New Image Ideas for your new year shoots

At Cutcaster, we have been speaking with more and more with the magazines out there and are hearing from quite a few that they are working on their spring issues. This is a great time to think about upcoming shoots. Here are some ideas we heard kicked around from our calls.

1. Spring Break travel spots/Concepts
2. Kids activities inside or outdoors
3. Fixing up the home/Home Renovation
4. Diet/dieting concepts
5. Upcoming fitness season
6. House/Spring cleaning
7. Home Gardening
8. Moving Season

Lets kick around some ideas here and see what new shots we can come up with. I will make sure it is seen.

New Cutcaster watermark. Better than the old one?

What do you guys think? Here is the old one.



Here is the new one.



Let me know your thoughts.

How to add your Cutcaster studio to Google?

Share your place on the net with Major search engines and get more views.
Adding your Cutcaster studio link to major search engines is really simple and really effective to get more exposure. Here is a link to my, John Griffin's Cutcaster studio page i.e. http://www.cutcaster.com/studio/pub/582007626.




See the last paragraph under the bottom of the "About me" section. That is where your public link can be found. To submit your Cutcaster studio to Google, you can follow this link. Or you can copy and paste this link into your browser as well, http://www.google.com/addurl/.

If you have problems, let me know.

Advanced Search at Cutcaster

Cutcaster is developing one of the most targeted image search engines on the Internet in order to save you time and return the most relevant, highest quality results from the start. Try it and never reach for the aspirin bottle again after every photo and vector search.

Four easy steps to find the perfect choice from the first keyword searched.

1. Start with basic keywords or a compound phrase, then Refine
2. Enter singular or plural terms. We recognize either.
3. Our system supports Boolean operators like AND and OR so you are free to use them within a search. We do not offer NOT at this time.
4. Click Advanced Search to see a more detailed set of search filters. Check any desired box and find what you are looking for.

You can use several modifiers to narrow down your searches.

Use AND between search terms to find images that contain ALL the words you type. Or just separate words with a space, which will be interpreted the same way. Note: Typing & or + between words also finds images containing all those words.

Use OR between words to find images that contain any of your search words. Note: typing a comma (,) or vertical bar (|) between words also finds images containing any of those words.

Use quotation marks around several terms to find a phrase.If your multi-term search already exists in the Controlled Vocabulary as a phrase, those search results will be returned, with the option available to see other results as well.

For advanced keyword searches, enter a specific keyword in the search area box. Then you can apply any of the search filters in the advanced search before you press Find (such as file types, Categories, Model or Property released or Exclusive to the site).

Search by Members- If you want to take a closer look at a Members portfolio, click off the Members check box and type in the person’s name.

Adult Content - you can set or unset the 'Adult Content Filter' by checking / unchecking the box.

Search by Categories - You can select up to 5 categories that you wish to search by.

And if you really can not find the perfect image or vector in our Library please contact us by emailing content AT cutcaster DOT com.

Top 10 best selling categories of the year

1. people- adults, mature adults, senior citizens

2. business-business tools and concepts

3. objects on white background

4. business people

5. vector graphics and illustrations

6. travel- transportation

7. signs & symbols

8. food

9. sports related

10. architecture & interiors-building exteriors

Thanks for you all your great images and keep up the good work in the new year. We have an exciting year ahead of us at Cutcaster.

Beware of the Doghouse, Cutcaster Men ;-)

Great video from JCPenny on "the Doghouse." We have all been there. I'll probably be sent back there again by the time the year is over ;-) Will bring a smile to your face. Have a great weekend and go get your holiday presents.

Full Credits
Client: JC Penney
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Director: Amie Valentine
CD/Copywriter: Josh Rubin
CD/Art Director: Jason Musante
Head of Digital Production: John Swartz
Integrated Producer: Kwame Taylor-Hayford
Senior Producer: John Doris
Director: Bryan Buckley
Production Company: Hungry Man
Executive Producer: Kevin Byrne
Producer: Mino Jarjoura
Post Production: Big Sky
Editor: Chris Franklin

Another Milestone reached

Just hit 500 blog posts the other day at Cutcaster and we keep on rolling strong. I can remember writing my first one and having no idea what a long and great trip this would become, plus all the amazing people I have met and have supported the site. I was still trading stocks on Wall st. then. Thanks to everyone who has participated in the discussion, help educate us and added to the laughs. We try to use the blog as a tool to communicate what is happening at Cutcaster but also to let you know what else we are seeing that could be of interest to you or bring a smile to your face.

Lift your glasses in a worldwide toast for 500 more posts and beyond. Thank you.


As a side note we are a few thousand files away from our goal of 100k files by the end of the year. I couldn't be happier and thank everyone. Just picture me with a huge smile on my face and giving you all a big high five ;-)

Travel Images Requested

Request made - Please let us know if you can help. Just add a note to the upload in the submit area so we know you are sending us material for this.

Thanks.


I am looking for a front cover photo for the books

San Francisco with Kids
500 Places to take your kids before they Grow Up
Travel Guide for Norway
Travel Guide for Ecuador


Both the kids books are horizontal in format. I need to convey San Francisco specifically, so it can't be generic. Happy kids with a landmark, not cluttered.

The 500 Places title-- need to show white kids as tourists in a exotic locale. Turkey, Egypt, something recognizable. I am open to the place. (I showed kids wioth pyramids already, so I am open to other locales.

See what you have in stock. I don't want to limit you.

Ecuador-- need exotic birds, colorful landscapes. I don't want iguanas, they never are picked. Go with colorful birds and exotic scenics. Needs to be VERTICAL with room at top for the title of the book to have space.

Norway-- a great water scenic or people shot, or a not crowded image of Begen. Any of these might work. Needs to be VERTICAL with room at top for the title of the book to have space. Something simple, graphic, and bold.

The Importance of Public Clipfolders, How to Promote Them and How to Make Them….

We have recently been noticing an increasing click through rate on our existing Public Clipfolders here at Cutcaster. This also shows us that buyers are going directly to the Clipfolder area to do their searching. So how can you help them.

Clipfolders are Cutcaster's version of Lightboxes. A Clipfolder or lightbox refers to a folder used on stock photography websites that allows a user to organize digital photos. Photos can be assigned to a public Clipfolder by subject, for later convenience, or used to compile unrelated photos for a specific project layout. Lightboxes also allow graphic designers to show clients options for a project in one simple uncluttered folder.

At Cutcaster, you can make Clipfolders with from your own work or you can take a variety of contributor's work and make a mixed Clipfolder. We suggest using as many different contributors' photos as well as your own in the Clipfolders you create. It is all about creating the best and most diverse Clipfolders from a wide array of contributor's work.

Clipfolders are a way to showcase, share and promote your work and the work of others. This makes is easier for a buyers to find what they are looking for right away, by simply clicking on a Clipfolder that specifies what they are searching for.

Clipfolders can be emailed to a friend or colleague who may be searching for something specific. To e-mail a Clipfolder you simply go into your Clipfolders and choose the little envelope next to the Clipfolder you would like to send to a friend.

