New to this discussion, but not to stock photography
Hi,
I'm new to this discussion, but not to stock photography. I've been involved in stock photography for over 25 years. I currently sell stock through my Smugmug website and am represented by four stock agencies. In addition, I have my photos on several other websites. In the past, I have also worked for a stock photo agency.
Basically, I think that the idea of Smugmug getting into the stock photo agency is a natural and is worth further exploration.
Currently, I do not participate in the popular photo option as I do not want clients looking at my photos and seeing a thumbs up or thumbs down icon. This only confuses them and looks very unprofessional.
Most clients want high res images - often 50-55mb tiffs Right now Smugmug is restricted to 15 mb jpegs.
I only have low res images on my Smugmug website that are not right protected because my clients often want to download comps for layout or immediate circulation to the various editors. I do not want any higher res images downloaded without my permission.
If you are considering marketing royality free images - this is a very bad idea and I would not want to included.
What I would suggest is that interested photographers submit images to a large Smugmug photo pool. The images should be low res - maybe 500 to 800 pixels on the long side. Smugmug could review each image and reject any that are not of good quality or in poor taste. If a client saw an image that it was interested in, they would then contact the photographer and a price would be negotiated. The photographer would then supply the client with the size of the image that they wanted. Smugmug would get 20% and the photographer would get 80%. Payments could be arranged through PayPal or Smugmug. I am currently participating in such a service overseas and have had many international client sales on a weekly basis.
The IPTC metadata, image discription, keywords, copyright information, etc. would need to be embedded in each image.
I have gotten some wierd feedback when I mention the name Smugmug as many associate it with Flickr or just don't think that the name sounds very professional. If you folks are seriously wanting to market images to corporate, advertising and even editorial clients, I would suggest some type of name change - at least to the stock photo division.
I would be interested in discussing this further with any interested parties.
Many of you sell digital downloads and wonder how to get more exposure for your work.
We're not ready to go public with this news, but we knew you'd love advanced notice about a stock photo service we're working on (we hope this forum is a secret corner of the world).
We're going to provide an option for you to enable specific galleries for stock sales. When you do, any photo in those galleries that is for sale via digital download will be added to SmugMug's stock catalog.
We're planning to construct a page for finding stock photos that will be in some ways like our popular photos page. The stock photo page, however, will have a custom search engine just for stock.
We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch. And we hope you'll enable some great shots for digital downloads now so there is good content on day one. You can't enable galleries for stock sales yet, but that should be a quick job if you've already enabled photos for digital sales.
Timing: we believe we're a short number of weeks away but it's software...if we run into snags there could be delays.
Clear as mud?
Thanks!
Baldy
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited May 15, 2007
This has turned into quite a fascinating thread...
In some ways I feel like I did when photograhers like Michael Thomas (customer #1541) encouraged us to enable pro sales. I listened dutifully to his wish list and then went to Don and explained why I thought we should never get into pro sales. So many complex features. So many stout competitors like Photo Reflect.
But his voice grew into a chorus of voices and, thank goodness, we decided to enter the market with a simple feature set. We've since been able to add features like proof delay, digital downloads and custom watermarks.
We're learning a lot from this thread. It's going to be fascinating to see how this unfolds because I'm not aware of another marketplace like this. Am I missing one? We're not really like the stock agencies where you only have a vague sense of who the photographer is, if you have any sense of it all all. You feel like you're buying from Getty. I presume their cut of the sale is much larger and more legal responsibilities fall to them. I'm not aware that they have much of a comments/community/ratings system.
I feel we have to start simple and react to how it unfolds. Much as I'd love to have a rights-managed offering at day one, it's unfortunately more than we can manage in the beginning. While I don't think any of us want to see us become iStockphoto where every image is a dollar and you have to weed through a lot of images to find good ones, nor do I think we can take on Getty with a high-end rights-managed offering yet.
My understanding of the model release issue is we need to have you represent that you have model releases in order to place images in the catalog. But then you are the seller and we are the marketplace so the legal responsibility for model releases falls to you. Am I mistaken?
My understanding of the model release issue is we need to have you represent that you have model releases in order to place images in the catalog. But then you are the seller and we are the marketplace so the legal responsibility for model releases falls to you. Am I mistaken?
I think you're right without having looked into legal details.
The point is more to make the pro's aware of that by giving making them actuallly say for every photo with a person that they do have a model release for that photo. Many of them are probably totally new to the market of stock photos, even more so than you guys from the sm-team are.
They even have to be more than just aware of that there's something called model release in the stock world. It has to be perfectly clear that will get in trouble if they sell photos of persons to be displayed in ads etc. without asking permission of the model in form of a *written contract*. Words mean nothing anymore once a model sees his face on billboards all over the country. So the photographers have to understand that crystal clear in order to also communicate that to their models. It's not like you're buying a book online where you also agree to a contract, it's perhaps more like writing and publishing a book about your life with real persons in it which might be also a lot of legal tamtam.
