About Cutcaster | Web Design and Photography Highlights

FTP closed until website updated

Aug 242011

Our FTP upload option will be closed down for all contributors over the next two weeks to give our reviewers a much needed break and give our programmers a chance to move over all the files over to the new site. We are sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause and ask for your patience. The new upload system will include both of the ways to upload to Cutcaster that we have now as well as a new flash upload system that will make uploading to the site even easier. In the meantime, we ask any contributors that you submit all files that are in the edit and describe area before Sept. 1st in order for us to transfer over those files to the new database.

The Summer Doldrums aren’t affecting Cutcaster

Cutcaster Updates, Uncategorized No Responses »

Aug 112011

Is summer almost over? Wow, the last three months have been a blur of hard work, taking stabs at solving very difficult problems and thinking about how we could improve our whole site experience. Our main goal was to ensure that the first page of images we displayed in front of any buyer on any given search, would contain the one they couldn’t leave the site without.

A few updates. We’re just adding the final touches to the new homepage design, the new account dashboard and the new picture finder we built. We still have a lot of testing but things are looking great AND on track for an end of August release. Our search page interface is one of the simplest to use and let’s searchers find perfectly matched picture results even when the keyword they used to search might have more than one meaning i.e. bar (Drinks) or bar (Metal). It’s a smart blend of some complex search engine filtering and using words to give meaning to other words to find the most accurate images for that search.

Our new pricing system will move us closer to a credit system. However buyers will still get the option to purchase single downloads via a credit card if they want. The credit system is just easier for most buyers today to understand and will allow us to offer the site in multiple currencies to attract new buyers. Also the changes should help keep the costs down from all the tiny micropayment transactions, return a higher percentage of royalties to you and let you know exactly what you will be earning from your daily sales.

Royalties for exclusive content uploaded after Sept. 1 is moving up from 50% to 55% of the sale. Non-exclusive content will stay at 40% like before. Payouts will still be made at $25 when it is reached. We need more exclusive images and illustrations and we want to pay you for it. If you are interested in partnering up with Cutcaster to represent your collection on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, please reach out to us via creativedirector@cutcaster.com or register a sellers account here.

New search features and more streamlined pages coming soon

Cutcaster Updates No Responses »

Jul 202011

Over the next month, we plan to roll out a number of exciting new image search features and design changes at Cutcaster that will drastically improve your experience when buying and selling images. This entire spring and summer, we have worked hard planning, re-designing and testing the new website’s features and infrastructure to make sure it is a product we are proud to release and you are happy to use.

Pull out the surgeon’s knife because five pages at the current Cutcaster are getting a major facelift. The search page, product page, checkout area, account page and, lastly, the homepage. This is an effort to simplify navigation around the site, shorten the amount of clicks from search to checkout and re-organize our message around the site so we can prepare the site for translation into multiple languages.

New features will include a completely overhauled search engine that automatically identifies the meaning behind a keyword used in search to drill down to the most relevant content, more options at checkout for downloading images and a simplified pricing system to give buyers even better discounts when buying repeatedly at Cutcaster. Also be on the lookout for a visual search engine that is in the works. More details to come later but all the changes are really sweet and will be a major time saver.

We hope you will enjoy the new release over the coming months and have a great rest of the summer.

Your Cutcaster team.

Search for photos and vectors in German, Spanish, French and more

Cutcaster Updates, Uncategorized No Responses »

May 312011

We have been re-thinking the way buyers can search for stock photos via Cutcaster and are excited to release the first of many updates to our image search engine.

Presenting- Keyword search translation.

What does that mean for image search at Cutcaster?

Going forward, any non-English keyword entered into the search area will be automatically detected, translated and return the relevant image search results in that language. Visitors can search in their native language.

We currently offer support for the following languages via our new search engine feature:
Arabic, French, Latvian, Swedish, Bulgarian, German, Lithuanian, Thai, Chinese (Simplified + Traditional), Greek, Norwegian, Turkish, Haitian Creole, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Hebrew, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Danish, Hungarian, Romanian, Dutch, Indonesian, Russian, Italian, Slovak, Estonian, Japanese, Slovenian, Finnish, Korean, and last, but not least, Spanish. Phewww.

That’s a mouthful of new languages that our picture search engine now supports and will improve the search experience for non-English speaking visitors. For sellers, this should lead to more views and sales for you.

Be on the lookout for more updates from Cutcaster regarding our new checkout area, more search engine updates, more translation features and our growing image collection. Sign up at Cutcaster to receive updates.

