Pure Reviews

Dreamstime has launched a few new features over the last month.  First off they now have a new tab that allows you to search for images via location.  For example you can go to Las Vegas on the map and look at a all the images that have been tagged along the strip.  The feature is very easy to use and works kind of like google images tagging.  They have also launched a new promotion tool allowing users to auto tweet when photo's have been sold, bought, uploaded, etc.  So if you have not logged in for a while, swing over there and check the new items.  Dreamstime is one of my top selling sites, so if you are interested in joining click here .

Bigstock launches a new way to make purchases of your images, via Pay As You Go.  Contributors get 30% out of the $0.50 USD credit.  See the little chart below for the price breakdown via credits/ pay as you go.  This new feature includes your extended license images and went live on June 2nd.  All pay as you go credits can use major credit cards, see Bigstock for details.  To sign up and join Bigstock click here . Checkout their video here: Video Pay as You Go Credits (just like before) Small $0.90 $0.50 Medium $1.50 $1.00 Large $2.70 $2.00 X-Large $3.90 $3.00 Vector $3.90 $3.00 Extended License $29.70 $25.00

This is a little late, but here is the breakdown for July sales.  Number of sales at total sites was down, but total sales was up from last month. Dreamstime - takes back the lead after 3 months in second place ShutterStock 123RF

iStock Photo has been working on a major overhaul called "F5" of their site, starting in late August as mentioned in a previous post.  Here is some additional information that has sense come out. The project well come out in several phases, phase 1 will be for Contributors.  Colors, layout, etc will all be changed with some special real estate for just contributors.  A new contributor lounge will be made grouping together information, resources, and functionality for artist.  A important item in the background of phase 1 is programing that will allow iStock to grow and redevelop as needed.  Most of these changes are coming from the feedback that contributors have been giving over the years. Stay tune to more information I will post as its released.  Meanwhile iStock hit their 7 millionth image mark. Preview of F5 by nicolesy:

FeaturesPics launched a major overhaul of this site last week.  Everything has been changed all the way down to their logo.  First off their website has been streamline for buyers and contributors, no more redundant pages when you log in or confusing path ways of links to find what you need.  First thing you will see is their fresh looking front page which looks more professional instead of a second class stock photography site.  There new logo is also very modern and attractive, hopefully all these improvements will lead to stronger sales and more advertising from the company.

For those few of my followers, I wanted to let you know that I am still here. I have been swamped with studying for my licensing exams in Architecture (still ongoing) and I was out of pocket for a while as I got ready for some eye operations, which have been done with wonderful results. Now for the good news, I should be getting back to blogging more and more over the next few weeks. First up, a lot has happened in the stock photography world while I was out for my short amount of time. So you are about to see several new blog post, so keep up ;-p I am going to start blogging just on each stock site with their label, this way you can follow the articles you want easier. Kevin

vs vs Well Getty has finally chosen to shut down StockXpert, but they are not making it easy to understand. I will give my break down and you can read below the official report. So first off, if you have credits at SXP then you get a one for one trade with iStock (Buyers wont loose any cash they have paid). Now the tricky part, if you are just at SXP then you can request a finial payout of your balance, do so before Feb. 11th when they close the doors. If you are a member of iStock, then your balance will be transferred to that account. Everything makes sense so far right. Now the wrench. Getty is launching a new subscription site called Thinkstockphotos...and if you are a member of SXP then they will be merging your images over to that site. They will only do this if you are opted in on third party option. So, now the odd part, you have a sale at Think...were does the money go...your iStock account, a new account at Think, nope...sounds like its back in SXP account. Even afte...

Well, due to a nice surprise at Shutterstock this January ended up being my best month every with my Stock Photography. I found out that I got my first Extended License over at Shutterstock , something that I have only seen once at Dreamstime . I doubt Feb, will be this nice, but here is to hoping. The top three guys this month was Shutterstock , then Dreamstime , and rounding out the top three was 123RF . I look forward to increased sales at 123RF when they launch their editorials section. Like always, check out the lovely pie chart for a full list of companies I had sales with this month ( click to increase the size ). Also, all other stock sites I have images at can be found on the left side of the blog. Oh, and I would also like to welcome DepositPhotos on the map with my first sale with them, which is great for such a new company.

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...

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 .

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 ...

