10.162008 Stock photo market crash - So where do we stand today?

While I was answering some comments on the article 2008 Stock Photo Market Crash? , I thought it would be a good time for a quick update on where things might be heading. What I see now is a slow correction taking place. Besides a few companies either shutting their doors or giving up the idea of selling stock i.e Photoshelter, the industry seems pretty quiet right now. Any activities requiring financing will be put on hold for the near future (a little obvious I know). This will favor established profitable companies. I wouldn’t predict anyone re-inventing the stock photo industry any time soon. A good example is Photoshelter note why they made the decision to close their collection:

Our unique approach, however, was insufficient to change buyer behavior on a grand scale and generate revenues quickly enough to satisfy our goals for this product line. Hence, our decision is to close the Collection.(entire announcement here)

Buyers tend to be conservative when the economy is bad- nobody wants to jeopardize their job. Photoshelter may have been successful a few years ago or even possibly at a future time if the economy were better. Any innovations in the near term will be driven by the need to create value for buyers or to drive the bottom line. Stock companies need to be profitable to survive the current business cycle. In order to remain profitable they will need to at least maintain prices (can they really go much lower?).

The one silver lining I see for the stock photo business is the fact that most companies will tighten their belts in this type of economic atmosphere. Stock photos may replace a larger segment of the assignment market for a while (this happened a few years ago).  I think those dollars will be spread out among traditional and microstock, however it may give a little boost to the RM market where clients need the exclusivity they would normally get from an assigned shoot. Any increase in the RM market should have a disproportionate affect on the overall market- that is, a smaller increase in rights managed would be felt a lot more (for those in RM) as opposed to the same bump in the number microstock licenses. As far as microstock is concerned, it may also get a boost. Value focused companies always tend to do well in a faltering economy i.e Walmart. One of microstock’s advantages may lie in the fact that many of their photographers do not rely on this income to make a living. Some may even increase their output to make some extra money- so the microstock companies should continue to see a decent supply of new images.  Microstock will continue to dominate a certain segment of the market. I don’t see businesses who currently use microstock upgrading right now.

The biggest uncertainty right now is how deep the current recession will be (lets call it what it is). It could potentially squeeze otherwise well run companies out of business, period, no matter what the state of the stock photo business itself. The stock photo business does not appear to be “crashing” at the moment, it’s more of a dull “thud”. One thing that is certain, whoever survives the current recession, should come out sitting on top of a solid business model. I don’t see the market returning to the way it was a few years ago. We are more likely to see a slow period of adjustment -really kind of boring stuff. I apologize to both ends of the stock photo industry- we won’t see the demise of microstock and return to the glory days of Ektachrome (or Velvia etc.).  On the other hand the microstock rebel forces won’t be destroying the stock photo “Imperial Death Star” (funny… the “Empire” bought the rebel forces for $50 mil a while back in this version of the story).

Those of you in the stock photo business might want to start thinking were you can add some value to your products. I would be looking at how to get some of the inevitable fallout from the assignment business. There are much better margins in this end of the business. (assignment photographers please don’t flame me, I shoot assignments too.) Why do clients choose to hire a photographer over stock? Some of the reasons obviously rule out stock altogether, but there may be segments of the market that have not been addressed.

Here is one simple idea. Why not offer alternate takes from a shoot. The marginal cost to have these images available can’t be that great. Storage costs are dropping all the time. They would have the same keywords etc. They could be shielded from search results to eliminate clutter but be associated with the “hero” image. Simply click an icon to get alternate takes from this shoot. Maybe they need a vertical instead of a horizontal, more copy space, more serious expression ect. Look at the amount of extra value you have added: Less likely to have a competitor use the exact same image (similar but not exact). May not need as much retouching. It gives the client more choice.  You also make the photographer happier because we always submit too many similars. Photographers would in effect have bigger selects from a shoot. (may not increase RPI, but gives us a psychological boost). If anyone has a good argument why this would not work please  give me your opinion. Okay… I’m getting a bit off topic. If anyone is interested in more ideas to add value I would be happy to discuss it with you.

So where do we stand today? Not any better that when I wrote the first post. We haven’t seen a crash, but we are in the midst of a slow correction. The only way to make a bold prediction would be to have access to everyone’s financial statements. Are more companies than we know hanging on by their fingernails? Will the continuing credit crisis start causing the collapse of more stock photo companies? Tune in next time…

*** This is just a quick update to this post: It seems Digital Railroad is another good example of how the current economy is affecting the photo industry. They are having trouble finding new financing

“For the past few weeks, Digital Railroad (DRR) has been seeking additional funding required to sustain its current level of operations. To date, those efforts have been unsuccessful.

For more info here check out the post at StockPhotoTalk

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Filed under: Editorial, Photo Business, Stock Photo Business, , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

10.08Retouching Skin with Photoshop- Highpass and Surface Blur, Part 1

I my series, “Photoshop High Pass Filter - Removing wrinkles in fabric” (If you haven’t read them here are the links: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), I alluded to the fact that the aforementioned technique could be used to remove unwanted blemishes from skin as well as fabric. I also said it required some additional steps. So I put together an example for you to see what can be accomplished by building on the techniques from that series. Part 3 introduced the use of the Surface Blur Filter — it is used again two times, but once in a new role. The slide show below illustrates several points during the process. Hover over an image to get additional information about each step. To run the slide show automatically use the bottom right button.

Here is the un-cropped version of the slide show. The subtleties between all the slides are a little hard to see at this crop level.

Of course this is not a detailed explanation of the process — it just demonstrates what can be done. I will cover the techniques step-by-step in this series. I can’t promise exactly when I will get a chance to post them, but I will do my best. If you have questions please ask in the comments section, that way everyone can see the answer.

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10.06Photoshop High Pass Filter - Removing wrinkles in fabric , Part 3

Okay… so you have followed the steps in the previous posts and you are saying… Wait this doesn’t work, I added a curves layer and my shadows are still gray! I did say you may need to do some more tweaking. When you used the Highpass filter to remove the wrinkles you probably removed most of your shadows and highlights with them. When you change the layer mode of the Highpass layer to luminosity and add a general curves adjustment you may still se areas that look “dull gray”. Some areas may look over saturated. The image below is a good example.

Read more…

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