Author: Amos Struck

Getty/Stock.xchng (SXC) announcement: We’re happy to welcome a new member into the Getty Images family. Starting today, the iStock team will start running Stock.xchng. That’s right: the world’s busiest free stock site is now part of our family. From now on all the outward-pointing links on SXC will be directed to iStockphoto. Also, the ‘Premium results’ which are served above ever search results page will now all be iStockphoto content, with links back to those images here. So welcome to all you SXC customers and contributors. You’ll be getting an email from us today with a little more about what’s…

Update announcement from Veer Marketplace Team Veer Marketplace is now a complete credit-based community of buyers and sellers offering hundreds of thousands of quality microstock images. Here’s a summary of what’s new: – The tens of thousands of awesome images that contributors like you have uploaded over the last month. Buyers can now search and license your images, and newly approved content will be added to the site daily. – Credit-based pricing and payment, available in pay-as-you-go credit packs or through subscriptions. – Images will be highlighted more prominently in veer.com search results with a new dual search pane that…

At the beginning of my microstock experience, I spent a lot of time to keyword images looking to describe all the details in the photos and then adding synonyms and concept words. Many of my first images have more than 70 keywords… First problem arrived when I began to upload at Shutterstock, maximum number of keywords is set to 50. Then finally I was able to contribute at iStockphoto and most part of the first batches was rejected by keywords.

Microstock Button Lee Torrens on twitter (@microstock) has reported a new nice service called Microstock Button. Microstock Button is a service for authors who sell their work at microstocks. Microstock Button allows you to place your referral and portfolio links on websites, blogs, email, social networks. Each transition on the link to the portfolio is monitored and presented in a user-friendly report. Links can be presented as a button (very similar to the famous social network buttons, such as ” Add This” or “Add to Any”) , a set of buttons or a list of links. One of the developer,…

Shutterstock finally announces the lunch of the Tax Center section and a dedicated e-mail address TaxHelp@shutterstock.com for assistance. This is the message: To All Submitters: We thank you for your patience while we have taken time to carefully design and launch our new Tax Center, in which you will find detailed information and customized line-by-line instructions for the IRS forms you may need. We’ve also set up a new email address to provide you with assistance on tax matters: TaxHelp@shutterstock.com. Your questions will go directly to those on our staff who are most knowledgeable about these issues. We are confident…

ClusterShot is a website that lets photographers sell their images. ClusterShot is free to use, you pick your price for the photos you want to sell and they will take a small 12% administrative fee. At the moment it counts more than 1200 photographers and 200000+ photos. I’ve asked Dan James –  co-founder of ClusterShot and CEO of Silverorange –  to describe which is  the distinctiveness of ClusterShot in an overcrowded photo market  and what are their next development. Here his kind answers that I’ve found very interesting, enjoy: ClusterShot philosophy – ClusterShot was born out of a need for a…

Fotomoto is an e-commerce system specifically designed for photos. If you are a photographer or you operate a website with a big photo inventory, Fotomoto helps you monetize your photos and sell them in a professional way – on your own website. You will sell without any hassle (when I’m writing you can sell prints of your photos, they are going to add other products). You can set the prices and Fotomoto takes care of everything: processing orders right on your website, processing payments, making prints and shipping it to the customers on your behalf.

This is my current workflow – in 10+2 steps – for microstock photo contribution: 1. Shooting in RAW format… of course, To Be Improved 😉 2. Downloading images from cards and backup them (2 PCs, 1 external HD, 1 online service) 3. Choosing which photos to prepare (ACDSee browser) 4. Process selected RAW files with CameraRaw white balance check levels adjustment sometimes a bit of saturation lens correction/aberration if necessary rotation and cropping if necessary

I found an interesting and in-depth article about stock photography published in two parts by webdesignerdepot.com (Written exclusively for WDD by Gyorgy Ferkete). The articles are focused on microstock photography to cover a larger audience of readers, from beginner to advanced photographers and designers. It’s a sort of “summa” of many of the subjects also treated in this blog. First part: How To Sell Stock Photos – Part 1 by webdesignerdepot.com Stock or Microstock? an introduction of what stock and microstock photography mean what to submit, subjects that sell, choosing a niche market, where to submit Take a close look at…

From shutterstock email and forum: To All non-US Submitters: Letters are being emailed to all non US submitters individually today, advising of possible changes in the amount of tax that will be withheld from your Shutterstock earnings. If you are a citizen or resident of the United States living abroad, please provide us with a signed, completed U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification. If you are a resident of a jurisdiction which has an income tax treaty with the United States that provides for a reduced rate of withholding tax on royalties,…