tim_joseph1

That is the heading on a blog from a photographer. He just sold 90 individual photos, and received less than $200. Total. Granted, it was one day of sales, his best single day after uploading 5000 photos over five years. He is thrilled, and from the comments made by fellow agency members, they think he had a great day and will make ton's of money. (?). Personally I just don't get it. My gear costs 20k, my studio another 20k for rent and operational expenses. Add in Travel, food, hotels. How is selling your photos for $2.00 each worth our time. I just don't get it. The agencies make a lot more on our work than $2.00 per use. If this is the direction that the digital age has taken us, I'd rather just shoot for fun, do a few art shows a year, get some orders from local art galleries, gov contracts, regular customers. Why beat your head against a wall, work your fingers to the bone, wear out expensive cameras, if you are going to sell the finished products for $2.00 each. Someone, please help me understand! Really, please explain how after five years, a $200.00 day is your best day and is something to be proud of. My 36" x 24" prints are $325.00. Do I need to sell stock photos, or should I even want to sell stock photos?

Thank you for the replies. Having given this a lot of careful consideration, I believe the best approach is to invoice for my normal fee plus a nominal amount for the time involved to track down the infringers. Some are hiding behind their websites, but I will find them eventually. I cannot agree with the argument that there is some benefit in allowing the use of IP without compensation. The notion that the theft has increased my visibility and popularity is laughable. What purpose does that serve? That my images are free? As a photographer, I know the time that is involved to capture hundreds of images. My goal isn't to create one that is worth stealing. It just isn't logical to not enforce my rights, failing to do so is an injustice to all photographers trying to make a living with a camera.

Have you used this Google Chrome feature? Search Google For This Image First I'd like to say that my least favorite part of being a professional photographer is copyright enforcement. There is little doubt it is the most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with. I'd rather eat barbed wire. Second, I don't use my real name on Photo.net because I learned a while back that anonymity has some value. Some of you know who I am and I'll ask that you not reveal my identity, my studio name, trade names or websites. If I were using my real name here this posting would certainly alert hundreds of individuals, corporations, web design firms and other entities as to what may be coming their way soon. This would likely ruin what some may see as my devious plan to get paid for what has been taken from me. So here is the whole truth: Over the my twenty one years in business, photo theft has been a recurring problem. My first website began in 1996 so my photos have been out there a long time. Infringers have included my newspaper (a large, well known newspaper), then the City from whom I leased gallery space, a book publisher. Aunt of my then best friend. A real estate developer that owns numerous large hotels and timeshares. The list goes on and on. A couple of evenings ago, while using Google Chrome on my iPad, I held my finger over a photo on one of my "right click protected" websites. A pop up gave me the option to Search Google For This Image. The results rocked my world, the search returned over 50 hits on the first photo I searched. Each subsequent felt like a punch in the face. After about two non stop hours of utter dismay, I spent the rest of the night and into the morning laying in bed in near shock. Hundreds, if not thousands of copyright violations. Some come right off my websites, where the embedded watermarks should keep thieves at bay. Some taken from sites where I've uploaded promotional photos. Others appear to be art photos I have sold and have my signature and a copyright notice with my contact info across the entire bottom edge of the image. Business hasn't been wonderful this past year and I could try to blame it on all the usual adverse business conditions, advances in digital cameras, iPhones, whatever. Bottom line is all the thieves, and I do regard it as stealing, also hurt business. Why buy the cow when the milk is free? I have always believed that if something is worth the risk of stealing, then it is worth paying for. I have read a lot of opinions on watermarking, size of the watermarks, how they detract from the visual experience. There is no longer room from debate on the subject because if you put your best work on the Internet, so some is going to steal it. Even with the watermark, but with one in place it is impossible for a thief to say it was an honest mistake. That is the number one excuse I hear when I make the dreaded phone call or send the first invoice offering to settle for a reasonable fee. Here is just one mis-use I will be dealing with this week: A limited edition photo, stolen from my website, used to promote donations at one of the top Universities in the USA. The list of $1,000.00 and over donors is what really upsets me the most. Perhaps they'll use a portion to pay for the photo that promoted the donations. I am not laughing, are you? So I challenge each of you to do a google search for some of your most popular, best selling, images that have been on the web the longest. Reply here, let me know what you find, your opinion, and what do we do about it. Is this the new revenue stream for photographers, or just another frustration?

