Author Topic: What's your weekly ranking and how many images? (Read 139086 times)

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1325 on:** January 22, 2025, 18:08 »

Quote from: JustAnImage on January 22, 2025, 16:27

...
- in January 25 I had 322 DL so far
- in January 24 (on the same day) I had 480 DL

............In 2024 I started with 35,675 files and on 12/31/2024 there were 49,052...

I don't typically post in "how many were sold" threads, but thought I'd make an exception.

I'm a small producer although I've been licensing stock images since 2004. Right now my Adobe Stock portfolio is 2,503 images. It was 2383 at the beginning of 2024.

I've had 308 downloads so far this month and was thinking it was slow, but you had only a fraction more with nearly 20 times as many items. I'm gobsmacked.

I don't honestly know what that says about business at Adobe Stock or its customers' needs & preferences, but possibly it says that the market for non-genAI content hasn't evaporated yet (I don't have any genAI work).

It might just be a function of oversupply - you have good stuff but there's just too much genAI work for the demand?

In terms of your photos being boring, I would say that useful trumps pretty in stock any time - I think I upload lots of material in the "boring infrastructure" segment.

I hope you manage to work out something positive for perking up sales (and many apologies if this comes across as rude; I don't mean it that way at all!)

MPfoto71 · « **Reply #1326 on:** January 22, 2025, 19:32 »

@Jo Ann:
First of all, that doesn't come across as rude at all, you don't have to worry about that :-)

I also believe that the AI image market is completely oversaturated and there is definitely more than customers can buy. I expect AI image sales to decline a little further, but AI images will not disappear completely - they are now an integral part of the big picture. At least until agencies can generate AI images ‘on the fly’ in response to a customer request.

You can see that real photos generate much more stable sales, even over a longer period of time, and those who have good photos don't really need to worry so much - sure, AI images have taken a share of the market, but the share is already falling and real photos of real places and events will always be needed.
If only to feed the AIs with current trends, because you can't successfully feed an AI with images that it has generated itself, if you do something like that, it leads to the AI washing out and the results getting worse.

I've currently ramped up the ‘production’ a little (through more automation) and currently have around 1,600 accepted images per month - if that's not enough, I'll look for a new corner.

And as stock is only a part-time job for me, I can consider myself lucky - the last 6 years of stock have enabled me to do some travelling - I was able to go on a safari, see Iceland and was in the Seychelles from the income, surprisingly the pictures from there hardly sell at all.

If I find out anything, I'll let you all know

cobalt · « **Reply #1327 on:** January 23, 2025, 03:53 »

Jo Ann and my own experience is making me more dedicated to upload camera content again.

Before the January algo adjustments I paid little attention to the ratio of ai/camera sold.

But now I am realizing that on many days half my sales are still older camera files or videos.

So I will make that a clear focus, plus it gives me content for all agencies.

For ai I am processing my backlog every day something, but I only prompt very little. Mostly testing new prompt strings in subjects I did not offer before.

cobalt · « **Reply #1328 on:** January 23, 2025, 04:40 »

Quote from: JustAnImage on January 22, 2025, 19:32

And as stock is only a part-time job for me, I can consider myself lucky - the last 6 years of stock have enabled me to do some travelling - I was able to go on a safari, see Iceland and was in the Seychelles from the income, surprisingly the pictures from there hardly sell at all.

I had a look at your pictures. I also had a look at the other pictures in the collection.

Lack of sales is not surprising, your files are not competitive. In addition maybe seychelles/Iceland are very specialised and niche markets.

Many of your camera images are underexposed and have no clear composition. A simple 3 day camera workshop could easily fix that.

Maybe something to consider. Or perhaps a nice photo safari somewhere with a good coach teaching image tricks and giving good examples.

Everybody can learn and improve their photography. I used to take classes every year or at least a one day workshop about something I usually don't do regularly.

