2009 Charity Drive Wrap Up

On December 1st, I blogged here about my 2009 charitable donation in order to raise awareness of two great childrens’ charities, Toys For Tots and Give Kids the World .   Between December 1st and 15th, for every license purchased from my iStockphoto.com portfolio, I would donate $.10 to a pot to be divided between those two organizations.  We’ve passed the final days of the drive, and I’m here with the donation total for 2009.

Ready?

Grand Total

• December 1st – December 15th 2009 iStockphoto.com downloads: 7,711
• Total Donation Pot: $771.10
• Donation per Organization: $385.55

Hooray!  Thanks to all the buyers out there that purchased from my collection of content on iStockphoto and helped me boost the totals up to these numbers.  I’m sure the money will help these groups provide a lot of happiness to children in need.  I am enclosing a letter that includes this:

For the first two weeks of December, I ran a childrens’ charity drive on my blog, promoting that for every stock image license I would sell from my work on iStockphoto.com, during those two weeks, I would donate $.10 into a pot to be donated between Give Kids the World and Toys For Tots.

The iStockphoto.com buyers stepped up to the challenge.  I’m happy to report a total of over 7,000 image licenses sold during those two weeks.  Enclosed, please find a check for $385.55, your share of the amount raised.

Again, if you want to donate to these groups, the links are:

• Give Kids the World
• Toys For Tots

Twitter Contest Winner

Also, I announced a Twitter Retweet contest in my original post, where if you passed on the link to the original blog posting, you’d be entered into a drawing for 50 iStockphoto credits.  There really wasn’t too much participation, which surprised me, so those that RT’ed had a pretty good chance.  The names were put into a hat (a cd stack cover, really), and my wife drew out the Twitter user… mystockphoto .  Once I figure out how to get in touch with him, I’ll have him set up with the 50 free iStockphoto credits.

Thank you again, everyone, and have a great holiday season.

Turning the Orange Down

Over in my iStockphoto.com portfolio, I have a growing series of 3d rendered images featuring a cute cartoony male character.

As you can see, the 3d shader description that defines his “look” gives him a bright orange, sort of velvety appearance.  I went with orange because it denotes warmth and power, without the intensity of red, or the “lose it in the background” quality of yellow.  Orange gives a bit of a “call to action”, “look at me” type of feeling.

However, I know some people would prefer the more typical white/grey color for the character, so I wanted to give a Photoshop way that you could modify the image to make him grey.  Now, keep in mind, that for most of these shots, the character is the only thing that is orange, which makes this easier.

Let’s take a look at this image from a series for the 2010 Winter Olympics that I am working on:

As you can see, the only orange color here is the character and the reflection in the skates.

Method 1

1. Create a hue/saturation layer.  Open your “layers” window (F7).  At the bottom of it, click on the black and white circle.  Choose “Hue/Saturation”.
   
2. Now, double click on that layer in the layer box to bring up the Adjustment window.
3. Orange is made of two colors, red and yellow, so we will individually use the Adjustment controls to lower the saturation for those two colors (ie., remove the hue value of the color).  This will not affect anything else, since there are no other reds or yellows in the image.  Change the pulldown that says “Master” to “Reds”.  Adjust the Saturation and Lightness to suit your taste.
   
4. Now, you can see that we’ve adjusted the areas where red was predominant.  Now, switch the pulldown to “Yellows” and do the same thing to adjust the top.
   
5. Voila – the orange has been removed and we now have a grey character.  Save the file and move along.

Method 2

1. Instead of using the “Reds” and “Yellows” adjustments, we are going to select ALL the orange-ish pixels in the image and assign the Hue/Saturation layer to those.  Under the “Select Menu”, click on “Color Range”.  This enables us to make a selection based on the color of the places we click in the image.
2. Set the “Fuzziness” up high, to maybe 125.  This will give a range of colors around the color we actually pick.  Here it is not an issue, but if he was holding something red, you may want to lower it (or later on, deselect just that area).
3. Now click in the image on an orange area.  You can see in the dialog box it is creating a selection silhouette.  Hold shift down, and keep clicking on different orange values until you build up a pretty good silhouette of the character.
   