I feel we have to start simple and react to how it unfolds. Much as I'd love to have a rights-managed offering at day one, it's unfortunately more than we can manage in the beginning. While I don't think any of us want to see us become iStockphoto where every image is a dollar and you have to weed through a lot of images to find good ones, nor do I think we can take on Getty with a high-end rights-managed offering yet.
My understanding of the model release issue is we need to have you represent that you have model releases in order to place images in the catalog. But then you are the seller and we are the marketplace so the legal responsibility for model releases falls to you. Am I mistaken?
Thanks,
Baldy
I strongly recommend that you look at http://www.photographersdirect.com
model. They do a great job and SM has more to offer in some areas.
Model releases would be the responsibility of the photographer.
baldy...you and the smugmug team ROCK. i just wanted to throw that in there. your personal involvement with the community speaks volumes. the support staff and their friendliness, and promtness to reply and help, again, speaks volumes. also, considering that i'm a fellow motorcyclist... ;D
thanks for creating such a great product, you guys. sure, you're making money, but you're also helping us schleppies make some too.
core business model should come first.
While I think this is a great and neat idea for the long-term, I do wish that smugmug would set updating and evolving upon its core business idea as its primary goal.
That is to say, there are several relatively simple things that would make life easier for the pro photographers who rely on smugmug as their primary means of sharing images with customer. Presumably, with this increased efficiency would come better returns not just for the photographers, but also for smugmug itself.
Firstly,
Christmas / Greeting Cards! -Every holiday season I end up throwing a very large sum of money down the drain because Smugmug does not offer greeting cards, and I would rather just send clients the image rather than futz around with making them myself. This one area is BY FAR the largest print making market for me of the year, and so by extension it probably would be for Smugmug as well.
Print Ordering / Technical Difficulties
1. the fact that there is no way I can track print orders that I myself have made without following the suggestion of one tech support agent, of changing the price of prints to 1 cent over cost, logging out, and only THEN making my order (all the while hoping that no other clients take advantage of the discount sale during this time period). This is obviously a complicated mess; and is, to say the least, not a realistic way to keep track of orders I have drop shipped to my clients from Smugmug.
2. When you arrive to the print order screen, the images that you have selected is displayed, but there is no option for displaying the image name. This makes large print orders received from clients completely impossible for me to fulfill through smugmug. Typically I will get a large list of images of varying print sizes. While the multiple image add pages works marvelously for this purpose with the 'show filename' option turned on (kudos!), it falls apart upon determining print size and quantity on the order screen, at which point I have to click each idividual image to double check the filename, which in turn increases the time I have to look at my own crappy wedding images dramatically, which it will probably go without saying, does not please me. Combine this inconvenience with your relatively high print and shipping cost, and it becomes much more reasonable to simply take the images to the lab.
3. "shipping options", I know it sounds like a good idea to have your slowest form of shipping labeled as "express", but it is confusing and counter-intuitive and an annoyance my customers share with me often. I realize that in this modern world in which we live simply ordering a "small, medium, or large" "coffee" is no longer an option -I for one however will never cease to lobby for the days in which standard shipping is in fact 1st class mail, and I am not forced to order a "grande" beverage when what I really want is a medium.
Also of course, I should mention that your express shipping is over-priced, I ordered 200 4x6 prints yesterday, and the shipping was over 10 dollars for 1st class mail (not priority). I realize that boxes are expensive and all, but howdy doody.
4. "right click / save as" options.
I find the function of not allowing users to right click and save images to be an excellent one. However, it would be super helpful if everytime I was logged in as the administrator, and needed to download an image, I did not have to first go into the gallery settings and change the option. The other option would be to be able to temporarily disable the no right click save as function from all galleries at the same time.
This complaint is obviously just nitpicking, but I figure if I am making a wish list, I might as well add this, as it is a constant annoyance.
So, that being said, godspeed Smugmug! I couldn't live without you. Good luck on your new venture in which I will no doubt participate, but please add greeting cards too.
I've derived 90% of my income from stock since 1976. Not all agencies require 50-55mb tif files. Alamy initially required 50mb tifs but changed that to jpeg more than a year ago. I am only with one agency that wants the 50mb tifs but that as far as agencies go is mainly an exception and not always a rule. Currently I am with 9 agencies not including my own.After representing over 250 photographers with my own agency,I had never had a client ask for an image that large or a tif file either and have had many covers and double page spreads. There are different clients for different markets of course and I have found that in the long run it is the client that will make the agency fully aware of what their needs are. I look forward to Smugmug moving forward with this after they've done more research into the terminology used for licensing modes. I know for my own images I license RF and RM. I use Fotoquote to price my images but with RF I have a higher and lower end since I do have alot of images that are from early digital and are smaller in size. I only have 2 agencies that want images ressed up to 50mb jpeg or tif but have kept the original sizes on another hard drive.
Hi,
I'm new to this discussion, but not to stock photography. I've been involved in stock photography for over 25 years. I currently sell stock through my Smugmug website and am represented by four stock agencies. In addition, I have my photos on several other websites. In the past, I have also worked for a stock photo agency.
Basically, I think that the idea of Smugmug getting into the stock photo agency is a natural and is worth further exploration.