I will start doing that again when I have less personal responsibility and can travel again.

cobalt · « **Reply #1329 on:** January 23, 2025, 05:20 »

I am getting very weird declines for people images.

Will try to upload them in smaller batches.

MPfoto71 · « **Reply #1330 on:** January 23, 2025, 05:28 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 23, 2025, 04:40

I had a look at your pictures. I also had a look at the other pictures in the collection.

Lack of sales is not surprising, your files are not competitive. In addition maybe seychelles/Iceland are very specialised and niche markets.

Many of your camera images are underexposed and have no clear composition. A simple 3 day camera workshop could easily fix that.

Maybe something to consider. Or perhaps a nice photo safari somewhere with a good coach teaching image tricks and giving good examples.

I'm right there with you - my photography skills are definitely not well developed and I also lack an eye for detail when I have the camera in my hand. I am and will probably remain a technician ;-)

A 3-day workshop would be like a holiday - maybe I should just do it. The idea is definitely not a bad one ^^

cobalt · « **Reply #1331 on:** January 23, 2025, 05:37 »

Workshops are a lot of fun!!!

Please do them. Because you look at good stock content every day I don't think it will take long to improve.

MPfoto71 · « **Reply #1332 on:** January 23, 2025, 06:05 »

It is probably even more important to understand what the customer is looking for and why (as you have already indicated a few times).

Before I can get to work on my photography skills, I still have 2-3 intensive AI months ahead of me - I have around 4,000 AI people images planned for February and another 2,000 AI videos in March.
That would give me enough material to upload for the whole of 2025 and I could get on with other things

cobalt · « **Reply #1333 on:** January 23, 2025, 06:35 »

Fully agree with customer needs.

In the discord channel there is someone with a mixed camera ai port of 12500 files who says he is in the top 200 weekly rank.

And then there are newbies with 2500 ai files, uploading 11 months who get 15-20 sales a day. These people also keep posting in ai groups, I called them the advanced newbies because they keep telling everyone how important it is to have commercially relevant content and not 100 000 fantasy images or backgrounds.

But please keep thos workshops in mind, summer is coming, it is fun and if you do travel again to expensive locations, please up your skills before you go.

I am sure your ai people will do very well. Trying to increase mine as well, a little frustrated with the declines because it takes me 3 times longer to process people images than easter eggs.

danielvisuals · « **Reply #1334 on:** January 23, 2025, 07:09 »

Quote from: JustAnImage on January 22, 2025, 19:32

And as stock is only a part-time job for me, I can consider myself lucky - the last 6 years of stock have enabled me to do some travelling - I was able to go on a safari, see Iceland and was in the Seychelles from the income, surprisingly the pictures from there hardly sell at all.

You also need to improve your metadata. Poorly written titles and keywords won't make your content visible to the right buyers.

For instance, take a look at this picture:

https://stock.adobe.com/de/images/close-up-of-different-fruits-hanging-on-trees-taken-on-the-seychelles-islands/253979877

Your title, "Close up of different fruits hanging on trees taken on the Seychelles islands," is not specific enough. The fruit is called "breadfruit." Including that information in your title, along with other relevant details about the fruit, would be much more effective.

MPfoto71 · « **Reply #1335 on:** January 23, 2025, 07:15 »

@cobalt:
I'll keep the workshops in mind, so I could take a break from my actual work :-)

I'm also excited about the People AI images - I'm currently finalising my 6-week ‘Concept and symbol images’, then I'll continue with ‘People’.

@danielvisuals:
The point definitely goes to you - the image is one of my very early uploads and the title is too ‘simple’ and I would also do the image itself completely differently today, much brighter and friendlier.

Unfortunately, all the ‘old photo sins’ are also in the account - I started with textures and surfaces, as I actually come from the field of 3D programming and was (and still am) always looking for textures myself.
Unfortunately, there are too few customers of that kind ;-)

Injustice for all · « **Reply #1336 on:** January 23, 2025, 08:06 »

ok,I wanted to take a break from all the microstock,but I see that it is better to make some clarifications.

