Stock photos: does anyone buy this junk?

Playing around with Adobe Bridge lured me in to the stock photo. vendor collections.

Now, in fairness, some of the stuff is good, nicely masked, very usable, very well thoughout, prepared, time consuming balanced material. I would glady buy that stuff because it offers some value.

And then there’s the other 90%. Cropped like shit. Crayon like illustrations. Ugly. Bad tones. Guassian masked objects with "fuzz" ensuring I’d just have to remask it. Just pure crap.
Who in their right mind would need a 4500×4500 $419 clipart illustration of a Mexican in sunglasses? And what’s up with the grown man in the beenie purposefully looking like a three year old in dire need of a bathroom?

What’s the artist/photographer cut on this? It seems like they’re taking photos of everything. Walking down the street. Look, a stop sign! Snap. Look, a cigarette butt! Snap!
Alright, here’s the valid complaint after the rant. Greed has taken over the good sense of these companies. They would do well to rethink their strategy because I can reach for my Nikon $250 N70 camera and do better. At the very
least, they should siphone off all the crap into some
economy distinction. That way it doesn’t clutter up the 10% of usable material.

Playing around with Adobe Bridge lured me in to the stock photo. vendor collections.

Now, in fairness, some of the stuff is good, nicely masked, very usable, very well thoughout, prepared, time consuming balanced material. I would glady buy that stuff because it offers some value.

And then there’s the other 90%. Cropped like shit. Crayon like illustrations. Ugly. Bad tones. Guassian masked objects with "fuzz" ensuring I’d just have to remask it. Just pure crap.
Who in their right mind would need a 4500×4500 $419 clipart illustration of a Mexican in sunglasses? And what’s up with the grown man in the beenie purposefully looking like a three year old in dire need of a bathroom?

What’s the artist/photographer cut on this? It seems like they’re taking photos of everything. Walking down the street. Look, a stop sign! Snap. Look, a cigarette butt! Snap!
Alright, here’s the valid complaint after the rant. Greed has taken over the good sense of these companies. They would do well to rethink their strategy because I can reach for my Nikon $250 N70 camera and do better. At the very
least, they should siphone off all the crap into some
economy distinction. That way it doesn’t clutter up the 10% of usable material.

Who in their right mind would need a 4500×4500 $419 clipart illustration of a Mexican in sunglasses? And what’s up with the grown man in the beenie purposefully looking like a three year old in dire need of a bathroom?

What’s the artist/photographer cut on this? It seems like they’re taking photos of everything. Walking down the street. Look, a stop sign! Snap. Look, a cigarette butt! Snap!

Playing around with Adobe Bridge lured me in to the stock photo. vendor collections.

Now, in fairness, some of the stuff is good, nicely masked, very usable, very well thoughout, prepared, time consuming balanced material. I would glady buy that stuff because it offers some value.

And then there’s the other 90%. Cropped like shit. Crayon like illustrations. Ugly. Bad tones. Guassian masked objects with "fuzz" ensuring I’d just have to remask it. Just pure crap.
Who in their right mind would need a 4500×4500 $419 clipart illustration of a Mexican in sunglasses? And what’s up with the grown man in the beenie purposefully looking like a three year old in dire need of a bathroom?

What’s the artist/photographer cut on this? It seems like they’re taking photos of everything. Walking down the street. Look, a stop sign! Snap. Look, a cigarette butt! Snap!
Alright, here’s the valid complaint after the rant. Greed has taken over the good sense of these companies. They would do well to rethink their strategy because I can reach for my Nikon $250 N70 camera and do better. At the very
least, they should siphone off all the crap into some
economy distinction. That way it doesn’t clutter up the 10% of usable material.

"Jason" wrote in message

Who in their right mind would need a 4500×4500 $419 clipart illustration of a Mexican in sunglasses? And what’s up with the grown man in the beenie purposefully looking like a three year old in dire need of a bathroom?

What’s the artist/photographer cut on this? It seems like they’re taking photos of everything. Walking down the street. Look, a stop sign! Snap. Look, a cigarette butt! Snap!

You’d be surprised. I have a lot of photographs with Alamy, a major UK agency, and I’m often surprised at what sells – stuff you would never imagine would be of any use to anybody. However, it costs me nothing to put them with Alamy, and I get 65% of each sale (or I could pay a storage fee and get 75%). A very much reduced size JPEG can sell for $140, and the prices go up from there. Feature mags look for the strangest pics to illustrate articles. Whatever, I make very good pocket money from Alamy.
H.

Alamy are excellent. Honest company and they do all the promotion, effectively. You just have to sit back and wait – the more images you put there, the more likely you’ll get sales.

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Hecate – The Real One

Alamy are excellent. Honest company and they do all the promotion, effectively. You just have to sit back and wait – the more images you put there, the more likely you’ll get sales.

Hecate – The Real One

"Hecate" wrote in message

Alamy are excellent. Honest company and they do all the promotion, effectively. You just have to sit back and wait – the more images you put there, the more likely you’ll get sales.

Hecate – The Real One

I am amazed at the file sizes they require – 48mb minimum – sounds incredible!! and they are very specific about colour space – RGB mode – sharpening etc., You can learn a lot just reading the do’s and dont’s They recommend (insist really) genuine fractals for interpolation!! Do you fellows do that?

Harry

You mean anyone can submit images and stand the chance to make a few

I’ve thought of this before but never seriously looked into it. I’m no photographer, but some of mine come out lucky as hell. I recently took

nice macros around the garden.