Currently, I do not participate in the popular photo option as I do not want clients looking at my photos and seeing a thumbs up or thumbs down icon. This only confuses them and looks very unprofessional.
Most clients want high res images - often 50-55mb tiffs Right now Smugmug is restricted to 15 mb jpegs.
I only have low res images on my Smugmug website that are not right protected because my clients often want to download comps for layout or immediate circulation to the various editors. I do not want any higher res images downloaded without my permission.
If you are considering marketing royality free images - this is a very bad idea and I would not want to included.
What I would suggest is that interested photographers submit images to a large Smugmug photo pool. The images should be low res - maybe 500 to 800 pixels on the long side. Smugmug could review each image and reject any that are not of good quality or in poor taste. If a client saw an image that it was interested in, they would then contact the photographer and a price would be negotiated. The photographer would then supply the client with the size of the image that they wanted. Smugmug would get 20% and the photographer would get 80%. Payments could be arranged through PayPal or Smugmug. I am currently participating in such a service overseas and have had many international client sales on a weekly basis.
The IPTC metadata, image discription, keywords, copyright information, etc. would need to be embedded in each image.
I have gotten some wierd feedback when I mention the name Smugmug as many associate it with Flickr or just don't think that the name sounds very professional. If you folks are seriously wanting to market images to corporate, advertising and even editorial clients, I would suggest some type of name change - at least to the stock photo division.
I would be interested in discussing this further with any interested parties.
They even have to be more than just aware of that there's something called model release in the stock world. It has to be perfectly clear that will get in trouble if they sell photos of persons to be displayed in ads etc. without asking permission of the model in form of a *written contract*.
It'd be good if there was a standard model release then, perhaps downloadable?
It'd be good if there was a standard model release then, perhaps downloadable?
Just as license agreements are not all the same, not all releases are the same. The only thing, if any, that Smugmug should provide relating to releases is a way for the copyright holder to indicate to the client that the image is or is not released.
I would imagine that Smugmug's attorneys will dictate if they should provide anything more.
It's important to remember that the primary responsibility of insuring the proper permissions have been aquired falls on the publisher of the image, not Smugmug or the photographer. Although, all might be named in a model's lawsuit!
Wrong direction?
I'm not surprised by this announcement, but I don't think it will help SmugMug in the long run.
As I see it SmugMug can go in either of two directions over the next two or three years. It can appeal more to the amateur and photo-enthusiast market and go down that road, or it can appeal more to the professional photographer market. It will always have some customers from both camps of course, but it can't be the BEST tool for both.
Gaining a reputation as a Royalty-Free Microstock site (as if there aren't enough already) will turn off a lot of professionals. (I think my assumption of the forth-coming offering being RF Microstock is accurate since SmugMug doesn't have the experience or clientel to effectively handle rights-managed licensing, and most of the images online are not of sufficiently quality to be anything other than microstock.) The reputation of "for amateurs and microtock people" is already out there, and SmugMug will likely just be wrapped up in it as well which I think is unfortunate. The pros will likely gravitate toward sites like PhotoShelter where they can offer rights-managed licensing plus print services too. I've only recently joined SmugMug as an experiment, and I'm already leaning that way myself.
When its all said and done, I don't think the pennies per download that SmugMug will make off of microstock will outweigh the income lost from not having more professional accounts who account for more print sales. This is especially true when it comes to the pro wedding photographer market where online print sales can be HUGE. I'm not one myself, but I think it would best serve SmugMug to focus their development time on the enhancement required to be competitive there rather than on microstock.
I'm not surprised by this announcement, but I don't think it will help SmugMug in the long run.
As I see it SmugMug can go in either of two directions over the next two or three years. It can appeal more to the amateur and photo-enthusiast market and go down that road, or it can appeal more to the professional photographer market. It will always have some customers from both camps of course, but it can't be the BEST tool for both.
Gaining a reputation as a Royalty-Free Microstock site (as if there aren't enough already) will turn off a lot of professionals. (I think my assumption of the forth-coming offering being RF Microstock is accurate since SmugMug doesn't have the experience or clientel to effectively handle rights-managed licensing, and most of the images online are not of sufficiently quality to be anything other than microstock.) The reputation of "for amateurs and microtock people" is already out there, and SmugMug will likely just be wrapped up in it as well which I think is unfortunate. The pros will likely gravitate toward sites like PhotoShelter where they can offer rights-managed licensing plus print services too. I've only recently joined SmugMug as an experiment, and I'm already leaning that way myself.
When its all said and done, I don't think the pennies per download that SmugMug will make off of microstock will outweigh the income lost from not having more professional accounts who account for more print sales. This is especially true when it comes to the pro wedding photographer market where online print sales can be HUGE. I'm not one myself, but I think it would best serve SmugMug to focus their development time on the enhancement required to be competitive there rather than on microstock.
Just my two cents...
I do not know about you, but do not sell my downloads for pennies nor do I plan on starting any time soon. I think that it's great that SmugMug is going to offer this. Keep up the great work.
4. "right click / save as" options.
