simply to be the fastest, easiest to use online digital image library and to fill a market niche for high quality, first-generation royalty-free digital photography.
a unique approach to pricing (pixels per penny) may sound bizarre, but take a closer look and you'll realise that it's by far the fairest, most scaleable and logical solution.
to build bridges between image buyers and photographers to take waste out of the process, reducing lead times and cost
to give more control to both contributing photographers and image buyers so that both can operate on their own terms: photographers are trusted with a far greater control over their content and pricing, and buyers are given more options and greater transparency.
no subscription fees necessary - just pay for what you need, when you need it.
enable maximum control, speed and flexibility by allowing photographers to upload digital photos directly
you set the prices (according to a 5-level grading system)
provide the fastest, most flexible image resale solution on the market
give back more value by taking a smaller commission than other stock libraries
provide a totally free service to contributors - we commit that we will never charge you to upload or store images
enhance your ability to serve time-sensitive markets for your images - the speed with which we can process your photographs and make them available for sale (10 mins to 24 hours) is of particular benefit for current events, news, sports, environment, etc
One of our key aims is to grow the market for professional-quality photography shot using digital cameras. There is a big market for smaller images, and we are happy to accept images at lower resolutions from around 5Mb (uncompressed) or 1600 x 1200 pixels - provided the quality of the composition makes up for the lack of resolution. The largest size we will take is about 65-70Mb (uncompressed RGB). Of course we'll also accept high quality scans of transparencies, photoprints or negatives. Please read our submission guidelines for contributing photographers for more information.
Pixels per penny. That's what the "ppp" means next to an image and price. After examining the way other libraries costed out their images, we decided to throw the standard approach out of the window. What we came up with was a sliding scale, based on a simple algorithm, which means that buyers pay for a quantity of pixels per penny - the more pixels, the more each penny buys. It's much fairer for image buyers, and is intended to provide enhanced choice and therefore increased flexibility and transparency to benefit everyone. Check it out and see.
We built Upixa with the goal of being the quickest and most flexible engine out there. Upixa contributors upload new images and control their collections from a web browser whenever and wherever they like. They can monitor the server image processing progress on their personal control panel. An image can be online and ready for sale within minutes (depending on server load). For photographers working in current events, news, sports, and travel photography the "remote control" and speed with which they can bring their images to market is unprecedented.
What is upixa?
Upixa is an online stock library which gives control to the contributors.
Upixa is designed so that photographers can upload and directly control and manage their digital image collections online, choosing a price point for each image and controlling how their images are presented to the world: immediately! No waiting, no delays, no convoluted systems. Registration takes about a minute and contributors can start uploading immediately.
To our knowledge, Upixa has the fastest, leanest purchasing engine in the world. Custom built from the ground up, our purchasing engine offers a highly intuitive, simple image selection and purchasing method to enable designers, publishers, art directors and clients to find and buy images in two minutes or less, with the added benefit of selecting individual image download by email attachment: unique in the industry, as far as we are aware. Also unique in the industry is our radical approach to pricing: pixels per penny, on a sliding scale depending on the resolution of the image. In our view, the fairest, best way for both photographers and buyers.
Why online stock photography?
There are lots of libraries out there. We tried as many as we could and realised that there are so many ways to offer better, leaner solutions that we decided to get on and build the kind of stock image library we would want to use - as photographers! The reason that upixa exists is simply because we believe that photographers can control their own collections best.
We want to make selling stock as quick, convenient and easy as possible. Stock libraries usually have lumpy and complex "approvals" processes whereby a contributing photographer's work may not appear online for days or weeks after submission, minimum size requirements may be stringent and there may be no guarantee of inclusion. They may require contributors to send in CDs or DVDs with their digital images, and then may reject a whole batch because of one faulty image. Upixa doesn't work like that. With upixa, prospective contributors register and upload a few images (up to 25) for appraisal. Once these have been checked and approved, usually within 24 hours, an Approved Contributor account is awarded with a 1000 image initial upload limit, rising to 5000. The difference with upixa being that once a contributor has been awarded approved status, they can upload from their web browser or via FTP and publish for sale to the world any images they wish: within minutes!
To our knowledge, no other commercial royalty-free photo library offers this level of service and trust to its contributors. Upixa's intention is to also provide more meaningful image pricing. While inexpensive by industry standards, we believe that our pricing means a reasonable return is possible to the contributing photographers, while still being genuinely good value to buyers and users of stock photography and art. We are set up as a commercial photographic library rather than a subscription-based community image sharing resource. In the context of the expenses involved with most print or web jobs, upixa images are very good value.
What also sets upixa apart is that Contributors can upload digital photography from as small as 2 megapixels upwards: just because an image is only 1600 x 1200 pixels doesn't mean it has no value as stock! Good quality lower resolution images can be ideal for postcards, CD covers, web pages and thousands of other uses. With upixa these images can also be included and made available for sale.
upixa.com benefits:
upload your digital photography whenever you choose right from your browser - up to ten images (max combined total 20Mb) per upload (unlimited uploads)
immediate upload processing - new images are made available for sale from 10 mins to 24 hours (depending on server load)
price grades set by you
transparent billing and full sales information in your private contributor control panel
our commission is a low 20 per cent meaning more of the sale proceeds from your photography come back to you
no fees to contributors - ever
How can upixa be free to Contributors?
Upixa is a showcase and sales tool for the work of photographers based in the UK. Many Contributors already submit work to other libraries or have websites to publicise their work. Upixa is designed to give the Contributors the kind of control and features they would want if they had their own library. Our vision is to short-circuit the often wasteful and time-consuming middle ground that exists between image buyers and creators. We streamline the process and take a commission on image sales (currently set at 20 per cent, calculated after online fee processing charges have been deducted). We do not charge contributors to register, upload or to store their images with upixa. Using upxia is completely free to contributors.
Why royalty-free photography?
We chose to be royalty-free simply because image buyers want (and often need) simplicity. Old-fashioned image licences are a good idea for highly specialised images such as photographs of valuable paintings but are a real cause of irritation to most image buyers. A royalty-free licence means the image buyer can relax and not have to go cap-in-hand to the client for an unexpected extra budget simply because a job is being reprinted or a few copies of a brochure are used abroad. At the moment we are focusing on photography and not including vector illustrations, although original stock art in digital form is acceptable.
Why is upixa accepting only UK photographers?
Every picture library needs to define itself to its target market. We chose to start as a photo library for UK photographers (the word "upixa" being a kind of abbreviation of "UK picture agency") although the scope of our content is obviously worldwide.
At the moment we intend to stick with UK contributors simply because we have been consistently impressed by the very high quality of photographic work submitted and the care that almost all contributors take with managing their picture collections.
Many of our contributors are professional photographers but there are hundreds of contributors who do it simply because they love photography. The elements of trust, control and responsibility are key to the success of upixa. So for the time being we are UK only though may review the decision and expand worldwide in the future.
