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Messages - sharpshot

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 263
1
Most of the Sora videos look odd to me. Things are moving fast though, so only a matter of time until they improve it to a point where it will be a serious competitor to stock video. I can't remember who was saying they had no concerns about a year ago, I'm guessing they might've changed their mind about that now?

2
Off Topic / Re: Trump has the rona
« on: February 29, 2024, 05:19 »
***  breaking news *** dead horse rises from the dead!

Because it's been four years and the elections are coming up again? The choices are a nearly dead horse and a horses a$$. Not much of a choice? And people from other countries ask, why don't some of us in the US take the time to vote?
I understand. Last election in the UK, we had our version of Trump, Boris, or Corbyn, someone that made Bernie Sanders look like a republican. People that voted for Boris then got Liz Truss, possibly the most insane person on the planet.

3
Crazy how fast things are progressing. I'm excited and scared at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKgMxrWcW1s

4
Wow, that looked cool. What was your original input? Did you input an image, did you do an actual walk around video?
A walkaround video. Seems easier than taking a bunch of photos? This was just with my phone.

5
If a drone is banned, this might be an option, nice you can do it with just a phone. Seems AI improves fast, so hopefully the quality will improve soon https://youtube.com/shorts/bKZQ5CpfRTk?feature=shared

6
I think stills work too, like doing a panorama, but you need to cover the 360. The AI fills in bits you miss. As I only found out about this a few days ago, I'm no expert, but some of the things I saw on YouTube look amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbR-Wj3fG9E

7
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? It's your responsibility to regularly check your email inbox (and spam folder) and keep track of your earnings from time to time. They mentioned it on their website, in an email and on this forum a month in advance. And now those who didn't request payment complain that 'I bet they're happy they get to keep the money" as if Canstock is trying to scam contributors.
I cringe every time I see people talking about personal responsibility. They could easily send everyone their balance to the same place they did their last withdrawal. Where's their personal responsibility? Is it OK for them just to take the money? This "personal responsibility", only ever seems to work one way? If I ever hold someone's money, I make sure they get it. I don't care about the money, I have no idea how much they had, it's the principle. It's not a big issues, I'm used to this, I have better things to do than check my email spam folder every day. I just like to have a rant, as it gets it out of my system.

8
Anyone else tried Luma AI? https://lumalabs.ai/

Here's my first attempt, created from a video, walking around the post box 3 times, with the camera high, head level and low. Can rotate the image, zoom in and out. Can make stills from it, or video, or import it into blender. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, but it was fun. This would be an interesting future for photography/video. Make a video of the scene, then make whatever photos or video clips you want from it. Hope someone here is into this and can explain it better than I can.

https://lumalabs.ai/embed/21a9409c-7714-44cb-9b71-8247947082a8?mode=sparkles&background=%23ffffff&color=%23000000&showTitle=true&loadBg=true&logoPosition=bottom-left&infoPosition=bottom-right&cinematicVideo=undefined&showMenu=false

9
I have been with Canstockphoto since 2005-06. I'm really sorry to see it close.

That said, the deadline that was given for submitting a final payment request ended up in my server's spam folder and as a result I never saw it. I randomly found out the news after trying to log in to the site.

I haven't been submitting new content for many years, however also for many years I have been gathering royalties within the site instead of pulling it out. Several times I converted royalties to credits to acquire images for some of my projects. Unfortunately, my remaining royalty balance was well over $1000, which to my understanding Canstock will refuse to pay me. I have emailed them about it and I await their reply.

Leaving that money for a long time within Canstock was surely to Canstock's benefit, and now it feels bad that I am going to be "punished" for doing that. The fact that the email ended up on my server's spam folder is just what happened to me. I could instead be laying sick in bed, be dealing with a personal tragedy, or anything else someone who doesn't log into the website often, be dealing with that would deprive them of the "request what you are owed now or lose it" period. How fair does it sound to deprive someone of what they are owed?  If it was me, I would simply pay up all royalties to all accounts that have already provided me with their payment info in the past since this is money that doesn't really belong to me.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on that.

Thanks!

Konstantinos
Did they reply? I have only noticed this now, email must've gone to spam folder. No idea what my balance was, can't remember the last time I withdrew from them. Doesn't seem that this can be legal? They have my PayPal details, no reason why they couldn't just send the money, other than it gives them a nice bonus when they close down at short notice?

10
Off Topic / Re: New Rolling Stones song
« on: September 20, 2023, 10:13 »
The song isn't bad but I'm not a fan of the excessive auto tune on Mick's voice. I hope the oldies move from auto tune, to using AI versions of their peak voice.

