So what was the goal of the OP then? Seriously? To forge a solution of some sort? To improve the author’s work place? To improve the budget constraints? Let’s step away from the need to have our egos stroked and assess the real issues. We’ve got a guy here who works in an art design department for a hospital who has artistic pretensions beyond what his budget allows.
Where I come from that’s called “Champage Taste; Beer Budget”. Coming onto a public domain messageboard doesn’t fix a thing. Two weeks from now, when the same problem manifests itself ONCE MORE, how much comfort is this thread going to be then? Same problem, different date. Flame me for all you want guys, but this thread isn’t gonna fix a thing for the author. By definition, it’s an exercise in futility because a quick emotional pick me up is going to last as long as glass of water and aspirin. My position is simple; fix the problem dude, or change jobs, or cop it sweet on the chin. Deal with it. Coming onto a messageboard and whining about your toolset is a classic case of a tradesman blaming his tools and not coming up with a better solution.
This is one guy the author is not gonna get sympathy from because ultimately, THAT was the goal of the thread. Sorry, I’ve got no respect for people who don’t try to implement better solutions.
Apparently they often don’t bother. (no offence to the OP…)
To fucking rant, for crying out loud. Believe it or not, not everyone comes to the pit for life-changing resolution, homely yet sound advice, or even sanctimonious armchair psychiatrists wanting to find out what the really real problem is. Sometimes people just have minor irritations in their life (such as having to use a product that someone has gone to actual effort to make objectively less useful) and come here to vent. I assume that as a systems analyst you’ve cough never come across small irritations in your working life, but the rest of us aren’t so lucky, I’m afraid. They’re not always symptomatic of deep psychological traumas, y’know.
You can’t, really, except by having seen their material or by trying to use more obscure photos. I often point out stock photos I own being used in other companies’ ads and brochures. The Salvation Army is running a bunch of ads now with selections from “Emotions and Expressions”, and everyone in my industry has the “Techno Backdrops” CD. You’ll sometimes see the same translucent chart image in two different ads in the same publication. Mostly I buy single images from online stock photo sites, which gives me a wider variety even if it’s more expensive per-pciture than buying CDs.
I think Boo Boo Foo is full of it. Cutting the top of somebody’s head in a photo is annoying. But photo shoots are expensive and take time; one you’ve bought the CD the images are basically free.
I own a business which specialises in corporate database systems which run over the web. Content design is something I’m not exactly unfamiliar with. We have 11 employees at the moment and a few of ‘em are real graphic design geniuses. We’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ve got no problems with people disagreeing with me - hell, we’re all human, we’re all entitled to opinions. I’m just sayin’ that magazine page layups is something I was doing as far back as 1989. I’m not the last authority on the subject, sure, but I’m no novice to it either. To be fair however, we specialise in web database systems nowadays so stock photography is something I haven’t worked with recently. Two of my employees however tell me that there’s simply way too much stuff for sale on line for this rant to be a valid one however. To paraphrase, out there somewhere, is a website which will sell you EXACTLY the photo you want for $3 - what’s the problem?
It’s a good thing that my optic nerves are attached to my eyeballs, because otherwise those orbs would be on continuous roll mode right now.
You still missed the point. Then you missed the point of the generous explanation I offered to you. Then you proceeded to misconstrue my statements, make straw man arguments, play armchair psychologist, then tell me with all confidence that all I need to do is find EXACTLY the photo I want for $3. Heh. Yeah. Uh-huh. I know about istockphoto.com, too. There’s a reason places like that sell their images for $3; their selection generally is very limited and the quality of their images is inconsistent at best. Furthermore, their licensing agreement has restrictions and royalty contingencies that make the use of their photos imcompatible with our needs. One of their stipulations, for example: it is prohibitied to “use any image in the Content that depicts a person in a potentially sensitive subject matter, including, but not limited to mental and physical health issues, social issues, contraband or crime;” now, we generally don’t depict a lot of crime or contraband, but we certainly do cover mental and physical health issues and social issues. Oh, well. Even if you knew what you were talking about in regards to stock photos, you wouldn’t have known anything about the specific needs of my company.
As for me not getting your sympathy; I guess I’ll have to learn to live with that. I hope that I can move on with my life somehow. I just hope that someday I can earn your respe-BWAHAHAHA! Oh, I can’t do it! I can’t type this without splurting Sprite out of my nose!
I have hope that you’re just playing the fool here to try and get peoples’ goats. I can’t imagine how insufferable you must be in “real life” if you really do have the kind of thought process that you have displayed in this thread so far.
Aside: I have to make an amendment to an earlier statement I made concerning the amount of money we have invested in stock photography; I asked the creative director for an estimate and he told me that, including all of the disks and licenses that have been purchased, we have over $200,000 invested in our stock photo library.
So let me get this right… you’ve got access to over $200,000 US in stock photography in jpeg and tiff format, and who knows what other formats… and you… lowly little you, can’t find a photo in amongst those millions of shots which meets the needs of your little fluff piece bit of formatting? You’re trying to tell us that out of all those squillions of photos, every single one of 'em, are all cropped and horribly filtered and are just shit awful? Every single one of 'em? All $200,000 dollars worth?
