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Microstock Site Review: Shutterstock

by admin on December 9, 2009

ShutterstockGeneral Information

Shutterstock is one of the “Big Four” microstock agencies. It was founded in 2003 and currently has over 9 million pictures online. With this, it is the microstock site with the largest number of pictures. Shutterstock has invented the subscription pricing system that most other agences now have adopted as well.

Submitting Pictures

If you want to sell your pictures at Shutterstock, you will have to send 10 of them for application. If at least 7 of those are accepted, you can upload as many pictures as you like. If you fail the application review, you can send 10 more pictures after 30 days.

For uploading pictures, Shutterstock offers FTP, a Java applet and a HTML form. They have a small set of basic categories of which you can chose two. But for any kind of graphics, the use of the “Illustration/Graphics” category is mandatory, so you have just a single category left.

Shutterstock has a very useful feature which is the reason why I upload my pictures first on this site: It checks the spelling of your keywords. If you have a spelling error in the keywords, you have the chance to correct it before you upload them to other sites.

Picture Review

The review for your initial batch of ten application pictures is fairly tough, and it might well be that you have to repeat the process. But once you have been accepted, the inspectors are noticeably less picky. The tough application is supposed to make sure that you are really capable of producing high quality content.

For my computer graphics images, Shutterstock has the highest acceptance ratio of all the microstock sites I upload to. Your mileage may vary of course.

Pricing

For a long time, Shutterstock has only been selling pictures via their subscription models that allow customers to download up to 25 picturers a day. Recently they also added pay on demand and extendend licenses, but the vast majority of sales still comes from subscriptions.

When you start out you get $0.25 for each subscription sale and $.81 or $1.08 for on-demand sales. After your lifetime earnings have surpassed $500, $3000 and $3000 these amounts are increased. A full overview of the Shutterstock earnings possibilities can be found here.

Payout

Payouts are made automatically after the month your balance reaches a set limit ($75 minimum, $100 is the default). Supported are Paypal, Moneybookers and check. You will receive the  money in the second half of the following month. There have been no problems with Shuttestock payouts so far.

Community

Shutterstock have their own forum system where  livley discussions are going on. It is one of the few microstock sites where the forums are not merely a question and answer place but also a place for gossip and in-depth discussion. Furthermore it is my impression that Shutterstock staff are following their forums closer than in any other microstock agency. So if you have something to say, chances are good it will be noticed.

Earnings Potential

Shutterstock has the reputation of being the fastest paced microstock site. New pictures are given a strong preference while older ones fall farther and farther back in the searches. Because of this experience the term “feeding the beast” was coined, meaning that you have to upload continuosly in order to maintain a good position in picture searches. Recently, the search algoirithm was changed, so this effect may not be as strong anymore as it used to be.

My personal experiences with Shutterstock are a bit mixed. When I started I was lucky enough to be featured for over a month on the “New Artists” section which gave a big initial boost to my sales. But after that, my earnings from subscription sales have not been overwhelmingly good.  I got a few extended license sales though, and every once in a while there are on-demand downloads. But because uploading is hassle-free, I see no reason not to upload at Shutterstock.

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Microstock Site Review: Crestock

by admin on November 30, 2009

crestockTo put first things first: This is not so much a review as a warning. At the time of writing this, I can not recommend to anyone to join this agency.

General Information

Crestock was founded in 2005 in Norway. It is one of the smaller microstock sites, although they don’t publish the actual number of pictures to the public. The company started with the ambitious concept to offer the highest quality pictures of all microstock sites while maintaining attractive prices for buyers.

Submitting Pictures

You can upload via FTP or a HTML form with 10 slots. Crestock has a very efficient bulk editing system can save you a lot of time, if you have filled out the IPTC data for title, description and keywords. It is one of the sites that refrain from using categories for pictures, so this will save even more time.

Picture Review

Crestock has the reputation of having the pickiest reviewers of all microstock agencies. This is of course due to their intention to offer only the finest pictures to their clients. Especially for technical issues, the review standard is extremely tough. Some accepted pictures will be downsized to a smaller resolution without asking. But there are also many complaints that rejections are inconsistent and sometimes plainly imcomprehensible. And also in my own experience, I had to scratch my head very often about the reasons that were given for some rejections.

The review process used to be very fast. In fact a bit too fast for my taste, as I can remember a few times when pictures were accepted or rejected within minutes after submittal. It really made you wonder how a picture could be properly judged in such a short time.

But now, things have changed to the exact opposite. Some submitters complain that their pictures haven’t be reviewed for two monts.

Pricing

Crestock pushes the marketing of subscription plans, but it is also possible to buy single images at a higher price. For each subscription sale the contributor will get $0.25. Regular sales will give you $1.