Now, I know what your thinking….how the heck to do I make one. So without further delay…..here is the ‘How To’ on creating Clipfolders at Cutcaster:

First log into your account. In the upper right-hand corner of your screen you will see “My Clipfolder” – click on that.


Now, simply click on ‘Create New Clipfolder’ – this should be about mid-screen for you to click on.


This brings you to the Create New Clipfolder section. Here you want to name your Clipfolder, being as specific as you can such as: "Music – Piano’s" or "Woman – Smiling." Seasonal or holiday clipfolders are great too! You just fill in the information ‘Clipfolder Name’, ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’. Please be sure to use only relevant keywords and no spamming your Clipfolders! Then you just click ‘Submit’. Buyers will search for clipfolders using keywords so they have to be accurate.

Once you click on the submit button, you now need to make the Clipfolder ‘Public’. To do this, click on your ‘Clipfolders’ tab and choose which Clipfolder you would like to make public by clicking on the pencil icon under manage. Then under ‘Sharing:’ – choose Public.


Now all that is left is to put some pictures relevant to topic or concept into the Clipfolder. You can do this by choosing your own pictures from your portfolio or you can do a keyword search and add several different contributors’ photos, as well as your own, by simply clicking on the folder with a plus sign under the photo. Clicking on the folder with a plus sign with give you a pop-up that will allow you to choose to add it to an existing Clipfolder or a new Clipfolder.


Let us know what you think and looking forward to seeing your clipfolders. If you have one that you are particularly proud of let us know and we will link to it from the homepage.

The PLUS Coalition. Your thoughts?

I had a conversation last week with Jeff Sedlik from PLUS about using their licensing framework at Cutcaster. How many of you have heard of PLUS?

If you don't know about PLUS it is an international non-profit initiative on a mission to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights. So what does that mean in English...well, PLUS is a system of standards that makes it easier to communicate, understand and manage image rights in all countries.

What are peoples thoughts on using PLUS as an option for licensing images on the site? What do you feel are the pros and cons? I want to open this up to discussion because this site is as much yours as it is ours.

I think some really interesting news for people who are selling their images is that "three major publishers have called for the adoption of the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) standards by picture archives, photographers and all other image suppliers. Representatives of McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Pearson each announced that they will adopt the PLUS Picture Licensing Glossary definitions in their contracts, and that they encourage image suppliers to begin embedding PLUS license metadata in all images within one year." Personally I think more will follow and this will be a good opportunity for contributors to Cutcaster but we are all ears here so let us know what you think.

For the latest news on PLUS to see what they are doing check this out.

Moneybookers no longer a payment option

I just logged into Moneybookers to make a payment to one of our contributors and saw this message.


Warning

IMPORTANT NOTICE

We regret to inform you that payments between US customers, and US customers and international customers using the Send Money service are no longer supported.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.


We are still reviewing our options but I believe that going forward we will have to pay out international contributors via check. Has anyone else heard of this news?

Cutcaster Holiday Contest Winners and Runner-ups

First off, I want to thank everyone who submitted images and vectors for our first Cutcaster Holiday contest. We recieved a really diverse set of images and vectors and had a hard time narrowing it down to just one winner for the vectors and images. Below are the top three submissions in both file types and the winner. Congrats to all those that participated and to the winners.

First we will start with vectors as there were a ton of great submissions. We are a huge fan of vectors here at Cutcaster so keep them rolling in. The two runner-ups in this year's contest were: Leonid Dorfman for "Illustration of Greeting card for Christmas"

and Michael Travers for "Illustration of snow globe ribbon."

Great work guys.

And now, without further delay, your 2008 Cutcaster vector contest winner is Jip Fens for his Illustration of Christmas party.

This illustration was chosen for its' concept and uniqueness. Nice work Jip.

Now we will move onto the photo side of the competition. The runner-ups for the photo contest were from two great contributors.

First runner up was Robert Byron's "Christmas Stocking."

Just nipping him out for second place was Robert Carner's "Christmas, the magic time of year."

And the winner is...drum roll pleaseeeeee.....Vince Clements and his "child's christmas wish list."


Chosen for the excellent composition and colors. This photo truely brings out the Christmas Spirit.

Very proud of everyone and excited by all the submissions. Congrats to everyone and especially Jip and Vince. You guys have won the first annual Cutcaster Holiday Contest.

Cutcaster Holiday Contest

Our Holiday contest is almost over and wanted to tell you to quickly get in your submission before the deadline on Friday. You have two days to submit your favorite images and vectors for a chance to win the prize. Just upload them and check them off so they are included in the judge's discussion.

Good Luck.

For more info on the Cutcaster image and vector contest click here.

What does Google's partnership with LIFE and Getty mean for you?

I'm sure most of you have read the news of Google and LIFE announcing that they will make LIFE's vast photo archive available for free public perusal on Google. Sounds very cool but where do you fall in this digital media debate.

This deal could be interesting and bad on a few fronts.

First, if Google takes care of the archiving, adshare and searching, Getty deals with all the licensing and LIFE just provides the stills, then they all share in the advertising revenue and they can split the marketing efforts between three sites. This partnership could drive a lot of traffic to LIFE.com, which is a joint venture between Getty and Time Inc. LIFE.com will make money from advertising and sales of photo books and prints. Now images are displayed on Google with links that allow customers to buy framed prints through the print-on-demand service called QOOP.com. The three participants will not pay attention to personal uses and will offer a mid sized image without watermarks but the high resolution files will be watermarked. Not sure how the licensing will be worked out yet and what the user experience will be like. The watermark on the high resolution image after checking it out is really small and just in the lower corner of the image. Doesn't really protect anything. I did hear from one source that the images all had Digimarc embedded watermarks for tracking but after checking that out it appears that in the medium and large sizes there
were no Digimarcs, and absolutely no metadata.

On the flip side this development could create a few problems. What about the issue of orphaned works? David Riecks at Controlled Vocabulary argued that LIFE magazine's parent company is basically flooding the market with a lot of orphaned images. Working with Google, they will know have an archive of images from the 1860s to the 1980s online (I found an image shot in 1989) and the images will be without the embedded metadata.

If you are interested you can click here to see the images yourself that will be available.

PDN reported on the deal here.

A Google blog announcing the partnership and new collection can be found here.

What do you think about all this? How will this affect you or won't it affect you?

New Cutcaster Search released

Search and Keywords management have been the name of the game the last 5 months at Cutcaster. What an effort! We have been trickling out updated variations of our search and updating some of your keywords over that time but today we updated a large portion of the search engine which you will notice when you do keyword and advance searches. It is still a work in progress and will only improve if you guys keep emailing us and telling us where we can fix it and make it better. A huge update / change is coming up at the end of the month so your help is very much needed. We promise you will be happy with the results.

Test it out and let us know what you think. Also if you are logged in and do a search, make sure you click on the red X below thumbnails if the thumbnail shouldn't have shown up in the search results that were returned to you.

Very exciting day and lots more good things to come. Lettt'ssss Gooooo everyone at Cutcaster.