@Cobalt

Somebody?somebody who?

I have never written:"somebody is personally out to get you or holding your port back"

I've never said it,I don't think so,and it's certainly not like that.

I gave you the example of Istock to make you understand that the problem is not my contents.

I am aware that I cannot earn 10x more than I earn,but I should still earn at least 2-3x more than I earn at this point in the journey with my current portfolio.

@Cascoly

the problem is not so much the age but more money condition,but certainly if I was 10 years younger I had more time to put the situation right,starting a business before the age of 40 is certainly better,I think you agree with me.

the chances of an identical result to the previous year in the first 20 days of January are not impossible,but it is as if they were,if you take into account the quantity of files in the Adobe library and the high number of contributors,so we can consider the probabilities impossible.

yes,I very much agree with the fact that it is very difficult to improve if you don't continue to upload,especially today.

I uploaded about 40% more from January 2024 to January 20,2025,so a rather high percentage.

@Uncle Pete

I'm talking about number of sales,and thank you!

At the moment,more than a break,I'm carrying out a kind of strike.

I haven't checked my Adobe Stock dashboard since January 21st,and I will check it again on January 31st.
both because I don't want to get depressed,and also because I want to take a break for a moment.

I can consider the November results acceptable,for the quantity and type of portfolio I have at the moment,but this is really the minimum I can accept,at this point in the journey,after almost 7 years of collaboration.

I will continue the strike until I see numbers similar to November again,then I will resume uploading.

I don't blame Adobe for this,but I think some things can be done better,I've noticed excessive discrepancies and I think it's time to review how content and sales are managed.

I am also more than sure that Adobe has already identified this problem,it can also be seen from the minimum requirements for the bonus contributor,from this choice I see that they have already identified this problem.

the point is to see if it is possible to do something or not,I don't know this,only the Adobe Stock team can know!

I can only hope to soon see results similar to November again and start working again.

cobalt · « **Reply #1337 on:** January 23, 2025, 10:50 »

Welcome back!

To me it often sounds like you believe your account is being "held back intentionally" by Adobe.

But i am probably misunderstanding.

I hope you really enjoy your break and really let go and do something very different for a while.

I often take breaks from agencies and then focus all my energy elsewhere if one place is pissing me off.

That is why I could never be exclusive again.

mike123 · « **Reply #1338 on:** January 23, 2025, 11:33 »

Got a $33 royalty for a photo sale today.
Can't remember ever getting more than $26.50 for a single photo sale on Adobe in the past. Anyone else got these?

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #1339 on:** January 23, 2025, 12:22 »

Quote from: JustAnImage on January 22, 2025, 17:35

Which is a sobering realization for me:
-> 13,500 new files accepted in one year wasn't enough to boost my downloads
-> according to my calculations, I would have needed about 16,000 new files in 2024 just to keep my downloads, in 2025 it will probably have to be between 20,000 and 25,000 new files - that's really hard to do, you can't beat the flood of AI image farms

But luckily my Canon R8 + 24-105 F4.0 has just arrived - I can now take decent photos again

Holy Cow, 13,500 new images! You're a workaholic.

"you can't beat the flood of AI image farms" that is a sad realization, especially coming from someone who works so diligently at trying to keep up.

Maybe once the tsunami of AI has passed, people who are working the AI farms, will find the profit for new images, isn't as strong as right now, and they will try to find something else. That could help the files and demands reach an equilibrium.

Bauman · « **Reply #1340 on:** January 23, 2025, 12:56 »

Quote from: mike123 on January 23, 2025, 11:33

Got a $33 royalty for a photo sale today.
Can't remember ever getting more than $26.50 for a single photo sale on Adobe in the past. Anyone else got these?

I also got $33 from a sale today.

