.
So, let’s summarize my last posts: in the beginning I hated Dreamstime, I said Fotolia’s search engine sucked, and Istock was the best per-image earning agency. About at half in the year, I started appreciating Dreamstime, Fotolia was getting better and better while Istock didn’t show any improvements at all.
Now, at the end of the year, this is my sentence: Dreamstime has been a nice agency for me, Fotolia is my second best earning, Istock sucks. It sucks BAD. I don’t even know if it’s called Istock or Isuck. I’ll explain in he future why I’m saying that.
Why didn’t I mention Shutterstock? Well… it was good before, and aven better now. Shutterstock is a beast.
So these are the graph showing my progress in this industry from the start (2008) to November 2011. December, while in progress, has been a really good month that rivals with September and October, but I expect a drastic drop of my sales in the last week.
FOTOLIA
ISTOCK
The improvement has been strong on every agency, except Istock. In fact, while you can see the graph rising, sales increase was fairly week in comparison to the other agencies.
For example, DT had 700% increase, FT 500%, Shutterstock 400%, while Istock only had a 150% average increase. This is mainly due to the horrible search engine they adopted since the early 2011, that screwed up most of non-exclusive contributors’ image ranking.
I’ll try to update this blog more in the future, so come back to check my news ever and anon.
So… it’s Christmas, right? So Merry Christmas to you guys from one of my models =)
See you soon.
Jun
23
2011
It’s been a long time since my last post on this website. I’ve had less time than before to write articles. Many things have changed, as I said in the title.
First, and most important thing, I’ve started my own studio with my best friend at the end of January. We named it “Minerva Studio”, in honor of the statue that represents the city in which we operate. So, if any of you wanna search our images in the various agencies, just look for minervastudio + name of the agency on Google.
Second, we now shot models all the time. About 95% of our shots are models. Like I said in the past, models sell more, and in fact our sales have significantly improved.
The most important thing with this blog, anyway, concerns my former agency related reviews. Many things have changed, you know.
Shutterstock keeps being the number one agency so far, but Istock, for example, not only is no longer the second best one, but I could say it has become the worst one. Dreamstime showed a great improvement, while Fotolia is, by now, the second best agency. So as you can see there are many news.
I’ll post in the next future some stats and new reviews to explain to you what I mean.
I leave you with a suggestion: stay away from Istock, unless you wanna go exclusive.
See you|
Feb
23
2011
On January 20th 2011 Fotolia has made some changes to its search engine. Basically, they changed the way relevancy is calculated. It is no more, in fact, related to the newest content; indeed, newest stuff seems to not have importance at all in the relevancy calculation. This has pissed off many contributors, especially the newest ones and generally those who are under the silver level.
This new search engine promotes big sellers, contributors that have sold ton of images in the past years, making them sell even more. Since these images cost more than crappy ones, Fotolia earns more this way. If you are a big seller, you will love Fotolia.
Unfortunately, there thousands of contributors that don’t sell like the best ones, and this new search engine is working against them even more. Several people have complained about this issue, but Fotolia staff has not given an answer yet.
This is a pity, because, Fotolia was performing very well for me on December, and January had started fine as well.
My question is: if the new images don’t get a little bit of relevancy, and they are not seen by buyers, when will they be bought in the future? I have bad feelings about it.
Feb
22
2011
When it comes to microstock, people always asks me: is it worth the try? Can I make a living from it? Well… it’s not a so-easy-answer to give.
Microstock is basically shooting photos (or drawing vectors) to sell them on the various agencies. You produce them, then upload to the various agencies, have them accepted and finally, and hopefully, sell them. This is not that simple though.
What most people forget is that microstock is a serious business. It’s not just “take a shot, sell it”. Microstock is a real and serious business, and it HAS to be treated like that. It’s no joke. To perform well in this industry you have to dedicate a LOT of time into it.
Can you make a living from it? Yes, you can. You also can make much money, and you may end up driving a Porsche if you understand every single gear of this complex mechanism. But to do so, you have to be a pro. You simply can’t make a living from stock just by taking a photo every so often. Real business requires total commitment.