It was just a few days ago that I talked about the coming soon feature of Crestock new WordPress feature. Well today was their official launching day and you can download the program for your blogging right away. This is a pull once again to give away small image while hoping to get improved exposure for higher sales. However with the rate that Crestock accepts images, I doubt this will be a use to many people. Crestock is one of the few stock photography companies that is know for it weird and outrageous rejections. Check out the word for the creators below. Spice up your blog with professional, high quality, free stock photos & images! With an amazingly simple Drag and Drop interface, blogging has never been this easy! Today is huge for us here at Crestock – for months we've been planning, testing and preparing for the launch of our new WordPress plugin called Freebie Images. For years, we've been blessed with a lot of love from the blogosphere, so we figured i...

So a major buy out happened while I was out of town. Shutterstock bought out BigStockPhoto. It sounds like the two companies will function as separate sites as Shutterstock was looking for an option of credit based sales to added to their subscription based system. I think this is a great venture and for sure we will see an increase in quality at BigStockPhoto's. This morning I have the pleasure of announcing the acquisition of BigStockPhoto by Shutterstock Images. We are excited to add a credit-based product to our line up of best-in-industry subscription options. Though we studied the possibility of building a credit site from scratch, in the end we decided that acquiring and building upon the momentum of a solid brand like BigStockPhoto is the best way to deliver this new product to our customers. As you all know, Shutterstock has pioneered many products that have been duplicated in the industry: we offered the first and by far the most successful crowdsourced subscription st...

Is it me or does this sound like an infomercial? Below is a new letter from Crestock about the launch of their Word Press plug in. We're incredibly excited to let you know that we're only one week away from launching our biggest, most powerful marketing initiative to date, and this is a special invite for you to join and to receive an additional 5% commission on all credits purchases. If you've been around at Crestock for a while, you know that we've been running some hugely popular Photoshop design contests every year around summer time. The idea has been to provide one of the most dominant demographics among potential buyers, the designers, a chance to get to know Crestock – and to actually try the products. These contests have been shaped as viral campaigns and have, without failure, spread like wildfire in the design community; through blogs and forums, through social media and have even been featured on the Apple and MTVs websites. Throughout the years, thes...

Some major changes coming to Mostphoto's . Mostphoto 3.0 will launch in early September with several updates for the better. First off, IE6 support will be dropped. Not a big deal unless you don't do updates, which if that's the case you wont like 3.0 as its an update. New upload process is streamlined, improved image tagging, improved voting on images and more. Read below for some highlights or go to their running blog . Image processing Your image will be queued for processing as soon as it is completely uploaded to Mostphotos via any of the upload methods. So if you are uploading to the ftp, you don't need to visit the site to start the import any more. And your photos will appear on the tagging site as soon as they are processed. So you can start working while our severs work on the remaining images. A progressbar will be visible on the site while you are browsing around that shows how many images are in waiting to be processed and how many that are ready for ...

Dreamstime launched a cool new little application that is for facebook users. You can now link your facebook account with your dreamstime account. Its as easy as clicking a few buttons and instant access to your wall. You can post your latest sales, new images, downloads, and even blog posts. All this of course links back to your Dreamstime account and uses your referrals link. If you have not checked it out yet...log in or sign up at Dreamstime A word from the staff: For the busy social person in you, we've designed a new application allowing you to connect Dreamstime with Facebook account and update your wall based on your latest Dreamstime activity (your most recent uploads or newest blog articles). It's not the next best thing after sliced bread, but it will surely help you promote your portfolio faster and easier. Your Facebook wall will be updated according to how often you access and use our site (F5 addicts will update their wall with a single click). Everyone...

FeaturePics is overhauling their pricing to better compete in the stock photography market. Their old system was the name your base price for the original and auto adjusted from that if you selected to resize. Starting July 17th however they will be converting all their images into a preset price for buyers. I personally think this is a smart move as it makes it easy for the buy to know what the images are going to cost...no guess work. For photographers it will take out the hassle of pricing each image and making sure you have the best price for the most resize options. I say, "welcome to the business world FeaturePics, may the sales start to roll in." Below is the break down of the new pricing, note this is for standard category only. Images in the Mid and Gold levels are still prices by the photographer. Sub Sales = $0.25 (must by a plan) 0.4MP = $0.80 (Volume download plan) 0.7MP = $1.00 (Volume download plan) 1 - 4MP ...

This is my new home for the blog section of my website. I have joined the ranks of Blogger as it has better stats and gets my blog exposed better then the one built into my site. Of course you can access my blog like normal from blogger or also through my typical website as it will import everything I post here on Blogger. So what does all this mean, hopefully it means I will stay more on top of stock photography news and let you know whats going on in my little side of the world. Less bugs means more time looking around and making lovely posts. Coming features include: 1. Latest stock photography news 2. My personal stats and updates to my collection of sites 3. Tips and tricks that 4. Some good old product reviews Until then, check out the other blog post and my website at KWTietz Photography