The world will not be the same again. Pixmac brings two big microstock players to one place. Imagine one place for almost any picture. You’ll get simple and fast user interface and you know what? You’ll get a fair price. And that’s not all.

You may know Pixmac as a Fotolia reseller. Now it changes. There is no agency like Pixmac any more. Pixmac now sells millions of Fotolia pictures, millions of Dreamstime photos, their own Pixmac collection, fresh Celebrity pics and that’s just the microstock.

Well, as you may know, traditional stock photos help people for years. So let’s enjoy some of them at Pixmac! It’s called “Luxury collection” and we’re beginning with a hundred thousand pictures from Image Source. And you know what? That’s just the start. We’re working already on multiple traditional agencies to have them there for you.

Vitezslav Valka says: “It’s crazy to get it all on the Pixmac site in the easy way, but we’re powerful enough to make it. And we’ll make it soon.”

Still not enough? Really? Ok. Pixmac have something more for you. New easier Power Search. It’s nicer and works better. Lightbox is now called “Favorites” because it’s easier to understand for everyone. And there is a lot of tweaks and tune-ups on the Pixmac website and inside it. All that together is a sign of a new era where you play the main character!

Imagine one place for any picture. Imagine simple website where you can buy a photo in just 3 minutes. Imagine world without registration forms and credit packages, world without expiration. That is not an illusion. That’s Pixmac.

The Pixmac microstock agency is proud to announce that we now offer 7 million stock photos for our customers. Only a few competitors can say the same. Our collection consists of 3 sources. Two are creative and one editorial called “Celebrity”. Pixmac is the fastest way to get a stock photo or illustration for your design for a price that might surprise you.

When the pink company launched its marketplace in September 2008 it might have seemed like just another microstock company that is trying to make it. But look how much we have grown in a year! Pixmac has partners in 9 major markets and its sales are growing faster than expected.

Our company is  growing faster than other competitors in the microstock market according to respected site Alexa.com and  the amount of pictures grows with it. Not only that, Pixmac invented the “One Stop Shopping” way to get inexpensive quality photos in a matter of seconds without need of registration. Lee Torrens, a well known microstock blogger, says: “I LOVE your one-stop-shopping idea! It has always been a missing element of microstock agencies…” Yes, Pixmac focuses on speed and user friendliness.

Pixmac offers a lot now and has more in the oven to offer our customers. For example, Pixmac is working with a University on a project that will change your searching abilities and will make searching quicker and easier. We are also adding another few million photos to the database soon and working on some nice stock photo searching tweaks.

This week we’re launching a new updated website together with features such as Moneybookers payment method which added with payments by PayPal and/or  Credit Card. Also we have included a popular feature that sorts search results by downloads or date.

Vitezslav Valka (CEO) comments: “I’m always thrilled to see our customers happy with the user interface. Everybody deserves an easy tool that just works. I’m watching everything that happens in the company and believe me, it’s better than Red Bull and Duracell together!”

And one last thing for insiders. Watch our Twitter for special offers!

Many of you searching for photos were confused with credits, our virtual currency. Pixmac has solved that now for you. You don’t have to learn what credit is and you even don’t have to register at Pixmac if you need just one picture.

This idea came up from our research that most buyers are searching for just one picture first. Usually they realise later that Pixmac is so easy that they can use it twice or more times! The second thing is most users don’t have time. When they’re in a hurry and they don’t have time to learn how the credit system works. Or perhaps they don’t have the time to register at Pixmac. And finally they don’t wanna purchase more credits just because they may not use them in the future.

Our solution? One Stop Shopping.

You can just search for picture you need, click the download button, pay the price and that’s it! Your project and your life is saved. We’ve saved some electricity, you can take more time to watch the wildlife out of your office window. And if you want a better price, then credits are there for you!

