Artistic Images

[LesPalenikParticipant]

Most agencies do not accept any “artistic” filters applied to the images.
Since here we are not bound by such restrictions, do you think there is some sales potential for painterly/artistic effects applied to the photographs?

[JoAnnSnoverParticipant]

There may be, but I think it’s important to exercise some restraint – there is a reason the agencies have been restrictive, even if they apply the rules in ways that end up being pretty arbitrary.

The big thing is that for some designers, they can’t work with an image if it’s highly processed – you use it as is or not at all. A more generic image can be processed by the designer.

The thing some agencies miss is (a) something ready to go as is has value to some buyers, even if not all (b) trying to set firm rules about something as subjective as this is especially hard – more so than for focus, lighting and other rejection reasons.

I’ve seen some stuff that qualifies as Photoshop abuse and IMO looks really cheesy and amateurish – but that’s the joy of having our own sites – we get to make the call and see what sells. It was a long time ago now, but I got all sorts of grief from another contributor at iStock for replacing the sky (with one that was blue and pretty); a year or so later when I checked the sales of my image versus his, it was about double his sales. It may not have been “authentic” but it was selling better.

As it is our call, we can also upload a “plain” and a “processed” version of the same image if we want to

[LesPalenikParticipant]

Thanks, Jo Ann
I agree that one has to exercise some restraints, and since everybody has a different idea what “artistic improvements” are, there is an ample room for things going awry. As you say, best thing might be to try out some images done in that way. Maybe even create a separate category for such images.

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