What Sort Method Do You Use?

Now, this post is for buyers at iStockphoto.com only.  We contributors constantly discuss which sorting method buyers use when using the iStock search.  I wanted to see if we could get a large group of buyers to respond here. For more information on sorting methods, read this.  So lets see which sort method is primarily used…

And for a bigger picture, how about answering this as well?

Thanks!

Useful Isolated

A portfolio update for today’s post.  A new set of images with a cute little girl in casual clothing, and also in a swimsuit, ready for summertime fun.   Good for promotional posters, or editorial article side images, etc.

By request, you’ll also find these next series in my portfolio .  Isolated ball0ons, and balloon bouquets (with and without weights), as well as some 3d renders of de-bossed footprints.

Speaking of 3d renders, I’m going back to something I did waaaay back in 2004, and redoing and expanding a series of conceptual roadsign images…

If you have any suggestions you’d like put on that sign, let me know!

By the way, Monday was my biggest readership day ever.  Thanks to all that stop by.

You’ve Been Accepted

Congratulations!  You’ve been accepted at iStockphoto.com as a contributor.  Now read this article, so you know what your next step is.

1. Acceptance:  Go back and read your acceptance email.  Now, read it again.  This will be important later.
2. FAQ: Not suprisingly, iStockphoto has an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).  It’s called that, because a lot of people ask the same questions, so it’s likely yours is there.  You should go read the FAQ.  Read through all the FAQs, listed on the right.  Want to know what a lighbox is?  How to get paid?  It’s in there.  Because it’s something frequently asked.
3. Model Releases: Did you read the FAQ on model releases?  Good.  Toss that bit about “When do I need a release” out of your brain.  It’s old data.  Yes, we know you got a rejection for a non-identifiable face.  Instead read this iStockphoto article about when a model release is required.  Especially the bottom part about context.  In the future, when you have more than one release, you will need to stitch them together into one .jpg file to upload.  That’s how it works with multiple releases.
4. Filling your portolio:  You need to upload your content.  You can do that from the upload page at iStockphoto .  If you don’t upload content, you won’t sell any, so don’t come back in two years asking why your 15 images of feet aren’t paying your mortgage yet.
5. Keywording:  iStockphoto keywording is not the same as keywording on other sites, because we use a Controlled Vocabulary that requires disambiguation for terms with multiple meanings.  Read this iStock article, or this one by some guy.  Also, check out the sticky posts in the keywording forum.  You don’t want to be the one who can’t keyword “Birmingham” correctly.
6. Content Review:  You are non-exclusive.  Image review can take up to two weeks.  If longer, contact Contributor Relations.  There may have been a database issue.  You will get an email about whether it has been accepted or not.  No, content does not necessarily get inspected in the order it was submitted.  It gets doled out in batches to different people.
7. While You Wait: In the meantime, you should do some reading.  There are lots of iStockphoto articles to browse through, as well as the forums on the site.  I’m always in the forum.  Watch out for me.  I’m a terror.
8. Search:  Practice using the forum search box at the bottom of the forum page.  All the questions you are likely ever going to want to ask have already been asked and answered.  You can find the answers quickly by using the forum search or Google.  Including why your application images you submitted got rejected.
9. Initial Application Images:  Yes, your initial application images that you resubmitted for your portfolio likely ended up getting rejected.  You did re-read your email back in step #1, right?  If not, read this article about why your application images were rejected.
10. Status Information:  Your uploads and data relating to sales and such interesting things, are listed on your upload data page, here .  BTW, that page is sortable depending on what you click at the top.
11. Rejections:  We all get rejections.  If you want to hear why you might have gotten the rejection you did, pay a visit to the critique forum, where contributors and inspectors will attempt to point out what caused the trouble.  Please, please, please, read the sticky post at the top entitled “Read this First“, about how to post a 100% sized version of the image.  Do not rant in the main forum about how the inspectors are blind because your image is in focus, because history proves that it won’t be.
12. The Magic Button:  No, there is no magic button to make sales happen.  When your images are accepted, they are in the search results within 24 hours.  If someone wants your image, they will buy it.  You do not need to turn anything on.  You just need more than 5, 10, 15 useful images in a pool of 5 million.  No, no one is going to give you a list of things to shoot or create to be successful.  It’s up to you to pave your own path.  Read this article on getting noticed, by Ethan Myerson.
13. TGIF:  Yes, we use a lot of acronyms, so, speaking of Ethan, read this article.  You don’t want to be the person who posts in the main forum, asking “What is AOTW?”.
14. Control Panel:  There’s a link at the top of every page that opens your control panel.  There are some things in there you probably want to keep checked, like “Allow Subscriptions”.  Others, you may not.  It’s up to you.  If you “Allow prints”, then people can order prints of your content from iStockphoto, and you get a portion of those proceeds (when it is working).  If you “Allow extended licenses”, then people can purchase additional permissions from you, which get you more money.
15. Sales:  Congratulations, you had a sale.  No, you don’t get to know who bought it.  That’s part of the fun of selling royalty free imagery.  But you can keep your eyes open and post in the In Action forum when you see yours somewhere.
16. Woo Yay!: Getting your 1/10/100th download is fun, as well as your first $100 or your 100th upload.  The best place for these announcements is the WooYay thread in the Off Topic forum, or the blog on your iStockphoto profile.  Didn’t know you had a blog?  It’s a great place to put status updates like these.
17. See My Other:  People like to put links in the descriptions of the images linking to other similar images, as a sort of marketing banner.  Eventually you will notice this and want to do it.  And you’ll want to post that you can’t figure out how to do it.  See this tutorial, again from emyerson, on how to do this.