I find the function of not allowing users to right click and save images to be an excellent one. However, it would be super helpful if everytime I was logged in as the administrator, and needed to download an image, I did not have to first go into the gallery settings and change the option. The other option would be to be able to temporarily disable the no right click save as function from all galleries at the same time.
This complaint is obviously just nitpicking, but I figure if I am making a wish list, I might as well add this, as it is a constant annoyance.
I have been copying the pic and then moving it to another gallery that is private and has a password, but it would ROCK if we could copy to another gallery rather than the clumsy method we are using now. Unless I have missed something in the copy function.
I think this is an interesting idea and I agree with many of the previous comments related to the quality of the images and also ease of ordering (at least some of my customers find the commerce engine here troublesome as compared to say...maxpreps).
One suggestion for a feature that I think would not be hard to do - make it more of a marketplace by creating the ability for prospective customers to make requests. Someone looking for a photo of people in a meeting could still search on "meeting" and probably find it but someone with a more off the wall request (someone looking for people in a meeting at a picnic table outdoors - or someone looking for people at a meeting throwing paper wads at each other) could post their request and then someone who has what they are looking for can post the link or in some cases, actually take a photo and then post the link. Sort of stock on demand.
Stock sales
I personally am very excited about this proposition and am one step ahead of you. I recently signed up for a new, second Smugmug site which is still under construction but can be see at the link below: http://myfloridastock.smugmug.com/
This is great news because I've already committed to selling stock.
Thanks very much!
Many of you sell digital downloads and wonder how to get more exposure for your work.
We're not ready to go public with this news, but we knew you'd love advanced notice about a stock photo service we're working on (we hope this forum is a secret corner of the world).
We're going to provide an option for you to enable specific galleries for stock sales. When you do, any photo in those galleries that is for sale via digital download will be added to SmugMug's stock catalog.
We're planning to construct a page for finding stock photos that will be in some ways like our popular photos page. The stock photo page, however, will have a custom search engine just for stock.
We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch. And we hope you'll enable some great shots for digital downloads now so there is good content on day one. You can't enable galleries for stock sales yet, but that should be a quick job if you've already enabled photos for digital sales.
Timing: we believe we're a short number of weeks away but it's software...if we run into snags there could be delays.
High Res
I'm with four agencies and they all require 50mb + (flattened) images. It does seem silly to up res to the agency and the agency then makes the file smaller again, but this is what they want. It makes sense to also keep the file at the original size. We might not have to have 50mb files with SM, but they better be readily available if a client wants one.
Yesterday, I had to send a 53.5 tiff to a calendar client and today I had to send a similar size to a client for a very large print.
I've derived 90% of my income from stock since 1976. Not all agencies require 50-55mb tif files. Alamy initially required 50mb tifs but changed that to jpeg more than a year ago. I am only with one agency that wants the 50mb tifs but that as far as agencies go is mainly an exception and not always a rule. Currently I am with 9 agencies not including my own.After representing over 250 photographers with my own agency,I had never had a client ask for an image that large or a tif file either and have had many covers and double page spreads. There are different clients for different markets of course and I have found that in the long run it is the client that will make the agency fully aware of what their needs are. I look forward to Smugmug moving forward with this after they've done more research into the terminology used for licensing modes. I know for my own images I license RF and RM. I use Fotoquote to price my images but with RF I have a higher and lower end since I do have alot of images that are from early digital and are smaller in size. I only have 2 agencies that want images ressed up to 50mb jpeg or tif but have kept the original sizes on another hard drive.
Great idea, some considerations...
Thanks, great idea! We need a site that focuses on marketing and drawing large audiences to our photos. Most of us are not full time or hobbyists anyway and don't have the time, energy or $$$ to do an effective marketing campaign.
If you have not seen the site www.dititalrailroad.net you probably should take a look at it. Designed for serious shooters with the features for rights management and exposure/searching by art directors and agencies. Evidently, having something that looks professional and presents information consistently is significant in marketing success and sales.
Thanks, great idea! We need a site that focuses on marketing and drawing large audiences to our photos. Most of us are not full time or hobbyists anyway and don't have the time, energy or $$$ to do an effective marketing campaign.
If you have not seen the site www.dititalrailroad.net you probably should take a look at it. Designed for serious shooters with the features for rights management and exposure/searching by art directors and agencies. Evidently, having something that looks professional and presents information consistently is significant in marketing success and sales.
Looking forward to the release!
Are you a member at Digitalrailroad ? If so I would be interested to know how successful your sales have been, and have they offset the not insignificant costs involved ?
Rights Managed vs Royalty Free Any specialist on the "Rights Managed vs Royalty Free" matter ? (This is very important when thinking about the new service SmugMug wants to offer for us to seel Stock photos...)
If the answer is yes, then I have a very practical question to ask:
I put 50 of my pictures on the album http://www.celsodiniz.com/gallery/2879270 and I want to know if I can SIMPLY PUT ALL THESE PICTURES FOR SALE AS RIGHTS MANAGED ???
You will see that I for sure would never be allowed to sell those pictures as Royalty Free as they are because they show logos, brands, recognizable faces, businesses, properties, plastic arts, objects made by other artists, interior and exterior of commercial buildings, places like Disneyland, Louvre, London Eye, Sydney Opera House, Artists performing shows and such... and I don't have any releases for them.Can I simply sell them as Rights Managed ?
