Fotolia

[Judder Man]

Re: Fotolia

Fotolia similar to Dreamstime is microstock, they sell for pennies and cents and rely on you accruing lots of sales to make money. Unfortunately if you don't have thousands of images in your portfolio with them, you can't make a substantial amount of money out of them.
Alamy are different you get a fair price for your images, but even Alamy are now dropping there to sell prices now.

I dropped out of Fotolia 18 months ago, because it took a lot of effort for very little gain, Fotolia and Dreamstime take advantage of the fact that the subscriber gets great joy in selling one of there images. But after a while you realise you are giving your images away at cheap prices. If you are not interested in making money from your efforts then Fotolia and Dreamstime is fine.

[Paulstw]

Re: Fotolia

I know this is an old topic, but I guess it still could be discussed by new members.

I have been on Alamy for a couple of months, I find their acceptance policy much more acceptable than Shutterstock or Dreamstime. Alamy don't want anything done to the images, like sharpening or a whole load of correction apart from CA, and the default filesize to be huge. However trying to keep track of all the different agencies policies actually presents much more of a drain on your resources than you think.

I deleted my SS and DT accounts purely because it seems from a lot of people that they accept images of varying qualities and it leaves you feeling a little confused. People don't tend to realise that the work involved in taking the picture, editing it and then uploading, waiting 2-3 days for it to go live then only to receive pennies for it doesn't really hold your mentality in check for very long.

I'd rather have a bank of images that had proper management of licenses than anything people could use as many times as they liked.

just my opinion.

My plan is to use Alamy for the mundane stock shots, and use smugmug as a gallery for landscapes and portraits. Well that's the plan lol :)

[Judder Man]

Re: Fotolia

My plan is to use Alamy for the mundane stock shots, and use smugmug as a gallery for landscapes and portraits. Well that's the plan lol :)

I,m only uploading to Alamy now, got rid of Bigstock and Fotolia they were being a bit "picky" if you can excuse the pun and they were selling most of my pics on 35 cents subscription rate.
So now I have Dreamtime which I get the occasional 20 credit sale of 12 dollars. Alamy is my main earner, sell less but much better rates.

[Scuff]

Re: Fotolia

I supply to 10 agencies.
Fotolia sales are steady but not up to the numbers of shutterstock.
I see it as a way of paying for my kit, and with around 300 images, I generaly turn oner £100ukp a month.
Stock photography requires a different mindset, not so much arty farty club stuff, but good illustrative shots. A decent photographer will easily rise above the snappers who submit to the agencies and their shots will stand out.

[Paulstw]

Re: Fotolia

I supply to 10 agencies.
Fotolia sales are steady but not up to the numbers of shutterstock.
I see it as a way of paying for my kit, and with around 300 images, I generaly turn oner £100ukp a month.
Stock photography requires a different mindset, not so much arty farty club stuff, but good illustrative shots. A decent photographer will easily rise above the snappers who submit to the agencies and their shots will stand out.

Have to agree on your last point. It certainly has a nack to it, and there's a few on these sites that know what people need, and make $7-10k a month doing it.