500px?

[madFive]

So I’ve been looking for a new outlet to display my photo work this year, hopefully getting more traffic than just posting on Facebook or [H] for friends to see, and hopefully ramping up my photo business a little more in the process. Instagram was a possibility to get more exposure but seems too mainstream and amateur, flickr is ok but seems like just a hosting site, and it's very cluttered when browsing the actual site. I already have hosting so that’s not really the point.

Thanks mostly to UnknownSouljer I became aware of 500px – finally got around to looking over the site and it looks perfect! Tons of great photographers posting work on there! It’s definitely going to be a challenge to raise the quality of my work to that level, which is exactly what I need right now. I like that the site focuses on high end photographers and more on quality than quantity, and I like the mix of subject matter that's covered and cleanness of the interface.

But before I sign up, I have a few questions for Souljer or anyone else who is familiar with 500px:

1. Why is it called 500px? Images are sized to 500 pixels? (that doesn’t seem to be the case) or you only display your top 500 images? Something else, or is it just a name?
   
   
2. Are there any requirements to be able to sign up? I haven’t tried yet, but I’m wondering if you have to prove you’re a pro photog to get in, or if just anyone can join? I’m semi-pro so I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble, but I kindof like the idea of some exclusivity.
   
   
3. If just anyone can join, how do they keep the quality of the work there so high? Are there tons of crappy images there that you just don’t see from the front page? Or is it just the relative obscurity of the site keeping the instagram mob out for now?
   
   
4. How does the voting/rating system work?
   
   
5. Do images posted on 500px remain the sole property of their creators? Or do they have some Facebook-style clause that says anything you posts now belongs to them? (a semi deal breaker obviously). Either way I need to dust off my watermark and start using that again.
   
   
6. There was a mention of being able to sell your photography from 500px. How does that work? Something on the About-Us page mentioned selling photos, but I haven’t explored enough yet to find any photographer pages who have any kind of buy/sell options. Do they have a printing & framing service you can use if someone wants to buy prints? That’d be sweet!
   
   
7. What kind of guidelines are there for the types of images you can post? I see most of the images there are heavily photo-shopped, and there are plenty of collages, so it’s not strictly purist on the photography aspect (which is fine with me), but are there restrictions on including illustration, renders, or other non-photographic elements? I have been toying with the idea of starting to include a lot more illustrated elements in my digital work (since I have a background in illustration and design); I’m wondering at what point I might run into issues on 500px if I go that direction.
   
   
8. Oh, and lastly: is it free to join, or is there a signup or monthly fee? I haven’t been able to figure that out from the site yet either.

Thanks for any info you guys can share! If you’re using 500px throw up a link to your channel (or whatever the personal pages are called), and I’ll probably post mine soon here once I get it set up for critique.

 

[madFive]

So it begins!
https://500px.com/PLaminack

I've figured out answers to some of my above questions, but still curious about a lot of it, so I'd still appreciate any more info. I did figure out that: Yes anyone can sign up, and about the payment levels; think I'm going to sign up for the $2/month Plus level once my introductory "Awesome" status expires.

Next question:

What is the best size image to upload? Do you leave your images at their full out-of-camera resolution, or re-size them to a smaller size to reduce noise and run sharpening? I've been uploading images at full-res, but I'm not sure if the system re-sizes them automatically, and mine seem to look a good bit grainier than a lot of what I'm seeing out there. May just need to spend more time in PS for some of these.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

1.) Never been entirely sure about. I think they just wanted a short low level domain name.

2.) No requirements, you found that out.

3.) There is lower level stuff on 500px, but 500px is extremely brutal. If your stuff doesn't get likes and favorites quick, it falls off the map. In other words, if people don't like your work, it won't be seen.

4.) It's pretty straight forward, based upon your listing of image type, tags, and etc it will be displayed with like material. As people scroll through images, each is counted as "a view". In order to go up people have to favorite or like your photo. If people don't like your image after viewing then your image goes down (not that your percentage goes down, but rather its rank goes down). Certain people liking or favoriting your photo can be a boon. As anyone following that person will see their likes and favorites in their stream. So if a big name like say Jessica Drossin likes your work, you may get a huge amount of likes and favorites as it's exposed to all her viewership.

