21. Microstocks in action
If you've been around for a while on those microstocksites and you'll surf on the internet afterwards, you'll notice that many sites use images from microstocks. Apparently webdesigners do like this formula. Even in books, magazines and billboards those images are showing up.
Dreamstime and iStockphoto both have a subforum dedicated entirely to this. There you can see how the images of those sites are being used. Go to the subforum of iStock or Dreamstime
21.1. How to search for them
21.1.1. Tineye.com
Fairly new and still in beta is the picture search engine Tineye. The special thing about this is that it searches for specific pixel combination rather than for words. In this way the search engine can find your images in use even if the designer didn't credit you. Or even if your image is used within a design.
Let's do a little test. Mind that you have to sign up to be able to search. The image underneath is one of mine and it sold a few times on vairous stocksites. Copy the image location (http://www.pbase.com/perrush/image/79558538/small.jpg) into the search bar of Tineye. Press enter and you'll see that it gives a few results (at this moment 5 to be correct).
As I said, Tineye is still in beta mode and the number of images searched within is limited. But I surely hope they expand in the future, the first results are very promising.
21.1.2. Other
Although it's not an obligation, some designers do credit the photographer in their designs. Therefore we can search for them through a searchengines like google or yahoo
You can fill in a combination of "your username" with credit, copyright, image or photo. If you're lucky, you'll come across some of your images.
I said : "If you're lucky". And lucky you need to be. I've sold more than 12000 images to date and still I have just found around 10 of them in use through such a websearch.
21.2. My own examples
Underneath you'll see examples of my images used in various locations.
(click on the thumbnails to see the large version)
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The bubbles on the bottom of the pdf of Akzo Nobels presentation are mine. This shows that not only small designers use microstocks. But also multinationals like Akzo Nobel |
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The little girl on p4 and 5 of a pdf from The Association of Austrian Electricity Companies (VEÖ) is my daughter.
You can see the same image in the header of this website on the left top. |
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My jumping goldfish on the frontpage of Delorey Island Entreprises, a firm providing professional multi-media services |
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Glass of milk used in an article on about.com about "Finding calcium in non-diary foods" |
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Our cat on the inner page of a German website about marketing and communication. |
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sliced oranges used as a jig-saw puzzle |
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