Pure Reviews

YAY announces new partnership with Pond5, Zoomy & Photokore.  Read about it below. Hi, I hope you are doing well! We at YAY would like to give you a short update on the latest news. First, we're happy to announce three new partners in our partner program: Pond5, Zoomy and Photokore. You will find more information and opt-out at the API information page . We know some of you would like to get more information about your sales at YAY, as well as your partner sales. We've been running a bit behind on this, but plan to update the pages soon. Therefore we would like to know what information you find most important, and what features you are missing on our sales- and api-page. Other suggestions are welcomed as well. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to understand why an image has been rejected. To improve our review service the reviewers can now e-mail the photographer and explain the reason for rejections. If you have questions about rejections you can also e-mail us at 

Veer launched this week a new collection of highly stylized and eye catching images called Veer Royale.  As several of the stock photography companies image count grows it is getting harder and harder to find some of those outstanding images.  As a new trend companies are creating top class collections on their sites to help put the best of the best in front of their customers.  Check out the info below. Today we are excited to share with you some sweet news: the launch of Veer Royale – a new collection of images and illustrations designed to highlight the best of Veer . Stretching across a variety of subjects, our editors have been on the lookout for content that is unique and highly stylized with strong aesthetic appeal. Royale is designed to help customers looking for eye-catching imagery find a filtered set of results with just a click. Some of you may already see a few of your images in the collection, and if you don't, keep sending us your best and there's a chance

Shutterstock launches a sensitive use license that will allow an increase of sales of up to $75 per image.  Unlike several other companies, SS is going to let you opt out of this feature which will keep your models from being featured in sensitive ads for healthcare or other topics.  This is a great new revenue stream and also gives photographers great control of how their photos should be used. To Our Valued Contributors, We would like to tell you about an important update with great potential to increase sales for you. We are updating our Contributor Terms of Service (“TOS”) to enable new sales with a royalty of up to $75 per image download. Shutterstock services both small and large buyers. In addition to our standard and enhanced licenses, we provide custom licenses to buyers such as large advertising agencies. These agencies require more rights and some flexibility in how an image might ultimately be used. That flexibility may include "sensitive uses."

Alamy launched their live new service last month.  Below is a little information about what to expect and how to upload your news worthy images to their site.  Alamy site is located here . Alamy Live News Dear Contributor, Alamy is today launching its Live News service – a revolution in the way Alamy deals with news, sport and entertainment images. For the dedicated photojournalist, the news agency looking to sell into new markets, or the experienced photographer who takes the odd news, sport or entertainment photo, we believe we now have the best service available. And photographers still keep 60 per cent of any news, sport or entertainment images which we sell on their behalf! There are six broad changes we have introduced: • Alamy will now “push” an edited selection of news, sport and entertainment images to its customers directly via FTP. • A fast FTP upload service has been created for committed news photographers and agencies. You can apply for access to the FTP upload

YayMicro is going through growing pains as it site is back up and running again.  They had to shut down FTP uploading and have had a slower site then normal the last few month.  Traffic has increased 10 fold with more then 650,000 unique visitors.  Below if a formal letter from the CTO of YayMicro talking about the new servers and future improvement that will be coming to the site.  All this is great news and we look forward to the growing success at company.  Sign up for YayMicro here . YES, uploading is now up and running again! :) You can upload by FTP ( ftp.yaymicro.com ) or use the web interface. Recently we have experienced a huge increase in traffic to our site. We had 650.000 unique visitors in August, which is a decuple (yes, its a word and means 10x) since January. In August we also started our corporation with ddp images in Germany which opened our database to huge amount of searches from photo buyers all over Europe. In mid September we will know how much

Depositphoto's is rolling out more marketing features to bag some large profile contributors.  Very similar to when they launched their site they are offering features to help bring over your images to their platform.  One of these feature is getting a $0.10 per image, up to 500 images.  Also something I am not as thrilled about is higher positions in search results for large clients.  This is something I am sure several companies do, its just not something advertised.  If you are interested in joining Depositphotos click here.  Personal ranking of the site for me is between 3rd and 5th when it comes to earnings. Depositphotos offers individualized collaborative terms for those photographers who have a large portfolio and would like to upload it to our site. If you are a skilled and talented photographer or illustrator working with different stock photo agencies, and you have a large portfolio ready to upload to our site but no time to spare, we are always ready to assist yo

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

So I am not sure if this is really good news for the average stock photographer, but iStock will be expanding their editorial collection to include all current photos from Getty Images.  Getty is a power house when it comes to editorial images, so to help lessen this blow they are putting a 6 month (180 days) delay on new images by Getty.  This will give all of iStock users a upper edge on their site for breaking news photos.  Also part of the deal iStock will help you get placed as a Getty photographer for editorial if that is something you like and have a talent for.  Check out the press release below for all the details. Join iStock here New Editorial Collection It's been an exciting few months since we added editorial photos to our library of images. We've been working hard to both grow the collection and tell the world about it. Your editorial photos have been a big success so far — especially tech and product shots. But we've been learning some lessons, too.