Payout

Payout can be requested, if your accout is over $50. Supported are Paypal and Moneybookers.

Currently, Crestock is extremely slow with payouts. Many contributors complain about waiting for months to get their money.

Forum

There are a few forums on the site, but there is not much going on. Common topics are “When will my pictures be reviewed?, “Why did you reject this picture?”, “Where is my money?” or “Please close my account!”. Response from Crestock staff is almost non-existent.

Earnings Potential

My earnings at Crestock are minimal. After almost a year of membership, my account has not yet reached a two-digit value.

Conclusion

At the present time, Crestock seem to have serious difficulties in keeping up their business. Finances seem to be extremely tight. Payouts are still made, but only after very long waiting periods. There have also been reports about staff members leaving the company which might explain the current lag in reviews.

One can only speculate about the reasons, but I would think that the “high quality for bargain prices” concept backfired. Less and less contributors are willing to give away their pictures for a quarter. Such low prices can only be justified by high download volumes. But Crestock did not manage to attract enough buyers to warrant the loyality of contribtors. This loyality has been undermined even more by the high rejection rate. Right now, Crestock seems to have been trapped in a vicious circle: Contributors are fed up and stay away, and buyers can’t find interesting new pictures and stay away too.

I suspect one of two things to happen within the next few months: Either the site will be closed for good or it will be bought by a competitor. The concentration process on the microstock market will continue.

Until then, I can only recommend to avoid Crestock.

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Microstock Site Review: Fotolia

by admin on November 16, 2009

The first microstock site I ever joined was Fotolia. I don’t recall what led me there in particular, it might have been a forum post or a review on a website.

I started out putting up my nicest travel photographs, some of which have been selling quite well actually. So when I started to get more serious in my 3D graphics efforts, I did not think long about uploading my works there as well.

General Information

Fotolia is one of the oldest and one of the biggest microstock sites on the internet. It was founded in 2005 in France. Headquaters have since been moved to New York City, but the main market is still Europe. Fotolia’s  Alexa rank in Germany is 81 (!) as I write this, in the US it is only around 1000.

In early 2009, Fotolia also started accepting videos and 3D animations. Currently they have slightly more than 7 million JPG pictures, 400000 vector illustrations and 50000 videos online.

Fotolia is divided into a number of regional sites, but they share a common database. Keywording is expected to be done in the local language, the keywords will then be translated. It is also possible to choose another language for keywords.

Signing Up

Unlike other sites who require an application with sample pictures, Fotolia accepts every anyone who wants to join. Just fill out the forms, and your’e in!

Submitting Pictures

Pictures can be uploaded in various ways:

  • Up to 5 pictures at a time via HTML
  • With a Flash applet
  • By FTP

IPTC data is recognized flawlessly. As soon pictures are uploaded, you can edit their details. If you had the keywords in IPTC data, all you need is to assign two categories, one “representative” and one “conceptual”. Unfortunately, the category tree is not very intuitive, expecially for the conceptual ones. Everything seems to be pretty random. But most buyers ignore the catagories anyway and search for keywords, so this does not really matter.

There is no feature for batch editing, but the submiting proces still is quite fast.

Picture Review

Picture review time is not too speedy but still acceptable, usually it takes three to four days. For computer graphics, the acceptance rate is pretty good. About 80 to 90 percent of my graphics pictures get accepted. Your mileage may vary, of course. With photography, reviewers are a bit pickier, mainly due to the fact that they already have a huge stock of images, so they dont want to “dilute” it. But I still think their acceptance rate is resonable.

Pricing

Fotolia has a credit system with 1 credit equalling €1. Pictures are priced by size and cost from 1 to 8 credits at the cheapest level. There is a also a susbcription service where pictures are significantly cheaper.

What percentage of a sale contributors get depends on your canister level. This means the more sales you have, the higher you climb on the leader and the more you get from your sales. On thing that sets Fotolia apart from the rest is that after you have reached a higher canister level, you have the possibility to set your own prices. The higher your level, the higher you can set your price.

The system is a bit too complicated to explain here in full detail. For the actual figures, please refer to the Contributors Information Page at Fotolia.

Payout

When you have accumulated more than 50 credits, you can request a payout via Paypal or Moneybookers. I only have a Paypal account, and requested payments will arrive there within a few days.

Anything Else?

Fotolia has a forum system that is divided between the regional sites. There is not too much going on, but if  you have specific questions, it’s good to know that there is a place where you can get help.

There have been complaints from long time contributors that conditions have become worse over time. Fotolia once used to pay out the highest commission rates. But with the introdoction of subscription servicec by their competitors, especially Shutterstock, they were forced to cut down a little. Also the introduction of exclusivity options was not very warmly welcomed. Instead of giving exclusive contributors a bonus, they took off a few percent from the non-exclusive contributors as compared to before. But Fotolia still has a very competitive payout model for contributors.