Lee Torrens says: “I LOVE your one-stop-shopping idea! It has always been a missing element of microstock agencies so I’m very glad to see you leading the way with this. I imagine there’s a minor loss of leads through not collecting email addresses, but as the market reaches further toward less sophisticated buyers, I expect this easy transaction style will be particularly handy. Great work!” – More about Lee at Microstock Diaries

It is as easy as 1-2-3

You’ll need 3 minutes to have the picture on your disk.

1. Search for the desired picture in the Pixmac stock photo gallery and click on it.
2. Choose the required size and click on Download.
3. Pay for the picture via PayPal or Credit Card. That is it!

Lev Dolgachov

We conducted an interview with one of the most respected Russian microstock photographers, Lev Dolgachov.

This interview could be good inspiration both for beginning and professional photographers.

Here it is. Enjoy!

What role does photography play in your life?
I’m very dedicated to photography. Photography definitely takes most of my life now- it’s the main thing I do and it’s what I do for living.

How many years having you been using stocksites for your photos?
It’s been 3 years since I’ve started to license my works via stocksites.

Blue-eyed blond in pearls

Why do you shoot stock photos instead of other types of photos?
I don’t really do “stock photos”. What I do is what I love to do in photography as an artist. Stocksites are a great distribution channel but I would make basically the same if I would do it for fun, not for living.

What would be your suggestions for Pixmac to improve our service for users?
Image reviewing team. I would hire more professional reviewers or enhance the training of the ones you have now.

What photobank do you most like to work with and why?
I’m not into any kind of exclusive contracts with some particular license distrubutors, so I believe any agency who respects and treats me good as an artist is fine. Also, they should be able to sell licenses as well.

Is it hard to find a suitable model for photographing?
Finding really good model is not that easy, but once you can allow yourself to choose from many who want to work with you for some reason, it will not be a big problem.

Girl in fishnet underwear

What do you think of when your photos appear in advertisements, magazines, or on web pages?
It mostly feels good to see my work in action. I believe all artists love it. Art should be seen.

What advice can you give to beginning photographers?
Be professional. Whatever you’re doing in photography, always ask yourself if are you professional enough and how you can possibly improve the result or workflow. Be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a key to success.

Many thanks to Lev for this interview. It was great pleasure for us to bring his advice and insights to our Pixmac users. Look at his photos at Pixmac.

Pixmac has developed a new application for Facebook users. The application is called “My Pixmac“. With this application, all Pixmac photographers can place their photo sales statistics in their Facebook profile.

In the near future, we would like to add more functions to this application. What can we add to help you the most? You can leave us a comment below this article, or on Facebook, or Twitter or contact us at user@pixmac.com.

We will be making some changes soon that will affect you if want to you upload your pictures via FTP. These will come into effect on 2009-06-16. The changes to be made are:

1) You will no longer need the special FTP username. Please use the same nickname and password as you use to log onto the website.
2) There will be two directories on your FTP account. These will be ‘creative’, for creative pictures and ‘editorial’ for editorial pictures. Please make sure you upload your picture to the correct directory.
3) You will no longer be able to create your own directories.

We hope these changes will make it even easier to upload your pictures. If you would like more information, or have any problems uploading by FTP, please contact us at customersupport@pixmac.com .

Pixmac is growing rapidly. Thanks to our development team and interpreters we have extended the range of language versions to be serve our growing customer base. Pixmac is now available in Czech, Russian and in beta in German, Italian and Spanish. In the near future we are going to launch French, Polish and Brasilian versions.

Also, we haven’t forgot to update our current English version of Pixmac. A lot of things were polished and enhanced for easier customer use.

Zoom pictures
Our zooming system is really cool now. The displaying of 100% quality pictures takes just split seconds.

Using PayPal to pay by credit card
We have added the possibility to pay by credit card using PayPal.

Search for similar pictures
Pixmac has a new tool which could be very helpful for searching pictures. How does it work? Choose pictures which you like and add them to the lightbox. Open the lightbox and mark images which you want to search for similar pictures. Choose “Search for similar pictures“ from “Action“ select box and Pixmac will find similar photos.