Ideas for new shoots- What buyers are looking for

More and more we are hearing that graphic designers, advertisers and publishers are seeing the same images on every single site and they feel they have seen every image out there. We need to shake it up a bit.

There are a lot of categories that are not well represented in RF and need to be photographed in a non-cheesy, non-stocky way. I hear it all the time. Buyers really want pictures of real life situations that are candid, non-posed imagery that depicts its subjects behaving naturally. Authenticity is key. Here are some topics from the Photoshelter buyer research that can help you determine what you want to shoot. Post any ideas or other suggestions you have below.

The Photoshelter buyers survey found that there were major categories in which the "availability/quality/diversity (usefulness) of images typically found" was "poor to average". The following categories were pinpointed as the top 10 weakest:

1. Healthcare. 88%
2. Multicultural/Diversity. 86%
3. Seniors. 86%
4. Technology & Products. 85%
5. Interior Décor. 84%
6. Eco-Friendly. 81%
7. Business Situations & Settings. 72%
8. Celebrity. 72%
9. Sports/Activities. 71%
10. Children/Young Adults. 72%

The key will be to take original and interesting new shots that look authentic. If you can do that you will have a winner.

How I Keyword Images? By a Cutcaster Contributor

As you know we have been going over some of your files and helping people with their keywording. We still need everyone to go back in and do this themselves. However when I was going through one contributors work, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well he keyworded his images. He was great at adding in singular words and compound phrases that really describe both the image and to a smaller degree concepts surrounding the image. I emailed him to ask about his keywording workflow and this is what he said. It's simple and I hope it helps.

"As is well known, keywording is just as important as having a good image and without effective keywords an image will never be found and thus will never be sold. I keep a searchable database with all of the keyword combinations that I use. When I shoot a new image I first go to the database to find keywords that are good matches. I always ask myself the same questions about every image; who, what, when, where and why. I try to think of the best keywords that answer those questions and then search the Internet for things relating to those keywords. I carefully filter out anything that I don't think is relative to the image and the good results go straight to the IPTC of the image and in to my database. It used to take me a considerable amount of time to use this method but after using it for several years, it now takes me less than 5 minutes to effectively create keywords for an image. Practice makes perfect."

Everyone has their own workflow and process for adding keywords. We would like to hear yours. Add it to the comments below.

Keywording is going to be so important going forward so I need everyones help in dealing with this issue.

Photographers Unite

More great news out of Getty ;-)

Photographers are suing Getty Images over a subscription pricing plan. The group of stock photographers has filed a class-action lawsuit which asserts that by including rights-managed stock images in the Getty Images Premium Access subscription product, Getty violated copyright and broke its contract with rights-managed contributors. The suit says Getty’s product makes rights-managed images available under royalty-free license terms for unreasonably low prices.

According to the class action suit, Getty is paying photographers a pro-rata share of Premium Access fees when their images are downloaded through the program. Payments have been as low as $2.08, according to the lawsuit – substantially lower than a photographer’s share of a traditional rights-managed stock sale. “In Premium Access, Getty essentially allows its customers to set the amount of photographers’ royalties themselves,” the suit says. “Not surprisingly, this results in royalties equal to a tiny fraction of the commercial value of the photographers’ photographs.”

Makes me sick. Getty is undercutting the market and destroying the value of these images even more in the future. Here is to Photographers flexing their muscles, demanding change and expecting a fair shake. This is a great step and development.

A virtual site walk-through...

We just made this quick site tour with a cool new (free) screen recording app called Screentoaster. Pretty cool stuff, check it out:

Recorded with screentoaster.com

Three Billion Photos At Flickr

Today marked a big day at Flickr. Flickr member, Garrett Ryan Smith, uploaded the 3 billionth photo to the site today. They hit 2 billion photos just last year ago.

Facebook leads the pack with over 10 billion. And Facebook is moving fast. A year ago Facebook had just 4.1 billion photos.

Flickr launched in 2004.

Get out and Vote today

If you are in the USA, please get out and vote today. I just got back ;-)

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone has a great today and dressed up. Happy Halloween.

I thought I would throw up some of my past costumes. I'll add some more as I can find them.


That is me with the white shirt in the back and the sword.


Thats me in the backrow as the Nerd. And again below.


Wellllllll.....

That's not me but thought it sort of looked like me. hahahaha.

I'll try to dig up some other funny ones.

Extended Licenses

We want to introduce extended licensing to the site but want your feedback on what is fair for both a buyer and seller. I know a lot of you have had questions so we want to clarify any concerns or hear any suggestions you might have before we launch it.

What are fair terms for both sides?

Are there other site's EL contract that you like and think are fair?

What is a fair price?

What are some of the terms of an EL that you want in there?

I am here to make this better for everyone and to get this feature up and running as soon as possible, so let me know.

Requests for late winter/early spring content

Just want to throw out some ideas for potential shoots for people. Magazines are starting to work on their late winter/early spring issues. Time to think about:

* Valentine's Day
* St. Patrick's Day
* Relationships/Sex/Romance
* Seasonal Depression
* Tax time
* Mardi Gras
* Jazz Festival
* Easter

Hope this helps. If people want to add comments below on ideas of images they have shot in the past related to these topics, please do so.

Getty buys Jupiter

Talk about a whopper but not totally unexpected. While I was sitting in a presentation of "Microstock Superstars" (panel included Yuri Arcurs, Andres Rodriguez, Lee Torrens, Kelly Cline and Daryl Lang of PDN) today at the PDN PhotoPlus exhibit, I was hit by the news that Getty had struck again and bought another one of its competitors, Jupiter Media (just the image business) for $96 million. That is the 3rd largest player in the industry being eaten up by the largest. It was just last year, Getty was in talks to buy Jupitermedia for a reported $400 million, at least according to Jupiters CEO Alan Meckler. I think Meckler was holding out for the $96 million dollar offer instead.

This is not the largest acquisition by Getty either. If you remember or like me didn't know until a few years ago, they acquired MediaVast (including WireImage)for $202 million and then in 2005 acquired Digital Vision for what was worth $165 million. Chump change to you and me.

In the statement, Getty CEO Jonathan Klein said, "Jupiterimages' customers already appreciate its value-based offerings, and through this acquisition we will be able to offer more content, better technology, more customer service and additional local content. Combining Jupiterimages' product with Getty Images' extensive media assets and global distribution will further enhance Getty Images' offerings and provide more relevant content to both companies' customers while extending the presence of the Jupiterimages brand to customers around the world."

Or said another way, another one bites to the dust and here's to creating monopolies ;-)

Soon there are going to be no other places to license your digital images, videos and vectors but through Getty Images and Cutcaster.

For a brief overview see PDN's coverage.

How do people go about keywording their content?

I'd love to hear some of the techniques and tools that contributors use to go about keywording their content. I think it will help not only Cutcaster see what mindset you are in and how you view your images but also help the buyers as they can understand better how to search.

Also do people use any keywording software out there? I was just playing around with DeepMeta that is for IS but can be used on other sites. I think its a great tool.