If you have pictures in your portfolio that have not sold for 24 months, you are given the possibility to offer them in the free section for a on-time payment of 0.5 credit. This option is really quite good, because the free section only shows a fraction of all available pictures at any time, and your pictures can still be bought at the regular conditions as well.

Earnings Potential

Fotolia is my top earner. But to be honest, my best sellers are still some of my older photographs. For selling computer graphics, I would not rely on Fotolia alone. But as application is hassle-free and submitting is fast, there is no reason not to join.

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Vue from e-on Software – An Overview

by admin on November 16, 2009

This is not meant to be a full-fledged review but more a quick look at the features this amazing piece of software has to offer. I will write a multi-part review soon but I have not upgraded yet to Version 8 which has just been released. And I will certainly want to have a thorough look at it before.

What Vue Is And What it Isn’t

Vue from e-on Software is a complete software solution for creating 3D renders of virtual worlds. It was designed in particular for the creation of photorealistic landscapes but can also be used to render any other kind of 3D scenes. It also supports animation.

It contains a basic modeler with primitive shapes and boolean operations. You can do a lot with this, but Vue is not a tool for modeling complex objects like airplanes or animals. But it allows you to import any 3D object you wish into your scenes.

Snowy Mountain SunsetWhere Vue truly excels is landscape design. And this includes not only terrain but also plants. Fractal mountains, oceans, forests, deserts, you name it. A powerful atmosphere editor lets you create the appropriate sky for your scene.

It comes with a fairly good raytracing engine that is tweakable in many ways. But it should be noted that the rendering engine it is not a physically correct implementation like for example LuxRender.

Modular Concept

Vue is distributed in several versions with varying degrees of complexity. The basic functionality is included in the free version Vue Pioneer. Rendering size is limited and a logo is placed on the pictures, but you can already do quite a lot with it.

For advanced functionalities, 12 modules are supplied that can be bought separately according to your needs. There are several “in-between” verions that include a limited number of modules. The full Vue Complete ($599) obviously comes with all modules. There are also professional verisons called Vue infinite and Vue xStream that offer corporate workflow enhancements and integration into existing 3D production environments.

If you should decide to upgrade from the free Vue Pioneer, I stronlgy recommend that you buy the low end version Vue Esprit ($199) first. Just stacking modules on top of your Vue Pioneer will result in licensing problems with purchased 3D content. I could have saved some money by having known this before…

Basic Features

  • Modeling with primitive shapes and boolean operations
  • Fractal terrains
  • Atmosphere editor for skies, sunlight and clouds
  • Import of proprietary 3D objects
  • Plants that differ from instance to instance called Solid Growth
  • Powerful material editor
  • Additional light sources
  • Basic animation capability

Additional Modules

  • 3DImport: Import of all major 3D object types including Poser and Daz3D figures
  • RenderUp: Unlimited resolution for renders, control over all rendering parameters

These two modules are included in the Vue Esprit version

  • HyperVue: Parallel rendering on up to 5 network computers
  • DeepAccess: Better object and material handling for complex scenes,  batch editing
  • LightTune: Advanced lighting control, assign specific lights to specific objects
  • Botanica: Customize Solid Growth plants, derive new species from existing ones
  • EcoSystem: Populate terrains and any other objects with plants or any other objects, very powerful!
  • EcoPainter: Paint with Ecosystems on any terrain or object with the mouse or a graphic tablet
  • 3D Exporter: Export scenes or parts from scenes into many formats
  • KronosFX: Advanced animation control, support for HD animations
  • AdvancedGraph: Very powerful graphical function editor for materials and many other aspects
  • Zephyr: Advanced wind control

Cornucopia3D

Cornucopia3D is both a community for Vue artists and a shop for Vue related stuff like models, plants or materials. It is officially supported by e-on Software and it is the only place where you can buy the additional modules. You need a free Cornucopia3D account to register your software (and you need to registerVue in order to run it)

Apart from the fact that for using Vue you are required to have an account there, it is entirely remommendable to have a look around at Cornucopia3D. You can buy lots of interesting stuff, often for low prices, and the forums are a good source of information. There is also a very nice gallery where you can see what can be done with Vue.



Is it Worth the Money?

Apart form the free Vue Pioneer, Vue is not cheap. I suggest to give Vue Pioneer a thorough try and look in the Cornucopia3D gallery what can be done with the more advanced vesions. For me it is worth every penny, but it’s always a matter of personal prefence. In my opinion, there currently is no better software to design 3d landscapes. And Vue is flexible enough to be used as standard renderer for many other purposes as well.

  • The 3DImport

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