I am amazed at the file sizes they require – 48mb minimum – sounds incredible!! and they are very specific about colour space – RGB mode – sharpening etc., You can learn a lot just reading the do’s and dont’s They recommend (insist really) genuine fractals for interpolation!! Do you fellows do that?

"Hecate" wrote in message

Alamy are excellent. Honest company and they do all the promotion, effectively. You just have to sit back and wait – the more images you put there, the more likely you’ll get sales.

Hecate – The Real One

I am amazed at the file sizes they require – 48mb minimum – sounds incredible!! and they are very specific about colour space – RGB mode – sharpening etc., You can learn a lot just reading the do’s and dont’s They recommend (insist really) genuine fractals for interpolation!! Do you fellows do that?

From what I saw, you got offered the option of a 75/25 (You/Them) split on any revenue if you wanted to pay to store your pics, or 65/35 if they stored it for free. Latter option seemed quite fair to me given they were paying storage and doing the marketing.

No one’s going to pay $469.00 for a pix from the back page of your local

pincher handout.

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:37:57 GMT, "Ken Wright"
wrote:

From what I saw, you got offered the option of a 75/25 (You/Them) split on any revenue if you wanted to pay to store your pics, or 65/35 if they stored
it for free. Latter option seemed quite fair to me given they were paying storage and doing the marketing.

They’re all $469.00 at the highest priced. 75/25 65/35.. You’re paying even on
top for them to store those images. What do they charge to post the images ?
And 65/35… Gimme a break you could get your own website and one of those search engine top listing companies’ to advertise your images for less than the
cost of one image.

No one’s going to pay $469.00 for a pix from the back page of your local penny
pincher handout.

That’s more than some of the better automatic cameras cost. —
more pix @ http://members.toast.net/cbminfo/index.html

"_+arrooke" wrote in message

You mean anyone can submit images and stand the chance to make a few

bucks?

I’ve thought of this before but never seriously looked into it. I’m no photographer, but some of mine come out lucky as hell. I recently took

some

nice macros around the garden.

TIFFs, 48 Mb minimum.
You ain’t gonna do that with any ordinary camera.
H.

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:37:57 GMT, "Ken Wright" wrote:

From what I saw, you got offered the option of a 75/25 (You/Them) split on any revenue if you wanted to pay to store your pics, or 65/35 if they stored it for free. Latter option seemed quite fair to me given they were paying storage and doing the marketing.

They’re all $469.00 at the highest priced. 75/25 65/35.. You’re paying even on top for them to store those images. What do they charge to post the images ? And 65/35… Gimme a break you could get your own website and one of those search engine top listing companies’ to advertise your images for less than the cost of one image.

No one’s going to pay $469.00 for a pix from the back page of your local penny pincher handout.

That’s more than some of the better automatic cameras cost.

TIFFs, 48 Mb minimum.
You ain’t gonna do that with any ordinary camera.
H.

Do it all the time with an EOS 100 for example. 120Mb files.

"Hecate" wrote in message

TIFFs, 48 Mb minimum.
You ain’t gonna do that with any ordinary camera.
H.

Do it all the time with an EOS 100 for example. 120Mb files.

I correct myself – any ordinary *digital* camera.
H.

Do it all the time with an EOS 100 for example. 120Mb files.

I correct myself – any ordinary *digital* camera.
H.

Yes. But as you say, not much of a problem with the right software. If I had a 1Ds II I wouldn’t worry about, but with lesser cameras film often works out better.

—

Hecate – The Real One

I use an Olympus 4 megapixel. It has a tiff setting. Have never bothered using it. I use high quality jpg. Photos come out about 900Kb. Never had a problem. If I do, I can go higher. The camera has a good lens. Keeps me

my customers happy. Sure I’ll upgrade at some point. But 99% of the time this works just fine for commercial printing.
I don’t doubt your original photos are better. But by the time it’s downloaded & screwed with – do you really think?
Keith.

Do it all the time with an EOS 100 for example. 120Mb files.

I correct myself – any ordinary *digital* camera.
H.

Yes. But as you say, not much of a problem with the right software. If I had a 1Ds II I wouldn’t worry about, but with lesser cameras film often works out better.

I use an Olympus 4 megapixel. It has a tiff setting. Have never bothered using it. I use high quality jpg. Photos come out about 900Kb. Never had a problem. If I do, I can go higher. The camera has a good lens. Keeps me and my customers happy. Sure I’ll upgrade at some point. But 99% of the time this works just fine for commercial printing.
I don’t doubt your original photos are better. But by the time it’s downloaded & screwed with – do you really think?

I use an Olympus 4 megapixel. It has a tiff setting. Have never bothered using it. I use high quality jpg. Photos come out about 900Kb. Never had

problem. If I do, I can go higher. The camera has a good lens. Keeps me

my customers happy. Sure I’ll upgrade at some point. But 99% of the time this works just fine for commercial printing.
I don’t doubt your original photos are better. But by the time it’s downloaded & screwed with – do you really think?

I’m not saying my original images are any better, that’s very much a subjective issue. 😉 However:

Work this out. You have a 1Ds II. This gives you, roughly a 17Mb image to start with as a RAW. You need to get to 48MB. That’s an increase in size of just under three times.

You have an Olympus which gives you a 900k image. You need to get to 48Mb. That’s an increase in size of just over 53 times.
Which do you think would provide a useable image?

Also, although I use digital, I use a lot of film. Scanned in without much of any adjustment I get a 120mb image. To get to a minimum 48 Mb I have to… well, do nothing actually.

Which of these three do you think is most likely, and which is least likely, to be of any use?

—

Hecate – The Real One