Dreamstime.com Challenges Community with New Feature — Stock Rank

New Flash-Interactive Feature Announced Simultaneously with 6 Million Image Benchmark

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Dreamstime.com, a global photo community and worldwide leader in the stock photography industry, has introduced Stock Rank - a new “photo-review tool” to enable members to test their photo IQ in comparing and ranking images.

The new imaginative flash-interactive tool pairs two images on the screen and challenges the contestant to select the best photo—the photo most worthy of purchase or download—based on concept, subject, aesthetics, lighting, composition, etc. This feature was initially established as a quality assurance system utilized primarily by the agency's editors as part of their training to review the commercial aspects of stock submissions.

“We’re making the feature available to all members. It’s fun and will allow all users to learn to understand the difference between the images, degrees of quality and what actually sells,” said Serban Enache, CEO and co-founder of Dreamstime.com

As the member becomes an active participant, utilizing the feature and making accurate, consecutive selections, he or she will progress in a ranking system. As each member graduates from phase to phase, the images displayed on Stock Rank, and the comparison, will become more difficult validating the member’s ability to detect the most purchase-able image.

The DT players’ "tally" (or ranking) over the course of each phase will be posted on the community page to allow all members to monitor their success rate.

“The ranking system is designed to generate a fun competition within the Dreamstime community while enabling members to seek out that person who has an ‘eye for detail’ as a reliable go-to source for suggestions as to good/better/best photos in our blogs and forums. The participants’ skills summed together represent a grand wealth of knowledge that everyone can benefit from,” added Enache. “While Dreamstime has more than 70,000 photographers, the agency has 1.5 registered users--the majority being buyers. No matter the user (buyer, photographer, blogger or personal-user), every member has a natural eye for and interest in photography.”

For an introduction to the new Stock Rank feature visit: www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-rank.

The announcement of the new facet coincides with Dreamstime’s celebration of yet another benchmark. As of July 1, 2009, Dreamstime has successfully exceeded the 6 million mark; the contributor who submitted the unprecedented image received a free 120 GB iPod. Simultaneously, after surpassing the 1 million-subscriber mark in late October 2008, Dreamstime now has more than 1.5 million users. A design agency located in Edinburgh, UK signed up to become the milestone member. Dreamstime.com is currently the second leading agency (in customers). The acceleration in numbers overall make it the fastest growing stock agency in the world.

The agency’s photo gallery, which has been built on community participation and communication, features an immeasurable assortment of model released lifestyle images in the business and family genres as well as an extraordinary and vast collection of travel, nature, sports, industry and health/wellness photographs in addition to distinctive illustrations [vectors, graphic art and backgrounds]. Dreamstime’s customer base is comprised of Fortune 500 companies, independent medium to small businesses and a variety of individuals who use the photos for a full range of print and online projects.