What's the optimum number of images?

I thought I had included the option of voting twice, well that shows my nknowledge of computers.

100 is good..

pi

Don't worry, I will use my other nick too

50-100. Under 50 is often useless for me, over 100 the extra are usually wasted.

But then your average TGP guy will often be happy with just 20

But if we give him 100 can't he do 5 different galleries?

30

Not easily. Use the same set too close together and the reviewer will just see it as the same content in many cases and reject it. If he leaves enough time to submit more from the same set it's often little better than simply using the same pics again. While in theory you can use 5 sets of 20 from a series in practice it rarely works out that way for most people.

As I say though personally 50-100 is my ideal as it covers many uses then from paysite downwards. If for any reason I don't use all the pics then that's no biggy.

As a side note I also take no notice when people start quoting prices based on number of pics. It means FA. Too few and I won't buy the set anyway, too many and they probably won't all be used. The key factor to me in buying any content (price wise) is the cost per set and not per image. Obviously how much I'll pay for a set can depend on lots of factors but it's still the total set price that's important to me not how much it works out at each pic.

charly, this is one of those questions where the average/median answer could be misleading. People buy for different purposes and in different circumstances and in your place I would go for some variety rather than working to a single standard.

For me, within fairly broad parameters, the number in a set is one of the least important factors. In particular, some print media photographers release stuff for the 'Net too late to warrant their prices: photo styles, colors, etc., change and quickly become dated.

I hate the thing you mentioned: lots of near identical pics. Unless the price means I can afford to dump a lot of them or I have several places I can use subsets, I won't touch those. Although it doesn't happen often these days, another pet peeve is when samples are specially edited. If I am going to have to edit pics, I want to know about it. Broad licenses too: I don't want to do anything out of the ordinary with the pics I buy, but 7 years on I'm still trying to figure out a practical way to keep track of what I can and cannot do with different photosets.

Mostly, I wish those photographers who work mainly for the internet, would recognise the difference between the internet and print. When I worked in print, all the pics from a session went on a light table and we pored over them with a loup and masks of different sizes, until we found the handful we wanted to use that week or month.

But many webmasters need content every day and (usually) a lot more of it. If (internet) photographers want their product to be less price sensitive, they are going to have to start showing a lot more imagination. If you visit a half dozen providers and they offer near identical material, you end up buying on price.

Jayeff
You make some good points.

I've never figured out why a shooter cannot shoot 120 different pictures, hell for some mags they want to see 200 in a set.

As for the licenses, not a lot we can do there. A lot of producers using different licenses must be a nightmare for the user. But you can always ask for something, what annoys us is those that ask without even reading the brief summary of a license.

If you were buying for mags, which ones, you will realise the difference in competition and price between the Internet and magazines. The Internet will take most things, magazines are very picky, Internet sets make $1,000 and magazine sets can make 5 time that. I just hope with the magazine treining we've had we keep our standards up.