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1
Adobe Stock / Re: PNG files on Adobestock - Some Questions
« on: January 03, 2023, 11:26 »
I wonder how it would work with vectors.  :o  When uploading vectors the automated preview image shows distorted colors (to avoid this I have to make a JPG too and zip it together with the EPS and upload it that way), so I worry that the automated PNG might have distorted colors too, no? Hm. Time to test it.

2
Adobe Stock / Re: Can't upload images
« on: July 28, 2020, 06:35 »
I tried also an old zip what i uploaded some weeks ago without problems but this time i can't upload it because the error "The zip contains upload errors"

I had .zip errors in Firefox, but not in Chrome. Try a different browser, it may help. If not, FTP isn't really complicated, it's worth to try it out.

3
Shutterstock.com / Re: Average EPD so far for June
« on: July 04, 2020, 03:22 »
I do stock full time and Shutterstock gives 30% of my total income, so I simply couldnt afford to disable my whole portfolio. :( What I did however was to disable videos (some animations) and left vectors on (small portfolio of 1300 files); I also didnt upload a single file since the announcement and wont upload ever again and come January I might disable everything (until then I can see to it so that I can afford to take a stance and leave).

To give some statistics and insight and help to understand how the new system affects those who stayed: the number of downloads were average in June but total earnings were around 20-25% less (at Level 4 right now, will level up to 5 this month - used to be at 0.38 tier before the change). It was my worst month since 2018 December.

My RPD vithout video sales:
All time      RPD  $0.59
Year 2020  RPD  $0.59
May 2020   RPD  $0.62
June 2020 RPD  $0.47 (-20% compared to 2020 / all time)

4
Dreamstime.com / Re: Dreamstime increasing royalties
« on: June 11, 2020, 08:40 »
Some recent sales of mine appear to have the increased royalty too: 2,20$ instead of 2$ and 0,38$ instead of 0,35$. It's a little "step", but a step in the right direction at least.

About the monthly income, with ~900 vectors I earn around 20-40$/month, so it's not much, but I choose to contribute as I like their system (highest RPD across all agencies), feel respected and treated fairly.

5
General Stock Discussion / Re: More or fewer keywords
« on: May 14, 2020, 10:35 »
Non-native English speaker here, but regarding the jungle / forest misuse I can see some sense in it.  :D A jungle is pretty similar to a rainforest, which can be also called a tropical forest.
I kind of agree with the 90% accuracy and 10% probable useful keywords.

Another thing which I didn't see being mentioned here is that on Adobestock for example the maximum keywords you can insert is 50, however it's advisable to use maximum only 49, other way the keywords won't get weighted separately (the first few being more important) but every single one of them gets the fraction of the "total sum" equally.

6
one image I don't get/understand is - the white block that is partially broken off? first of all, what is that? and second, I don't quite understand why someone would buy that? (the other images make sense to me - but that one - maybe because I don't know what it is, don't know why someone would want it?)

It seemed like a block of yeast to me, which is used for baking, baking bread, etc. I know that in some countries people bought all of the yeast in supermarkets (fearing shortage, just like with toiletpaper), so it might be because of this. Just a guess, though.  :D

7
iStockPhoto.com / Re: March stats are in (istock)
« on: April 22, 2020, 02:51 »
Below average for me. It was an upward trend until this month, so I expected better, but still pretty stable so far.

8
Hi!

I changed my residence and country once, but I did it back then on the platform of Fotolia (was able to change the infos on every other stock site too). Would be weird, if Adobe wouldn't let you.
It was a while ago, I don't remember the exact details, but I contacted them via e-mail or support tickets. Is that not possible in your case? Is there only a chat now?

9
Alamy.com / Re: Vector Illustrations on Alamy
« on: April 01, 2020, 02:55 »
I also tested Alamy out uploading ~50 of my more successful illustrations three months ago. Took the time to bother with keywords and all, almost half of them have now good or optimized discoverability. Since then: 0 sales. It's not that I expect immediate sales, I know how microstock is and heard about rare but good sales in case of Alamy too, but here's the catch: if you upload vectors, there's just one fix price, 10 euros (you get 5 euros), for a license that says: all rights, all media, worldwide in perpetuity:o That's basically an enhanced license for very cheap! Giving away a vector illustration for this license and for this price is not worth at all! I'll never upload anything under this circumstances.