The 12 Commandments of Keywording success according to Cutcaster

The 12 Commandments of Keywording success according to Cutcaster ;-)

1. You only need between five to fifteen (5-15) keywords. Twenty (20) is the highest. Better tagging means better search results, bringing in more users, which means more sales for your images at higher prices then other sites. We would rather have fewer files that have better keywords than more files with plenty of irrelevant keywords

2. Keywords need to be separated by a comma. Compound phrases need to be separated by a space and then surround by commas. You can remove any quotation marks.

3. You can add ONE SET of location tags. Avoid using locations as tags unless there is something in the photo that makes its location recognizable. Not a seagull in the blue sky.

4. Remove all the keywords that are obviously not in the images

5. Remove tags that could be tangentially related, but aren’t really illustrated well by the photo. i.e. picture of cat, adding in “mouse”

6. Remove tags that are related to the photo, but so vague that no one would ever use them to search.

7. Take a few of the choice words and make them far better by turning them into a phrase

8. Don’t “stretch” your tags into irrelevancy, in order to generate more hits for an image. This can be very frustrating for our users, who tend to search literally.

9. Figures of speech, nicknames, slang, metaphors and metonyms can create a ton of problems in a search engine. Please don’t use them. The reviewers will add them in if necessary.

10. Proper Names and Catch Phrases — Don't Break Them Up. If you have a keyword that is either a very common set of two words, or is a proper name, enter it as is. The search engine has the ability to recognize many phrases that operate as a common term but contain more than one word, such as "hard drive," "hot dog," or "White House." It also recognizes the names of many public and historical figures.

11. You do not need to type in ‘car, cars’ to cover the singular and plural versions of a noun. Type in only the one that is more accurate for your photo. If there is only one car, type in “car.” Your image will come up in a search for both car and cars, but it will be ranked higher if the plurality matches what the buyer searched for.

12. Be as literal as possible. Describe just what is in the images.

Read Dan Heller's blog article on the reasons why keywording your images correctly is so important.

Is Digital Railroad closing? Say it ain't so, Joe.

Another bit of bad news and sorry to report. Photobusinessforum is reporting that Digital Railroad is shutting their doors. There are a slew of postings on Facebook and changes to peoples jobs in their profiles. This one says "Charles left his job as CEO at Digital Railroad." That is Charles Mauzy, the "former" CEO of DRR.

Not sure the total details on this one but again we are sorry to see another one go. I can assure you Cutcaster is on solid financial ground which lets me sleep well at night. Also we are a lean, mean, fighting machine ;-)

If you are a Digital Railroad subscriber, I would be downloading all of my needed files immediately, if for no other reason than to have a backup of them (even if they do remain in operation), but also make sure that any monthly or annual fees are not billing to your credit card in the coming weeks as they are working to liquidate or sell the company. No point in throwing away your money.

UPDATE- I'm hearing Digital Railroad has been forced to suspend all operations. This archive may only be accessible for the next 24 hours. Sounds completely unacceptable to me.

Clients who have been tracking the company's downfall may have seen this
coming, but for those who might not have known about Digital Railroad's
financial straights find themselves now having less than 24 hours to recover
their photographic archives from Digital Raiload's servers.

"Everyone is downloading now and their FTP has slowed to a crawl," one
Digital Railroad member told News Photographer magazine this afternoon. It's
estimated that there may be as many as 1,900 client archives on Digital
Railroad's servers as of today.

Full story here:

Come visit us at Picturehouse

Cutcaster is going to be pitching to hundreds of image buyers in NYC and the surrounding areas at Picturehouse this year on October 29th from 10am to 8pm. Here is a list of image buyers who attended last year. If you are interested in visiting us we will be at booth 219 and will be giving away a free iPhone that day to people who come and meet us. If you want more details check out the Picturehouse webpage here.

Speaking about Technology at PACA

For anyone attending the PACA conference this year, I am going to be speaking with a few others in the Industry about the role that technology will play in the future. I guess they like what we are doing with technology that they asked a former stock broker on Wall st. to speak about it ;-)

If you can make it the technology session will take place on:
Sunday 26th October from 3.30pm – 5.30pm
at:
New York Downtown Marriott
85 West St (at Albany St)
New York, NY 10006
Tel: (212) 385-4900

The title of the discussion is: "What Role is Technology Playing in New Business Opportunities?"

The moderator will be Jeff Burke, Former PACA President.

The panelists are: Kevin Goldsmith (Adobe), Oleg Tscheltzoff (Fotolia), Ben London (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), Giles Copp (Version Industries) and myself.

Come one, come all and root on Cutcaster if you have time on Sunday in NYC. Here is a list of other PACA sessions that will be taking place that whole weekend.

Search free images, free photos and free vectors at Cutcaster

Cutcaster is introducing a "free" section to the site and I wanted to outline a few of the details surrounding it. It is still in the early stage and I am open to anyone who wants to offer images in this section and to hear any suggestions for making it better. You will notice that you can now submit images that were not accepted by Cutcaster and sent to your "reject" tab in the upload area to a free section or you can remove them from the site. This is your choice.

Free image and photos Section

All our photographers and designers have the choice to offer their images for free to members of Cutcaster if Cutcaster does not accept them. This is purely up to you. If a member offers their image to the free section, the photograph will be accessible via the search engine in the free photo section of the site, the watermarked thumbnail preview will be indexed by Google and will be linked to the contributor’s studio where they are selling their full price images.

Photographs voluntarily proposed for free by their author (selling price Web = 0 and print = 0) and accepted by Cutcaster will be considered as free photographs and their authors will thus enjoy the advantages of the free image and vector section.

If a photographer or designer wanted to offer their images in the free section, they could do so under a different name than their Cutcaster account name. In essence, a photographer/designer may have two aliases on the site to protect their identity if they desire.


Hells no! Why should I offer free photos at Cutcaster?

It is your choice but these are why it will benefit you and the community.

* To develop community: offering free photos will draw a large number of people some of whom will spend money thus benefiting the whole Cutcaster community. We need to increase the number of people who are downloading images and licensing images to Cutcaster and this will help.

* If you donate 100 free images to the Free section you will receive an extra 5% of sales from your purchased files. So 45% for non exclusive and 55% for exclusive images. If you donate 1000 or more free images to the Free section you will receive an extra 10% of sales from your purchased files. So 50% for non exclusive and 60% for exclusive images.

* When a photo in the free section exceeds 100 downloads (from different members) and upon approval from the photographer, the photo will be automatically re-integrated to the normal section of the Cutcaster database.

* It's a friendly way to help those whose off-line use is not commercial.

* Get feedback on how your images are used in the comments section of the free downloads page. means a lot to many of our contributors who simply would like to know how their work is used.

* As a contributor you get unparalleled exposure for your work.
Every day thousands of graphic designers, creative directors, web developers, web publishers and webmasters from all over the world come to Cutcaster as a destination for stock imagery.

I want to download free images and photos. How do I do it at Cutcaster?

The people downloading the free photographs must be a member of Cutcaster and must agree to observe the conditions of each license and contract. Moreover, a member cannot download more than 100 free photographs per month (a maximum of 10 per day).

