Pardon my intrusion but I am seeking opinions and am not sure how else to do it.

I'm a professional photographer who will be starting up a new stock site including EPS images, photos and film geared toward the catalog and advertising professional. (just what the internet needs, right!)

Your input is needed so that I can gear the site toward the needs of graphic designers and art directors.

What I'm curious about is:

1 - Would you buy images from a site that does not sell rights-managed - (keeping in mind that the quality is very good and monitored and you could obtain the history of the image use)

2 - Would you be apprehensive about dealing with a site that also offers the images as prints to the general consumer?

3 - Does it matter to you if the site is less cluttered and more artistic to view/experience?

4 - What is the most important thing to you when deciding who to use for your stock imagery?

5 - Do you prefer to download JPEG or TIFF images? What about raw? What about unsharpened?

I thank you for your time. Yvonne

1 - Would you buy images from a site that does not sell rights-managed - (keeping in mind that the quality is very good and monitored and you could obtain the history of the image use)
I would not buy images that I did not have rights to. I'm not really concerned about the previous use of the image.

2 - Would you be apprehensive about dealing with a site that also offers the images as prints to the general consumer?
Wouldn't bother me at all. I'm going to decide to purchase/not puchase based on how the image fits my project usually without regard to how someone else is going to use it.

3 - Does it matter to you if the site is less cluttered and more artistic to view/experience?
Easy to read *and* easy to search

4 - What is the most important thing to you when deciding who to use for your stock imagery?
If the image fits my need at the time

5 - Do you prefer to download JPEG or TIFF images? What about raw? What about unsharpened?
Need both formats, don't need raw. I prefer to get unaltered images and do my own thing with them. Color correction os OK but really I'd prefer to do that myself as well

1 - Would you buy images from a site that does not sell rights-managed - (keeping in mind that the quality is very good and monitored and you could obtain the history of the image use)
Costs would need to be low - competitive with similar

2 - Would you be apprehensive about dealing with a site that also offers the images as prints to the general consumer?
That would not matter

3 - Does it matter to you if the site is less cluttered and more artistic to view/experience?
That's fine

4 - What is the most important thing to you when deciding who to use for your stock imagery?
Price and quality mostly - being open to negotiation is good, especially for quantities

5 - Do you prefer to download JPEG or TIFF images? What about raw? What about unsharpened?
Offering options is good - we usually order jpeg for speed of download

I don't think I could answer any better. If it fits my design, and the price is right, and the quality is good, I am in. No matter what, I color correct all images I download, just because everyone is different on what they like. I like yellow, hate to much magenta. As for rights managed, so be it. I don't need to own the photos, just the right to be able to use them when I need, if I buy it. It shouldn't matter if I use it once, or multiple times. As for price, there are so many places out there to search from. It is the ease of use, along with the breakdown of the search. The quicker I can find something the better. You know what your competitor is selling theirs for, so you need to be in the ballpark, or else the consumer will go elsewhere

I can only answer number 3... the rest I am inexperienced.

Very few peope realize how important easy navigation of a site is to a user....more are learning finally, but what a job teaching people to keep it simple!

...this is something the TV heads will just not admit they do -- because they initially perceived the net as the new tv...it may be someday, but it has not been for the last 10+ years; it is still a readers world here, and that makes me happy, truth told...

Also many of the ultra-rich and ridiculous software developers have priced themselves right out of things...who can afford all the updates ad infinitum? this has caused real hard feelings across the board towards the fat cats with little care or support for their customers.

i think that in most cases an efficient office or worker will eventually find a combo that works for whatever they do, then it will just take hax or updates to keep current....this especially so with apples, which i hope put all the rest out of business some day...i think they will.

to put it simply, all the bells, banners, whistles, flashers, forms, frames and other things that gum up a site are what a lot of designers want, and maybe some real stupid advertisiers, but not the users, at least this user...it is positively infuriating to go to a site where you need the info, but have to be some sort of magician to navigate...even some of the most well financed sites are like that!

think about a newspaper format, just better, with links...the newspaper format is time proven and simple, black and white print and maybe bigger text so old people like me can read it better (Amenities!) -- some pix which is really the sole advantage of reporting e-style...the pix are bad ass compared to newspapers, and cheap too...

good luck with your venture....b
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Hi luxefaire,

Thanks for catching the type-o, got that fixed. Deleted that thread because someone was basically saying negative things about this forum which I work so hard to put up. All someone needs to do to Opt Out is send me an email but I don't allow people to bash the forums and stuff like that, it's crap.

I appreciate your contributions so far and please let me know if you spot any more type-o or bad links etc. It's hard to keep all this up, raise a family, hold a day job etc.
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hi joe nice to meet you, thanks for the invite

i hope things work out

b
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World Class Science Fiction, Horror, and Technical Writing For Hire.

No offense but I think you are a little but late to the party. Major stock photo houses have/are merging or going under.

It is barely if at all profitable anymore.

alan

Merging - yes; going under - who? There are some very big players out there and that would only be true if there were bucks to be made. In book publishing, we rely on the presence of these guys (even if we don't always agree with their charges). If you need, say, many pictures of places of interest from around the world, it is cheaper to obtain each from a library, if they have something suitable, than it is to fly a photographer and crew to each one!

What I was trying to imply is that with monster like Getty images and Corbis it is very difficult to compete.

cat

With you on that, Cat.

For those interested, here's further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Images
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupitermedia_Corporation

For those who want to compete:

"In January 2008 it was announced that Getty Images is for sale at an estimated $1.5 Billion."

I've got about $100 to put in. Anybody want to go in on the rest?