Now, in my opinion, the only viable path left is to upload the illustrations as rasters, the ceiling is not so low and they may earn you more, based on different licenses.

10
Adobe Stock / Re: 2020 Adobe Stock Artist bonus program
« on: April 01, 2020, 02:36 »
Hi!

First of all: thanks for listening and taking our opinions into consideration! It's a great change that this time we will be able to choose our preferred software - vector artists can choose Illustrator, for example, yay!  :D

Counting videos as 8x regular downloads and basing the bonus more on downloads rather than uploads is also nice. I personally find that this program is more well-thought-out and for the first time is also including me (never used the bonus before, because Photoshop isn't useful for me at all, but this year I already qualify easily for Illustrator and with some hard work and luck, who knows, maybe even for all-aps).

11
General Stock Discussion / Re: Checking in - Adobe Stock Video
« on: January 31, 2020, 05:43 »
Selecting video thumbnails should be a must.
I'm trying to crossover from illustrations to animations and the few I have uploaded have terrible thumbnails on Adobestock! :'( If the animation starts with just a few things/lines/shapes/etc. and later is coming together as a whole (self-drawing lines for example, but really anything else), the thumbnail tends to end up an early keyframe with barely anything recognizable, probably noone would even move the cursor over to check it out, it is that unappealing! It really harms the likeliness of getting seen and from a buyer perspective would be annoying as well; just by looking at the thumbnail they would want to know what is it about and they should see the most favourable keyframe in order to maximize the chance of a sale. I can't emphasize the importance of it enough, in my case this tiny issue "costs" a lot.

12
For many people with disabilities its the only way to earn money... The stock market is the heaven on earth for me.

Aw, wow. This did not occur to me before, but actually this is so great to hear! Happy for you and for all of them!  :)

13
I've heard about Blender but didn't really pay attention to it before. Thank you for the recommendation!

14
I can only comment personally - I wouldn't do it, it's just too much work for so little in return. I'd keep it at simple and effective ideas, something that's quick to complete but effective and creative. Other than that, I'd rather invest time in 3D, takes about the same time, for simple things even less and you can derive more images from one scene or model. Not to mention animated scenes sold as videos on stock. You can be just as creative. Just an idea.

Nice input! May I ask you what program do you recommend for 3D and animated scenes?

To the topic: a $0.25 sale sounds bad indeed, though it won't sell just once and with time it can make up in volume. Or at least that's how it used to be, a good one could easily make past 100$ and more altogether, however nowadays due to a lot of uploads new files tend to get little exposure.

15
I will say that only a small part of that comes from still images. My advice would be to focus on the most difficult (but of course still commercially viable) areas of stock that you still think are fun. So instead of making a simple 2D illustration that artists can churn out in an hour or less, maybe make a stylized animation that will have much less competition.

There is so much you can sell as stock, and more opportunities turn up all the time as new applications or trends become popular. Spend time on YouTube and other social platforms and see what the content creators are using. More likely than not, they didn't make the graphics/titles/animations/music/sfx/etc. themselves - they used stock media.

I really like your attitude! Congrats, you seem to adapt and move with the changes of business while still not giving up on having fun! A bit of a role model, to be honest!  :)

May I ask in what program do you work or what do you recommend for graphics/animations?

16
Off Topic / Re: What is your creative type?
« on: May 07, 2019, 03:50 »
Another Thinker here.  :D

17
Shutterstock.com / Re: How rare are Enhanced sales?
« on: May 07, 2019, 03:49 »
Out of 15000+ downloads only 4 of mine were Enhanced sales, revenue ranging 19-28$. Seems very rare to me, but maybe also because I'm doing only vectors and there's not much demand in the field for Enhanced licenses.

18
Illustration - General / Re: Advices on starting again
« on: March 06, 2019, 02:38 »
I make money from microstock, actually, for me my monthly and yearly income is still increasing altogether.

How many one needs to make a specific sum, it depends on many things. First thing to do is to test some new vectors, try new topics, etc. and after a while you will see which could work for you. I usually make like 10 vectors when I am testing a new style/topic, and check how they are performing after a while, 1-2 months later. If they sell, I get into it, if not, I try something new again.
Check out the trends, look at the market, research what is selling (sorting searches by Popular, for example) and do something that is in demand.
Quality is also important, but is very subjective. The main indicator of the performance is commercial value - demand, applicability, etc.
FYI, in my own case, I was making 500$/month with ~700 vectors.