You'll see on this link (http://www.stockindustry.org/resources/specialReleases.html) that "Some of the properties and objects are alleged to be covered by trademark, others by contract (i.e. the terms by which a photographer was granted access to the property). PACA does not have a position as to whether the use (either commercially or editorially) is in violation of any applicable laws" which leads me to understand not everything is OK to shoot and sell under RM...
There is another site of Stock Photography that does not offer RM, but allows users to flag photos as Editorial so they can be sold only for "news" purposes. They say that if I have an image that's newsworthy, and it contains people, and it doesn't have a release, then I can sell it as Editorial. They say that Commercial stock images are used in advertisements, promotions, and anything that would endorse a product or service, but Editorial stock is a newsworthy account of events. So, an editorial image will only be able to used by newspapers, magazines, TV, and other news organizations that aren't endorsing a product or service. Some examples of newsworthy editorial images are: a parade, a speech by a public figure, a sports event, a crowd outside a high profile trial, a political demonstration, a celebrity sighting - basically anything one would see in the newspaper that isn't endorsing a product or service. But this approach does not make me feel confortable to upload for them to sell all the 50 pictures I put on the album above.
This link also says a lot about this matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_photography
But it does not address practical questions such as what can and what can not be sold under RM when you consider for instance the 50 photos I put on the link above.
As for the copyright issue there, surely the key would be to make photos as those such as the London Eye, marked as Rights Managed rather than Royalty Free.
The problem with Royalty Free is that anyone can use that image for pretty much any purpose. A person or group against British Airways or the London eye, may purchase that image and use it in negative light against that company.
However, by selling Rights Managed, this theoretically takes control of the situation. A rights Managed photo would not be delivered to the customer until after the customer contacts the photographer and provides information regarding the use of the photo, quantities etc. In other words, they may say they are publishing a travel guide for London and use the photo of the London Eye in positive retrospective. You have this written declaration, and if the customer goes against their word, you are protected in court.
Of cause, if they say they want to use the photo to defame the company, and you still sell it to them, then you'll have to face the music.
I'm no lawyer, but this is how I understand the rule. Megastock agencies seem to sell their photos in this way.
As for RF and RM photos, I would only be interested in this service if it has the opportunity for both. Anyone can sell their photos as RF these days (as long as they have model or property release forms, or absolutely no faces or logos) and probably make a damn lot more money than at SM. However, selling images with street scenes, logos etc under a RM policy is far more interesting and possibly lucrative.
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D HollidayRegistered UsersPosts: 3Beginner grinner
edited May 20, 2007
great idea
I am very happy to see stock photos on smuggy. I nhave been amasing a lot of images to offer for stock. I will dedfenitly use this service. This will level thed playing field. Keep up the good work smugmug.
First, it costs $150 to even play. So that filters out most of the n00bs anyway.
Second, yes, the existing SmugMug ratings system will be heavily used as a screening and filtering mechanism.
I am very disappointed to read that a stock system will be rated/filtered by the current SM popularity rank system. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I have many of my photos on two other sites, sites that support comments, views and favorites. Those photos have nearly two-hundred thousand views – I know very well which of my photos are popular and sellable. <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I came to SM to have a professional medium to sell my photos, not to have them rated with those silly thumbs up or down pop-ins. I think they degrade this site a lot and I would not be here if I could not disable them.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> Therefore, in my opinion nothing as important as selling photos from galleries or automated stock selection should be based in any way on SM's ranking system.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I am still building out my SM site here and look forward to a well designed stock selling option. I think there have been some very good suggestions to date.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> ~~ Leigh <o:p></o:p>
This is great.
Download are available at the current time to Pros who choose to use this feature. Most visitors and photographers are unaware of the download feature. Start promoting this feature and use it as a spring board until you get Stock Photo guideline set-up and running.
Please give us a time line as to when, where, why, and how much.
I am very disappointed to read that a stock system will be rated/filtered by the current SM popularity rank system. <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>
Well I guess if photos of drunk kids at bars or maybe the 300th image of somebodies family sitting on the couch make good stock images, then the smugmug rating system should do really really well.. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >
Well I guess if photos of drunk kids at bars or maybe the 300th image of somebodies family sitting on the couch make good stock images, then the smugmug rating system should do really really well..
I am very disappointed to read that a stock system will be rated/filtered by the current SM popularity rank system. <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I have many of my photos on two other sites, sites that support comments, views and favorites. Those photos have nearly two-hundred thousand views – I know very well which of my photos are popular and sellable. <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I came to SM to have a professional medium to sell my photos, not to have them rated with those silly thumbs up or down pop-ins. I think they degrade this site a lot and I would not be here if I could not disable them.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> Therefore, in my opinion nothing as important as selling photos from galleries or automated stock selection should be based in any way on SM's ranking system.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I am still building out my SM site here and look forward to a well designed stock selling option. I think there have been some very good suggestions to date.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> ~~ Leigh <o:p></o:p>
I completely agree with Leigh's point here. I also disable the thumbs up/ down pop-ins because I think they make my site look less professional.