Here' my opinion, based on spending most of my available free time for the better part of a month building a website. My suggestion would be that the initial cost of hosting and buying a theme have very little to do with the overall time and investment into a new website. That is of course, unless you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time. First, it took several weeks to evaluate if I should build my own website. The most you'll save by going with the lowest priced hosting is less than $100. per year. Your time to research hosting and the providers service, up time etc, is worth far more. Eventually I decided on Photocrati because of positive reviews posted online, "legendary" customer service (which turns out to be a email exchange only, no phone support) and their eCommerce features which is the most important feature for my needs. After all the time invested so far, my conclusion is that: A) nothing is perfect unless you are a genius. B) 95% of online reviews are fake, they are solicited and paid for. Fake and paid reviews are most of what you see and should not be trusted. When you find something you think you like, read the fine print and you'll see that the reviewer is hiding in plain site (pun intended), that is to say they admit they are an "affiliate" and get paid for what they recommend. You did right thing by asking for advice in this forum, but as you can see unless your topic is controversial, or unless you hit on a topic that has a lot of know it alls, it is hard to get a response here. Unfortunately you are asking the competition to help you beat them. Just my two cents, but I believe the lack of responses to your query speaks volumes. So here are my answers: I am not nearly as thrilled with the Photocrati theme as I was when I paid for it, but it was under $70.00. No biggie. so I'm sticking with it for at least a year. As for hosting, I went with Host Gator, but a reliable source recommended Blue Host and maybe that would have been better, who knows for sure. Look at rankings, fake or realm there is a fraction of difference between the top five hosts. I do know, from experience that after two chat sessions with Host Gator, both taking 30 minutes of waiting for a real person to begin, both of my easy questions were answered with non-answers, so they were no help at all. Good luck, stick with it and set aside plenty of "free time".

I recently started building a new Photocrati website. Why Photocrati? Mostly because they have eCommerce, they advertise being Responsive and say they have great customer support. Two main concerns, first: the site isn't completely responsive on mobile. Primarily, although "Galleries" reduces to mobile size, users must click a tiny plus + symbol. If you're working from an iPad iPhone or other mobile device the + is extremely difficult to touch without touching the word or the space used for the Galleries tab. If you don't touch precisely on the plus symbol you are taken to a blank page, making it appear as if there's no content. So I've included a set of extra links to work around this design flaw. Second issue: Photocrati customer support is only by email, from 9:00 to 5:00 M-F, eastern., and they are not fast to respond. I realize that 9-5 is when most people work but it's not when I can take time away from my day to build a website. Further complicating Photocrati customer support is that you can't submit a support ticket from mobile devices like iPad, because their customer support form isn't responsive. Really. There is actually no place on the form (when viewing it on mobile) to fill out a question. I asked a question at 4:00PM today, at 4:56 they responded and said they couldn't answer (a simple question) today because everyone had already left, so they were not open until 5:00PM. Have any photo.net members had experiences (good or bad) with Photocrati? Did I make a mistake paying for a word press theme? I am considering just starting over. The website is coming along, and I invite comments on it's layout. Also want to know, what is more important for SEO, a photo's Title or the caption? To which one does Google pay the most attention? Take a look at VirginiaPhotoArt.com

So happy! I've saved a lot of money by doing this. I really didn't think they would let me terminate my $49.99 monthly plan and trade it for $9.99 per month. Now I can buy Topaz plugins and Portrait Pro., and still come out ahead! 80% off is a deal. Thank you Adobe.

After seeing several references to a photographers plan for Adobe, I logged into my account. It's true they're offering Photoshop Creative Cloud and Lightroom 5 for just $9.99 a month. That's a substantial savings and was not an option when I signed up for the original business plan single-user back in February 2013. I consider that quite a bargain so of course I signed up (with a new user name, new email, new credit card). Tomorrow I'll try to cancel my $49.95 a month membership (My CC renews on the 29th and I've had it for just under a month at this point) for my single user business plan. Has anyone else been successful in trying this? Will I be able to uninstall Photoshop and Light Room under my current business plan and then reinstall the photographers plan? Every time I see all those programs (that I'm not using) I'm convinced that I'm overpaying at $49.99 a month. I suspect my business is much like a lot of other photographers here on photo.net. I'm a small business and really can't afford $49.99 per month for a program that can be had for $9.99 a month. All those small fees, $50 a month, $30, $70 a month, $10 all monthly fees to about 15 different businesses add up to a lot of monthly fees, about half my office space rent! If anyone else has try this and run into a roadblock with Adobe please let me know before I make that call. Your advice and comments are welcomed and appreciated!

Thanks for the reply Dan. I'll try a few of them this coming week and evaluate each service based on paper print quality first. I am surprised that so few photo.net members use one of these services, perhaps they just are not worth the time it takes to get started, or the results under perform individual expectations.

