John Mitchell

Interesting. I just checked my sales data, and "artists reference" started appearing in my PU licenses in June 2017 and has shown up in every PU license since then. Perhaps a lot of clients were requesting this usage, although one would think that the free downloadable preview images -- even with the watermarks -- might suffice in most cases.

That's right. My father, who was a very good Sunday landscape painter, used to use photographs for reference all the time. Of course, anyone could abuse the PU license (or any other license for that matter) and try to resell an altered image. C'est la vie in the digital age. BTW, how do you know that your leaping salmon was used specifically for artists reference? My PU licenses always read as follows: " Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts, or reference for artists. Non-commercial use only, not for resale."

The PU license states that the image cannot be resold. I think that "reference for artists" refers to people who want to use the photograph as a reference (not alter the original image digitally) for creating a work of their own in another medium -- e.g. a painting of a particular mountain or lake, etc.

Can't speak for the RX100 since I don't have one. However, I went through an experimental "straight from the camera" JPEGs stage with my NEX-6 when I first started using it, and the results were fine for Alamy. My guess is that the RX100 produces even better JPEGs since it was probably designed primarily for people who don't want to spend time on RAW processing.

I've been seeing "reference for artists" on my PU sales for about one year now. P.S. I'm not sure why an artist would want to refer to some of them, though.

Hmmm... personal use. I guess anything is possible.

Perhaps you can rent one of these.

I was told that it sprouts small yellow flowers -- probably like these

Maybe not the new normal but increasingly common. They remind me of the questionable "spot use" sales of years gone by.

Canada geese on a family outing, Vancouver

Mystery solved. I spoke to the person who planted it and epimedium it is. Thanks for putting me on the right track. The forum comes through again...

The leaves of this plant are now totally green -- i.e. red tinge has disappeared -- and smooth. It's about two feet (0.6 m) high. No flowers. P.S. It certainly looked a lot like this when I took the picture earlier this month.

Thanks. This one perhaps?

Yes, it's all relative. I'm not even sure what a "travel" image is. That said, travel images usually overlap with other categories, which I suppose is the main reason that the category does so well.

I think this is a type of coleus. Am I correct?