Photoreflect starts charging $9/month?

[musicmaster]

I went to log into my account online today and they redid their entire website. Looking through it, it seems that it is now a $9/month subscription in order to sell photos, which personally seems high, especially since they take 15% commission.

I've had an account for 2 years but haven't seen any emails regarding the change.

[WillMass]

I've used Photo Reflect since 2002. But due to image theft, I have mostly stopped selling online. I haven't had time to investigate this. But if it's true, then it's time to raise my online prices, or find another solution.

At least we're still getting paid, unlike the guys on Print Room.

[HammerCope]

If it's true I will be doing the samething.

[titan307]

I havent gotten an email or eany type of request for payments so maybe the charges are for new sign ups.

[dmccarty]

I've used Photo Reflect since 2002. But due to image theft, I have mostly stopped selling online. I haven't had time to investigate this. But if it's true, then it's time to raise my online prices, or find another solution.


How do you know people were stealing the online photos? Where they taking the photos displayed on Photo Reflect?

Photo Reflect tried to raise prices back in September 2009 by adding a $1.50 charge to every order on top of the 18% rate. The membership did not like this and this flat fee was revoked.

I have not seen any notification of a price increase since then much less a monthly rate. I think a monthly rate on top of 18% would almost certainly push us add photo ordering on our website.

Later,
Dan

[Austinimagery]

There is a lot going on in this thread.

First, my understanding is that PhotoReflect is going to begin charging $9 per month effective to new members only. I don't know if it has been implemented yet, but likely it has.

Second, if you have images available online, they are vulnerable to being stolen. There is nothing you can do about it except watermark your images which will only sometimes work as a deterrent...but not always.

When images are displayed on a screen, they can be copied, screen captured etc. There are plenty of programs out there that do a great job of capturing screen images. They may not be of good print quality however usually that is not the purpose of the taker.

Watermarked images work well to deter, but I have heard stories of images being published in printed material with studio watermarks. Probably far and few between, but happens. Most of the images are going to Facebook or some social site.

Your best bet is to always watermark your images and offer digital downloads in a low resolution for a fee. You might as well get something for the images you have captured. We put our studio name on the low res files so when they are published online out there we stand a chance of getting noticed. Sometimes, they crop it out.

For good and for bad, digital brings opportunity for everyone. Even thieves.