4. That’s a pretty good selection (although notice his right elbow isn’t completely white).  Click OK.
5. Now, create a Hue/Saturation layer as detailed in Method 1.  Leave the pulldown on “Master” and lower the saturation and up the brightness to your choosing.
   
6. You can see there are some areas on his head and elbow we missed, due to my poor clicking.  Remember, now, this Hue/Saturation effect is only being applied to the selection we had when we created it, and that is defined by the opacity mask shown in the layer window.  To catch those bad areas, we click on that layer mask, and use a paintbrush colored white to paint in those areas.  Now, this will increase the brightness of the area we paint, as well as removing color, so we wouldn’t want to do it over the boot area, but the rim, with the white around it is fine.  can’t get any brighter than white!
   Now, you see we get a little bit of a different look to his “skin” than the first method.  That’s because the shadows tend to have more red in them, and the highlights, more yellow, and in Method 1, we adjusted those separately.  In Method 2, we adjusted all the orange together.  Your choice which look you want.

Conclusion

Hopefully this will help you adjust this 3d Orange Guy series (or any thing else color related) to your needs.  If there are other objects that the layers are affecting in the image, use some selective painting in the opacity mask to remove them from the Hue/Saturation effect.

PS…

Tomorrow, I will unveil the totals from my holiday kids’ charities drive.  For more details and a chance to win 50 FREE iStockphoto credits, click here.

In Action From Around the Globe

Sometimes, people “out there” are familiar enough with content and models from my iStockphoto.com portfolio, that they recognize one of my images in a mailer, or newspaper or website and send me a link, or a scan so I can see it.  Every now and then, I’m amazed when something I’ve created ends up on the other side of the world.  In the huge world of content available, that someone thousands of miles away to pick one of my images just astounds me.

iStockphoto contributor Pete Seager just sent me a scan of an ad containing one of my images, that he found in New Zealand.  It’s the image in the top right.  New Zealand, wow!  That’s a long way from St. Louis .

Thanks Pete!

A Few Words About “Give Kids The World”

So, we are 5 days from the end of my 2009 Holiday Kids’ Charities drive.  As I announced here, I am counting the downloads that come from my iStockphoto.com portfolio, and for each image license sold, I am donating $.10 to a pot to be divided between Toys For Tots and Give Kids The World.  Both, very worthy kids’ charities.

A check of the donation tally boards shows that we are up to almost $500!  Woo-hoo!

Today, I wanted to inject some personal experience into the drive.  An friend of my wife recently made a trip to Orlando, courtesy of Give Kids the World.  She offered forth these thoughts about the journey from some writings she had done.  I think they show how special this organization is, and how great the service they provide is.

Each night, I asked Ally what her favorite part of the day was. Last night, she told Brad, “Being a princess!” Let me just say, she has been a princess all week – in a good way. They call this place Give Kids the World, and they do that and more. From the moment the wish begins, everything is about the wish child. Everything was booked in Allyson’s name, and we were her guests. We called our villa her house all week, and she LOVED that! Each night when we’d return and go through the guard at the front of the property, the volunteer would always say, “Welcome home!”

That is exactly how you feel when you are here…home away from home. The staff here at GKTW bends over backwards to make sure you have everything you could want. Once inside the parks, Ally was treated like royalty. If you ever doubt the kindness of humans, spend the day with a wish child. If you ever need to witness the strength of the human spirit, come spend the day walking around the village at Give Kids the World.

Tomorrow we return home. I am sad Ally’s wish has come to an end. Since her diagnosis, we have been looking forward to this week for almost two years. While this is the end of her magical wish week, we look to the future when we hear the words, “Ally is cured!”

