SJLOCKE:

So, trying to raise prices to a mid level is bad... Micro pricing is bad...  What's the answer?

I think the answer is fair pricing for better images (Vetta), fair commission for the contributors AND a better licensing model.
A national magazine (Time) should not be able to get away with running a cover image and only paying a few pennies + extended license. Neither should a national or multi- national be able to put a model's image on a multi- million dollar product (Shampoo for instance) and only have to pay a few dollars + extended license. That is just highway robbery.

A cheap image for a blog is fine. A cheap image for a website that will be changed out in a few weeks, also fine.
We need to have a better license set up for the use of our imagery.

The trouble is that even on the macros/midstocks (I know about Alamy, and understand some others are the same) the newspapers, who in the UK at least are seriously feeling the pinch, have negotiated rock bottom prices - and often don't pay for months.
Also, it would be almost impossible to police usage. I can just imagine companies getting their employees to download images onto their home pcs looking as if it was for personal use. Given that the worst that's likely to happen is that they'd be made to cough up the full price, it could be worth it, given they'd seldom be found out, especially if they used well-sold images.
Think that wouldn't happen? Remember, Time didn't pay the EL on both images until they were made to. The first time may be put down to carelessness, and serve as anecdotal evidence for my theory that lots of purchasers don't even know they're supposed to be buying ELs. But the second time?
Finally, on iStock (I haven't a clue about the others) the large companies get huge discounts for huge credit bundles, which we didn't know about until fairly recently: much lower than the "prices as low as" which are advertised on the site, whereas of course the private individual, charity or small business has to pay full whack. It's called 'business', and is the way of the world. For better or worse.

More easily than many people, designers can surely work from home?

Quote from: ShadySue on November 29, 2010, 06:57

Quote from: molka on November 29, 2010, 05:22

<snip> and decide whether you want your photography be consumed by all that tasteless cornyness, <snip>

You missed the essential qualifier after the above, which is, "which most of the current market, which is based in North America, seems to prefer", though it is implied in what you wrote.

good call! there is a certain very restrictive style that partially originates from there, that micro shots have to conform to even more than general stock. ppl have to be dressed int mid-level-priced generic mall fashion clothes, interiors have to be light coloured with sparse simplistic (cheapo) furniture, as if it was an extension of the 'modern' corporate office... etc

A lot of the problem re clothes and furniture is that the RF model requires that everything be totally generic. Allegedly.

A while ago, iStock sent images to MS and contributers got an EL.
Weirdly, I just looked up one on MS clip art that I knew had come from iStock. It was a photo of a sunflower against a blue sky. There were two links in the description. One was a general link to iStock, the other seemed to be a link to get to that exact photo, but it wasn't - it was a photo of a sunflower stuck in the flap over the petrol 'hole' in a car!
And, in fact, both iStockphoto links, in the same paragraph, lead to that same photo, with an offer for buying credits.
Weird.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/images/results.aspx?qu=sunflower&CTT=200#ai:MP900433154|

Congrats JoAnn and thanks for all your help - directly or indirectly, while reading your tips to others.

So when I do a search on the new and improved istock site, the contributors name, no. of downloads per image, etc. are gone. All it shows is the image no., an exclusive crown or E+ symbol and the lightbox symbol. How do I get the other info back, or have they removed it so it will never show? I looked around the control panel, but I'm just not finding that list that you used to be able to check the items you wanted to show.

It seems to randomly turn that information off. Or maybe not randomly, maybe it's in relation to something you've done (i.e. an unintended consequence of you innocently doing something totally unconnected). I haven't worked out what causes it, but it's happened to me a few times over the past few weeks. (I haven't chosen to browse Agency files, so something else must cause it too.)

You still don't have the stockys fiasco included, despite it's being mentioned twice. Maybe we are on ignore?  

Nor the fiasco where they announced the 'editorial' iStockalypse in Istanbul, then have not provided an outlet for the images taken there.

never mind found it! When did that keyword relevance slider appear ?

With BM2.
However, it's a real pain that the information settings just seem to switch themselves off randomly from time to time.

Thank you. They do have my images. I have let SS know. Lets hope they have some success with these sites. There are so many.

That was October 11th. Have you had any response from SS? Have they taken any action yet?

Kudos to the exclusives in that thread who are trying to help the buyer find workarounds to get his project done.  But buyers shouldn't have to go to the forums and get workarounds or pep talks from contributors (much less snotty retorts).  

Absolutely. But I think the second-last straw to my banning was stating that if someone had to be told how to use a site, the design was a usability failure, and suggesting that the web developers should all have to read Don't Make Me Think, the usability Bible. I actually thought that was helpful and constructive criticism, but it wasn't taken that way!
It scares me that Roger Mexico posted earlier today that there was going to be a new iteration of the site design and there would be screenshots to show how it all worked. That's what happened the last time. We shouldn't need it. F5 introduced a lot of problems without any preceptible benefit - at least I can't think of any, and I asked what the F5 improvements actually were (I think that was probably the third-last straw!).

Those who are exclusive must either stop shooting those kind of shots, keep shooting them and just swallow the loss of time, etc. if they are rejected, or else do something tricky such as transfer copyright to another individual or entity so that they can be sold elsewhere.

Or sell them RM.

Quote from: Fotonaut on November 22, 2010, 15:42

Congratulations!
I�m only half way to my first. Which I probably will not achieve if I pull out of Istock by January.

I feel your pain.  I wasn't sure this would make it this year.  I don't think I'll delete my images very soon, because I'm still far from my next payout, but I will too.  I won't condone with the 15% commission.

I have it on Lobo's honour that if you pull out of iStock completely, and contact CR, you get your payout due to date, even if you hadn't reached $100.