There you go.  You’re on the path to iStock success.  Well, not really, but hopefully you at least know where some information can be found.  Good luck!

The Right Value for your Money

Let’s face it, times are tough all over.  People are tightening belts and looking for ways to save money.  This, of course, applies, not just to consumers, but designers and businesses.  If you were looking to purchase, say a company car, would you go crazy for a Cadillac with all the bells and whistles, or would you try to find a vehicle that fits your needs and offers the best value for your money?

This is sort of in response to a recent article by Lee Torrens called “Selling the Same Stock Photos at Different Prices“, as well as some discussion around the internet forums.  The base question is, “It is acceptable to sell the exact same photo at widely differing prices?” in the stock industry.  Of course, we don’t really mean “sell”, we mean “license”.  A license gives you, the buyer, certain rights in the way you can use an image.  “Widely differing prices” means anything from an Royalty Free image you purchase for 1 credit (around $1) at iStockphoto.com, to an image you license from gettyimages.com, which could run into the hundreds of dollars.

So, how do you determine the best “value” for your money, when licensing an image?  I think the best place is to look at the license terms and other license offerings.  ( By the way, you can see all the iStockphoto license terms here, and the gettyimages terms here .)

License Flexibility

When you look at a typical microstock license, you’ll find that there are lots of ways you can use your licensed image, and lots of ways that you can’t.  Microstock evolved from various designers sharing images, so the most flexibility in the terms revolves around using an image for marketing purposes and advertising.  Making a brochure for your business?  Great!  How about an ad for a big newspaper?  No problem. As many as you want.  Book cover for a major author?  Help yourself.

You will, however, start to find restrictions when you want to use the content to actually make money, such as selling tshirts printed with content, or web templates.  Also, when you want to distribute content across your business group, or go over so many uses of the image in non-advertising copy (like a newspaper article).

This kind of thing is no problem for the typical user of microstock – the church designer, the guy who makes up those coupons you get in the mail, the student writing a report.  They do present an issue for those more innovative users, and this is why many sites offer the Extended License.  The purchase of various extended licenses offer the buyer the ability to do things like print content on products and sell it, or design web templates, or distribute the content across the network (multiple seats) or have extended print runs.  So, for your basic (really, a wide range of ) needs, the regular license offers excellent quality standards with an excellent value (price – $1-$20) unheard of before 2000.  For extended needs, the extended license is there at a price ($50-$150).

Now, take a look at gettyimages’ license agreement.  Its terms are much more open:

Getty Images grants to Licensee a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, worldwide right to Reproduce the Licensed Material identified in the Invoice an unlimited number of times in any and all media for all purposes other than those uses prohibited under Section 3 of this Agreement.

This, then has no print limit, allows the usage on products for sale (electronic or otherwise) and another paragraph allows up to 10 network users per license.  Guess what, though?  These terms come at a price – from $50/image up into the $1000 range, depending on size, country, etc.

So, the question for the buyer is, “What are your needs for this project”?  If the exact same image is available on two different sites, which of the sites offers the licensing terms that best fit your needs for the best price?  Note, that this doesn’t just apply to a gettyimages/iStockphoto match up, but across the various microstock sites, as many contributors upload their content across the spectrum of stock agencies out there.

To offer a more concrete example, say I was a buyer designing a t-shirt for my online web store.  I found a great image of an isolated dog to use on iStockphoto.  I need the large size, which runs me 12 credits, or around $15 at my credit package price.  However, to sell, I need the extended license for products for resale at 125 credits, or around $150.  I plan on selling my 2000 t-shirts for $20 each, netting me $40,000, so the license investment isn’t a big deal.  Total cost at iStockphoto, around $165 for the content that will actually make the shirt sell.

The exact same image on Getty (assuming the contributor offers it there), at the size I need will run me around $300, but that includes the rights to be able to sell product.  Ok, pretty obvious here, that for my needs, iStockphoto is the better choice.

However, maybe I am planning on selling 6000 t-shirts?  The extended license cost goes up at iStockphoto to $450, making the gettyimages photo a better deal.