To withdraw a photograph from the free section

The photos that you submit to the free image section are always yours and you retain the copyright. If you choose to take them off the free section, you can do so at anytime by going into your studio and clicking on the free tab above your preview thumbnails. This will take you to the free section in your studio where you can click on the “x” underneath any of the thumbnails that you wish to remove from the site.

To add a photograph to the free section

Photographers/designers must decide before hand to add pictures to the free section in the event their pictures are refused by our editing team as long as the image was not refused for legal or moral reasons.

Please let us know any suggestions you may have. This is for everyone's benefit and will help the entire community. We are asking for your help and hard work. We are not suggesting that you should give your content away or that it is somehow worthless (it is not at all otherwise we would just remove it completely from the site) but this is to help bring in new buyers who don't know about Cutcaster. You will always retain the rights to it but this will help.

Here is a link to the Free image licensing agreement.

Edit your media details- open again

You can now edit your media details again by clicking on the little "e" underneath the thumbnails in your studio. Sorry that was disabled for a while. I want to thank those of you for going back in and cleaning up your keywords. This is so important to our search algorithm. I am going to be releasing some new site keyword policies coming up this week and I am looking forward to cleaning up the keywords now on the site. It's a huge job and investment for us but one that is so important to the buyers that come to search our site. I do still NEED your help and thank you in advance.


John

Images not showing up on site

We know about this and are just moving them around on our backend. They should be back up shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Controlled Vocabulary at Cutcaster

Well, I am back for a moment from the Wild wild west of keyword-land and wanted to give you a quick update from the front lines.

First, I want to say thank you to the contributors who have gone back in and refined their keywords to describe just what is in the images and vectors and also add the commas back in. It is a big help and your continued help is very much needed.

While going through the keywords and getting them as descriptive as possible and in line with the searching tools we are about to unleash, you will notice that some of your files will now have the option to edit keywords locked on your media details page. You will not be able to re-edit these files' keywords. You will still be able to edit everything else about the file but the keywords are now locked and you must send us an email if you would like to add or take out keywords now going forward. This is so we can get some control over the keywords that are being used in the database and also make our search only return relevant results.

Here are some things to help you that relate to controlled vocabulary and can be found on David Riecks Controlled Vocabulary site.

"Think Like a Buyer:
Buyers are looking for images that clearly represent the subject matter of the images without your interpretation or guesswork. For example, an image of a child at the beach eating a dripping ice cream cone clearly conveys summer. A studio food shot of an ice cream cone does not necessarily imply the same concept or meaning. A buyer who specifically has ice cream in mind to represent summer will use search terms to find "ice cream cone", not summer.

-Apply keywords consistently. If windsurfing should alternatively be keyworded as; wind surfing, then ALL of your windsurfing / wind surfing images should contain both versions of the word.

-Do not apply human attributes and emotions to images of animals; For example; love, smiling and happy are ok if used with images of humans, but "smiling dog" is likely to confuse a researcher."

We are going to be introducing our new "controlled vocabulary" very soon which will help everyone and are excited to get our keywords under control. If you have any questions please post below and I will be more than happy to explain. For more information on metatagging and controlled vocabulary visit David Riecks site.

How to Report Keyword Spamming……

How do you report keyword spamming? It’s easy.

In an effort to make our search results the most relevant to what a buyer is looking for we have a "flag this media" button. On every media detail page there is this icon with a flag on it above the photo on the right hand side. All you need to do is click the flag and a pop-up box will appear where you can choose to report the image for Keyword Spamming or Copyright Alert. There is also a “Reason:” box where you can put your concern in if you would like to further explain the flag.

When flagging any media – you as the flagger, remain COMPLETELY ANNONOMOUS! - so you will never have to worry about inappropriate revenge flagging.

By flagging media for Keyword Spamming or even Copyright Alert, you are not only helping Cutcaster weed through the rubble, but you are helping Cutcaster remain buyer friendly by providing the best relevant search results available on the market today.

Thanks for all the help so far from people who have flagged media files and also those who have gone back and re-keyworded. I am going to be putting out a keyword guide for everyone's benefit later on!

HELP!!!

Hey Guys,

I have been working around the clock on the database for the last week, cleaning out the keywords and titles of uploaded files and I am VERY concerned about how big an issue the spam keywording is. I am trying to build the best licensing marketplace out there, and when people input keywords that are totally irrelevant to the corresponding image, it threatens both the integrity and functionality of Cutcaster for anyone looking to purchase your images. If there are a lot of irrelevant search results returned to a buyer they are going to be put off and not want to license content from our marketplace. To re-keyword 100 images, it takes approximately 1.5 hours. Cutcaster is currently averaging 1000 image uploads per day so it is impossible for me to re-keyword everyones' images on top of everything else. I want to be spending all my time getting buyers so this is a money maker for everyone. So I am asking (begging) for your advice and help. I welcome any and all suggestions:

What are ways I can incentivize users who upload content to Cutcaster to make their keywords only relevant to what is in the image? I appreciate all advice!!

Digital Noise - What to look for?

(click on the image to see a larger preview version of the digital noise.)

(click on the image to see a larger preview version of the digital noise.)

Digital noise mainly happens from lack of light. It will be apparent in the shadows of your images when viewed at 100%. Setting you ISO too high will also cause digital noise while your camera is trying to compensate for lack of light. In some instances, where the noise is not too bad, you can use certain software programs (Neat Image, Noise Ninja, etc.) to correct the problem – although over-correction can cause your image to become blurry. Photoshop has despeckle and Lightroom has noise reduction also.

Below is the same photo that I have reduced the noise on.


(click on the image to see a larger preview version of the digital noise.)

I personally find the best place to look for noise is:

In the shadows under objects
If your picture is has a blue sky – look in the blue of the sky at 100%. It should be a smooth blue without little dots or other visible imperfections.
If the photo is a mug shot type image, look under the models chin, where the chin casts a shadow on the neck.

Rejections are frustrating and have a tendency to make people lose motivation. I’m hoping this little guide here helps with less rejections for happy contributors and buyers.

Quality Content = Happy Buyers = Repeat Buyers = More Downloads = Greater Royalties.

It’s a win / win situation.

Update to Cutcaster Search coming

Hey Guys,

I wanted to share with you a BIG update as a contributor to Cutcaster.

Our search algorithm and the way we will organize search is being completely re-vamped and introduced in the next week after a month of tireless work. For such a young site, we are going to have an awesome search engine and will help us attract buyers who are sick of irrelevant search results and looking for fresh, unique content.

At this time, I do not have the man-power to go through each image and revise the keywords ourselves, which I wish I could do. I have reviewed some of your images and if you were to tailor your keywords and titles more specifically to each image you will greatly maximize your profitability and where you will show up in search result. It’s not about quantity but quality keywords. I understand it is time consuming to go your keywords for each image, and I am not doing this to enrage anyone or pick on anyone but this is the best way for us to attract buyers with the most relevant search. This will lead to contributors having more sales. It is a missed opportunity for everyone if the images are not keyworded properly and this is an area where we can compete and beat the big boys in but only with your help.