Hopefully, you find that as compelling as I did.  If you weren’t planning to license from my portfolio to boost the total, or aren’t able to, feel free to give directly to Give Kids the world at this link: http://www.gktw.org/howToHelp.asp?a=3&page=donate

Thanks!

ps. The twitter RT contest for 50 IS credits is still active.  Just RT this line, or something like it (once) for a chance to win those credits!

RT @sjlocke to donate $.10 per download 12/1-12/15 from his #istockphoto content: http://bit.ly/sjlocke4kids . RT for 50 IS credits contest!

iStock for Buyers in 2010

Yesterday, COO of iStockphoto, Kelly Thompson posted the annual “What’s coming up in the next year” announcement in the forums. You can read the entire thing here: 2009:The Year in Review and a Look at the Future .  Keep in mind that this post is written to a target audience of iStock contributors, mostly.  Just to pull out a few important notes:

The good news is: there’s lots of good news. We managed to grow significantly in the worst possible economic times. We now sell three times as many files as we did back in 2006.

…

Vetta snuck out of nowhere earlier this year to take the industry by storm, proving iStock customers aren’t just looking for inexpensive: they also want masterful imagery, and our contributors delivered. We’ve been picky – very picky – with Vetta. Less than 10% of the images submitted for Vetta have made it into the collection, and that selectiveness shows.

…

We put a lot of time and effort into research in 2009 and we learned an amazing amount about our customers. And unanimously they said, “You have lots of pictures, now help me find the right ones quickly.” On other topics however, customers were divided. We have one group of higher-end picture buyers who tell us they only shop in the Vetta collection now — and price isn’t high on their list of concerns. The other group is more price-conscious than ever. In our plans for the next year, we’ve tried hard to make sure we address the concerns of these two groups, keeping them both happy.

…

We plan to further diversify the mix of prices in our collection to help customers quickly find the files that work for their budget. Some files are going down in price, and some are going up.

…

There will be a very small adjustment to the price of a credit in 2010 starting January 7, 2010.

Tiered Collections

So, as of right now, there exist three price points at iStockphoto: Vetta, the Main Collection and the dollar bin.  Current credit per image size prices are below (in that order).

I don’t believe there are plans to change the Dollar Bin levels from the 1-7 credit pricing.  However, below are the new credit pricings for the “Non-Exclusive” and “iStock Exclusive” collections, in that order:

As you may notice, there is a drop in credit price for “Non-Exclusive” content, for large and above sizes.  Either 2 or 3 credit drops.  For the “iStock Exclusive, there is an across the board increase, most notably raising the XS size from 1 to 2 credits.  Underneath the hood, I believe that this is because we are finding that more and more web based businesses are using XS images to build professionalism and brand their websites, and an increase in pricing for this smaller size reflects that new usage paradigm and the value in this content.  Bloggers do take a hit in this instance, but that’s what happens with a one size fits all pricing scheme.

Credit Prices

Per credit prices are rising across all volume purchases except the highest volume purchase level.  Below are credit prices for 2009 and then 2010.

Conclusion

Well, there are a few surprises in there with this new tiered collection scheme.  Buyers will be happy with the lower priced option available, I’m sure.  There is also mention in the post about some site upgrading, but nothing specific.  Additionally, there are some announcements that concern most contributors – you can read those in the full post as well.

If you have any concerns, feel free to post either here, or in the thread linked above.  Thanks!

A Check of the Charity Tally Board

Last week, I blogged about my campaign to raise money for two great kids’ charities, Toys For Tots and Give Kids the World .  Since we are almost halfway through the Dec 1-15 timeframe to total the amount to be donated, I wanted to give an update on where we are.

Drumroll, please…

… and the total number of downloads from my iStockphoto portfolio is … 2995 .  Which, at a dime per download, puts the current total at $299.50 between the two organizations.

Also, don’t forget to retweet this story on Twitter for a chance to win 50 iStockphoto credits!  There’s a small number of entries right now, so your chances are pretty good!  I really want to get the word out to buyers to help me boost these totals (there’s some pre-made searches in the other article).  The more downloads that come in, the more the total goes up!