You not only have to spend much time into shooting photos and indexing them, but you have to invest money in models that pose for you, locations, items, quality photographic stuff and so on. It is a real business, didn’t I tell you?
Once you have invested your money you also have to understand what to shot, and when. Do you see those million business images? Think about why there are that many. Focus on concepts and you’ll be fine. And ALWAYS include human elements in your photos.
I have put money and effort into this, and now I own a photographic studio in which I do all the shooting stuff. With the help of my best friend, Massimo, I managed to triple my sales in a just one month, and we think to get better and better as our portfolio grows.
Yes, you can make a living from microstock. Just treat it like a real job, ’cause it is.
Jan
28
2011
As you know, I have exceeded into criticizing Dreamstime. I had lame results, and I was being devoured by anger.
I said that DT sucks… I now have to correct myself.
Dreamstime not only sucks, but it works awfully! I have a question for you: what’s wrong with this guy?
"Mum, they rejected my whole set!" - Photo by Luca Bertolli
He’s a handsome young man, and a very kind person. It was great working with him.
Every serious agency has accepted this images I shot: Shutterstock, Fotolia, Istock, all of them have accepted this set’s images. But no, Dreamstime rejected the WHOLE set. And do you know what is the most ridiculous part? They accepted them in the first place, but then…
- File approved by accident. We apologize for the inconvenience but the image needs to be removed.
I thought: “Is this too professional for their standard?”. Well, it’s not that. Here is the explanation:
- Model Release document is incomplete. Make sure the following fields are properly filled: model name, model signature, model complete postal address (include country), model telephone number, witness print name, witness signature, photographer print name and signature. If the model release is for minors then the following fields must be completed: model name, parent (guardian) name and signature, parent complete postal address, parent telephone number, witness name and signature, photographer name and signature. If you have images accepted online with this MR please upload the correct copy and notify support together with the specific file IDs.
And this is because the MR did not show an acronym (MB, standing for Monza & Brianza, an Italian province). Ok, it was a mistake, but come on, it would have been enough just asking me to re-upload a new MR with the missing info. But no, let’s delete the whole set, who cares about me?
And now, one thing you have to know: if you’re tired with DT you can’t even delete your own account. You can everywhere else, but not here. LOL.
It’s not that I hate DT: i would really like to talk fine about them. Simply, I have no a single reason for doing that.
Dec
29
2010
Every year, when Christmas is approaching, I get a bad feeling about it. I know that my sales will drop. It’s unavoidable, since the whole world just seems to freeze (no, I’m not talking about weather). Many companies close for holidays, web designers prefer spending their time together with their families than downloading stock images (and they’re right), the whole microstock market goes for a big stop.
I have always loved Christmas Eve when I was younger: I simply love, nowadays too, the overall feeling that only these holydays bring with themselves. I love the Christmas trees’ lights, the beautiful decorations you can find through the cities: it’s a magic time.
But when it comes to sell stock, Christmas sucks. And the worst part is that not only does Christmas suck, but the whole period between December 23rd and January 6th sucks too. Unfortunately, this year Epiphany will happen to fall on Thursday. It means that this business will only recover to its full potential from January 10th. So basically it’s two weeks to go before returning to smile.
On Christmas people are better. On Christmas people are more kind than ever. On Christmas everything is more beautiful. That’s bullshit.
Go and tell this to Shutterstock reviewers. I’ve never had so many rejections like in the last month. And the more I upload the more my images get better, ’cause I get more experienced. Though, they’re rejecting almost everything I upload. It’s irritating: Christmas on its own is a terrible time for microstock, but if we add that the reviewers seem to have become assholes this leads to the death of this business for a bout 20 days. I can’t stand it.
Dec
12
2010
Megapixels are not everything. Every real photographer knows that. The most important thing when you take a photo is the overall quality of it: composition, focus, lighting and so on. You don’t need many megapixels to shot a good photo.
Anyway, in the microstock business, the file size has become a real issue. Regardless of the overall quality of your productions, there are times that a buyer needs a big image. Many buyers, we know, just need a 600*400 photo to make their blogs look better. Anyone can produce images that small.