We receive many emails from you. Thanks for your comments and suggestions which will help us better serve our customers. Many customers have emailed that it would be helpful if they could upload editorial photos on Pixmac. So, listen carefully! In a few weeks it will be possible to upload editorial content to the Pixmac celebrity section.

Two months ago we started our cheapest subscription rate ever. We are very happy to report it is going very well and Pixmac is growing.

In the near future we are planning many new functions and improvements. Stay connected for further updates on how Pixmac is working to be the best site for your photo needs. Pixmac is now on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Dear photographers, thank you for selling your photos using Pixmac! We would like to tell you about a new opportunity to increase your Pixmac revenues.

We have created new special pages for all Pixmac user profiles. You can find your new public Pixmac homepage at http://www.pixmac.com/author/USERNAME (replace “USERNAME” with your own Pixmac user name).

For example, our user named “Zager” has his Pixmac home page at:
http://www.pixmac.com/author/zager
The public Pixmac user profile features the list of his/her thumbnailed photos, his/her public lightboxes and his/her bestselling photos.

You can use the link to your Pixmac user profile to promote your work on your blog, on your Facebook profile or you can share the link using Twitter.

You can earn money even from the photos authored by somebody else if you add the #USERNAME handle to any link to Pixmac

For instance, you can earn commission by linking to Pixmac homepage
(http://www.pixmac.com/#USERNAME)
or by linking to a fresh list of photos featuring some subject:
(e.g. http://www.pixmac.com/pictures/nature#USERNAME)

You can find more about our affiliate program at
http://www.pixmac.com/affiliate

We are currently preparing some new tools for our partners. If you need anything, please feel free to tell us how we can help you.

Our portfolio is growing pretty fast! We have now launched editorial content at Pixmac. If you ever need fresh photos of famous singers or actors, just jump on Pixmac! The celebrity section at Pixmac already has 300,000 pictures to download from $2 each. They’re ready for your blog, postcard, print, etc. And you know what’s better? Every day more than 10,000 new photos added!

We’re also participating in developing a new celebrity portal. Want to know what Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt did yesterday? Read Everyceleb.com every day!

We’ve also added great new functions for you! So now Pixmac is even easier for you to use.

Multiple operations

We’ve improved multiple operations for photographers. Now it’s really simple to work with multiple photos, add releases or a title to them.

Public lightboxes

Have you found beautiful photos and you want to show them to your friends? We’ve made public lightboxes for you. How does it work? It’s easy. Create a new lightbox and add your favorite pictures to it. Choose the “Show lightbox URL” option. Copy the URL and send it to your friends.

Zoom photos

Now you can zoom photos from Pixmac collection. Just click on the photo to zoom to 100%. Perfect for those who want to check the quality of the original.

Czech version

Pixmac launches Pixmac in Czech this week. In the near future we are planning to launch also other language versions. Almost done is Russian, German, Spanish, Portugese, Italian.

And one last thing. Because of our contract with Fotolia we had to lower the commision for non-exclusive rights to 30% and to 40% for exclusive rights for new photographers coming to Pixmac.

Pixmac announces its first giveaway! Just post your affiliate link in comments. After we reach 200 comments, we will give 50 credits to one of you. Its that easy! Anyway, why should you get gifts only on Christmas and maybe birthday?

Taking part in this giveaway is pretty easy. We’re happy when seeing a lot of comments here. And you can be happy if we reach at least 200 comments in this post with the affliliate link! Its your turn now! Spread the word and help yourself! Its Jackpot time right after we reach 200 or more comments!

Example:

Hi there! I’m Jane from New York and my link is: #Jane

Remeber: If you don’t win now, it may make sense for you to watch our blog via RSS. In the future more giveaways may be coming! Anyway, thank you for participation!

Rules: Credit wins one of the customers or photographers who add their Affiliate code (number or nick with the “#” symbol) into this post. The deadline for giving the 50 credits to one of you is 200 comments. Then we will post the name of the randomly chosen winner here in the post. The winner gets $50 equivalent in Pixmac credits. This credit can be used for photos, illustrations and other graphics from Pixmac collection.