StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

The End Of Adobe Stock Photos

"Adobe has decided to concentrate its efforts in other areas". Adobe Stock Photos, the RF image service introduced with Adobe Creative Suite 2 in May 2005, will be discontinued effective April 01, 2008, the company explained in a short email:

Adobe Stock Photos will remain operational for customers using Adobe Bridge enabled applications within Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 software until March 3, 2008 when the search and comp download features in the service will be disabled.   

All other functionalities including viewing order history and re-downloading and purchasing of images will remain available until March 31, 2008. Discontinuation of the service will not terminate valid license agreements for royalty-free images already purchased.

If you are interested in more details, please download this Adobe FAQ file (PDF).

Crossing the Chasm with Members of the Press

Members of the Press (M.O.P) are

• visionaries,
• early adopters,
• 5 years ahead of their time,
• visit each weekend those quirky Web 10.0 TechCrunch sessions

The last 8 days have seen the sudden rise of what M.O.P called with an unified voice "content aggregators".

Surprisingly:

Shady Behaviour Of Investors? The Short History Of FilmLoop

By the end of last year, when rumours spread that FilmLoop was getting into trouble, the main question seemed to be: Why? Shortly after FilmLoop went online, the company was able to announce cooperation partners like World Picture Network (WpN), iStockphoto and PhotoBucket.

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)

FilmLoop: Despite A Cute Forrester Research Study, Grumpy VCs Ask "What´s your story?"

FilmLoop, the Direct-to-Desktop (D2D) photo broadcasting network ("photocasting"), was founded in 2004 by Prescott Lee and Kyle Mashima, a former Vice President of Strategic Development at Adobe, "hatched over a breakfast of hashbrowns and pancakes".

The company has announced in the past content partnerships and cooperations with iStockphoto, PhotoBucket, World Picture Network (WpN) and the Photo Marketing Association International (I have currently no information if these cooperations will be continued in the future).

One of FilmLoop´s early investors was Guy Kawasaki. Funded in May 2006 again with $7 million (Series B) from ComVentures, the investors were obviously pretty pissed, simply overwhelmed with emotion regarding the success of FilmLoop and have pulled the plug.

New Images From Getty For Microsoft´s Windows Vista, A Smart Move From Bill Gates, Founder of Corbis

Ruediger Thonius, Head of Marketing at ImageDirekt close to Frankfurt, and his IT expert Kai Rittmeyer were so kind to point me out to the new Installation Manual of Microsoft Vista in the german version.

This Complete Installation Manual itemizes in detail the copyright information for the exactly 12 images used.  One credit goes to the Microsoft Corporation, not to Corbis. The other eleven nearly go all to Getty Images:

Alamy´s New Upload Tool Previewed By EPUK, Editorial Photograpers UK And Ireland

Dr. P. Kumar, one of Alamy´s contributors, noted recently (Stockphoto.net) in May that "submission to Alamy was yet considered painfully slow and sluggish with several complaints of contributors being let down by alleged 'bad media' detection by personnel running Alamy's QCs. Online submission is definitely going to ease and simplify contributions ... and realizing Alamy's amazing contributor-base (individuals + agencies) ... the 'numbers' may simply get madenning."

Picturemaxx Joins The QuarkAlliance

During the recently held German Photo Agency Fair PICTA Munich based image administration software (APIS network, i-picturemaxx) and photo portal (Picturemaxx.net) providing company Picturemaxx announced (press release only in Kraut) a new partnership with Quark.

Picturemaxx will join the QuarkAlliance and plans to develop a Quark XTension for buying images directly from within the QuarkXPress application, without the need for image buyers to leave the application, taking advantage of the huge image pool Picturemaxx offers.

StockPhotoFinder Goes UK, Partners With Capture

Randy Taylor is the driving force behind Creators Cycle, Stockmedia.net, StockPhotoFinder, StockPipeline, StockMotionFinder, Stockagencies and the established Keyword Compiler software.

The StockPhotoFinder, which allows through spidering searches over multiple stock photo and footage (StockMotionFinder) databases, announced recently during the BAPLA Picture Buyers´ Fair that the company starts to offer its services also in the United Kingdom (StockPhotoFinder.co.uk).

OnRequest Images Releases OnRequest OnPro

OnRequest Images is the company behind the much disputed business model known as Custom Stock and offers services such as the Custom Assignment Services, Custom Stock Images and Custom Stock Libraries to help companies to build stronger brands with better pictures.

OnRequest Images recently introduced in March the Image Manager, an image asset management solution, and announced this date the release of the latest version of OnRequest OnPro™, its custom photography production platform enabling customers to create, process, manage, and store collections of OnBrand imagery quickly and efficiently.