5.) People to this day keep misappropriating what Facebook's policies is. For clarity, I don't like a lot of what Facebook does, but Facebook cannot own your material after you've posted it. If that were true, I could upload anything I want onto Facebook, like lets say parts of National Geographics catalog onto the site, and "all of a sudden" they would own it. Which anyone with or without a legal degree would tell you is preposterous. Additionally, Facebook obviously doesn't have model releases for anyone's faces, and if it's not "yours" then those other people haven't consented to their agreements. Facebook's (and others) seemingly draconian terms of service is supposed to give them legal cover for you sharing photos of people on their site so they don't get sued. They don't have an interest in stealing your work per se. This is why big names like JoeyL, Joe McNally, Vincent Laforet, and well... everyone aren't concerned because they know that they'd be in a big legal quagmire if they did.

Now as for 500px, they do not own your work either. Feel free to watermark, but I doubt you'll have much issue, the owner/creator is always tagged in all the contents of each photo.

6.) I haven't bothered to sell anything on 500px, mostly because I don't want to. Essentially what it is is a royalty free license to use your work. The key there is "royalty free". So if you're okay with being payed a small flat rate for your work and then possibly having it published, edited, or otherwise even on a large scale, then go for it. After you're payed you won't have control. So it's similar to selling your images for stock. That's not a bad thing per se, some people make a living from that, but that arrangement does not interest me.

7.) It seems to me that 500px is geared specifically towards photography. There doesn't appear to be any issue with having non-photographic elements (heavy compositing, crazy use of filters, etc), so long as the core is photography. It is definitely not a site for illustration or other forms of art. Strictly photography. Now, if you want to go onto a social networking site that is high level that includes illustration, photography, graphic design, and more, I would recommend Adobe's own Behance. Behance is a bit more daunting than 500px. But hey, if you're on every social network, and you want to publish everywhere it's an excellent place to do it. You can find key artwork on their from anything. Covers of albums, illustrations from video games (as in, the artists that created the artwork for those games, not some fan work), movie posters, magazine ads, anything. It also maybe useful if you're trying to find a job in a specific field, although it seems more useful if you're a designer/illustrator/etc rather than a photographer.

8.) It's free. I personally don't pay anything for it. However it's highest level is tempting. It's cheaper to get a 500px account with Photoshop/Lightroom CC then it is to just get Photoshop CC through Adobe. I personally don't want or need to invest any money into it at this point. I don't use 500px as a replacement for a website, and I don't think I get enough individual profile views to make "paying for organization" worth it. I also don't upload more than 4-5 photos a week, so I'll never get past 18. I suppose if you wanted to upload huge amounts of say wedding or sports pics to it, you may have problems. But me as a portraitist, I generally don't.


9.) I upload full resolution files. I figured I might as well. Their algorithms I find are good, and nothing like the terrible compression of Facebook. They know they are in the image market and they have done everything on their end to ensure your work is presented well.



I added you. Feel free to add me back (no pressure though, won't be offended if you don't).

 

[madFive]

^^Excellent! Thanks for the info. Looks like I'm off to a decent start. Ratings go from 20 to 88 so far, hoping to hit 90 on my alien jellyfish, so I'm already getting a feel for what kinds of stuff will fly and what's pointless to post. I have tons more images to post - just need to show as much restraint as possible so I don't over-do it.

 

[MrWrong]

Thank you both for all the information, I have been meaning to check 500px out but never got around to it. My photography is nowhere near the level of most of what I am seeing on there but it never hurts to get your work out there in more places. Plus its nice having another place to go when I need some inspiration.

 

[SilverMK3]

See inline:

1. Why is it called 500px? Images are sized to 500 pixels? (that doesn’t seem to be the case) or you only display your top 500 images? Something else, or is it just a name?
   It evolved from an old Russian Livejournal blog, where the max image width was 500px.
   
   
2. Are there any requirements to be able to sign up? I haven’t tried yet, but I’m wondering if you have to prove you’re a pro photog to get in, or if just anyone can join? I’m semi-pro so I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble, but I kindof like the idea of some exclusivity.
   Anyone can join, only the work with high "affection" (likes, favourites, and comments) is featured. The popularity of an image is viral, the more people like it, the more people have the opportunity to see it.
   
3. If just anyone can join, how do they keep the quality of the work there so high? Are there tons of crappy images there that you just don’t see from the front page? Or is it just the relative obscurity of the site keeping the instagram mob out for now?
   See above
   
4. How does the voting/rating system work?
   Likes, Favourites, and Comments count towards the "pulse" score of an image. The higher the pulse, the higher the ranking and the more people are exposed to the image. Any image you upload gets a boost for the first 24hrs, after that you're on your own
   You also earn a personal "affection" score, but it doesn't really mean much.
   