However, many buyers work in in advertising, and just can’t please themselves with a photo smaller than a postal stamp. They need huge files, and this is what I want to talk you about.
On June 2010 I decided to upgrade to a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. It is a beautiful full frame DSLR camera with a 21,1 mp sensor. With that, I can produce 5616*3744 pixel-size files. It is enough to Istock to consider them as XXXL. A XXXL non-exclusive sale on Istock brings up to 7,25$. That’s a lot in comparison to the other agencies. Anyway, not every agency is the same.
Shutterstock, for example, pays you the same whether your file is 4 mp large or 40. It is the same. So, for example, it may sound useless upgrading your camera on this agency. Actually it isn’t, but I’ll tell you why later.
Dreamstime is more unctuous: they pay your sales depending on the size you sold, BUT they keep your original file size as the XL one (7 credits). This means that if you upload a 4 mp photo, those 4 mp will be the maximum 7 credits size, while if you upload a 20 mp one, those 20 mp will be the maximum. So what it counts here is not the effective size of the photo, but the “percentage” of the maximum size of the image being sold.
Istock and Fotolia have clearer ideas: big files are really paid more. Istock for example puts a XXXL mark to every file exceeding a size of 20 megapixels. Everything above that number will be judged XXXL, and man, are they paid really well.
Anyway, even if on Shutterstock and Dreamstime you may be paid the same regardless of the file size, you may end up doing more sales than before if you upgrade to a top-notch camera. And the reason is very simple: if a buyer can’t decide which image to buy within a bunch of similar files, he will probably choose the bigger one. Remember that you always can downsize a huge photo, but you never can upsize it. So, the bigger the original is, the better.
If you’d ask me, I’d say that you should upgrade your gear periodically. Anyway, most of you that read my website don’t do microstock by profession, so upgrading to a Full Frame camera may be a bad choice. Anyway keep always in mind that if you had to end up doing this as your primary job you’ll need top quality instruments.
Like it happens in nature, big ones always win. It is not a chance that Arcurs, the top microstock photographer in the world, uses an over 40 mp medium-format camera and three Full Frame DSLR to achieve his goals ;-)
Dec
2
2010
Two months ago I wrote a thread in which I examined my performance in the microstock industry, focusing in particular on three agencies: Dreamstime, Shutterstock and Istock.
You can find that article here.
Please note that the following graphs are about my monthly number of SALES, not incomings. I hid the numbers just for my privacy.
Now, two months later, I wanna update those graphs.
Do you remember what I said about Dreamstime? Well look at this:
Have I ever said that Dreamstime sucks? Well, it does. It suck so bad I feel I’m gonna throw up right now. Sales are low, and after two years of uploads I have not done any improvement yet. There would be, actually, a way to boost sales, but I cannot afford it right now: it’s called “volume production”. If you can produce HUGE amounts of images a month (I’m talking about 1500) then maybe DT might be your best earner agency. But I don’t produce that much right now, so we’re back to square one. It is the worst agency within the top four.
Fortunately, I work for other agencies as well, and there things are going pretty well. In particular, October has been a monster month, resulting to be my BME either on Shutterstock and Istock.
Shutterstock is a beast. Tons of downloads every day and tons of ODs too. Here’s the graph:
Since Shutterstock is a serious agency, here we can notice a couple of things. The former is that September and October are the best months of the year when it comes to sales. The latter is that in November things start getting worse, but it’s not big deal if you have a good portfolio and you know how to take advantage of the incoming Christmas Eve by producing good quality Xmas related images. I didn’t, mostly because I can’t make vectors nor illustrations, and I privileged business and corporate related themes. No complains anyway, great performances.
And now it comes Istock. Let’s take a look at the graph:
This graph speaks for itself. The trend is for a huge improvement, and October and November have almost doubled the usual performance. It is a great agency, and if the trend keeps going this way I think that in a couple of years Istock might actually beat Shutterstock in terms of incomings.
That’s all, I’ll update these graphs periodically.
I hope that was useful to you.
Nov
26
2010
When you are deeply involved into microstock business you have to help yourself with various tools. You can’t think about doing everything by yourself.
And here’s where ProStockMaster comes in help!