Comments
Hi,
I'm new to this discussion, but not to stock photography. I've been involved in stock photography for over 25 years. I currently sell stock through my Smugmug website and am represented by four stock agencies. In addition, I have my photos on several other websites. In the past, I have also worked for a stock photo agency.
Basically, I think that the idea of Smugmug getting into the stock photo agency is a natural and is worth further exploration.
Currently, I do not participate in the popular photo option as I do not want clients looking at my photos and seeing a thumbs up or thumbs down icon. This only confuses them and looks very unprofessional.
Most clients want high res images - often 50-55mb tiffs Right now Smugmug is restricted to 15 mb jpegs.
I only have low res images on my Smugmug website that are not right protected because my clients often want to download comps for layout or immediate circulation to the various editors. I do not want any higher res images downloaded without my permission.
If you are considering marketing royality free images - this is a very bad idea and I would not want to included.
What I would suggest is that interested photographers submit images to a large Smugmug photo pool. The images should be low res - maybe 500 to 800 pixels on the long side. Smugmug could review each image and reject any that are not of good quality or in poor taste. If a client saw an image that it was interested in, they would then contact the photographer and a price would be negotiated. The photographer would then supply the client with the size of the image that they wanted. Smugmug would get 20% and the photographer would get 80%. Payments could be arranged through PayPal or Smugmug. I am currently participating in such a service overseas and have had many international client sales on a weekly basis.
The IPTC metadata, image discription, keywords, copyright information, etc. would need to be embedded in each image.
I have gotten some wierd feedback when I mention the name Smugmug as many associate it with Flickr or just don't think that the name sounds very professional. If you folks are seriously wanting to market images to corporate, advertising and even editorial clients, I would suggest some type of name change - at least to the stock photo division.
I would be interested in discussing this further with any interested parties.
Robert Winslow
www.robertwinslowphoto.com
That would be an awsome idea,and nice upsell as well.
looking forward to it.
MainePhotographer
In some ways I feel like I did when photograhers like Michael Thomas (customer #1541) encouraged us to enable pro sales. I listened dutifully to his wish list and then went to Don and explained why I thought we should never get into pro sales.
But his voice grew into a chorus of voices and, thank goodness, we decided to enter the market with a simple feature set. We've since been able to add features like proof delay, digital downloads and custom watermarks.
We're learning a lot from this thread. It's going to be fascinating to see how this unfolds because I'm not aware of another marketplace like this. Am I missing one? We're not really like the stock agencies where you only have a vague sense of who the photographer is, if you have any sense of it all all. You feel like you're buying from Getty. I presume their cut of the sale is much larger and more legal responsibilities fall to them. I'm not aware that they have much of a comments/community/ratings system.
I feel we have to start simple and react to how it unfolds. Much as I'd love to have a rights-managed offering at day one, it's unfortunately more than we can manage in the beginning. While I don't think any of us want to see us become iStockphoto where every image is a dollar and you have to weed through a lot of images to find good ones, nor do I think we can take on Getty with a high-end rights-managed offering yet.
My understanding of the model release issue is we need to have you represent that you have model releases in order to place images in the catalog. But then you are the seller and we are the marketplace so the legal responsibility for model releases falls to you. Am I mistaken?
Thanks,
Baldy
The point is more to make the pro's aware of that by giving making them actuallly say for every photo with a person that they do have a model release for that photo. Many of them are probably totally new to the market of stock photos, even more so than you guys from the sm-team are.
They even have to be more than just aware of that there's something called model release in the stock world. It has to be perfectly clear that will get in trouble if they sell photos of persons to be displayed in ads etc. without asking permission of the model in form of a *written contract*. Words mean nothing anymore once a model sees his face on billboards all over the country. So the photographers have to understand that crystal clear in order to also communicate that to their models. It's not like you're buying a book online where you also agree to a contract, it's perhaps more like writing and publishing a book about your life with real persons in it which might be also a lot of legal tamtam.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
model. They do a great job and SM has more to offer in some areas.
Model releases would be the responsibility of the photographer.
Robert Winslow
www.robertwinslowphoto.com
thanks for creating such a great product, you guys. sure, you're making money, but you're also helping us schleppies make some too.
While I think this is a great and neat idea for the long-term, I do wish that smugmug would set updating and evolving upon its core business idea as its primary goal.
That is to say, there are several relatively simple things that would make life easier for the pro photographers who rely on smugmug as their primary means of sharing images with customer. Presumably, with this increased efficiency would come better returns not just for the photographers, but also for smugmug itself.
Firstly,
Christmas / Greeting Cards! -Every holiday season I end up throwing a very large sum of money down the drain because Smugmug does not offer greeting cards, and I would rather just send clients the image rather than futz around with making them myself. This one area is BY FAR the largest print making market for me of the year, and so by extension it probably would be for Smugmug as well.