11
General Photography Discussion / AI that uses stock images
« on: September 15, 2023, 06:13 »
This is a bit different, AI generated videos, that use stock images. Left istock years ago, but I guess the other stock sites will jump on this, if it works?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcUjeWk8II

12
Mine gone too, at least I know why now, wasn't at all clear from the email. Was getting a few sales there, but it wont make much difference. Pleased I didn't upload for years, would've been a waste of time.

13
Until there is AI software which produces images large enough to upload to a stock agency there not much point to them

People are already submitting AI images to stock sites. Dall-E 2 has unlimited resolution.

While I have stuck with the free outputs, maybe you can explain the unlimited? From what I found, it can cost more, take longer and I'd need to have a paid account. Did I miss something? Or do you mean Outpainting? I haven't tried either.
I read about it. I guess it's just outpainting for now.

14
Until there is AI software which produces images large enough to upload to a stock agency there not much point to them

People are already submitting AI images to stock sites. Dall-E 2 has unlimited resolution.

15

Doesn't worry me anymore. I retired from stock photography at the beginning of this year. The props room has been cleared out and I have a bit of gear to sell - thats if its worth anything anymore???


I am honestly jelous of you, I wish I could just do the same. Be done with all of this mess. Unfortunately I  have no plan B. My only job other than microstock has been doing art. I am so screwed.
I'm in year 13 of working on my plan B, and got nowhere. I'm sure it will all work out. I did get this from it, sold loads, until it was copied to death https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crossing-out-plan-writing-b-on-17871004

16
General Photography Discussion / Re: DPReview closing down
« on: March 26, 2023, 17:07 »
The only good thing to come out of DPReview closing, if you can handle the sarcasm,
https://youtu.be/g8pMl7rFcDk

17
Today editorial photography is less profitable than commercial photography, also because of its reduced shelf life.

This trend will be reversed.
Training AI takes a lot of time and is very expensive. That puts it many months (maybe half a year or more) behind the present.

So even when AI imagery will become dominant, there will always be a need for news photographers. Maybe the price for editorials will even go up since many photographers will bail out and those doing editorials will end up in short supply.

Maybe the same will be valid for a niche of commercial photography depicting changes in our environment (e.g. city skylines). This is why it's important for photographers doing this type of photography to opt out of AI training schemes (or else they will reduce the shelf life of their work).

PS and side note: many "white collar" "office" jobs will also be replaced by AI, while some "blue collar" jobs (harder to automate) will become more valued, reversing another trend that started with the industrial revolution.
I doubt we will be making more from editorial. A good percentage of photographers will do more editorial. Maybe the best will make more, but the rest will lose out to the increase in media outlets using photos taken with a mobile. Google street view is used a lot now, I can only see the quality of that improving.

18
General Photography Discussion / Re: DPReview closing down
« on: March 24, 2023, 05:34 »
I wonder what size the DPReview website would be? Probably huge, but if I could get an offline version, it would be great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe40pxcjPpM

19
General Photography Discussion / Re: DPReview closing down
« on: March 24, 2023, 05:29 »
Last spring Amazon shut down Alexa, after 25 years of operation. This year it's DPReview, again 25 years in business. Maybe they've calculated that this should be the max lifespan of a website.
Amazon is 28 years old, so when are they closing it :)

20
General Photography Discussion / DPReview closing down
« on: March 21, 2023, 12:08 »
This was a shock. Spent many hours using that site, overs so many years.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close

21
General Stock Discussion / Re: Mr. Rinder?
« on: February 25, 2023, 03:36 »
Maybe he finally did quit forums? He left and came back so many times, it became a joke.

22
Just seen this, could be useful for finding images that have been used to train AI. Not sure I would want to upload, unless it can use low res, or watermarked images.
https://haveibeentrained.com/

23
A.I. can't use images from microstock because they are watermarked it would have to use Google or PD images. Of course, google would find out that they're using said images and would probably buy them out.
One of the images I made with AI, clearly had the Alamy watermark on it. The AI adjusted it, but was still obvious where the image came from.

24
If AI can make any picture you want why would anyone need agencies? You just buy the software and add any picture you want to your article. So it's not just the contributors losing here. It's also the agencies. They will be redundant, like us.
AI can't do everything. It will struggle generating images of places that don't have many photos. It can't do any editorial, where the image can't be manipulated. I'll do everything that AI can't be used for, or it would be too much hard work for AI.

25
Selling Stock Direct / Re: Do Any Stock Sites Use AdobeRGB?
« on: October 19, 2022, 03:37 »
I have a collection of exclusive photos on Alamy, that are all AdobeRGB. I know they used to prefer AdobeRGB, but no idea if that has changed over the years. I regularly sell AdobeRGB photos there, but the prices are often much lower than they used to be, that's a real shame, but I guess they had no options but to respond to microstock prices.

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