The point here, being, figure out your needs, and find the offering at the best value that suits those needs.

Service

One other point brought up, is that you get a higher level of service, for the higher price you pay at places like gettyimages.  They offer image searching services, and live chat help, which popped up several times as I was poking around the site.

This is something that could certainly be useful to someone, and may be worth considering, when you are assigning “value” to the various stock offerings out there.  If time is money, and professional assistance can help you out, then an option like gettyimages could prove more cost effective.

At iStockphoto, we try to crowd source image search help in the Request New Content forum, but you tend to find contributors offering up their own content that fits the request, which can be helpful, but you may miss out on other content in the collection.  There are some, though, that have the time to search a bit more, and post community work, as we realize buyer satisfaction helps everyone.

In The End…

… it is up to you to figure out your needs and find the content at the site that best serves those needs, without overspending.  That’s the best way to get true value for the money you spend in this crazy economy.

Use TinEye to Brainstorm

Have you heard of tineye.com ?  It is to images, what Google is to words.  Basically, it takes any image you feed it, either from your computer, or an online URL, and compares it to over a billion images it has found from scouring the internet.  It has some proprietary technology, that creates a “fingerprint” from the image it finds, stores it, and then uses that to compare to what you are looking for.

Now, on its front page, it has two input areas for the upload, or URL of the image in question, but what makes this easier to use, is the browser plugin (available for FireFox or InternetExplorer).  You can right click on any image you find and immediately send it to TinEye for evaluation.  Much more fun.

So, how to use this for brainstorming?  Well, say you’ve found a really cool image on iStock, that you’d like to use in your design, but you’re sort of stuck on how to utilize it.  Why not instantly see how others have worked it into their design?  Say, for example, you wanted to use my most popular download, but needed a few ideas on how to work it into a design:

A simple right click takes you to TinEye, and many examples of how others have used it.  You’ll find that most people use this type of image, as a simple insert on their contact page, but there are a couple of more complex usages that may give you some ideas.

Now, idee said, at the UGCX conference this week, that they are constantly adding to the billion image database, and the site just came out of closed beta testing a few weeks ago, so if you’re not finding your image of interest out there yet, keep looking, or pick a similar image and see what’s out there.  For example, if your grass and sky image isn’t found, try another similar one for ideas.

Don’t forget, it’s fun for contributors too, to find your images out there “in action”.  Although, if you’ve got over 6,000 files like me, it may take a while.

Have a good weekend!

iStockaudio Open For Business

Since May or so of last year, you may have seen blurbs about iStockaudio, a new content section on iStockphoto.  They were taking submissions, but the storefront was not open.  Until yesterday.

Now, open for business, is iStockaudio, and new source for royalty-free sound tracks.  As you can see, prices range from 2 credits to 25 credits, depending on content and complexity.  Files are downloadable in .wav format. Where can you use audio that you download from iStockaudio?

• video or movie footage
• documentaries
• commercials
• video games
• websites
• toys
• games
• phone hold systems
• presentations, etc

What can you find on iStockaudio?  About 10,000 clips to open, which include music, sound effects and voice liners.

Searching for audio is as simple as any other search.  If you have the “type” checkboxes all on at the top of the page, you will get photos, illustrations, etc. mixed in with the audio returns.  There are nifty new icons under each image to tell you what type of file it is.  Audio files get a musical note icon.

However, if you uncheck everything except for audio in the top bar, you’ll get a neat new “list view” of the audio, which gives more details.  Clicking on one to play it, even gives you a bit of the description.

You can see this work by clicking this link:

Here’s an important note from the thread about the release:

When you’re searching, be aware of your filters. If you have ‘Find Prints’ checked in your Advanced Search options, you aren’t going to see any Audio results. ‘People’ and ‘Extended Licenses’ will do the same thing.

You can see all the icky legal details at this link, but one interesting thing is that products for resale are allowed under the audio license.

Use in the following products for re-sale, license or other re-distribution: toys, games, cards, and other similar entertainment goods up to a maximum of 2,000 items in the aggregate.

By the way, there is a very funny promo video here.  Check it out, and enjoy iStockaudio!

Twitter A-GoGo

You can follow my wacky exploits now at http://www.twitter.com/sjlocke . Should be an interesting experience for both you and I.

Portfolio Update

In case you missed it, we elected a new President, and he took office last month.  Well, guess who stopped by the studio the other day?

Ok, it’s not really him, but a whole anonymous concept series on the President of the USA.  Various objects and poses.  Should be fun to use.  Also, a slightly late Valentine’s Day series, including the new model from above…

Also, don’t forget, all your “Pot of Gold” needs, for St. Patrick’s Day.  New images, for 2009.

If you have suggestions for subjects you’d like to purchase, feel free to comment here, or contact me privately.  Thanks!