Print Ordering / Technical Difficulties
1. the fact that there is no way I can track print orders that I myself have made without following the suggestion of one tech support agent, of changing the price of prints to 1 cent over cost, logging out, and only THEN making my order (all the while hoping that no other clients take advantage of the discount sale during this time period). This is obviously a complicated mess; and is, to say the least, not a realistic way to keep track of orders I have drop shipped to my clients from Smugmug.
2. When you arrive to the print order screen, the images that you have selected is displayed, but there is no option for displaying the image name. This makes large print orders received from clients completely impossible for me to fulfill through smugmug. Typically I will get a large list of images of varying print sizes. While the multiple image add pages works marvelously for this purpose with the 'show filename' option turned on (kudos!), it falls apart upon determining print size and quantity on the order screen, at which point I have to click each idividual image to double check the filename, which in turn increases the time I have to look at my own crappy wedding images dramatically, which it will probably go without saying, does not please me. Combine this inconvenience with your relatively high print and shipping cost, and it becomes much more reasonable to simply take the images to the lab.
3. "shipping options", I know it sounds like a good idea to have your slowest form of shipping labeled as "express", but it is confusing and counter-intuitive and an annoyance my customers share with me often. I realize that in this modern world in which we live simply ordering a "small, medium, or large" "coffee" is no longer an option -I for one however will never cease to lobby for the days in which standard shipping is in fact 1st class mail, and I am not forced to order a "grande" beverage when what I really want is a medium.
Also of course, I should mention that your express shipping is over-priced, I ordered 200 4x6 prints yesterday, and the shipping was over 10 dollars for 1st class mail (not priority). I realize that boxes are expensive and all, but howdy doody.
4. "right click / save as" options.
I find the function of not allowing users to right click and save images to be an excellent one. However, it would be super helpful if everytime I was logged in as the administrator, and needed to download an image, I did not have to first go into the gallery settings and change the option. The other option would be to be able to temporarily disable the no right click save as function from all galleries at the same time.
This complaint is obviously just nitpicking, but I figure if I am making a wish list, I might as well add this, as it is a constant annoyance.
So, that being said, godspeed Smugmug! I couldn't live without you. Good luck on your new venture in which I will no doubt participate, but please add greeting cards too.
It'd be good if there was a standard model release then, perhaps downloadable?
...pics..
Just as license agreements are not all the same, not all releases are the same. The only thing, if any, that Smugmug should provide relating to releases is a way for the copyright holder to indicate to the client that the image is or is not released.
I would imagine that Smugmug's attorneys will dictate if they should provide anything more.
It's important to remember that the primary responsibility of insuring the proper permissions have been aquired falls on the publisher of the image, not Smugmug or the photographer. Although, all might be named in a model's lawsuit!
I'm not surprised by this announcement, but I don't think it will help SmugMug in the long run.
As I see it SmugMug can go in either of two directions over the next two or three years. It can appeal more to the amateur and photo-enthusiast market and go down that road, or it can appeal more to the professional photographer market. It will always have some customers from both camps of course, but it can't be the BEST tool for both.
Gaining a reputation as a Royalty-Free Microstock site (as if there aren't enough already) will turn off a lot of professionals. (I think my assumption of the forth-coming offering being RF Microstock is accurate since SmugMug doesn't have the experience or clientel to effectively handle rights-managed licensing, and most of the images online are not of sufficiently quality to be anything other than microstock.) The reputation of "for amateurs and microtock people" is already out there, and SmugMug will likely just be wrapped up in it as well which I think is unfortunate. The pros will likely gravitate toward sites like PhotoShelter where they can offer rights-managed licensing plus print services too. I've only recently joined SmugMug as an experiment, and I'm already leaning that way myself.
When its all said and done, I don't think the pennies per download that SmugMug will make off of microstock will outweigh the income lost from not having more professional accounts who account for more print sales. This is especially true when it comes to the pro wedding photographer market where online print sales can be HUGE. I'm not one myself, but I think it would best serve SmugMug to focus their development time on the enhancement required to be competitive there rather than on microstock.
Just my two cents...
I do not know about you, but do not sell my downloads for pennies nor do I plan on starting any time soon.
Just take the picture
Pictures are at available at:http://www.ballentphoto.com
My Blog: http://ballentphoto.blogspot.com
I have been copying the pic and then moving it to another gallery that is private and has a password, but it would ROCK if we could copy to another gallery rather than the clumsy method we are using now. Unless I have missed something in the copy function.
Just take the picture
Pictures are at available at:http://www.ballentphoto.com
My Blog: http://ballentphoto.blogspot.com
One suggestion for a feature that I think would not be hard to do - make it more of a marketplace by creating the ability for prospective customers to make requests. Someone looking for a photo of people in a meeting could still search on "meeting" and probably find it but someone with a more off the wall request (someone looking for people in a meeting at a picnic table outdoors - or someone looking for people at a meeting throwing paper wads at each other) could post their request and then someone who has what they are looking for can post the link or in some cases, actually take a photo and then post the link. Sort of stock on demand.
http://tonyk.smugmug.com
cool idea!
(whether it couldwork is another question) ;-)
...pics..
I personally am very excited about this proposition and am one step ahead of you. I recently signed up for a new, second Smugmug site which is still under construction but can be see at the link below:
http://myfloridastock.smugmug.com/
This is great news because I've already committed to selling stock.