Man, here’s a hint - spend less time trying justify this pissweak rant (which by your own admission in the title is lame) and do your job and start wading through all those photos. Coz if I was your boss and if you were trying to tell me what you’re saying here, I’d be asking the employment agency to find me a new art designer - someone who knows how to get the value out of my $200K investment thank you. Indeed, ya might wanna check those conversations haven’t already taken place.
Boo Boo Foo, get a clue. You obviously haven’t worked with stock photography before. If there’s a site that will sell you a royalty-free image for $3, they’re going to make you wade through 6 million crap photos (in some nonsensical order) to find it. The good services charge $50-200+ per image and have great search systems that make it much easier to find the perfect photo in a short period of time. If I’m paying someone $75/hr to put together a design, I don’t want them burning 5 hours looking through cheap photo collections to save $50.
Cuckoorex, I agree with you completely. What on Earth compels companies to aggressively crop, filter and otherwise adjust stock photography? Doesn’t that miss the whole point?
Holy fuck. There’s an almost comedic element to your responses, Boo Boo Foo. It’s like the old cartoons where someone is firing a machine gun at someone at close range but misses entirely and instead shoots an outline of the person in the wall behind them. Are you going for the record for most straw man arguments in one thread, or what? How many times did I say that none of the photos are usable? Hint: the answer is zero. In all honesty, I’ve probably squeezed more value out of that photo library over the past 5 years than most people could have.
You know jack shit about stock photo libraries. You know jack shit about my company and the specific needs of the publications we churn out. You admit that you don’t deal with stock photography, then take your employees’ word for it that anyone can find EXACTLY the image they want for $3 without actually checking the claim yourself.
I actually haven’t spent a lot of time trying to justify a “pissweak rant.” You, on the other hand, have apparently spent some time trying to psychoanalyze me and construct (and subsequently attack) numerous straw man arguments. I’ve spent a far greater amount of time trying to correct your errors and educate you, but it appears to be a lost cause. I suspect that you’re too deep in the shithole of errors that you’ve dug for yourself now and can’t admit that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about without losing even more face. Sadly, every time you try to defend your own position, you reveal that much more of how ignorant and arrogant you are.
Oh rubbish. Why spend the $200K on images in the first place if they’re not going to meet your needs? My conviction still stands. In amongst that $200K of images will be the right image. Alternatively, somebody’s head needs to roll for blowing $200K on wasted product. Or most likely, CuckooRex is trying to do a “Lawrence of Arabia” where the existing images will do quite fine.
I’m interested as how the tone of this rant has changed. It started out as a rant about a budget constrained department which pays hardly anything for images to one which can now lay claim to over $200K in stock photography lying around in CD-ROMS.
Roll your eyes CuckooRex as much as you want. Go nuts. Who knows, might help you find an image you overlooked earlier.
So what you’re saying is that deep down, you know this is a pissweak rant and that in reality, you’ll probably continue to find images that meet your needs?
Nobody’s asking you to keep coming back to this lame rant dude. It’s your choice. Walk away if it’s causing you so much angst.
Jesus shit. You’re so stupid. You’re even stupider than I thought. READ THE FUCKING POSTS, IDIOT. I said that we’ve gotten plenty of use and value from the $200,000 photo library. How many fucking times do I have to say that it wasn’t a “wasted product?” My rant was that we could be getting even more value from the photo library if the stock photo companies didn’t take it upon themselves to crop and alter images unnecessarily. I explained that budget issues came into play because setting up photo shoots tend to blow the budget on most projects and so we almost always end up using something from the photo library. I said that the images were relatively cheap which they are, compared to the cost of shooting the photos ourselves. I’ve argued with Young Earth Creationists that have displayed more sense than you. Ever wonder why most of the people who have responded to this thread oppose you? It’s probably not because you’re right and everyone else is wrong.
I’m feeling bad now, a little bit. I wonder if maybe you have some sort of mental illness or perhaps a head injury that prevents you from comprehending and retaining information that you read. Its either that, or you’re deliberately ignoring the majority of what I’ve written and focus on key words that you seem to think support your view.
OK, I just previewed and I have to say, you sound more and more like someone who is fishing for attention, and this is one of the ways you do it. I’m not going to continue to enable you, so as far as I’m concerned, this is the last time I’m going to address you. Enjoy life in whatever fantasy world you live in.
You’re right. My point has been made quite well by now. No it hasn’t actually. I’m going to be blunt now. CuckooRex, this is a fucking whine piece and nothing more. It’s all about getting on the net and milking sympathy for all you’re worth from a bunch of strangers you’ll never meet. Slam me all you want but it’s the truth. You’re whining about shit you can’t change. You keep hoping to have a slam dunk, but the original intent behind the thread remains. Guy in a nice job in a nice city whining about his job. Blah Blah Blah.
I don’t see where he has artistic pretensions. What I got from his posts is that he wants to, and is being counted on to, use simple, straightforward images to convey basic concepts. It’s the artistic pretension of the stock photo company that is hindering him. You’re way off base.
And furthermore, it seems that something’s bothering you, something other than this message board. Now that you’ve admitted that you’re pathetic, I want you to think very, very carefully about this:
File that in your mental note list for future reference.
(no offence to the OP…)