AlexH

I couldn't agree with this more. Ideally I would like the ability to set a minimum acceptable sale price level. While that might be dreaming I did think the whole point of opt in/out of novel use was to allow contributors the choice of being involved in the sort of deals with publishers that are likely to lead to very low individual fees but perhaps greater volume. However despite being opted out of novel use I (and it sounds like many others) am increasingly being drawn into these deals with the end result of piddling license fees. I would really like to see the distinction and definition of

I need to get on with this too. To the best of my knowledge it can be done in batches of up to 500 at a time.

No! In any business controlling/reducing costs is paramount. Alamy are cutting our commission and license fees across the industry are under continued pressure. Investing in gear to produce stock (unless perhaps very specialised) is not a sensible decision. Resist gear lust! Or from your current position you could tickle the urge with a lot less expense....

duplicate oops

Although I'm not quitting Alamy the changes have prompted me to take a similar approach to you Russel. Going forwards I'm going to try and focus more on planned thought out shoots and seek to develop more niche / local specific content. Alamy may continue to get the odd opportunistic grab shot and the third rate 'you never know it could sell' stuff. I've done some basic web design myself in the past so I've set up my site (www.hd57.com) as a front end blog to pimp the content I'm putting on a picfair powered store (stock.hd57.com). From some limited experience I think some sort of

You can edit your preferences in AIM John so this is always selected by default. Apologies if I'm informing the already wise!

Recent social media activity by Alamy does seem to plugging content from Cavan...which would lend weight to your theory.

I think those contributors that have some sort of niche material, particularly if it has some rarity and demand, have the opportunity to explore more direct routes to market. Sites like photoshelter, Picfair, Smugmug where you can set your prices. The down side is you have to do your own marketing; hence why I think it really only works for niche hard to produce content with a known marketplace. Unfortunately much of the stuff we (and I include myself here) add to Alamy is very generic and not particularly interesting or exclusive. There aren't many other places to even put a lot of what Alamy

Really? Is it no longer an Alamy venture then? Thanks for your response anyway Michael.

So I used Stockimo this afternoon to upload a soft news type image, indicating it as a news image. I gave the alamy news email a little heads up nudge as I already had days old uploads pending in the system so suspected it might be needed . ...hours later it is still pending and no response from live news email. After a couple of hours of no response I thought I'd email it to another outlet; email acknowledgement received in ten minutes. Stockimo feels like its being left out to pasture?

Have a look at Darktable. Its Linux opensource stuff so you can't beat it for value and it can be installed on Windows and MacOS.

I'm not sure there is any genuinely passive income, even investments need an eye kept on them. One thing is for sure, stock photography certainly isn't it, and becomes less so year on year as the effort to just stand still increases.

Yes that is an interesting point. My future self may find a renewed enthusiasm for post work, as you say I don't know! Most of what is in my Alamy port was shot RAW, and Nikon generated stuff still is. Of course the fact I'm not keen on sitting doing post processing quite possibly means I don't do a good job at it! Its the fuji I'm using in JPEG mode at the moment.

I'm in complete agreement with all your points! I can and do edit RAWS, but in the context of producing stock for Alamy what I'm suggesting is I don't think its necessary. Personally I don't enjoy post processing particularly, I would rather achieve a good image straight out of camera whenever possible. I agree that may not be the absolute best version of the image possible but I think if its the right image for a buyer it will still be licensed. I suspect most image buyers care a lot less, or are even oblivious to, the technical elements photographers obssess over. They just want the right im

Yes you're right there will be times when these are issues, it goes back to the earlier point about photographic knowledge and skills allowing the photographer to know when these issues are likely to be a problem. I think sometimes they can be worked around or avoided with that understanding. I'm not for a moment suggesting that working with RAW files isn't often beneficial, just suggesting it isn't essential and for me its a workflow stage I'm happy to cut out if I can.