Very good, my highest sale ever on Adobe Stock ... I hope more will follow with even higher amounts like Shutterstock.

cobalt · « **Reply #1341 on:** January 23, 2025, 14:18 »

pos 2550, files 7650

things are improving a bit. I hope next week the buyers are back and ready.

SimonSays · « **Reply #1342 on:** January 23, 2025, 14:35 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 23, 2025, 10:50

To me it often sounds like you believe your account is being "held back intentionally" by Adobe.

But i am probably misunderstanding.

No, you are not misunderstanding.
This guy either praises Adobe all the way or accusing them to put a limit to his downloads. He is quite tiring if you ask me. One day Adobe is the best agency ever and he has all these plans how to grow his sales and the next day when things don't succeed it's because Adobe has this evil plan putting a ceiling on his sales. I would diagnose him as manic depressive but I am not a psychiatrist.
The term cry-baby comes into mind as well.

cobalt · « **Reply #1343 on:** January 23, 2025, 15:36 »

I think he is totally stressed out trying to do stock as a full time income.

But this is not the right business for everyone. For many it is best to keep stock as a part time side hustle while the main business is something else.

Then grow stock slowly over 10 years.

SimonSays · « **Reply #1344 on:** January 23, 2025, 16:40 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 23, 2025, 15:36

I think he is totally stressed out trying to do stock as a full time income.

But this is not the right business for everyone. For many it is best to keep stock as a part time side hustle while the main business is something else.

Then grow stock slowly over 10 years.

One small tip about making it in this dying business. AI is not the way as a Western person. AI can be made by anyone wherever they're from. It's just prompting and curating. The people that can do that are in the millions and they have the resources and the time. Worse is that any income that is generated by it will exceed much more then we in the western world will value it. Your dollar is way less then a dollar for someone like say in India.
What they can't do however (generally speaking) is travel and make actual photos of those places they make with AI. Even though that actual photography is overly satuarated as well, it's still less competitive then the AI market.
The AI market is just a no go if you want to get ahead. You can't seriously think you will do a better job then the other millions of people that have time and resources on their hands. And when some in these countries have a little success with AI, it will ignite a whole bunch of newbies trying as well. Lost cause, stick with real photography.

mike123 · « **Reply #1345 on:** January 23, 2025, 16:49 »

Quote from: SimonSays on January 23, 2025, 16:40

One small tip about making it in this dying business. AI is not the way as a Western person. AI can be made by anyone wherever they're from. It's just prompting and curating. The people that can do that are in the millions and they have the resources and the time. Worse is that any income that is generated by it will exceed much more then we in the western world will value it. Your dollar is way less then a dollar for someone like say in India.
What they can't do however (generally speaking) is travel and make actual photos of those places they make with AI. Even though that actual photography is overly satuarated as well, it's still less competitive then the AI market.
The AI market is just a no go if you want to get ahead. You can't seriously think you will do a better job then the other millions of people that have time and resources on their hands. And when some in these countries have a little success with AI, it will ignite a whole bunch of newbies trying as well. Lost cause, stick with real photography.

Fully agree. Agencies are "outsourcing" building their AI libraries to countries with cheap labor. Which is why at some point the price of AI content will fall.

cobalt · « **Reply #1346 on:** January 23, 2025, 17:13 »

Fully agree, which is why I am making camera video my main focus this year.

I disagree about prices falling for ai, agencies want a one price for everything model, and the majority still don't even take ai.

My sales are actually nicely split 50/50 between camera and ai, so however the algos swing I will always sell something.

There is no "outsourcing" because from the beginning a very large part of high quality stock has come from countries with much lower living costs.

We have been living with this competition forever and we are still here.

eta

the current influx of people doing ai with no background in stock...i think that will die down, because they are not making the money the youtubers promised.

it is the regular camera stock producers from asia or eastern europe that are making the best ai content.

SimonSays · « **Reply #1347 on:** January 23, 2025, 17:45 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 23, 2025, 17:13

Fully agree, which is why I am making camera video my main focus this year.

