10 Free iStockphoto Credits

In the past, if you wanted to sign up for iStockphoto and get 10 free credits, you’d have to email me for a code and follow a long list of instructions.  Now, if you’d like to get the credits during sign up, you’ve just got three easy steps…

iStockphoto Adds Small Credit Pack

The way licensing content on iStockphoto works, is that you, the buyer, purchases a bundle of a certain number of credits, which you then essentially trade when you pick an image to download.  Various sizes of photos or different complexities of illustrations may cost more or less credits.

iStockphoto Adds Pricing Filter

Today, iStockphoto added a pricing filter to their advanced filtering options (found on the left side of the search results).  This was announced in the forums:

We’re releasing a new search filter today that will allow clients to sort results by price. By default search results will contain files from every price range. To narrow results, you can select preferred price ranges by adjusting the “Price Range” section on the left-hand side of the page in the search facet area.

iStockphoto Large Sizes on Sale

An administrator’s forum post today announced there will be a 20% discount on larger sizes of stock imagery on iStockphoto for two weeks:

Starting next week we’re going to run a short sale on our largest images. We’re sending an email out to our clients letting them know that XL, XXL and XXXL files in all collections are 20% off from May 24 to June 6.

Keep an eye out for some markings on the image details page to alert you to the modified prices.

iStock Adds Video and Illustrations to Vetta

iStockphoto yesterday announced that sometime this Spring 2011, video and illustration content will be added to the higher priced, more stylized “Vetta Collection” on the site.

Vetta has been a huge success for iStock photographers. Now we’re getting ready to expand the collection to include Vector and Video artists.

iStockphoto Large Credit Packs Removed

Over the Christmas weekend, iStockphoto was the victim of a large scale (as reported in the forums) credit card (most likely) based fraud.  Large numbers of credits were being spent on high priced, large sized Vetta and Agency files, in large numbers.  Enough that a noticeable and unusual pattern of sales were being reported in the forums.  The unusual sales were easy to pick out from contributors’ sales reports, as the per credit price paid was a flat $1 for all the downloads.  This price equated to the 5,000 credit pack available at the time, which gave a discount to $1/credit.  Steps were taken to stop the activity.

Vetta and Agency Images to Include Guarantee

Starting in January, images from the iStockphoto Agency and Vetta collections will be ported over to Getty Images to be licensed there, as well as some other Getty “family” sites.  These will be offered at a higher price than on iStockphoto, but the licenses over there tend to be a little more flexible.  However, Getty does offer indemnification protecting the buyer on their content included in that higher price.

To ‘compete’ or ‘raise the bar’, iStockphoto has just announced all Agency and Vetta collection images will include the iStockphoto Extended Legal Guarantee, which protects the buyer up to $250,000 .  I think this is a great move to help bring value to the collections.

As an aside, if you’d like to check out my Agency and Vetta images, just go here, and use the search filters on the left to show just Agency and Vetta.

iStockphoto Vetta Collection Sale

If that special someone on your list (ie. your client) has a sweet “Vetta Collection” image from iStockphoto on their Christmas list this year, you’re in luck.  Basically unannounced, iStockphoto has reduced prices on the content in the higher tier Vetta collection through the end of 2010.  So, if you didn’t like the pricing increase back in September, maybe you’ll like this holiday sale.

Adjust Your Budgets

Last week I detailed the new pricing on iStockphoto’s Vetta collection and the new “Agency” collection.  However, if you’re the type who does budgetary planning at the beginning of the year,  you may recall that Vetta content was not supposed to increase further in price in 2010:

We’ve been really happy so far with Vetta, our premium collection of unique, hand-picked files that meet our strict standards of exquisite art direction, intelligent concepts and rarity. We plan to keep growing Vetta and have it represent about 1% of the overall library. Vetta prices are staying the same in 2010.

Exclusive Plus is Coming

Back at the beginning of 2010, iStockphoto announced a list of changes for 2010.   Well, the last of the list is coming to fruition.  It’s what’s being called the “Exclusive +” collection.