This weekend and next week, we are going to do a major keyword and title edit to most of your files so they conform more with what we will be searching for on the site. If you have identified your files off the site by title or some other metadata which lets you know which files are on which site please let us know so we can work together. We will be making some changes and edits to your files metadata but we still need your help mostly. Also some of your keywords are not separated by commas. If they are not can you please add a comma into the spaces where it should belong, followed by a space i.e. dog, animal, family pet, pet etc.

Secondly, I want to personally thank you for uploading your photos and vectors to the site. Cutcaster has been a longtime dream in the making and your contribution is invaluable to the site’s continued growth and success! Cutcaster has grown exponentially since we launch it just 8 months ago. I promise to continue to work tirelessly to improve and grow the site which is happening. We are here for the long haul and need your help.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about keywording. I really appreciate you taking the time and wish you the best of luck selling your images on Cutcaster.

Best Regards,

John

P.S. Here are some resources to help you with keywording and titling.


Image titles-How important are they?

Image keywording and describing content.

How much your image and vector description matters at Cutcaster?

What makes Cutcaster's platform so unique?

Cutcaster brings you the unique and value priced royalty free stock photos, stock illustrations, stock images and stock video clips; all sourced from the top emerging creative artist and freelance photographers and graphic designers. Search an immense library of licensed royalty free stock images available at www.Cutcaster.com. You are also always in control.

For buyers, they are getting first crack at unique and premium content. You can find images and vectors that you competitors haven't seen. If we don't have what you are looking for you can request it in the ProjectRequest area or you can ask our lightning quick customer service team.

Cutcaster provides stock images for creative directors, art buyers, graphic design, multi-media, book and newspaper publishing, printer and web design. You aren't required to register to browse or add items to your shopping cart. You can seamlessly buy or bid for content and name your price. Join our community of creative contributors and you can literally turn your creative work into cash. Submit your creative photographs, graphic illustrations, and artwork; selling it as creative royalty free stock content to millions of creative buyers worldwide. All our Stock Photography, Royalty Free & Editorial Stock Photos are licensed by Cutcaster.

As part of our creative community you can share tips and tricks. Profile your latest and best work to associates, friends or customers. You will find all of our images via our fast search engine which is being re-launched in one weeks time based on buyers feedback. Look for royalty-free stock photography, stock photos, stock images, stock illustrations, stock pictures, stock clip art, vector graphics/ digital art and all other forms of royalty-free photographic images and creative stock.

Editorial use only button

There the new "Editorial use" only button is.

We have added an "editorial use" only button to the submit page in the upload area. You should assign this note to any photo that you know can only be used for editorial purposes.

The image will now contain this message for any visitor or buyer. To add it to an image, simple select the image you want to add it to and then click on the "Editorial Use" only button and it will be added.

Release Information: Editorial Use Only. Image not to be used in commercial designs and/or advertisements.

Images that are marked as “editorial use only” are ones that have not been released for commercial use and have also been taken without the consent of the individuals in the photo. Editorial means books, newspapers, magazines, calendars, stuff that is not advertising. Editorial usage would typically be an image used to support an article or broadcast item in pretty much any media (TV, web, print etc) - typically news/features whilst advertising use would be any image used to promote a product or service.

If you have more to add in the comments about what editorial vs. commercial is please add it. If you need more help, just ask us.

John

Is Getty Buying Flickr?

Who knows but this could be some big news. Is Getty buying Flickr? Sounds like a wild rumor but here is to feeding the hysteria.

Passed ५०,००० Photos this week

and we are adding almost 800 files a day on about 1200 uploads. That is just photos and doesn't include over 2,000 vectors and 9,500 video clips. Plus a number of files that are being upload from the backend. We have grown from 12,000 files at the start of August to where we are today.

Here is to breaking 100,000 files by Thanksgiving. And remember our goal is to do break 100,000 by the New Years. You can still place your vote for a Cutcaster t-shirt here.

Life is great and we are growing like a weed. A good weed in Getty's backyard. Move over Getty. There is a new sheriff in town and I am glad to have everyone on board from day 1 and on the ground floor to fuel this growth.

Guest Blog Post- From hobbyist to professional artist

Whenever the microstock business receives a mention in the media, it is usually accompanied by the common description of microstock artists as amateurs, hobbyists, and stay-at-home moms or dads who have a consumer-level digital camera and some vacation photos they hope to make a quick buck off of. While those descriptions may accurately represent many artists working in the microstock field today, there are many others who consider microstock their profession. A number of things can factor into why the amateur title may be a fitting description for many microstock artists, but this does not mean that amateur status is permanent and are a few things that you can change today that will elevate your position in the stock imaging world. Changing your outlook on your microstock work and how you approach your craft can help to turn a hobby into a job.

There is a frequently used phrase in self-help and confidence-building circles: “Act as if.” You may have heard some slightly different versions of this saying, but in all of them the underlying principle is the same; How you conduct yourself has a direct effect on what you become and where you end up, in all aspects of life. In microstock, acting as if you are already a professional may spur you on to truly becoming one. Take a look at your typical microstock day and think about how an outside observer would regard your activities. Do you conduct yourself in your daily life like a hobbyist or a professional?

One of the quickest and easiest ways to transform your microstock hobby into a job (part-time or full-time) is to re-assess your work-flow and make changes that shift that work-flow into a more efficient, business-oriented process. If you are working in a cluttered area, with many distractions and very little organization, clean up your workspace and create an environment that is more like an office. Create a schedule for yourself, and stick to it. If you only have an hour a day to devote to microstock work, make sure that you put in that hour every day, and around the same time each day. Finally, make decisions based on good business choices, not personal preferences. Don’t limit your choice of agencies to work with based on your personal feelings about them. If you are only working with one or two agencies because they are your favorites, you are restricting your earnings potential and making an amateur decision. If you start to think and act like a pro microstocker, you will quickly transform your hobby into a job and your income will reflect this change.

Contributing writer Mike McDonald. Thank you so much, Mike. See Mike's Cutcaster studio here and his website here. Come on Mike. We want some more of your awesome work here at Cutcaster.

Testimonial from user on how they used their Cutcaster payout

From: Fern
Subject: Be out for a while
To: john@cutcaster.com
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 2:46 PM

Hi John,

Just so you know - the check really came in handy. I used it to help with Hurricane Ike evacuation. We got hit hard. I have damages to my home, carport and fencing. We are without power, water, ice, and gas (only 2 gas stations open and lines are 2-3 hours long). Power should be back within 2-6 weeks so it may be awhile before I can upload more photos.

Fern


Just to give you a little background on this email I just received. Fern is one of our members and requested a payout by check from Cutcaster about two weeks ago after she sold over $220 in photos. Little did we know how handy that check would come in.

One thing I have to say about this tragedy is that, living in NYC, I thought I wouldn't really be affected by Hurricane Ike outside of watching the utter devastation on TV and giving to the Red Cross to help the victims in a time of need. But starting Cutcaster has opened up my world in ways I could have never predicted and formed friendships with people all over the map. Some of whom were affected by Ike.