I disagree about prices falling for ai, agencies want a one price for everything model, and the majority still don't even take ai.

My sales are actually nicely split 50/50 between camera and ai, so however the algos swing I will always sell something.

There is no "outsourcing" because from the beginning a very large part of high quality stock has come from countries with much lower living costs.

We have been living with this competition forever and we are still here.

eta

the current influx of people doing ai with no background in stock...i think that will die down, because they are not making the money the youtubers promised.

it is the regular camera stock producers from asia or eastern europe that are making the best ai content.

I have to agree with Mike here. Although your sales might be 50/50 split for now between AI and real photography, it cannot stay that way. As you have seen AI photos have grown exponentially. From nothing to now 37% of Adobes stock and that in just a matter of a few years. In the end Adobe will have to make a choice how to evaluate AI sales versus real photo sales. Now it is the same but if AI make up 95% of their catalogue, then what? Needless to say with all the AI offerings, real images will come more desirable. AI prices will have to drop versus real photography. It would be strange if they would not make this exciting news flash later on

cobalt · « **Reply #1348 on:** January 23, 2025, 18:08 »

Why does it matter if they sell illustrations, camera photo, ai photo, video, vectors...it is all media files. There is no reason for them to offer anything cheaper, because they will make less money.

SS was the one sprinting forward with low prices, not adobe.

And they have just "merged" with getty, so why should they lower prices now? Plus, they don't even take ai from producers, they have no ai collection. Maybe they will never offer an ai collection. Who knows? Perhaps keeping their collection ai free will be their main selling point?

It is possible the adobe collection will be 95% ai. So what?

The only thing that matters is how many of these files are competing with mine. There are so many niches with very little content.

Plus there is a gigantic hole in all things editorial, not just with video.

The main thing is to look at customers and what they need. Keep customers happy and you have sales.

Adobe offers the ability to exclude ai for those who want it, for instance for real locations or real food.

But that is all that is needed.

The customers are the main factor in the algos. There might be millions of files coming but the majority will just sink to the bottom forever.

Anyone who believes stock is over, the best decision is to look for alternatives.

I see loads of opportunities, so I keep uploading.

eta

If you think your travel niches are safe from competition...the pandemic is over...my city is already being overrun by massive amounts of travelers from asia, especially china.

They all have cameras and access to the internet.

The influx of editorial and travel content from anywhere on the globe will increase dramatically if more people from asia travel everyhwere by the millions.

So...nothing is safe...

Injustice for all · « **Reply #1349 on:** January 24, 2025, 06:07 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 23, 2025, 10:50

Welcome back!

To me it often sounds like you believe your account is being "held back intentionally" by Adobe.

But i am probably misunderstanding.

I hope you really enjoy your break and really let go and do something very different for a while.

I often take breaks from agencies and then focus all my energy elsewhere if one place is pissing me off.

That is why I could never be exclusive again.

thank you! hahaha!

yes,it's better to disconnect sometimes.

as Adobe also says,when you end your software subscription: "sometimes you just need to leave".

no,I absolutely never believed that my account was held back intentionally,I simply believe that nothing happens by chance,and there is a logical explanation for everything.

I believe that it is also in Adobe's interest that we succeed in our business/hobby/work,and I am sure that everything possible is done to make this happen,but it is certainly not easy to make this happen!

I will continue to follow microstockgroup in the meantime,but I will check my Adobe Stock dashboard again on January 31st,and then I will decide what to do,whether to extend the strike further or not,I hope I don't have any nasty surprises!

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Author Topic: What's your weekly ranking and how many images? (Read 139086 times)

Jo Ann Snover

MPfoto71

cobalt

cobalt

cobalt

MPfoto71

cobalt

MPfoto71

cobalt

danielvisuals

MPfoto71

Injustice for all

cobalt

mike123

Uncle Pete

Bauman

cobalt

SimonSays

cobalt

SimonSays

mike123

cobalt

SimonSays

cobalt

Injustice for all

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