Brian O'Shea is moving onto bigger and better things at Corbis.  He will be passing the buck over to "Chelsey Schaffel".  Lets hope that she brings great new things to VEER and bring it even further into its own.  Below is Brian's letter about moving on.   Hi All – I’m proud of where we’ve taken things on Veer over the past couple of years. We’ve completed the transition from a premium RF and RM agency to offering a full slate of prices and content across the RF spectrum. With your help, we made 2010 a great year for our UGC collection and contributors – tons of new content and contributors from our massive Dash for Cash program, an improved royalty and stats display, we held our first Photo Op shoot event, and then ended the year strong by catching up on the review queue. With a great year behind us and another great year ahead - it’s now time to pass the torch. I’m moving into a new role at Corbis, and will be helping to build out an online contributor platfo

iStock has finally announced that they are going to start accepting editorial images into their collection.  This is great news, as they have been one of the largest stock site not to accept any editorial images.  The announcement date is still to come, but they are vamping up to open those flood gates.  Be sure to read over there list of types of editorial images that they will be taking.  Lots of product images are in...sports for example is out. http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=939&utm_source=Jan2711&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ArtistCS

German stock photography site Zoonar has added the Alamy power house to their growing list of partners.  If you have not heard of Zoonar they have both Micro and Macro stock photography options.  Currently their other partner lists are: Polylooks, APIS Network, and Fotofinder.  After your photos are accepted they become Rights Managed images, but you can click edit and choose Royalty Free images if you wish.  Sign up at Zoonar here .

iStock announced last week changes to their contributor royalty percentage break downs.  I did not immediately post this as I was waiting to see what kind of reaction would come out of their heavy users.  I myself have small sales numbers at iStock , so any changes are considered minor for me personally.  After this announcement though several of their big exclusive contributors have announced they will be leaving iStock as its a slap in the face to their earnings.  iStock how ever states that this will increase earning on several accounts.  I am no math expert, but starting at ground zero every year vs a built up over time does not seem it will have a increase in earnings.  This all takes place on January 2011 and your 2011 credit number will be set as of a few days ago.  Here is a link to take you to the percentage breakdown.  They are also adding another category like Vetta.  See the full write up below. We are adding a new premium content collection: The Agency Collection. I

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

HUGE updates are coming your way for contributors and customers alike over at the iStockPhoto guys. You can expect to see several new features rolling out threw the first of next year. First up on Jan. 7th you will see the pricing credit system getting an overhaul (see below for new charts). A new subscription based site will be launched (like Jupiter Unlimited) later in 2010. Finally, they are changing the number of sales for their "canister" levels. Currently I am at the basic level, so this does not affect me no matter what, but if you are higher up they will grandfather your current position. Check out all the details below from kkthompson 2010 Priorities We put a lot of time and effort into research in 2009 and we learned an amazing amount about our customers. And unanimously they said, “You have lots of pictures, now help me find the right ones quickly.” On other topics however, customers were divided. We have one group of higher-end picture buyers who tell us the

I would like to give a warm welcome to our news Stock Photography member with their site launched a few months ago... Deposit Photos . Over the coming weeks and months you will see blog post from my about their performance, updates, and all other happy go luck info I my come across. For now lets get you up to date on who they are and advantages of their service. Contributor Strengths: Get a $0.20 bonus per image accepted for the first 500 image (must sign up for the program after you are accepted) Convenient uploading and attributing (uploading will be addressed in next blog) Commissions start at 44% and can go as high as 60% Payout starting at $50, includes .20 bonus program Quick payment via Paypal, Moneybookers, and Webmoney Statistics on images, sales, views, etc....very nice Customer Features: Credit based system Subscription options SMS payment options A on the going promotion of "second image free deal" - Contributors get paid if your image is the free one

I am now up 100% with the guys over at The3Dstudio. Feel free to check out all the work!

So Fotolia is at it again...yes, pissing off their contributors. They are now allowing high-res images to be downloaded via the cheap subscriptions. This is all great and dandy for the customer, but a hit in the pocket book for the photographers. I am sure they will loose some major photographer accounts, but overall will not be as badly affected. They are giving an opt out option for exclusive photographers only. Read the good news below: NEW YORK, NY, July 27, 2009 – When a membership of over one million speaks; Fotolia listens. The result: Fotolia is the first microstock company to launch a premium subscription plan, which gives members all-inclusive main collection access to high resolution vectors and images, and high definition videos. Fotolia users now have millions of reliable videos, vectors, and images at their fingertips for as little as $249/month. Oleg Tscheltzoff, co-founder and president of Fotolia, LLC, explains, “We made downloading high-definition videos al

Another blow was dealt to StockXpert with Getty Images choice to have Stock.Xchng run by the guys over at iStock Photo . First let’s give you a little background about Stock.Xchng. The site is a free stock photography site, currently with just under 400,000 images, all for free. Most of these images are not very high quality that you would find at a micro site that charges per download. However, the site is geared to small business owners, students, etc....and most contributors are just standard hobbies photographers that just get a kick out of someone using their image. Jupiter bought over Stock.Xchng and turned it into a traffic generator for its micro stock site StockXpert. How this works is every time you did a search for a free image, it would show you a list of images you could pay to download at the StockXpert site…call premium images. Natrually those images where of a higher quality and would attach designers or other users that did not mind doing a

Fotolia is launching premium subscription plans for their stock photography site. After several request from their customer base they have agreed to allow downloads of high-resolution images, vectors and video clips. Currently their subscription services only included lower resolution images for the cheaper prices. I personally allow most sites to offer my photos as a subscription item, but as in the past will several sites it will be intresting to see the photoghers feedback. Photographers will get a higher sale count for these images over the standard plan. Below is the new commission rates for the premium sales only Ranking Premium Subscription White 0.35 credit Bronze