RT @sjlocke to donate $.10 per download 12/1-12/15 from his #istockphoto content: http://bit.ly/sjlocke4kids . RT for 50 IS credits contest!

I triple dog dare you to retweet that!  Happy Holidays!

Help Me Help The Kids

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time … of the Year”.  Surely we all have our own reasons for enjoying the holiday season, whether it is gathering with family, recalling special memories, shopping for that perfect gift, enjoying the first snowfall or just the traditions that come with the holiday you celebrate.  I enjoy spending time with my kids, playing in the snow, seeing them discover the Nutcracker ballet or lighting up at that special present.  I hope that one day, they look back and reminisce about the time we spent and the things we discovered together.

However, due to financial reasons because of today’s economy, or the hardship of a medical condition, there are children out there who won’t be able to have these special memories to hold on to.  That’s why this year, I’ll be donating to two special charities that I think give children something to hang their hopes on.

The Challenge

I need your help though!  I’m going to go beyond my usual charitable contributions, and I want you, the buyer, to help me decide the amount that goes to these two causes.  So, here’s what I am going to do.  For every piece of content licensed from my iStockphoto.com stock portfolio between 12/1/2009 and 12/15/2009, I will put $.10 into the money pot to be divided up. So, the more content I license during these two weeks, the more will be donated to these charities.  Now, lately, I’ve been licensing more than 500 pieces a day from my portfolio, so we are not talking pocket change here.  I thought this would be a fun way to get some excitement and interest going about these causes, both of which, I feel, are very beneficial to children across the United States.

The Causes

Toys For Tots

I can’t imagine awakening on Christmas, or lighting the Hanukkah candles, and not finding at least one gift to open.  In my mind that would be devastating to a child.  So, the first child related charity to get half of the contribution raised will be the US Marine sponsored Toys For Tots campaign.  Their mission is to distribute gifts to underpriviledged children.  Also, their website states that $.97 of every dollar goes to program services, and only $.03 is spent on overhead.  That sounds pretty good to me.

Over the 62 years of the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program, Marines have distributed more than 400 million toys to more than 188 million needy children.  This charitable endeavor has made U. S. Marines the unchallenged leader in looking after less fortunate children at Christmas.  Over its 18 year life span, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation has supplemented local toy collections with more than 81.3 million toys valued at more than $487 million; plus has provided promotion and support materials valued at over $6.3 million.

That’s a pretty impressive track record.  Imagine the smiles the program has created.

Give Kids the World

I have personally witnessed the results of the other foundation’s efforts.  While working in the parks at Walt Disney World, we often times spied a certain button on a child and made sure we went out of our way to put some extra sparkle in that family’s day.  That button came from Give Kids The World .  This non-profit organization brings magical experiences to children with life threating illnesses and memories to their families.

Give Kids The World is a non-profit organization that exists only to fulfill the wishes of all children with life-threatening illnesses and their families from around the world to experience a memorable, joyful, cost-free visit to the Central Florida attractions, and to enjoy the magic of Give Kids The World Village for as long as there is a need.

Their facilities are truly magical, and can be seen here: http://www.gktw.org/aboutUs.asp?a=1&page=scrapbook .  I have never read anything bad about Give Kids The World, and can’t imagine a better cause that serves children from across the nation, year round.

Conclusion

I hope you’ll help me help these kids out during these two weeks by licensing content from my portfolio.  I’m providing some holiday related links below:

Search on “Christmas” | Search on “Hanukkah” | Search on “Holiday” | Search on “2010″ | Search on “Christmas Tree”

Join me on 12/16, here on my blog, for the tally board total, and scans of the checks going to these worthy causes.

Also, possibly, a gift for you.  If you retweet the line down below on twitter, you’ll be entered into a contest drawing for 50 free iStockphoto.com credits (one entry per username).   If you aren’t already a member of iStockphoto.com, the #1 internet site for royalty free stock images, I’ll help you set up a new account with 10 free credits, and then the 50 on top of that.  Then, you’ve got 6 million pieces of content to choose from to create whatever your imagination can come up with.

