If you haven’t seen how simple our new photo lightboxes are to use for organizing and sharing your picture collections then you should check out this 1 minute video tutorial on how to create photo collections.
Our creative team has been busy using this new feature to create stunning picture lightboxes of Cutcaster contributor’s artwork.
Promote your images on Facebook – and we will give you a boost in our search!
On every picture details page at Cutcaster, we have added a “Like” button under every image thumbnail. If you or a visitor likes your image, we figure that others might like it as well! Be selective with the images that you “like” so only the best get pushed to the front. In order to push the highest quality images to the front of the search results, all images with “likes” at Cutcaster will get an added boost to their search placement. The more “likes” your image gets, the higher it will get pushed up in search results. It’s time to get your friends to help you promote your images and get more sales!
Click "Like" Below any Image
And if you haven’t joined the Cutcaster Facebook page yet please post a comment on our wall or “like” our page.
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.
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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.
When we decided to re-design and re-write the code for the new Cutcaster site last year, we knew we needed first to get a better idea of who was using Cutcaster, what was their process for using royalty free image libraries and how we could better serve them once we released the new site. Listening to what they told us led how we built Cutcaster and was a valuable undertaking not only for us but we felt that it would be really helpful for our Cutcaster members and the industry in general. Over the past year, we surveyed some of the largest and smallest image buyers using Cutcaster or in the stock photo and clipart industry to learn more about their image buying habits, demographics and photo needs in general. In an effort to provide our users and readers with details that can help educate and improve their sales, we are releasing what we have learned from the buyer surveys to the community at large.
Over the next two weeks, Cutcaster will be releasing a large amount of data from our picture buyer survey to help those interested in the stock photography market or using Cutcaster. If you use this information please link back to Cutcaster (http://cutcaster.com or this blog post). The survey was completed by 344 image users mostly in the US and Canada who use royalty free or rights managed images. The following results were collected from their responses. Note: Click on the thumbnail images to see the survey results in a larger window.
What category best describes the type of company or organization for which you work
The above shows what type of individuals, companies or industries are buying images at Cutcaster.
When purchasing digital images and illustrations, which of the following activities do you perform?
The above chart shows what role the image buyer plays in their organization’s decision making process for searching, obtaining pricing, purchasing and approval process for using Cutcaster. It will give you an idea for what type of decision makers are coming to Cutcaster to find images and download them on behalf of themselves or their firm.
How many people work at your company?
The above chart shows the average size of the firm that a buyer works for.
How frequently do you purchase stock photography in a typical year?
How frequently are image researchers or buyers downloading royalty free images or clipart per year. We can see that a very large percentage of responders said they license more than 50 images a year.
Image buyers annual budget
Check out how much a typical picture buyer spends on a single image or clipart download from a stock agency. The above chart shows image buyers spend per single image. Remember that this includes both royalty free and rights managed licensing (as well as free).
Next week, Cutcaster will release more information regarding what decisions go into choosing an agency / image library, what picture buyers like most and least about their stock agencies they work with currently and what things image buyers want to see an agency do but aren’t at the moment.
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.
Welcome to the new Cutcaster.
Any pending images from before the switch, images uploaded after the 21st of Dec 2010 or images, which were previously accepted but missing from your portfolio on the new site, will be moved to your portfolio by Friday. Once these files show up, your earnings from any sales or referrals will be updated automatically. We couldn’t attach a sale to referral earnings to a file/file # that wasn’t currently on the new database/site. We don’t have our pending or rejection area set up in users’ accounts just yet or an area to edit your files but that is coming very shortly. If you would like to change your prices please email webmaster@cutcaster.com with your account URL and price you would like to change the medium sized file to.
In the meantime, the option to upload images via FTP will be released early next week to help with bulk uploading. Do not worry about your pending files from before the switch. We have them saved and will be reviewed shortly. Thank you for your patience. We hope you enjoy the new site and please send us feedback to webmaster@cutcaster.com.
Today, we released the new Cutcaster, your royalty free photo and stock vector marketplace. Completely re-built from the ground up with a simplified search and dramatically improved user experience. We hope you will enjoy the upgrade.
Image buyers needed speed. They needed a top notch but simple to use image search. And they need great royalty free images at affordable prices. We pulled up in the ‘Ferrari of Search Engines’ with the passenger side-door wide open. Our image search tool is now superior in speed, accuracy and ease of use, freeing up users to focus on their creative projects.