Thinking Outside the Box – Huge opportunity in stock

Buyer Requests, Cutcaster Updates, Photography, Uncategorized 1 Response »

May 252011

In the last year, Cutcaster has seen an incredible improvement in the quality of photos and vector artwork, which are uploaded to the site. The quality bar keeps getting raised as we reach 1 million images at Cutcaster in the coming months. With that said, we still see gaps in our collection that have created massive opportunities. Find out here about what type of images we are actively looking for and are under-represented at Cutcaster. Fill these holes and you might find yourself with a hot seller.
To expand your portfolio into an untapped arena of stock photography, we urge you to create a portion of your portfolio that really shows your “outside of the box” thinking, i.e. get granddad out there on water-skis, or place your old credit cards in your kitchen’s blender or use Photoshop to create unique situations in your images by combining different elements. Get as creative as possible. Take chances and see what works and doesn’t work. Then carefully keyword and upload your new creative shots to Cutcaster.
Here are some examples of pictures we currently have but we’d love to see more of this type of photography and illustrations:

Crescendo Collection

We strive to provide our picture buyers with the unique images they seek. Thanks for your help creating more jaw dropping images that will impress our buyers and increase your long-term earnings potential!
Regards,
Your Cutcaster team.

Cutcaster’s April Newsletter

About Cutcaster, Cutcaster Updates No Responses »

Apr 192011

The new Cutcaster is rocking and rolling. Traffic and sales are improving each day and the reviews from our customers and contributors have been outstanding. Shortly, we’ll begin our first real advertising and marketing campaigns for the new site. Are you ready to take advantage of this opportunity?

Upload your newest artwork to attract the attention of picture buyers who are searching now at Cutcaster. Uploading new content, as often as possible, is the best way to get higher placement in our search results as well. Learn from this short uploading video how to upload multiple pictures at once via our new FTP system.

Want to know a great way to get more sales and impress visitors that land on your portfolio page? Organize niche sets of your images with our newly released Lightboxes. We’ve seen that creating lightboxes has led to an increase in views and sales for images included within them. Why not create your first lightbox now to see how it works? This short lightbox video shows you how easy they are to create.

Are you telling your friends and colleagues about Cutcaster and using your referral codes so you get earn easy cash at the same time? See how to add a referral link to your webpage, blog or forum signature that points to your portfolio and gives you cash when new users signup.

If we aren’t already connected on our Facebook page and Twitter page, please take a moment to connect with us.

Your Cutcaster Team.

Creating an Image Lightbox using Cutcaster Photos and Clip art

Cutcaster How To, Cutcaster Updates, Lightbox, Uncategorized No Responses »

Mar 082011

Here are two very short videos to help you understand how the new lightbox system works. We have a few more tweaks to make to the feature but the first video shows you how you should be
creating a new image lightbox and then second video shows you how you can add an image to a photo lightbox.

We will be releasing shortly the ability to delete lightboxes, set them to public vs private and also the ability to easily send them via the site instead of copying and pasting the URL into an email to someone. Hope these help and please pass along your feedback regarding the lightbox functionality.

How to change your photo or vector’s price?

Cutcaster How To, Cutcaster Updates 1 Response »

Feb 182011

This option is now available for files that were previously on the old Cutcaster. Remember you are setting the price for the medium size file and we will adjust your medium price to reflect the cost for larger or smaller file sizes. If you have problems adjusting your prices, please contact webmaster@cutcaster.com.

Image Review Back to Normal

Cutcaster Updates No Responses »

Feb 152011

Our review process is back to normal and review is in full swing again. Any pending images have started to be reviewed again by our review team. You can check the status of your uploads at any time from your account page under “Media Files”; Overview.

We appreciate your patience and look forward to seeing your uploads.

UPDATE- FTP will be released in the next day or so. At that time you will be able to bulk upload files to Cutcaster. We will be releasing more information on the new upload process on the blog and within the upload area.

The simplest image search around

Advantages, Cutcaster How To No Responses »

Feb 092011

Our main goals for Cutcaster’s complete overhaul were to make the user experience unbeatable compared to our peers and drastically improve how people searched for images within our image library. Balancing the complexities that go into building a highly intuitive search system with an easy to understand and simple to use search interface for the image searcher is a challenge we met head on. The result is one of the fastest, most accurate and easiest to use image search engines online.

Using our search engine is so easy that it doesn’t need instructions. However we wanted to add some tips and tricks that will get you searching like a professional no matter who you are. It’s finally time to spend less time searching and more time creating.

In addition, we created a new feature just for our image buyers. It’s called “Grouping” and allows you to instantly see if there are more similar images like a particular one you like in a search results page.

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Web Design and Photography Highlights

FTP closed until website updated

The Summer Doldrums aren’t affecting Cutcaster

New search features and more streamlined pages coming soon

Search for photos and vectors in German, Spanish, French and more

Thinking Outside the Box – Huge opportunity in stock

How to change your photo or vector’s price?

Image Review Back to Normal

The simplest image search around

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