You can also upload to many agencies, but from my experience only some bigger ones are worth it, especially bothering with at first: Adobestock, GettyImages, Shutterstock. If you can make money with these, you might make some with the little ones too, if not, might be just a waste of time and effort.

If you want to give it a chance, do not expect sudden increase. It is an investment that takes time, I would say 3 months at least. Make some new illustration, be consistent, upload every week, persevere and after 3 months draw a conclusion: is your income progressing enough for you to continue?

There's no easy answer, but good luck to you! :)

19
First of all, I am glad to be one of their contributors, I have been with Fotolia/Adobestock since I began doing microstock, it is nice to see some of their initiatives lately and that they are trying to value their contributors more, but it is hard to overcome the flaws and problems that their unjust credit conversion system causes.

Adobestock/Fotolia calculates the royalties in credits for which the following conversion is used: 1 credit = 1 USD = 1 EUR = 0.75 GBP (= 4 PLN = 7,10 SEK = 150 JPY = 1,100 KRW).

This was established years ago and at that time it could mean that it was fair in comparison, it reflected reality, but due to different exchange rates since, it is certainly not the case now.

Your currency is determined by the domain where you have registered and you find this out only when it comes to payment, without a way to change it. (For me it was the .uk, instead of the .eu, which should be.) They say that they cannot change it due to tax reasons (?), which can be plausible, but the root of the problem lies actually in the equation an arbitrary one, which means the equation could be changed easily. How about considering the new exchange rates and establishing a new one?

Just for example here is my own case: in 2018 I earned around 3000+ credits; this would mean 3000+ EUR, but instead it meant 2250 GBP to me and after changing it back: roughly 2600 EUR. For the same sales I basically got ~400 euros less = ~14% less = basically the worth of 1-2 months of my earnings that year!  :-\  (I am already scared to imagine what will happen after a problematic Brexit and if the GBP falls even more. )
The loss would be almost the same even if the currency involved would be USD something that can apply to many others.

For the same sales and work put into it everyone should be compensated the same way, the same amount!
1 credit should be around something like = 1 EUR = 1,10 USD = 0.85 GBP to be more balanced.

I know it is in their favour to keep this the way it is, but what do you all think, is not the time for refreshing their equation?
Mat, what is the stance of Adobe on this matter? When can we expect a new equation that is FAIRER to every contributor?

20
Adobe Stock / Re: Adobe Stock took my money away
« on: February 15, 2019, 04:24 »
Same, altough it was only -5.5 Credits for me.  :-\ (You can check the amount on Fotolia, at "My Credits".)
The "Dear #firstname #lastname" parts sound very strange nonetheless.

21
Adobe Stock / Re: subscription sell 0.27 Credits
« on: December 22, 2018, 04:44 »
Sometime in the next week we will be adding credits into those accounts to compensate for the incorrect withholding.

Did any of you get the whithheld credits back? The week is nearly over, but I did not receive anything.

22
Adobe Stock / Re: subscription sell 0.27 Credits
« on: December 11, 2018, 14:23 »
Same here, 30% withholding, starting from today - instead of the 0%. I hope it's just some glitch and gets fixed and the withheld money paid back.  :(

23
Adobe Stock / Re: Inaccurate Data showing at FT
« on: October 03, 2018, 09:55 »
Very similar pattern for me too, in the last 3 weeks views increased 4-5x. It shows a little bit in the downloads too taking in consideration the summer months, but other than that it does not, it is just average.

24
Adobe Stock / Re: Vector Uploads Temporarily Disabled
« on: September 12, 2018, 12:07 »
Here to voice my concern too! It would be nice and expected to have at least informations about the delay and how long it will take.  ???

25
I'm with the vector illustrators and would be very glad to have my giveaway (I qualify for it, yay!) for Adobe Illustrator - sadly Photoshop it's not really useful for me in itself. It's nice news nonetheless, but would be truly great news for us to be able to use it for what we need and work with. Is there any chance to have this changed in the future? :)

Thanks Mat!

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