ProsStockMaster is a software that helps you in keywording your photos and lets you upload them on several agencies simultaneously.
Here are the features:
- Simultaneous Upload of Stock Photos Post stock images and entire folders to multiple agencies, in one click! Select from a list of top-selling microstock agencies. PSM also provides seamless registration on each site, if you are not yet a member contributor.
- Automated Keywording (IPTC) Type a keyword or two and click the “Suggest!” button. Select from the list of popular and relevant keywords that PSM provides. PSM also provides auto-translation to dozens of languages, allowing your photos to be found easily by purchasers around the world.
- Stock Earnings Statistics Review the purchase and download statistics for your stock content. Most agencies supported.
- Metadata Simplicity Search for stock images in your collection by the various metadata and keywords you have already collected per image. Export, Import and Copy metadata easily among multiple pictures. No more one-at-a-time editing!
- Photo Data Review and use the EXIF data inserted into each of your pictures: aperture, shutter speed, program mode, ISO and more.
The best thing about this software, moreover, is that it is completely FREE.
Click on the link below to go to the official ProStockMaster homepage:
Nov
20
2010
I started this website to mainly focus on the four most important microstock agencies, also known as the “top earners”. But these are not the only ones. There are several other microstock agencies that for some reasons are not a match against the major ones.
I could mention 123RF, Yaymicro, Crestock, Veer, Deposit Photos and so on. There are many, really. Some of them even pay you to upload to them, up to a maximum of 100$.
This pay-to-upload system is the main reason for many photographers to bother signing up with these agencies.
Some minor agencies, also, don’t even require you to select any category, speeding up the work flow.
But my question is: is it worth uploading to them? Well, you have to do some maths before answering.
Uploading is a tedious thing: you have to choose your files, open up a FTP software, add them into the box, WAIT for it to finish and finally keyword them. For those like me that have not the fastest ADSL connection in the world, the second least topic is the most troublesome one.
You might need ages to upload your entire portfolio to one of these agencies: just repeat the whole process for the other 8-10 ones and you’ll get old before even starting to sell something.
The problem with these agencies is that they have a low business volume. They often offer the best commissions in the market, up to 60%, but this is just a meaningless number if you can’t get any sale.
I tried many of these, but I never had the constancy to upload regularly my files, and ended having just a bunch (about 100-150, even less on some agencies) of photos on there, without virtually any results.
If I had to suggest you a minor agency, I without doubt would say Deposit Photos; it’s one of the newest agencies out there but it’s well structured. I’d give it a chance. But, again, don’t expect the numbers you could do with one of the 4 major ones (well… Dreamstime it’s not much better FOR ME).
So, my answer to the question in the title is NO. Or, at least, not if you don’t have someone who indexes for you. Don’t do this by yourself.
Nov
12
2010
Actually it isn’t a really new figure. On May 4th 2006, Achilles, founder of Dreamstime, announced with pride this figure, named KeyMentor. What is it?
I will copy the full originale message from Achilles:
After the recent posts on the boards from fellow photographers we came up with a new position, the KeyMentor.
KeyMentor can be any registered user that has strong knowledge of English language. All you have to do is to be logged in your account and click the link underneath the image for suggesting new keywords.
You have to add at least 10 new terms in order for the submission to be accepted and you can do it only once per image. You cannot suggest keywords to your own images.
The suggestion enters a waiting list and if accepted, will reward your account with a symbolic two cents per image. If the suggestion is not accepted, no notification is sent. Spam will not be tolerated.
Wow! That’s great! You can spend a couple of minutes of your life suggesting a bunch of keywords and, if they get accepted, you will be rewarded with……….
2 (TWO) CENTS!!!!
It’s wonderful…
I had forgotten about this thing, or maybe my brain just refused to believe this. Just realize how some people can make fun of you while making you think you will effectively earn something.
But… let me think about it… my sales at DT suck, so… yeah, I’ll take advantage of this opportunity. If I can keyword a couple of thousands images a day I might come out with something like 4 (FOUR) dollars! That’s an astonishing 120 potential dollars a month, working every day 24/24. But only if they are good enough to get accepted.
What a crap.