Notable site improvements include faster image loading time, increased functionality, improved site layout, cleaner architecture and a simplified design that lets buyers focus on the image buying experience. As always, browsing by image categories or searching by keywords on Cutcaster is completely free and you don’t need to sign-up. When a user searches with keywords, they can then filter their search options by: categories, colors, contributor’s name, vertical or horizontal orientation, picture resolution, price, relevance and image format — including jpeg and/or vector files. The moment a user finds an image that meets their needs, they can further refine their selection from the “Similar Pictures” filter or by choosing another image from the same cluster of images. Picture buyers can immediately purchase images with any major credit card or use site credits to download the images, which comes with a record of it’s metadata.
While some photo agencies were pinching pennies from their users’ pockets or others were closing their doors because of the economy, the Cutcaster team dedicated themselves over the last 9 months to learning more about their customers’ needs, learning more about online image search and building one of the fastest and simplest user experiences for searching and downloading royalty free images.
Don’t ‘Betta’ against the Phoenix. We have risen from the ashes of our old site and now look confidently towards the future.
About Cutcaster
Cutcaster is a simple-to-use website for intelligently searching and downloading royalty free photos, hi-res pictures, stock vectors and free stock images for use on websites, presentations, newsletters, ads, books or any commercial project. Browse our enormous image categories, search faster with our intuitive search engine and download affordable creative imagery for as little as a few dollars.
Visit http://cutcaster.com/ to experience the dramatic improvement.
Let the trumpets blast. It’s time for a little change-up.
For the last 9 months,we have been quietly planning, re-designing and writing code for the new and improved version of Cutcaster. (This is when you can picture our team huddled around the drawing board, burning the midnight oil and planning out the re-design).
The new site, which is still being tested, should launch by the first of next year. It will drastically improve the sites design, usability, search engine optimization, page load speed, sales conversions and overall visual appeal. The first version of Cutcaster allowed us to see how people used the site. What people liked. What confused people. What didn’t work. Some of it made us proud and some of it was frustrating. From the start, we always asked for your feedback and now you will see how YOUR feedback shaped our redesign.
Why the change?
This was long overdue and has been carefully planned out. The Cutcaster site had become slow during high traffic times of the day, our database and code could have been written better and the color scheme, while different, was a distraction from the main ojective visitors had which was buying images.
We want to be proud of the product we provide and the time had come to rebuild and re-invent.
What to expect?
The design of Cutcaster will be more elegant, provide better consistancy, be simpler to use and focus entirely on our contributor’s content. From the start, we knew we needed three things to be working for us.
First, Speed. Search had to be lightning quick and return the most relevant results or buyers would go elsewhere. The reorganization of our database and code will ensure that the search engine will return results immediately, cluster similar images and start to rank them.
Second, Quality. Cutcaster has some of the best quality available in any picture library online. We have a creative director and image review team that carefully checks all uploaded files and over the last year has removed over 300,000 files from our library that were dated, showed unlikely situations or felt “stockish.” Now we are getting closer to 600,000 fully reviewed files of just the best of the best.
Third, Price. Cutcaster has the best pricing in the industry. Contributors set their prices and buyers can pay what they want. Our market-priced images tend to range in price from $1 up to $20 for a high resolution file. Buyers are sure to find a great deal everytime they search Cutcaster.
Over the next month, we will continue to update you on the process and ask some of you to beta test the improved site to work out the kinks. 2011 is going to be a exciting year with the new changes and we are proud to be able to put out a product that shows all the hard work that was done in the background.
If you haven’t already, please join us at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (yes, some people still use MySpace).
Signs and Symbols Stock Photos
Need images or graphics that are perfect for building eLearning simulations or other engaging interactions? All our royalty free images can be used in any e-learning online training course. We are starting a lightbox series of elearning images that will include everything from corporate office buildings and office interior backgrounds you can use to create user scenarios, paper and notes pictures that you can write a message on or call center employees and doctors / nurses who can be used in course guides, conversational situations and case studies. Our next series will highlight business teams, business people and corporate settings so be on the look out for that series of images.
The first in this elearning series is Signs and Symbols. This is a specific collection of sign images and symbol illustrations that can be used in online training courses.
We have additional elearning photos which inslcude call center employee pictures, Health Hospitals and Doctors’ Offices, Phone Person Pictures, Business Women Using Headset, Retail Stores, Business Teams, Signs Object, Elearning Concepts Promotional, Elearning Home Exteriors, Office Interiors and People Phone Photos.
Hang out with us!
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