5. Do images posted on 500px remain the sole property of their creators? Or do they have some Facebook-style clause that says anything you posts now belongs to them? (a semi deal breaker obviously). Either way I need to dust off my watermark and start using that again.
   Yes, you retain all copyrights. You can also sell images on 500px Prime if you meet the requirements (model releases, etc.)
   
6. There was a mention of being able to sell your photography from 500px. How does that work? Something on the About-Us page mentioned selling photos, but I haven’t explored enough yet to find any photographer pages who have any kind of buy/sell options. Do they have a printing & framing service you can use if someone wants to buy prints? That’d be sweet!
   I've sold a few images there. You receive 70% of the profit from any sale. Standard rates start at $250USD for a full resolution commercial image license. People can also purchase prints and canvases of your images if they're so inclined (and you've made them available for purchase in your store).
   
7. What kind of guidelines are there for the types of images you can post? I see most of the images there are heavily photo-shopped, and there are plenty of collages, so it’s not strictly purist on the photography aspect (which is fine with me), but are there restrictions on including illustration, renders, or other non-photographic elements? I have been toying with the idea of starting to include a lot more illustrated elements in my digital work (since I have a background in illustration and design); I’m wondering at what point I might run into issues on 500px if I go that direction.
   Generally it's for photography not illustrations. But you can mix elements and create digital art for sure. There's are no guidelines there. Good work will become popular and may sell if you make it available.
   
8. Oh, and lastly: is it free to join, or is there a signup or monthly fee? I haven’t been able to figure that out from the site yet either.
   There's a free membership that limits the number of images you are allowed to upload per week, and there are different tiers of paid memberships that also unlock other services like portfolio pages and selling on the 500px Prime store.

Thanks for any info you guys can share! If you’re using 500px throw up a link to your channel (or whatever the personal pages are called), and I’ll probably post mine soon here once I get it set up for critique.
Mine's here, I should really update it https://500px.com/DaveNunezDelgado

 

[Anh N.]

Just started to upload some to 500px also. Quick question, how do I get the embeded url link like at flickr from 500px? Thanks in advance.

https://500px.com/AnhBNguyen

Answer found. Thanks

 

[madFive]

Next dumb 500px question: how (or how much) do any of you integrate your 500px posting with your Facebook or other social channels?

I think I have enough on my 500px page now to start publicizing it a little more and try to get some more traffic, so I'm thinking to start by posting on FB so my friends & contacts there will start visiting. I haven't played with those features on 500px yet to figure out how it works.

Is there an option when posting a photo or set on 500px to have it post to FB as well? It’d be nice if once in a while I could opt to have a photo pop up in the FB feed, and if people click on it, it’d take them to the 500px page.

I see that there’s a FB-post option on the like button for other people’s photos, but I haven’t figured out yet what options I have for posting my own stuff to multiple channels.

I kindof want to figure out exactly how it works before I go posting anything accidentally to hundreds of peoples’ FB feeds.

So how do you guys handle the integration with other social channels? Just post the same photos on several different sites? Or do you try to drive more traffic to specific ones, and what are your methods?

Oh, and how much exactly is it frowned upon to spam the voting by getting all my non-photog friends to rate up my stuff?

How do I get the embeded url link like at flickr from 500px?
[...]
Answer found. Thanks

What answer did you find again? I haven't looked into this yet either. I have my own hosting for now, but I may look into discontinuing it at some point if 500px proves to be a reliable host as well.

 

[Anh N.]

Next dumb 500px question: how (or how much) do any of you integrate your 500px posting with your Facebook or other social channels?
.......

What answer did you find again? I haven't looked into this yet either. I have my own hosting for now, but I may look into discontinuing it at some point if 500px proves to be a reliable host as well.

I kinda follow this link, altho haven't tried it out yet.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1318358

Really like this guy's post about 500px
http://www.jasonwaltman.com/blog/2013/getting-started-with-500px/

I just tried this converter, seems to work well
http://www.garyshood.com/htmltobb/

 

[the_servicer]

How much information do they require to sign up for a free account? Anything more than an email address?

 

[UnknownSouljer]

How much information do they require to sign up for a free account? Anything more than an email address?

It's like any other social networking site. A name and an e-mail address is it to start. Obviously if you want to pay for upgrades then all your payment information is required.

Like any other social networking site though, it behooves you to put in as much info as possible as to be found and to obtain a following.