HQ Update: May 10, 2012

Contributor News — May 10, 2012

Editorial Update
Editorial Use Only images came to iStock in 2011. Since then our contributors have uploaded hundreds of thousands of excellent images exploring stories large and small from around the world. Editorial grows every month and iStock continue to be really happy with its development and excited for its future. 

There will be Editorial-related site news coming down the pipe for the next month. Here's what's happening this week:

New Editorial Manual
We are more than a year into offering Editorial imagery at iStock and it's time to refresh our training manual. The new manual builds on the experience we've had over the last year, and better reflects what our customers want and what our contributors are shooting. 

Basically, we want more photographs of a broader range of topics. We are loosening the restrictions on news. We are more clearly defining the kinds of illustrative product shots that contributors are uploading. Finally we are clarifying some legal points that have developed along the way.

Read the new manual here.

Discuss the new manual here.

Picture Beats & Event Briefs
One last piece of Editorial news: as part of our ongoing efforts to provide useful direction for our contributors, we've got new briefs for our Editorial photographers. These Picture Beats & Event Briefs are put together by our colleagues from the news desks at Getty Images to arm you with info on needed subject matter.

Read more here.

iStock Plug-in for Adobe Creative Suite
We've partnered with Adobe to create the iStock Plug-in for their Creative Suite. Adobe CS users can use the plug-in to browse iStock directly from Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. 

These are not free images — the plugin lets Adobe users browse iStock but they still need an iStock account to download your files. 

Learn more about the Adobe Plug-in here.

Exclusive+ at Getty Images
We are taking another step towards a more integrated iStockphoto and Getty Images, utilizing the benefits of both platforms to increase exposure for both iStock and Getty Images contributor content. Exclusive+ contains a lot of iStock's best imagery, and we want to make it available to a new audience. 

We plan to mirror the iStock Exclusive+ collection at Getty Images as part of the Stockbyte collection. In turn we will then mirror an equal number of Stockbyte images at iStockphoto. All E+ files will start moving through the connector to Getty Images over the next few weeks. For many contributors this will mean hundreds of their files will now be exposed to an new additional revenue stream. 

Contributors will be able to track downloads Stockbyte licenses of their E+ files at Getty Images monthly, through their monthly GI Sales report at iStock.

Vetta / Agency Connector Updates
On April 18th, we started transferring your Agency and Vetta files to Getty through the Connector. In preparation for this automation, we did a big cleanup and sent all eligible files added to Agency and Vetta from September 2011 until April 18th, 2012. That backlog is now cleared. We are now looking into any files that we may have missed from July and August.

iStock Sound Effects at Getty Images
iStockaudio sound effects are now available for download at Getty Images. Audio artists will have their SFX content mirrored at Getty Images through the music tab. Read more here.

Growing your Audio Portfolio
The iStockaudio team has posted a new article for old and new contributors with pointers on keeping a fresh portfolio. Check out Maintaining Stock Stardom here.

Partner Program Update
Given that the bulk of this newsletter has been about iStock content moving through the connector to Getty Images, you're probably wondering about Partner Program files. We are still working on the process of moving all the newly eligible non-Exclusive files that were earmarked for the Partner Program after the ASA change last autumn. The sheer size of that migration is taking a lot of time, but the process is ongoing and all eligible files are making their way to Thinkstock and Photos.com.

(Edited on 2012-05-10 13:28:49 by iStockHQ)

Thank you HQ! Will the whole E+ collection be mirrored in the Stockbyte collection, even if some images are part of a series where not all images are in the E+ collection?

Interesting. What is the price point of "Stockbyte"? Is our "20%" equal to, or better than what we get here from E+ (I know we are all different). Where is this "Stockbyte" content going to? Will it be fake E+ or something else? Why does it need to be a back and forth thing?

eta: Stockbyte:
165 KB
280 x 201 px (3.89 x 2.79 in.) - 72 dpi - RGB
$ 10.00
489 x 350 px (6.79 x 4.86 in.) - 72 dpi - RGB
$ 35.00
699 x 501 px (9.71 x 6.96 in.) - 72 dpi - RGB
$ 80.00
1210 x 867 px (16.81 x 12.04 in.) - 72 dpi - RGB
$ 120.00
2047 x 1467 px (6.82 x 4.89 in.) - 300 dpi - RGB
$ 200.00
3729 x 2673 px (12.43 x 8.91 in.) - 300 dpi - RGB
$ 300.00
4900 x 3513 px (16.33 x 11.71 in.) - 300 dpi - RGB

E+XSmall 283 × 424 px 148.95 KB 10
Small 566 × 848 px 417.96 KB 20
Medium 1132 × 1696 px 1.29 MB 30
Large 1811 × 2714 px 3.16 MB 40
XLarge 2800 × 4200 px 7.28 MB 45
XXLarge 3284 × 4924 px 9.68 MB 50
XXXLarge 3744 × 5616 px 10.62 MB 60

I guess at the higher sizes, E+ at Getty will win out. Glad that user theasis has made a useful script for transferring.

Will these go automatically, or are we going to have to keep an eye on things, like V/A ?

(Edited on 2012-05-10 13:50:05 by sjlocke)

Oh fantastic!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!


 

awesome, it's the first time I can read genuine audio news in the newsletter! More like this, folks!!!

Great question!

E+ to Getty, sounds really nice

I'm cautiously optomistic about the mirroring of E+ to GI. The upside seems huge. Still processing the idea of it.

Who are you? Your name looks familiar...

Thanks... but I am bit concerned about the transfer to Getty - it takes nearly a year to transfer a few thousand Vetta/Agencies - beside this unbelievable slow process there have been other issues (no keywords, wrong keywords). And even now not all images are there at Getty...how will you handle hundred of thousands E+ files..?


AND - I do have mostly Editorial images as E+. Will they be also mirrored to Getty? I think this is an important point, not only to me but to a lot of niche photographers.

You just made my day. Thank you.

This one I like.  

Good news, thanks.


If not currently being considered, some improvement on the interfaces for managing E+ content and clarifying GI Sales would make optimising potential images much more efficient. . 

Alot of news to digest.Aint got any files in the exclusive + collection to migrate to the Getty Stockbyte collection.So i find myself with more competition for sales when the Stockbyte collection is migrated into the Istockphoto library.


I doubt i will get an answer to this two part question but here goes:Will it be both the creative and editorial files from Getty's Stockbyte collection coming here.How many files are we talking about..200,000/300,000 or 1 million ?


Call me a sceptic but i wager the Stockbyte collection will arrive on our doorstep alot quicker than exclusive + files will arrive at Getty.I think nominating files for the Thinkstock and Photo.com subscription market from the outset has made me think in that way.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=343537&page=1

Very interesting news.


I just checked the stockbyte collection for the first time and it seems to me there are no editorial files in that collection. Is that correct?


If so, how will you deal with our editorial exclusive+ images?

Wow, I'm going to have 1800 files on Getty!

What will be the price of the Stockbyte images on iStockphoto?

For E+ images moved (copied?) to Getty StockByte, do I get RC's counted for the sales?