Thanks very much!
Craig
myfloridastock.smugmug.com
smallplanetphotography.com
Craig
www.SmallPlanetPhotography.com
For instance, I'd charge more if they wanted to use it in a national print campaign vs. usage in an internal company newsletter....
Congrats that's awesome news. Lemme know if you need beta testers. I'd love to participate.
-N
www.nicolelove.com
I'm with four agencies and they all require 50mb + (flattened) images. It does seem silly to up res to the agency and the agency then makes the file smaller again, but this is what they want. It makes sense to also keep the file at the original size. We might not have to have 50mb files with SM, but they better be readily available if a client wants one.
Yesterday, I had to send a 53.5 tiff to a calendar client and today I had to send a similar size to a client for a very large print.
Thanks, great idea! We need a site that focuses on marketing and drawing large audiences to our photos. Most of us are not full time or hobbyists anyway and don't have the time, energy or $$$ to do an effective marketing campaign.
If you have not seen the site www.dititalrailroad.net you probably should take a look at it. Designed for serious shooters with the features for rights management and exposure/searching by art directors and agencies. Evidently, having something that looks professional and presents information consistently is significant in marketing success and sales.
Looking forward to the release!
link doesn't work for me
...pics..
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Are you a member at Digitalrailroad ? If so I would be interested to know how successful your sales have been, and have they offset the not insignificant costs involved ?
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
Any specialist on the "Rights Managed vs Royalty Free" matter ?
(This is very important when thinking about the new service SmugMug wants to offer for us to seel Stock photos...)
If the answer is yes, then I have a very practical question to ask:
I put 50 of my pictures on the album http://www.celsodiniz.com/gallery/2879270
and I want to know if I can SIMPLY PUT ALL THESE PICTURES FOR SALE AS RIGHTS MANAGED ???
You will see that I for sure would never be allowed to sell those pictures as Royalty Free as they are because they show logos, brands, recognizable faces, businesses, properties, plastic arts, objects made by other artists, interior and exterior of commercial buildings, places like Disneyland, Louvre, London Eye, Sydney Opera House, Artists performing shows and such... and I don't have any releases for them.Can I simply sell them as Rights Managed ?
You'll see on this link (http://www.stockindustry.org/resources/specialReleases.html) that "Some of the properties and objects are alleged to be covered by trademark, others by contract (i.e. the terms by which a photographer was granted access to the property). PACA does not have a position as to whether the use (either commercially or editorially) is in violation of any applicable laws" which leads me to understand not everything is OK to shoot and sell under RM...
There is another site of Stock Photography that does not offer RM, but allows users to flag photos as Editorial so they can be sold only for "news" purposes. They say that if I have an image that's newsworthy, and it contains people, and it doesn't have a release, then I can sell it as Editorial. They say that Commercial stock images are used in advertisements, promotions, and anything that would endorse a product or service, but Editorial stock is a newsworthy account of events. So, an editorial image will only be able to used by newspapers, magazines, TV, and other news organizations that aren't endorsing a product or service. Some examples of newsworthy editorial images are: a parade, a speech by a public figure, a sports event, a crowd outside a high profile trial, a political demonstration, a celebrity sighting - basically anything one would see in the newspaper that isn't endorsing a product or service. But this approach does not make me feel confortable to upload for them to sell all the 50 pictures I put on the album above.
This link also says a lot about this matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_photography
But it does not address practical questions such as what can and what can not be sold under RM when you consider for instance the 50 photos I put on the link above.
Anyone can help ?
Thanks !
Celso.
I am very happy to see stock photos on smuggy. I nhave been amasing a lot of images to offer for stock. I will dedfenitly use this service. This will level thed playing field. Keep up the good work smugmug.
I am very disappointed to read that a stock system will be rated/filtered by the current SM popularity rank system. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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I have many of my photos on two other sites, sites that support comments, views and favorites. Those photos have nearly two-hundred thousand views – I know very well which of my photos are popular and sellable. <o:p></o:p>
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I came to SM to have a professional medium to sell my photos, not to have them rated with those silly thumbs up or down pop-ins. I think they degrade this site a lot and I would not be here if I could not disable them.<o:p></o:p>
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Therefore, in my opinion nothing as important as selling photos from galleries or automated stock selection should be based in any way on SM's ranking system.<o:p></o:p>
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I am still building out my SM site here and look forward to a well designed stock selling option. I think there have been some very good suggestions to date.<o:p></o:p>
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~~ Leigh <o:p></o:p>
Download are available at the current time to Pros who choose to use this feature. Most visitors and photographers are unaware of the download feature. Start promoting this feature and use it as a spring board until you get Stock Photo guideline set-up and running.
Please give us a time line as to when, where, why, and how much.
Well I guess if photos of drunk kids at bars or maybe the 300th image of somebodies family sitting on the couch make good stock images, then the smugmug rating system should do really really well.. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >
very very true, and a very good point
...pics..
I completely agree with Leigh's point here. I also disable the thumbs up/ down pop-ins because I think they make my site look less professional.