RT @sjlocke to donate $.10 per download 12/1-12/15 from his #istockphoto content: http://bit.ly/sjlocke4kids . RT for 50 IS credits contest!

Thank you for your support, and I can’t wait to see what we end up with…

It Can’t Hurt To Ask

I’ve previously discussed requesting an image on iStockphoto, either because you can’t find it in the haystack that is 5 million plus images, or because it just isn’t there yet.  Or perhaps you need a different angle of something.  I thought today, I would give a few “success” stories of requests I’ve answered that turned out well.

Almond Biscotti

In this thread, the poster was looking for a variety of food related subjects to use on a candle website:

Hi everyone! I am in Independent Distributor with Scent-Sations Inc. I have a personal site, http://www.JennyKing.com which has links to my distributor site. I’d like to link images that correspond to the Candle Fragrances.

Originally, the thread was titled “Need Almond Biscotti Pics” or something to that effect, as the initial set of requests included that coffee treat.  I had some studio non-people shots I was going to do that day, so I made a point to hit the supermarket before my studio time to gather some props – the biscotti, almonds, chocolate, etc.  I don’t normally do food photography, so I thought this would be a fun diversion.  And it was.  My favorite image is below (and this was licensed by the buyer) :

Now, I try to stay low carb in the morning, so I have a box of wrapped biscotti still.  Anyone hungry?  As a buyer, sometimes, a contributor will have some extra time to help out.

Video Game Kid

In this thread, the designer needed an image of a teen playing video games, on white, full body.

I am working on a teen (aged 11-16) internet/online safety project and I am desparate for a pictures of an online gamer. I have one from another stock photo site, but it only shows the child from the waist up.

Co-incidentally, I had a shoot planned for the next day with a teen, so I offered to get the image she wanted.  Turned out, I had forgotten the model was 10, and not in the requested age range, but I posed the model appropriately, and it turned out that it worked for their needs.  So, sometimes, as a requester, you get lucky, and schedules just work out.

Lease to Own

Here’s a request where the buyer wasn’t clear enough in his description as to what he was looking for.  Once he elaborated a bit, I was able to offer up a possible image that could be edited to his needs.

I was hoping to find a yard sign photo that said “Rent to Own” or “Lease Option”. I can google images for those words but they are not too good.

With a little Photoshop editing, this, or another from the series, could fulfill his needs.

3d House

Along the same lines, this poster was looking for a 3d render of a home:

HELP! Looking for a 3d arial cutout view of a home similar to this. Does anyone know of one? I have searched with no luck. Thanks for any help.

I was able to show something similar from my portfolio from a few years back, and even spent some time to refresh the design of the render from scratch.  I don’t know if it ended up meeting his needs, but I think it will prove useful enough to others, that it pays back the time investment.

I will usually take the time to fulfill requests like this if I think they are generic enough to sell a few times in the future.

Different Angle

Lastly, you could always contact a contributor directly with a request.  However, requests like this should be easy to accomodate, such as a different angle from an existing shoot, or an idea for a future shoot that is not too specific.  Trying to get a custom series shot by a contributor that no one else will ever want is just not really good form.

I received a site mail request below:

I need a wider crop on image #7848217 (couples massage – Portrait). The Girl in the foreground is too cut off. Would you be able to post a revised one?

The best I could do in this case was a wider cropped image from a lower angle.  It still has not been downloaded, and I haven’t heard back from the poster, so I don’t know if this met the need or not.

… which brings me to a conclusion …

Conclusion

We iStock contributors want you buyers to find what you are looking for.  We want you to be happy.  We want to provide you with the content you need.  However, keep in mind that we do spend time, effort and money to supply this content.

If you make a request, please be sure to follow through, either with a reason it didn’t work, or a purchase.  In addition, keep your forum thread updated, so others do not duplicate effort.  Also, in my opinion, a larger image licensed than you might perhaps need, shows appreciation for the special effort made to fill your needs.