FilmLoop Receives $7 Million In Series B Funding

FilmLoop, the company which cooperates with the World Picture Network (WpN), iStockphoto, PhotoBucket and the Photo Marketing Association International, has received $7 million in series B funding. Filmloop went live in November 2005.

Third Light Offering 20% Discount

Third Light, the Cambridge (UK) based software company that develops and hosts specialist software for online image archival, galleries and collaboration, is offering a 20% discount on the Image Management System (IMS) Subscription products.

If a new customers orders any IMS Standard, Standard Plus or Premium product before 1 July 2006, Third LIght will discount their fees (perpetually) by 20%.

Middleware Technologies: Corbis´ Imagery Now Available Through Picturemaxx´s APIS Network

Local news, global news. Munich-based software and photo portal providing company Picturemaxx, indirectly also a subsidiary of the mighty German Press Agency, disclosed today that a big part of the imagery of Corbis is now availabe through Picturemaxx´s APIS network, including images of ZEFA.

The APIS network is Germany´s biggest specialized B2B network for selling and buying images. Picturemaxx also runs a web-based photo portal, Picturemaxx.net.

Technically, Picturemaxx´s middleware technology product opengate is responsible for the connection to Corbis.

Hurry Up: RAW Survey Ends March 15, 2006

On January 31, 2006, the OpenRAW initiative launched an international survey to collect information about the experiences, requirements, preferences, and concerns of digital photographers and other interested parties regarding the RAW imaging technology (the "digital negative"). Many photographers, photo archivists, and others involved in digital imaging have become concerned about the absence of a robust, common standard for RAW image file formats.

After Stockbyte, Image Source Enters The QuarkAlliance

It´s not all about Adobe.

Royalty-free stock photography provider Image Source announced that the company joins the global QuarkAlliance program enabling members of the QuarkAlliance to purchase Image Source imagery directly from Image Source, together with special QuarkAlliance member benefits.

Mauritius Images Completes Integration Of JupiterImages´ RF Brands

Earlier I wrote about "Middleware Technologies For The Picture Business: Who Cares?" and "News From The Trenches: More On Middleware Technologies And New Image Push Services".

Mauritius Images disclosed today that the company has completed the addition of the JupiterImages RF brands BananaStock, Brand X Pictures, Comstock Images, Creatas Images, Dynamic Graphics, Goodshot, IT Stock Free and Thinkstock Images to its offerings, as well as images from Big Cheese Photo.

Shocking: Adobe Announces Cooperation With MorePhotos And Iron Mountain

Adobe continues to build a world of additional services both for photobuyers and photosellers around Photoshop CS2 and the related company products.

After launching Adobe Stock Photos (currently 650,000 RF images), Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photographers Directory and Lightroom, the company joins a new partnership that in the long run might develop into a partial threat to services like Digital Railroad, PhotoShelter and Spitfire Photo Pro.

Sunday Afternoon Press Release From Former Corbis CEO

Where did they go? How did their lives change?

A keen insight from Doug Rowan, formerly the CEO of Corbis, and now the CEO of ZoomAlbum: Prints Still Best Way to Save Digital Photos.

Technorati Tags: Zoom Album; Your life after being the CEO of Corbis: Entrepreneur again

News From The Trenches: More On Middleware Technologies And New Image Push Services

Recently I wrote about "Middleware Technologies For The Picture Business: Who Cares?" in the magazine VISUELL.

One of the major disadvantages of printed magazines is certainly the fact that you´ve to wait for the next issue to be published if you want to add an update and secondly that your contribution is always limited to four or five pages, so you can´t really address all the subjects in-depth, especially if a huge part of an article refers to customers talking about their own experiences with certain products and services.

In that article I outlined products and services offered by confessMEDIA, DiASystems and picturemaxx (alphabetically) and the advantage for photo agencies and picturedesks through the creation of virtual photo portals for photo sellers and photo buyers using middleware technologies. Middleware technologies can administrate several image databases of various picture suppliers and different image database manufacturers and lead to a "look and feel" like if it would be only one image database.

Using Google Base For Selling Stock Photography

In early summer 1999 Miroslaw Malek told me that a new start up named Google, founded in September 1998, was starting to develope a new and completely different internet search engine. I thought "Heck, who cares?", because the internet search engine market seemed to be overcrowed at that time with successful companies like Yahoo, Altavista, etc. Back at my desk in the evening, I checked out Google (and Teoma), some of the underlying principles and have been using it ever since. Altavista, who?

