Earlier this May, Spaces Images is expanding their collection by accepting location lifestyle imagery from their contributors. The demand for lifestyle location from their partner agencies made Spaces Images add another dimension to their collection. I think it was nice of them to come to Microstock Group and invite people to try macro in their site as there are not many agencies that openly invite new contributors.
Spaces Images is partnered with over 90 of the best Macro agencies in the world. They offer free key-wording services and retouching done for both their RM and RF collections.
iStock on Video Production Cost
iStock recently uploaded a video entitled The real cost of shooting video to ask viewers “Is stock video really worth it”. They shot a typical video clip and broke down all the costs for what it takes to have a great shot. From cameras, lighting, set, props, actors, catering and even directors which cost $500 for a total of $4980 for only a 30 second video. It just shows that making a video could be expensive when stock could be a more affordable way.
Amazon Patents Photographing on Seamless White
Planning to photograph your subject against a white background? Forget it because Amazon was recently given the intellectual rights by US Patent Office in a patent called Studio Arrangement for what we call shooting against a seamless white backdrop. The patent describes the arrangement of the elements in the studio to make a shot, including the F-stop, ISO value, lighting and even a workflow.
The patent describes the arrangement of the elements in the studio to make a shot
Patent Workflow
The patent was originally filed in 2011 and it has five pages to explain just how innovative Amazon’s concept is:
a background comprising a white cyclorama; a front light source positioned in a longitudinal axis intersecting the background, the longitudinal axis further being substantially perpendicular to a surface of the white cyclorama; an image capture position located between the background and the front light source in the longitudinal axis, the image capture position comprising at least one image capture device equipped with an eighty-five millimeter lens, the at least one image capture device further configured with an ISO setting of about three hundred twenty and an f-stop value of about 5.6…
Adobe Voice Using Stock Images
A new free iPad app called Voice was recently launched by Adobe, a voiceover app that allows you to record your voice over text, images and graphics to easily create videos. Thei legal info states that they source their images from Google, Flick, 500px and the Noun Project; however, users reported that they have been finding images from Shutterstock and other microstock agencies from the app. Like this and this. And here's a screenshot of the app featuring a Yuri image.
A screenshot of the app featuring a Yuri image
They also claimed to have incorporated Creative Commons filters to “help ensure that we return only image results from these other websites that have been tagged as ‘for commercial use without modification',” but since Google and Flickr are one of the resources, that doesn’t mean much as lots of copyrighted material stuff ends up there.
Adobe’s response to the complaints is just this:
Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't have control the accuracy of license info from image repositories – image use rights http://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/image-notice.html.
Right now, people whose images are being used by Adobe must contact Apple since the Voice app is distributed via iTunes and if they find that unauthorized images are being used, they might suspend the app.
Other Interesting News
Introducing 500px new project Prime, a commercial licensing marketplace for 500px photography.
500px Prime
Dreamstime’s new idea. Some contributors have receive an email yesterday from Dreamstime announcing that they are undertaking a small scale beta test program that permits the use of the selected contributors’ images for free in online advertising. I wonder how contributors will react to this.
Microstock photography made easy using Microstckr – an iPhone app for contributors.
Palm – a new image search engine that groups the search results according to features and keywords and helps user find a particular image faster.
Palm – a new image search engine
What is palm?
palm is an image search engine that groups the found results according to their visual features and keywords. This clustering helps the user much faster to find his particular image.
Who are the people behind palm?
palm is a student project from HTW Berlin (University of Applied Science). palm was developed by Frederic Cabassut, Janina Trost, Jonas Hartweg, Judith Junge, Ruzbeh Resaei and Stephanie Grieger under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kai Uwe Barthel.
I write about the stock photo and microstock industry since 2006 on my several online-magazines. My goal for MyStockPhoto is to teach photographers and stock photographers how to sell more photos and earn money with their photography hobby.
