So over the Weekend 123RF not only updated their logo, but did a huge...and I mean huge update on this site. The new colors are black, white and yellow - see below for a screen shot of the front page. They now have easy to click on buttons for all your info instead of the tabs. Overall I think this was a great improvement for the crew over there, keep up the good work. Sign up for 123RF Here.

For those of you using the Promotion deal with DepositPhotos they will be changing the program starting April 1st. Its really a small modification, but if you send in several images that have been rejected for poor quality they may remove you from the program...make sense, they don't want to look at hundreds of crappy photos that people are hoping to get a total of a $100 for. If you are not familiar with their promotion program, they pay out $0.20 per accepted image upto the first 500 images you upload. You agree the the photos will remain on their site for at lest 6 months, overall this is the best promo deal in the industry. Sign up for DepositPhotos here.

Shutterstock back in Aug. of 2009 added a cool little auto posting devices to twitter that would tweet about your new photos and your photos you have sold. Well, sense it has been widely popular they have now launched a very similar item that does so on your Facebook feed. However, just like Dreamstime, you can only post to your personal feed and not your fan pages if you have one. To set up the program click here, to join Shutterstock click here.


Shutterstock also hit the 10 millionth image mark in February

Cutcaster has released some minor upgrades and improvements over the last few weeks. First, up they have launched a new improved Lightbox (shut down clip folders)...if you are a buyer, log-in and check it out. If you have noticed things loading faster, your right...they have streamed lined several things behind the scenes to make traffic flower easier...so surf away at light speed. Another thing is their editors are taking more time to check through the media data of images/vectors, etc. so you get what you are buying and nothing more or less. This is just something that any company should be doing to make sure their buyers are not getting bad products.

If you are a buyer, help them improve by taking the following survey.

For those few of my followers, I wanted to let you know that I am still here. I have been swamped with studying for my licensing exams in Architecture (still ongoing) and I was out of pocket for a while as I got ready for some eye operations, which have been done with wonderful results. Now for the good news, I should be getting back to blogging more and more over the next few weeks. First up, a lot has happened in the stock photography world while I was out for my short amount of time. So you are about to see several new blog post, so keep up ;-p I am going to start blogging just on each stock site with their label, this way you can follow the articles you want easier.

Kevin

Well, due to a nice surprise at Shutterstock this January ended up being my best month every with my Stock Photography. I found out that I got my first Extended License over at Shutterstock, something that I have only seen once at Dreamstime. I doubt Feb, will be this nice, but here is to hoping. The top three guys this month was Shutterstock, then Dreamstime, and rounding out the top three was 123RF. I look forward to increased sales at 123RF when they launch their editorials section. Like always, check out the lovely pie chart for a full list of companies I had sales with this month (click to increase the size). Also, all other stock sites I have images at can be found on the left side of the blog. Oh, and I would also like to welcome DepositPhotos on the map with my first sale with them, which is great for such a new company.

They crew at Dreamstime has been busy so far the 2010. Below is a highlight of great additions already added in January.

First up they have not got an option to purchase multiple license for an image. You can find this option under the image details tab and select away.

On January 12th they launched a new download format for buyers. You now have the option to get almost any image in their database as a TIFF file.

Dreamstime has made it an option for several images to opt in or out of several extended license sales. There is a button that you can choose to turn on or off at your DT command center as I like to refer to it as. Also, if you have the option turned off a contributor can send an automatic request to you of providing them an extended license option. EL options are big cash cows for contributors, so I would think you would like to leave this option on for all your images unless something special is going on with one of your images.

On January 8th they added a little button in the command center that talks about excursive options. Most contributors might over look this, but once you click on it DT will estimate what you are making now and what you could be making if you are exclusive with them. I personally am not excursive with any stock site as its not worth it for me, but DT would be my leading choice if that was the case.

Dreamstime right now has 7.5 million images and 80 thousand photographers

Sign up for Dreamstime HERE

Great news for buyers and sellers at 123RF, they now accept and will sell Editorial image later this spring. Editorial images are one of the fastest growing aspects of Stock Photography. Editorials are widely used by companies and blogger who post articles about current events. Check out the process for uploading your editorial images below...note that ftp support will be coming soon.Yes, it's good news for those of you who've been waiting for this moment. 123RF is now accepting editorial content. We would like to invite you to upload your editorial images or illustrations to us. Here's how:Log in and go to where you submit your images for uploadSelect 'Editorial'. Click on 'Continue' to begin your upload.Next, select the number of images that you wish to upload. Only web form upload is available for now. (FTP will be added later on!)Next, select the images that you wish to upload to us AS EDITORIAL MATERIAL only.Click the "Upload" button to start the upload process.Once the images have been uploaded, next, describe and keyword your uploaded images. There's a guide on how you should be describing your images on this page. Do kindly abide by the guide and we'll accept your images accordingly.When done describing and keywording your images, simply click on the 'Save' button and your images will be sent to the pending queue for our reviewers. What happens next?Images will be accepted and reviewed now. However, they will not appear immediately on the site. Once we have sufficient content, we will then launch the editorial content on 123RF. We anticipate this to happen at the end of February 2010. Here are a few guidelines to be followed:========================================== What are classified as editorial images?Editorial images are generally photos or illustrations of newsworthy events, or famous people or locations with people often without model releases. These images can and are often used only in Editorial publications such as newspapers, magazines, news articles, academic publications and sometimes used in news related TV footage. What we want! social events & other newsworthy eventscelebrities, personalities and interesting peoplelive sports and music eventsworld events and natural disasterscultural celebrationsstreet scenescertain images portraying social issues What we don't want! Images which are not editorial/newsworthy in natureImages which are too similar to other/previously submitted contentImages which are not described in a proper manner (you'll need to rekeyword/describe them)Images which are sold elsewhere as RF/RM commercialImages which are offensive or lewd in natureImages which are not technically sound too blur,grainy,have been manipulated heavily orclearly does not depict the subject matter in a truthful manner due to image cloning, retouching, photo montaging and etc. Thank you and happy uploading! We look forward to receiving your editorial content soon! Team 123RF Join 123RF by clicking here!