I was recently contacted by Shutterstock for permission to use an image from my portfolio on their homepage as free image of the week. When I looked in their forum for some information - I could not find any, so I started a thread. I was contacted by the administrator and told that I could not post regarding the free image program and my post was removed. I did grant them permission. I think it will be worth the exposure, even though as a rule I would never give my work away. Anyone here have any thoughts on this?

I have never had a free image on SS but have had images in the lightboxes and have found that sales rocket in general not only for the image used. So I think that it would be a very positive thing to do.
I've had free image of the week on IS and on DT when they used to just have one a day and each time it helped sales and surprisingly the images went on to be good sellers afterwards.

Never heard about it... wow, they too give away photos...

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www.microstockinfo.org (in Spanish)
http://stockmicro.blogspot.com (in Spanish)

Yes but only one photo and one vector a week.

They said in the email that it is a new program, so I don't know how long they have been running it. I am surprised that they contacted me...wondering if a lot of others have declined. It is a sure way to get the image in the top 50 of the week - looks like the past ones have. That should bring me even more exposure.

Hey Rinder, if you're reading this I am wondering if you got an email regarding this.

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Shutterstock: http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=50797
iStock: http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=dkapp12
Dreamstime: http://www.dreamstime.com/resp136538
123rf: http://www.123rf.com/src_dkapp12

Wow... which picture is it? And its downloads are still counted towards the top 50?

From what I am seeing the past free images have also made top 50 - so i would say yes, the downloads count towards the top 50.

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Shutterstock: http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=50797
iStock: http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=dkapp12
Dreamstime: http://www.dreamstime.com/resp136538
123rf: http://www.123rf.com/src_dkapp12

I don't remember exactly when this program started but I'm sure it was only in the past few months. There is (or was) a thread out there about it. The downloads do indeed count toward the top 50.

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ShutterStock
Dreamstime
iStockPhoto
Albumo
Fotolia

I believe that every week they make number of the top 50.

I grab the free images every single week. I use them a lot, too - the free .eps files are great. Full editability, too.

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Top Sellers ? Shutterstock ? Fotolia ? Dreamstime ? BigStock ? StockXpert ? FeaturePics ? MostPhotos ?