When Google introduced Gmail on April 1, 2004, although furnished with tons of new and different features, I still thought "Heck, who cares? Email is simply email, you can´t reinvent the wheel even if you´re Larry Page or Sergey Brin, how can they think they could be more innovative than Yahoo mail and all the other webmail services?" Weeks later I received an invitation to Gmail and have been using it ever since (and remember, it´s still beta).

When Google introduced Google Base on November 15, 2005, I didn´t pay much attention and had no time to dig deeper into this topic.

But David Sanger, the new president of the Stock Artists Alliance, started immediately one day later to work with Google Base and loaded up 200 fine art prints and afterwards "all 6000 images". And it´s obviously working. Generating new revenues. Without paying a middleman.

Recent Changes At Micropayment Sites In A Nutshell

Only five days are gone and a lot of developments at some of the major micropayment sites did happen. The following is a short overview, taken from the press releases (I have deleted the marketing crap phrases) and other sources:

• Fotolia introduces the Extended Royalty Free License option:
  • If photographers choose this option, images can be downloaded, redistributed and resold on merchandise at the buyers' discretion. Photographers benefit by still maintaining their copyright and can set the price for this new license of images within their rank, which is based on the amount of images that a photographer has sold.
  • The design community benefits by purchasing images for redistribution without worrying about the traditional extreme costs of classic agencies and complications imposed by Rights Managed licenses.
  • The Extended Royalty Free License includes all the rights that are traditionally covered by the Rights Managed license but in a simple, unique extended feature becoming the fourth option of licenses for photographers and designers on Fotolia (others include the Standard Royalty Free Web Use license, Standard Royalty Free Web & Print license and the Exclusive Buyout).

Middleware Technologies For The Picture Business: Who Cares?

After the printed issue of VISUELL "The News Magazine For the Picture Business" shipped last week with my five-page story about "Middleware Technologies", the story is now also available online (Link).

After a small introduction I´ve done some interviews with VPs and Execs of Getty Images, Mauritius Images, Laif, photo portal Fotofinder, etc. and the picture editing department of german magazines Stern and Spiegel.

The story focuses less on the technology itself, but more on the benefits (virtual photoportals for photo sellers and photo buyers) for the user regarding products like -- alphabetically -- the Communication Server (Confessmedia), opengate (picturemaxx) and The Missing Link (DiASystems).

The story will be also appear translated in the international issue of Visuell next month in December, but without the additional and marvellous comment (Link) of editor-in-chief Stefan Hartmann. As the Krauts are apparently sometimes strange people, no one outside Germany would probably understand the comment without heavy, heavy background information.

However, the story is online only availabe to regular subscribers of VISUELL.

Technorati Tags: middleware technologies; software; Confessmedia; Communication Server; DiASystems; The Missing Link; picturemaxx; opengate; Krauts

[Image via object plus; this company is not involved and has got nothing to do with this kind of middleware technologies]

World Picture Network Partners With FilmLoop

FilmLoop is a pretty cool service and application I missed to mention. Cooperation partners include iStockphoto, PhotoBucket, but, in my eyes more important, even the World Picture Network (WpN).

"WpN represents over 500 of the world's best photojournalists in 71 countries. In this fast world of demanding media we were quick to recognize the value of distributing our images instantly over FilmLoop with the benefits of its real-time, universal updates, ease of use and visual integrity; Brilliant," said Seamus Conlan, founder & chief operating officer of WpN-WorldPictureNetwork.

Apple´s Aperture: "An Underwhelming Captioning Solution"

Since Apple had announced Aperture on October 19, the „First All-in-One Post Production Tool for Photographers" and supposed Photoshop-Killer, this had been commented a lot.

Rob Galbraith and staff writer Eamon Hickey recently interviewed Apple's Joe Schorr, Product Manager for Aperture, and Rob Schueben, Vice President of Applications Marketing. The results of their investigation (the best one I have read so far) on Aperture in its current first version are partly disappointing.

CromaBASE: A New Digital Platform For Professional Image Management With Integrated Color Management

From the viewpoint of a single professional photographer, companies like Digital Railroad, IPNStock, PhotoShelter and StockPipeline (in alphabetical order and named here despite of all the differences between these companies), are grabbing the headlines today if he starts to think about: "Where should I turn to?". Except for IPNStock I had been writing a lot in the past about these companies.

These are all US-based companies and for the moment they mostly (except for two) have a strong focus on the US market. Any international audience (like the members of StockPhoto.net) clearly tends to listen to what is going on in the US for being able to judge about what are important news and developments in the international picture business at all. Even if they are thus missing what it is happening in the "rest of the world". But as we all know, in these times foreign local news might become global news pretty fast.