Alamy Questions

Does anyone here use Alamy to sell stock? I'm thinking of sending my first submission. Is it worth the effort? It's going to take me a long time to upsize my photos. How much money do you make? I know it depends on the image collection and size of collection. Any success stories? There are a lot of threads on the net about alamy, but no one ever says if they actually sold a photo.

Thanks

Dave

Cant really help you out Dave but one thng I noticed is that the requirments state images should be approx 48MB minimum. Having just had a browse through Alamy.com I have seen many with a file size around 35MB for sale.

Anyone shed some light on this ?

I plan on upsizing my photos. The process will take a long time. That's why I am wondering about sales potential.

I think you miss my point, I just curious how , given that they stipulate a certain file size (48MB) that smaller sizes appear to make it through.

"48MB minimum file size (unless reportage material, which we will accept as 24MB minimum)" from http://www.alamy.com …hy-technical-criteria.asp

---- Gavin

Hi Dave,

I use Alamy - mostly for my landscape/travel shots. Have had a couple of sales in the last 6 months, nothing major (I only have abour 50 images on there at the moment).

Excellent company - just down the road from me. Customer support is second to none, had all my email queries answered within a couple of hours.

I always upsize my images to around 50MB for digital, or my slides are scanned at 4000dpi.

Is it worth the effort? Nobody ever sold anything sitting on their a$$... I do like having a collection of 'finished photos', it makes me think a little more about composition, colour, lighting, saturation etc. etc. etc.

HTH, Munchy

Hi,
Yes I use Alamy for my stock, I have sold 4 images through them over the last 6 months making just under $2000 net to me of $1400. I have around 700 images with them and oddly enough I don't feel that the better images have sold.
Regards

John

Thanks for the input. My computer with DVD burner finally arrived in the mail so I can get to work on my first submission. Glad to here you're having success!

If you do decide to go with Alamy here are a few pointers:

- have a good look at the type of material that they already have. For example, a search on "apple" brings back 20481 pictures which suggests they have the subject well covered already!
- remember you're shooting stock and take care with framing. In particular, think about copy space.
- you're responsible for the contents of your portfolio. Alamy check the technical quality of the submitted images but they don't edit the subject matter. Be critical about your own work and only submit the best images.
- think about the type of license you apply to each image, i.e. traditional or royalty free. You can't change the licence type once you've set it!