This is an almost surreal email for us to get to see how "We", as an entire Cutcaster community, could help someone evacuate from danger's way from a single payout on Cutcaster. I am glad to see our payout go to such an amazing use. I hope you all will take a moment to say a prayer for all the victims of Hurricane Ike and visit the Red Cross to donate anything you can spare.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by Ike.

Interesting Blog links

During our short time blogging at Cutcaster, we have have stumbled across, been fascinated by and educated by other blogs that might be of interest to you. We have collected links on the right hand side of the blog that we feel are interesting, educational, cool and informative. If you would like your blog to be added to our list please send us an email and tell us why. We invite you to also link to Cutcaster and our blog. The blog will be moving over to wordpress and the address for now is http://cutcaster.wordpress.com/.

The PhotoShelter Collection will discontinue stock photo licensing.

Sad to see but just saw this post at Photoshelter. It's never good to see a competitor in your industry close it's doors and there were many things to admire about Photoshelter. Paul Melcher once compared us in a pretty weird way to one another on his blog. I'm not sure they mentioned all the reasons for closing the licensing wing of their business but I wanted to add the update to our blog for anyone interested. I hope members of Cutcaster will relay their stories to members of PS about their experience so far at Cutcaster and that PS members will move their valuable images to Cutcaster for licensing and let us go to work for them. All we ask for is a chance to prove ourselves.

Why is the PhotoShelter Collection shutting down?

Despite our unique approach to the stock photo marketplace and progress by our sales team since launching last year, The PhotoShelter Collection was unable to change buyer behavior on a grand scale and generate revenues quickly enough to satisfy our goals for this product line. While image buyers worldwide appreciated our new approach, the size of our image selection and the incumbent player's entrenched subscription relationships were a persistent challenge. As a result, we saw few strategic options for the Collection that would allow us to stay true to our commitment to a better deal for photographers and our desire to change the industry. We have chosen to refocus heavily on enhancing our original product, The PhotoShelter Personal Archive, which several thousand photographers use for bulletproof storage and online image sales directly to their own clients.


This is a call to all Cutcaster members. If you know other Photographers who were using PS as a way to license their photos, I would love your help in asking them to join our mission at Cutcaster but only if you feel that they would benefit from using our site or have great content.

Our doors and arms are wide open and staying that way. We need to increase our collections and I know that many of the photographers on PS had great work that they were licensing. This will benefit everyone by bringing more buyers to the site while still letting photographers set their own price and retain more control.

Finding Images on Cutcaster you just viewed and want to buy

Are you looking for something which you just saw and want to buy?

Remember that image that you loved but just couldn't find again? Did you even downloaded the comp image and you are ready to go back in and buy it? Looking through the database again probably isn't at the top of your priority list so we wanted to shoot over a few solutions.

I have a few solutions.

* One can search by the unique image id – simply enter the image id in the search box like this @987654321 or put it into the url http://www.cutcaster.com/viewmedia/view/987654321 and fill in the numbers with the unique id of the image you are trying to find.


* Search by the title – try and remember the title of the image which will help you narrow down the time it takes to find that image again.

* Search by photographer's name – if you can remember the photographers name you can search their portfolio by entering their name in the search box and clicking off the "members" box so the engine searches by member.

* Search by keyword – you can search by the keyword of the image

September 11th Memorial

Our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone affected by Sept. 11th. No one will ever forget or be forgotten.

Link to Cutcaster from your other sites

On everyone's studio page there is a message that says this,

"Get more views. Post this to your Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, personal site or any webpage: http://www.cutcaster.com/studio/pub/582007626"

That is from my studio page for example. Please don't laugh at my photos as I was a former stock trader and some belong to my brother in law ;-)

This is very important for a few reasons and I highly recommend people trying this and linking back to their studios. One is it helps you get more traffic back to a site where you can sell your images. Two, it showcases your work and a site I hope you guys are proud of. Another reason is it helps Cutcaster get more incoming links which helps us in terms of getting higher rankings in the search engines so we show up higher in queries by buyers.

I'd like to ask you guys to try to link to us on the sites you are apart of so we can build Cutcaster together. I can't do this all alone and your help will really help make this a team effort and success.

Quotes like this from Getty really upset me

"Getty also runs a site called iStockPhoto, where amateurs contribute photos that the company markets at lower rates. The photos on Flickr are of sufficient quality to demand higher prices," Mr. Jonathon Klein, CEO of Getty Images, said in a New York Time's article.

What a way to market one of your companies assets while at the same time pumping up a potential partnership. That is a pretty big insult to any contributor there and will go down as one of the bigger foot in mouth incidents I think I have seen. I hope others are fed up with that type of attitude as well.

Cutcaster survey help

Click Here to take survey

3 minutes is all I ask. If you have a few moments and would like to help us get a better understanding for what you guys want and need, I would love it if you took 3 minutes and filled out this simple survey. It is completely anonymous and is for the good of the whole community. I will publish the results when we are done so you can see what was requested if you guys would like.

Speak now and get your voices heard as we build Cutcaster according to your wants and needs.

You can now search and buy vector illustrations at Cutcaster

We have been slowing rolling out the addition of vectors to Cutcaster and are happy to announce that you can now search for and buy vectors on the site. Searching for vectors will be done in the same way that you search for images on the site now. Thanks for all the input getting this ready and launched and like always feedback for making it better is always needed and welcomed.

Holiday Images needed

Need Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween shots etc. All types of shots. Thanks guys

Friday Phelps Fun

ORLANDO—Fourteen-time Olympic gold medalist and SeaWorld main attraction Michael Phelps returned to his seven-million-gallon water tank Wednesday to resume his normal schedule of performing in six shows a day for marine park crowds every day of the week.

Phelps, the 6'4", 200-pound aquatic mammal, and the first ever SeaWorld swimmer to be raised in captivity by foster swimmers (Mark Spitz and Dara Torres), was recaptured by trainer Bob Bowman in a hoop net baited with an entire Dutch apple pie following Phelps' final Olympic event last Sunday. Phelps was then tethered to the rudder of a container ship bound for St. Petersburg, guided down local waterways, and introduced back into his home habitat, the tank in SeaWorld's 5,500 seat stadium, known to park officials and visitors alike as "Phelps' Happy Harbor."

"Michael seemed really excited to be back," said Bowman, adding that the male swimmer became playful upon entering his tank, breaching the water and sounding repeatedly. "He just started swimming freestyle and backstroke, and only stopped to slide belly first onto the tank's platform so he could be fed dozens of fried egg sandwiches."

"He fell asleep at the surface of the water around midnight," Bowman added.

Though Bowman plans on continuing the long-running aquatic show "Michael, The Yankee Doodle Swim Team Captain," in which Phelps was performing prior to leaving for Beijing, Bowman said he and Phelps would begin working on an all-new production, which will debut in September with the title "Champion!" Bowman has promised this show would be the most ambitious program in the history of Olympic swimmer sea spectacles.

