Hit Refresh: New Version of Image Distribution And Workflow Tool ProStockMaster For Microshooters

 

Predictions are that within the next five years all of what used to be routine photographic work will go, and all that will be left is the relatively tiny fine art market and high-end niche assignments such as corporate awards and other events where only a professional can guarantee to capture the specific images that are needed"
(Guardian Unlimited Technology yesterday)

"At the recently held PACA conference someone said during the first day that most of the exhibiting photo agencies will not survive the next ten years. On day three of the meeting, another person emended the number of years down to five"
(Google Can Make The 20th Century Stock Portals Like Getty And Corbis Irrelevant)

 

ProStockMaster, the nifty software tool for "stock photography workflow management" such as image preparation, simultaneous uploads, keywords generator as well as stock statistics like earnings, number of approved images and downloads, is out with the new version 1.2, released in January.

The tool allows photographers to upload their photos to up to eight micropayment stock photo sites, like alphabetically:

 

• 123RF
• BigStockPhoto
• CanStockPhoto
• Dreamstime
• Fotolia
• iStockphoto
• LuckyOliver
• ShutterStock

 

... but currently not to the micropayment brands of Jupiterimages. And as long as Flickr has yet not decided with whom they want to cooperate or not regarding the commercialization of their image assets (which indeed belong to the users, and not to Flickr), there is currently no posibility to use ProStockMaster for Flickr, SmugMug and all the other photo sharing sites.

David Mail, the head behind ProStockMaster, is a professional software developer, amateur photographer and uploads his images to multiple microstock photography sites. He says that the basic idea of ProStockMaster as an affordable tool was born as a "native extension of my interest to online stock photography".

The basic implications of ProStockMaster are pretty obvious: the vast majority of photographers, which do not belong to the micropayment stock super stars like Lise Gagné and which use the tool in the beginning for managing only two or three of their accounts on micropayment stock agency A, B and C, will intend to open new accounts on the other micropayment stock agencies D, E, F, G and H.

Obviously with this mind, all eight above mentioned micropayment stock photo sites run ads on the ProStockMaster website.

ProStockMaster is shareware ($49 and EUR 39) and runs both on WIN and MacOS. All new features of version 1.2 can be found here.The free license of ProStockMaster is restricted to uploading up to five images daily.

 

David Mail adds the following disclaimer:
The values in the table above are provided as sample data only. These values do not reflect in any way either market share, revenues or other performance characteristics of the stock agencies listed above.

 

Related:

• Bruce Livingston: Commercializing Community (Jan. 27, 2007; last topic)
• Amateur photographers get shot at stardom, Internet changes world of stock photography (Jan. 17, 2007)
• Change must come, so says Lewis Blackwell, Getty Images group creative director (Dec. 14, 2006)
• Crowdsourcing and its True Impact on the Stock Photo Business (MacTribe, Dec. 2006), with this restriction
• Meet Lise Gagné, The First Global Crowdsourcing Stock Photography Star, With 390,000 Sales (Nov. 18, 2006)
• Crowdsourcing Creative Content (Jim Pickerell, Nov. 14, 2006; req. reg.)
• Microstock: How Much Money Can Photographers Make? (PDN, Nov. 2006)
• The concept behind iStockphoto starts to rule the world (Nov. 05, 2006)
• Crowdsourcing: Milk the masses for inspiration (Sept. 19, 2006)
• Google turns to crowdsourcing with image labeler (Sept. 05, 2006)
• How "ordinary" photographers are making Big Money shooting for small stock agencies (PopPhoto, 3 pages, August 2006)
• "We believe micropayment sales could potentially cannibalize Getty's royalty-free sales," PiperJaffray´s analyst Aaron Kessler wrote (July 06, 2006)
• What does 'crowdsourcing' mean for business innovation? (June 16, 2006)
• “If someone’s going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other businesses,” says Getty CEO Jonathan Klein (May 25, 2006)
• The Rise of Crowdsourcing (May 25, 2006)

 

Comments

[Jon Arnold]

"At the recently held PACA conference someone said during the first day that most of the exhibiting photo agencies will not survive the next ten years. On day three of the meeting, another person emended the number of years down to five"

5 years ago alot of people thought RF would kill the RM market dead. NOT so.

We set up our photo library just over 5 years ago, selling only RM travel images, and our revenue and profits have grown every single year.

So I don't agree with this doom and gloom outlook. Sure some agencies will not survive but many others will (not just Getty and Corbis and the microstocks)

Jon Arnold