Pure Reviews

They crew at Dreamstime has been busy so far the 2010. Below is a highlight of great additions already added in January. First up they have not got an option to purchase multiple license for an image. You can find this option under the image details tab and select away. On January 12th they launched a new download format for buyers. You now have the option to get almost any image in their database as a TIFF file. Dreamstime has made it an option for several images to opt in or out of several extended license sales. There is a button that you can choose to turn on or off at your DT command center as I like to refer to it as. Also, if you have the option turned off a contributor can send an automatic request to you of providing them an extended license option. EL options are big cash cows for contributors, so I would think you would like to leave this option on for all your images unless something special is going on with one of your images. On January 8th they added a little butt

Great news for buyers and sellers at 123RF, they now accept and will sell Editorial image later this spring. Editorial images are one of the fastest growing aspects of Stock Photography. Editorials are widely used by companies and blogger who post articles about current events. Check out the process for uploading your editorial images below...note that ftp support will be coming soon. Yes, it's good news for those of you who've been waiting for this moment. 123RF is now accepting editorial content. We would like to invite you to upload your editorial images or illustrations to us. Here's how: Log in and go to where you submit your images for upload Select 'Editorial'. Click on 'Continue' to begin your upload. Next, select the number of images that you wish to upload. Only web form upload is available for now. (FTP will be added later on!) Next, select the images that you wish to upload to us AS EDITORIAL MATERIAL only. Click the "Upload" butto

If you are a Shutterstock user and submit vectors to their site for sell, they have tweaked a few of their rules. This is a short and sweet blog post, see below of the updated requirements. New! Upgraded Vector Submission Requirements What You Need to Know In an effort to streamline the vector upload process, we recently announced our new vector submission requirements. Going forward, please be aware of the following changes: - You can now upload vectors that are compatible with Adobe Illustrator 10 . - We will continue to accept files that are compatible with Illustrator 8. - With both Illustrator 8 and Illustrator 10 files, the maximum file size is now 15 MB . The JPG Preview requirement remains the same. Please continue submitting your low-res JPG previews along with your vector files. Current Illustrator 8 Vector files in your portfolio will remain as is. These new requirements only affect the type of file you upload from now on -- it is not necessary to upload new

Cutcaster has come out with the 2010 New Years Resoultion of everything they plan to accomplish in the upcoming year. I hope that this works as sales have been, well empty over there. They team is very friendly and dedicated though...so hopefully we will see good things out of them. Check out their write up below. What a year 2009 was! With the Aughts (00s) drifting out of our memories and 2010 taking shape before us, we wanted to thank you for your continuous support and give you a glimpse of what to expect in the next 52 weeks from Cutcaster . 2010's focus is on the Photo Buyer and our New Year’s resolution is to educate more buyers about the benefits of choosing Cutcaster . We know you're not supposed to say a New Year’s resolution out loud because it's twice as onerous a duty but we know the hard work before us is to prove we can satisfy any buyers' needs and provide them an amazing selection of content when they search Cutcaster. In the New Year, expect us to: I

Tamron is running a 18week series on how to improve your skills and basic understanding of the DSLR camera. The clips are about 1 min long, which is great to keep you from being overload with information and if you are tight on time. Weekly episodes start today, Jan. 18th, 2010 and will run for the next 18 weeks on every Monday. Of course Tamrons YouTube channel has several other videos to check out if you have more time on your hands and want a more in depth experience about their lens. The video is presented by: Andre Costantini who is a award winning professional photographer. Check out the new channel here .

Deposit Photos adds referral options to their site. Its a pretty sweet program if you ask me, here are the highlights. Get $0.05 for every photo uploaded by a user up to 1000 images (total of $50). Get $0.03 for every referral that sells a subscription image. Get a 15% commission for every fixed pay as you go package. Get paid $10 for placing a web banner on your personal website. Subscription plans for buyers payout: + 10% - 1 month + 08% - 3 months + 06% - 6 months + 07% - 12 months Get a fixed amount for SMS sales: + $0.05 - SMS1 + $0.10 - SMS2 + $0.15 - SMS3 + $0.20 - SMS4 This is one of the most aggressive referral programs I have seen in the stock industry, hopefully this will lead to a strong start as Deposit Photos tries to get the world out about their company. I would also like to take a moment to let you know if you are a photographer then you can get paid for your

So as we close another year and start a new one I would like to reflect on some progress. 2009 was a great year, increase my revenue stream by double from 2008. Launched a new redesigned website and the birth of this blog. I did not quite reach the goal of doubling images available at several of my sites, but did increase portfolios on average by about 2/3rds. 2009 was also a new year for great gear, my new Canon T1i (500d) arrived in Sept and my new Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens arrived in March. Hopefully 2010 will bring a new wide angle and macro lens, stronger sales, increased portfolio sizes, and branching out into other categories of stock imaging. I would like to wish every a Happy New Year and all the best as we start this new decade. Below are two charts, the first is the layout of December sales. The second chart is a list of sales per all my sites I was active at for 2009, even if they closed. Click on images to enlarge:

Zymmetrical closed its doors on Dec. 30th according to the press release...although I logged in yesterday so today is the official door closing ceremony. But either way, they are gone and everyone's photos are being removed. Sounds like they just want to focus on their clip art side at flyerstarter instead of the stock photo side. Below is a write up from our padres over at Zymmetrical as they with everyone there best. It is with deep regret we must announce Zymmetrical is closed. The stock industry and the economy in general are a hard situation these days, and we have made the difficult decision to close the operation, preserving our health and future potential. We met a lot of friendly image producers & agents who are doing great things and working hard in these turbulent times. Sales were up, business systems were finally getting stable and fast, but you need to know when to fold. When your job is not making you happy any more then it's one of those times - and what