Bowman says one stunt called the "Flying Medal" will begin with Phelps' 14 gold medals being suspended above the water. Phelps will then enter the stadium butterfly-stroking at full speed, coursing along the surface, and with every breach of the water, placing his head through the hoop of one medal after another. If Phelps is wearing all 14 medals at the end of the stunt, Bowman said, the swimmer will be rewarded with a whole pizza and a pound of cooked enriched pasta.

Bowman confirmed that the routine would also feature the signature aquatic feats that audiences from around the world have come to expect from Phelps, such as his trademark trick of 35 flip turns in 35 seconds, nuzzling a child with his nose, and Bowman himself "surfing" on Phelps' back while the subservient sea creature swims the breaststroke.

"Those seated in the first 14 rows should be prepared to get soaked," Bowman said, admitting that Phelps' powerful dolphin kicks would be added to the new program. "Also, Michael's two friends, [Olympic swimmers] Ryan [Lochte] and Jason [Lezak], will open the show with their humorous beach ball antics."

Beginning with the 1985's "Baby Michael Celebration," Phelps has entertained SeaWorld audiences for over 20 years. Spectators are not only enthralled with Phelps' exploits in the water, but his abnormally large torso, unusually small lower body, double-jointed ankles, gargantuan eating habits, the slurring, almost human methods of vocalization he uses to communicate, and his odd-looking goggle-covered face, all of which combine to make him the most unusual sight in all of Florida.

"I have never seen a stranger yet more majestic-looking creature," said husband and father of three Glenn McKay. "Last year we went to SeaWorld San Diego and saw [Michael's female counterpart] Michelle, and even though the show was a little funnier than this one, nothing compares to watching Michael almost hover over the water after launching his trainer into the air."

"Michelle" is SeaWorld's moniker for the Olympic gold medalist who was born Natalie Coughlin.

"I liked it when he played dead and floated in the water," added McKay's 8-year-old son Brandon, who was clutching a Michael Phelps stuffed doll. "I also liked when he blew water on everyone."

Though spectators—and ticket-sales personnel—are happy that Phelps is back at SeaWorld, members of the World Society for the Conservation of Olympic Swimmers released a statement yesterday saying that these athletic mammals should be released from captivity. The statement claims that there is conclusive scientific proof that confinement in smaller pools of water, as opposed to wide-open, Olympic-sized pools, causes the swimmers sensory depravation and a shorter lifespan.

"It's clear that Michael doesn't like being at SeaWorld," WSCOS spokesperson Jonathan Haines said. "When he was placed back into his tank, the slightly loose portion of his black swim cap immediately folded over to the right side, a telltale symptom of stress and angst. And you can be certain that, just before he left for Beijing, he didn't bite that little girl's arm off because he was happy."

Cutcaster August Newsletter

Dear Cutcaster Family,

There are a number of episodes that have shocked me lately; The opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the fact that it is the middle of August (where has the summer gone?!), and the way that Cutcaster has quadrupled since the last time I sent out a newsletter just a month and a half ago.

What a crazy and exciting time! A number of our users are now getting sales on the site and also receiving bids from interested buyers. If you haven’t had a sale yet, don’t worry; we are planning a big marketing push for the months of September and October so it is a good time to get more content into the marketplace or organize your old content.

We just passed 44,000 image files uploaded and have had over 21,000 files uploaded since the start of August. That doesn’t even include all the video files we are going to release when we bring back video footage. We announced that our goal was to have 100,000 quality uploads by the end of the year. You can bet on the year-end total amount by submitting what you think will be the year-end tally on our blog (ww.cutcaster.com/blog) to win a cool prize. 100,000 files is a very doable goal and we are well on our way to accomplishing it!

Since the number of files is growing and we are still a small group of people running Cutcaster from behind the scenes, we need everyone’s help titling, describing and keywording their content. Take a quick moment to check out your keywords and make sure that your keywords accurately describe each image. If you need help let us know so we can target your content and organize it better.

Our move over to Amazon’s web services platform is complete and I am happy to say that we have increased the speed of the site so things are running much faster at Cutcaster. You will notice a difference when you check out the homepage, and it will only get faster as we continue to work on more ways to speed it up.

Here are a number of new features that we have rolled out over the last month:

1. We added the ability to “friend” contacts on Cutcaster; send site messages to other people who are members of Cutcaster and post comments to each other’s pages.
2. The Cutcaster Forum is here and ramping up. Go there and say hello and join in the conversation.
3. We added similar image results to the media details pages so you can find similar content without having to go back to the search areas. This should help buyers find a variety of similar images without having to do multiple searches.
4. Public clipfolders are now available on the site and are our version of lightboxes, which you may have seen on other sites. We added a featured clipfolder to the homepage to help get contributors more exposure and sales.
5. We have added free images to the homepage to attract more buyers to the site and get your work more exposure. Free images at Cutcaster
6. Exclusive spotlight on the homepage. We need exclusive content and will pay out more for it. Ask us about it. If you have images that you want to test out on our site make them exclusive, you will earn more for them.

We are always listening, so please keep the feedback coming!

In addition, if you want your images and illustrations to be seen by more people, you should read this little post we wrote about getting more interested traffic .

Also submit/add your studio link to search engines like Google and Yahoo, which is a great idea for getting traffic, or you can link to them from your MySpace, Flickr or personal webpage. Remember to use your referral links as well so you get paid more.


Here are some write-ups on content we want:

Top 14 Best selling categories at Cutcaster

Smaller and Popular categories we need

We have been asked for these types of images.

Desired Content we need


If you need specific content please let us know and we will put out a request for you.

Hope the rest of August goes as slow as possible and you all enjoy the last bits of summer.

Best,

The Cutcaster Team

Seasonal Requests

It's getting to be that busy time of year again and we need to round out some of the images that we have either been asked for or fill a seasonal need for buyers coming to the Cutcaster site. Buyers are working on their holiday issues and advertisers are getting back to work. Time to think about:


* Different religious holidays (Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah, Birthdays, First day of Fall, First day of Winter, etc.)
* New Year's (reveling, partying, celebrating, new beginnings, midnight kiss, party clothes, champagne glasses clinking)
* Shopping/spending money
* Holiday Foods/Cocktails
* Snow
* Sledding
* Skiing
* Warm Travel (like Caribbean where we all want to be ;-))
* New Year's Resolutions (quit smoking, join the gym, being nicer, more family time)
* Home Insulation (construction shots, interiors, warm images)
* Heating Bills
* Oil
* Colds/Getting Sick/Preventing Colds/Natural Remedies

Stuff we like to read here at Cutcaster

Strobist

The Big Picture

KenRockwell.com

Joe McNally's blog

DPreview.com

Photoblogs.org

Rob Galbraith.com

Photography Blog

Photo.net

The Luminous Landscape

Photo Request

media_type : STILL PHOTO
project_type : tv
description : We are looking for photos of a 12 year old boy's room,
to use as a background plate for a broadcast spot we are constructing this
week. the timeline is immediate. Thanks!!!!
priority : urgent
deadline : Friday Aug 22, 2008