Andrew, your posts in this thread have become abusive and ugly. Please stop. Please do not respond.

After many years of marketing my photography, I want to change my business. I am hoping Photo.net users will share their experiences (good or bad) with website portfolio services. These services offer photographers a website and order fulfillment for framed art, gallery wraps, enlargements etc. I am getting too old for picture framing and stretching canvas!. A few examples would be Zenfolio, Fine Art America, SmugMug, Square Space and Photo Shelter. Please share your experiences with these companies!

Yes, I left and have not been amused by what happened here. Despite my protests, the moderator moved this discussion (twice) from Business to Digital Darkroom. Although I retitled and reworded the initial post, I wasn't trying to start a debate about color space. RGB vs sRGB should be part of the discussion but not the main topic. I want to evolve my BUSINESS and seek recommendations from Photo.net users on their experiences with website portfolio services. Examples would be Zenfolio, Fine Art America, SmugMug, Square Space, Photo Shelter etc. I did get everything I wanted to know about Costco and more. Does the moderator now understand why I thought this belonged in the BUSINESS forum. Perhaps I'll try again.

Please close this discussion.

OK, I'll bite, here' say experience: My only business, my only income for that matter, is photography. Founded in 1993, I began using a pro lab in Norfolk Virginia. That worked well enough, but getting the colors near what I wanted kept me driving to the lab almost everyday. Out of frustration, I found a one hour lab with a very dependable, devoted lab tech. She would print a color/density range of 4x6 proofs, I'd pick one and take it to the pro lab, tell them "match this". That worked pretty well until 2001, when the pro lab owner said to me "you should just print your own stuff". At the time my annual costs for prints exceeded 12k., and so I looked him in the eye and said "you know what, you're right" . I never looked back, had them process my C-41 and E6, and bought a Canon inkjet. Been through many of those. Right now I run wide format - one ipf8300 and a ipf8400. This time of year is slow, they are normally cranking out prints six days a week. We do all of our own production and fill orders from a simple 8x10 print to a recent order for 99 large gallery wraps. I have a curing rack to hang as many as (22) 40” prints, a roll cold mounting machine, and a spray booth where I spray liquid laminate. A Tensador II for stretching 48" canvas. A full frame shop, mats, glass, filetts, shadow boxes, even framed a skateboard recently. This is on top of taking pictures, which is becoming less and less of what I do. As you can imagine, after 21 years in business, at age 60, my back is telling me I can't keep doing this. Need either a pro lab that can fulfill, or really dependable employees to take over. Right now we're a mom and pop, no employees! Something has to give. Anyone want to buy a fully operational business with 500,000 historical and interesting film of SE Virginia? LOL. I want to turn the production over to someone capable and dependable. We have a huge client base to take care of!

This discussion was started in an effort to locate a portfolio website service combined with a professional photo lab. One with pro services to produce a variety of products. Prints, enlargements, framed prints and gallery wraps. Art that interior designers would purchase. As a professional photographer, COSTCO is far out of the realm of possibilities. Very far!

As suggested early in replies by Jeff Spirer I looked into White House Custom Color. They offer printing from photos profiled in Adobe RGB or sRGB. This is from their website under color management: We recommend either Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB IEC61966-2.1. If you are unsure, you probably want sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

Thank you for the response Ellis. The bigger issue I have with uploading my photos to Zenfolio for printing by MPIX PRO is that they are asking me to convert everything from Adobe RGB to sRGB. The resulting color shift is substantial and undesirable. I have been printing on Canon wide format inkjet for many years, my existing inventory and clients are going to recognize this color change. As you can imagine, recent attempts to convert individual photos with successful hard proofing is time consuming and frustrating. We're talking about 24 years of photography, easily 1,000 time proven best sellers. Suggestions?

Andrew, We are in agreement on all points. For purposes of discussion only: A) not all photographers I print for use RAW, so I encourage them to set color space to Adobe RGB. Unless it's available on newer EOS cameras, ProPhoto RGB isn't an in-camera capture option. Choices are sRGB and Adobe RGB, correct? B) I work with Adobe RGB, the colors I can see and can output. For my own photography I output in ProPhoto RGB, so yes, I work with colors I can't see but can output. C) yes it is silly that Canon recommends and has default color space set to sRGB. Every photographer that pushes the reset button goes back to the wrong profile (unless they only view their photos and do not print them). Can you capture JPG in sRGB and then gain information that is not there by converting to Adobe RGB or post processing in Lightroom to convert to ProPhoto? I believe the answer is no, am I incorrect? Thank you for taking the time to discuss this, and for posting the gamut maps for everyone to see.