We work together, and everyone is happy.

Portfolio Update

Well, the last of this years Christmas themed stock imagery at iStockphoto.com is working its way through the queue.  I think the below two series really came out well and can be used for a variety of different holiday related advertising.

The first was created specifically for the iStockphoto Vetta collection, and the editors agreed with that goal on most of the images (so that means there’s some bargain pricing on the rest ).  I spent hours cutting holes and poking Christmas lights through a red velvet background.  I hired local artist Tamara Tungate to do hair and makeup for this series and she did a great job.  I think it turned out really well, with lots of copyspace for designers.

The next Santa Elf series is more “fun” and these images can be used to accompany, say, newspaper ads with a white background.  Or as borders above a website.   We’ve got themes like, “running out of time”, “stacks of gifts” and “money”.  This 20 something year old model does great expressions and really adds energy to this kind of imagery.

So, that will probably do it for new Christmas imagery this year.  I am shooting a big Christmas set up this weekend, but I’m going to be tucking that away for next August .  You can find the above images in the search linked below.  Thanks!

 

Food: Crown Candy Kitchen

As you may know from my blog, when I get the chance, I like to pay a visit to restaurants featured on Food and Travel Channel TV shows, especially Man Vs. Food .  In the first season, he visited St. Louis, and I can now say, that I’ve hit two out of the three places he went to.

Last week, the kids were off from school Friday, so we headed downtown to find Crown Candy Kitchen.  This place has been around since 1913, and just oozes old time charm.  The area that surrounds it is a bit dilapidated, however, it looks as if there is a big street long renovation going on across the intersection, so maybe that will revitalize the area.

They opened at 10:30am, and we arrived at 11:10, and there was already a line out the door.  This is a tiny place.  There are 8 or so booths that seat two people, down the middle of the small store/restaurant, and approximately 12 or so booths for four around the edges.  You stand just inside the doorway and form a line out the door, and when a table is cleared, you seat yourself.  This is a bit of a problem if there are several groups of four in the front of the line, and tables for two keep getting up.  They’ll sit there, open, until a party of two moves up or notices they are there.

We waited about 20 minutes, and I used that time to peruse the candy counter that is next to the ice cream counter on the left wall.  They had all kinds of sweets for sale.  Chocolate covered raisins and cranberries and others, solid chocolate turkeys, some sort of “Crown Candy Hash” and various nuts.  Lots of things to go straight to your hips.

We got our table and checked out the menu.  One side is dedicated to lunch items and the other side is all ice cream delights.  There are some menu boards around the room, so we pretty much knew what we wanted.  The server brought waters (no ice?) over from the counter, and was very accommodating with our “Grilled Ham and Cheese, don’t grill it” and “Breaded Chicken Sandwich with Cheese, cheese on the side and nothing else!”.  I had the grilled roast beef and cheddar, which was very good – the cheese was plenty melted, and there was some on the bottom and top of the meat.  All dishes come with chips and a pickle.  Our reuben was rated A+ by my sauerkraut loving daughter who stole half from my wife.

The main course was dessert.   I filled up too much on my sandwich, so I split a chocolate milkshake with my son.  That thing was huge.  We didn’t finish it between the two of us.  I can see why Adam got… sick… on the show after five.  By the way, that “challenge” is listed on the menu.  We also ordered a scoop of Oreo ice cream, and a hot fudge sundae.  The ice cream tasted just like Oreos, and had a great texture.  I highly recommend it!  The hot fudge sauce is made fresh in the store, and the menu warns not to eat it if you have dentures.  I can see why.  Once it hit the ice cream and hardened a bit, it was pretty chewy, but it was rich and delicious.

Bill was around $45.  Sandwiches are around $6-7, and the ice cream goodies are around $5.  So, it adds up if everyone gets something.  But it was very good.  Another restaurant experience for the books!