This isn't going to answered easily by any one photographer because there are individual preferences and advantages to both color spaces. However, let's get back to basics. 1) Do you have your digital camera set to sRGB or the much wider Adobe RGB Color Space? 2) Do you have a monitor capable of displaying the full color gamut of Adobe RGB? 3) Are you experienced with making your own inkjet prints or do you send your work to a lab for RC wet process printing? 4) Do you use color calibration software, and if so, what color space are you setting for calibration between your printer and your monitor? I realize that is a lot of questions, but they are very relevant. Without trying to sound curt, replying without individual answers circumvents the discussion. I have several 5D MarkII's, but believe this applies to all pro EOS cameras: Canon recommends sRGB because Adobe RGB "is mainly used for commercial printing and other industrial uses. This setting is not recommended if you do not know about image processing, Adobe RGB, and Design rule for Camera File System 2.0 (Exif 2.21). The image will look very subdued in the sRGB personal computer environment and with printers not compatible with Design rule for Camera File System 2.0. Post-processing of the image with software will therefore be subdued. Therefore, having printed hundreds of thousands of inkjet prints, I believe this is accurate: sRGB is for photographers not accustomed to making color corrections. sRGB is best suited for Internet viewing on low end color monitors. Adobe RGB is for those who are capable of making color adjustments prior to printing their photos.

This is similar to another question I asked yesterday, but the moderator switched forums to Digital Darkroom. I believe this question goes beyond the scope of Digital Darkroom, so l'll compose the question differently., hopefully the moderator doesn't moved it again. I have a pretty good idea of how to make prints and the available technology, so this isn't a processing question. It is a business question, specifically how to move to an online service, which portfolio websites you have experience with and those that you are happy with. Details: My goal this month is to find an online service with which I can create a portfolio website and have that company fulfill my orders for paper prints, picture framing and gallery wraps. After reviewing and finding what I believe was the best option, Zenfolio, I was told that the their best vendor for fulfillment in the USA is MPIX PRO which is owned by Miller's. When I look at the MPIX Pro and Miller's websites, both require photographs to be uploaded and profiled in sRGB. Even though they don't use inkjet for paper printing. They use wet process for prints on e-paper and Fuji Pearl. (I'll assume they use either solvent or aqueous inkjet for canvas since I am unaware of any wet process emulsion coated canvas products). QUESTION 1: Regarding paper prints, doesn't this mean they are converting profiles again to CMYK? QUESTION 2: Do any members of Photo.net use a portfolio website service to display, sell and fulfill orders? <B>Mod: Pleases separate business questions from printing questions if you want them in the business forum.</b>

Andrew, everything you say is correct. What I am trying to accomplish is finding an on- line portfolio website service that will make prints, do picture framing and make gallery wraps of my photography. For 20 years I've done this myself with great success, but I'm getting to where I just want to take photos. No more production. The challenge is finding a service that provides everything I need without forcing me to convert profiles and ruin what has taken years to get right. Does anyone reading these posts use a service that they are happy with? Examples of companies that do it all, from website creation to order fulfillment: Zenfolio, Fine Art America, SquareSpace, SmugMug.

I am considering using a service like Zenfolio that provides online ordering and product fulfillment for a portion of production. This would be only for orders placed exclusively over their website where I do not have direct contact with the client. This has proven to be quite difficult. My own knowledge, be it right or wrong, of printing digital photographs is creating many questions. One of the concerns I have is that many of the fulfillment services require photographs to be matched to sRGB. This is contrary to what I know about making inkjet prints, which is that Adobe RGB has a much wider color gamut. Therefore I almost always print in Adobe RGB. I use the PS plug-in to print on wide format Canon printers, the ICC profiles are for Adobe RGB and closely resemble what I see on my monitor. The monitor was purchased because it provides the full color gamut of Adobe RGB. All that said, the primary/ preferred vendor for Zenfolio in the USA is MPIX Pro, owned by Millers and they require sRGB profiles. According to Zenfolio, MPIX Pro does not use inkjet printers, they use a wet process. This would require that I convert the profiles of about 1000 photographs, adjusting the color so they do not get that funky / fake over saturated look that I see on my monitor when I make the conversion to sRGB. I could really use members input on this issue. For those that print a lot of photos for retail, or use a pro lab, my questions for you are: 1) What Color Space do you have set in your camera, are you capturing photographs in sRGB or Adobe RGB? 2) When you print or upload your photographs, are you sending them in the same profile in which you capture, or converting them to meet vendor ICC Profile requirements. 3) If you use, or have used in the past an online portfolio service that provides order fulfillment, please share your opinion of that service. Your comments please!