This is good new if buyers go to sites that pay us more per download.  If sites could be given a Darwin award, I would nominate Photodune

They kept a minuscule amount of images out of my 20k portfolio (while sending me emails of praise about the high quality of my content) and logically, those aren't generating any sales. I waited a month, got zero sales, told them to delete my images, close my account and sod off. What a bunch of imbeciles!
In the praise email they even specified photos they especially liked that were actually NOT selected from my portfolio. Sent them an email "uhm, you know, those pictures you liked so bad were not selected", got a reply with "hang on, my bad..." and that told me everything I needed to know about their new approach to fcking things up.

I guess I am one of those imbeciles you are referring to. Nothing to say except to apologise that the experience wasn't great. There's been a lot of learning through this. We're doing a lot of training with our team of reviewers and in a few instances, they were off the mark in terms of our standards and what photos met those standards.

You're not the only one who was frustrated about sending emails to people with work done to try and find examples that we liked and that we thought weren't quite right, only to have the ones we liked identified for disablement.

Based on a few threads I've seen around here though, it appears that Envato is not alone in trying to figure out how to balance the size of the library with changing customer needs.

We're working hard to create a better experience for photographers. PhotoDune has gone through a massive amount of change in the last few months and we're on the tail end of that now. We've gone through the introduction of ADP (being able to set your own prices for items), removing content that doesn't meet our requirements, introducing a new way to earn with Elements, and soon, a redesign of PhotoDune. That's a lot in under a year and there are bound to be mistakes and crossed lines.

I think there's like 1.2 trillion photos expected in 2017 which creates a need for stock content that stands out amongst what someone can produce with a low-end DSLR or smartphone. The good old days of stock are over. At Envato, we're hoping to create a sustainable earning environment for photographers. We're looking for creators to join our community who understand the industry is changing and are willing to try new ways of earning with higher-end content.

I hope you'll reconsider disabling your account but if that ship has sailed, maybe there are others here willing to try something new, feel free to reach out to me directly.

I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO PHOTODUNE!!!

Quote from: Tabimura on August 02, 2017, 02:53

They kept a minuscule amount of images out of my 20k portfolio (while sending me emails of praise about the high quality of my content) and logically, those aren't generating any sales. I waited a month, got zero sales, told them to delete my images, close my account and sod off. What a bunch of imbeciles!
In the praise email they even specified photos they especially liked that were actually NOT selected from my portfolio. Sent them an email "uhm, you know, those pictures you liked so bad were not selected", got a reply with "hang on, my bad..." and that told me everything I needed to know about their new approach to fcking things up.

I guess I am one of those imbeciles you are referring to. Nothing to say except to apologise that the experience wasn't great. There's been a lot of learning through this. We're doing a lot of training with our team of reviewers and in a few instances, they were off the mark in terms of our standards and what photos met those standards.

You're not the only one who was frustrated about sending emails to people with work done to try and find examples that we liked and that we thought weren't quite right, only to have the ones we liked identified for disablement.

Based on a few threads I've seen around here though, it appears that Envato is not alone in trying to figure out how to balance the size of the library with changing customer needs.

We're working hard to create a better experience for photographers. PhotoDune has gone through a massive amount of change in the last few months and we're on the tail end of that now. We've gone through the introduction of ADP (being able to set your own prices for items), removing content that doesn't meet our requirements, introducing a new way to earn with Elements, and soon, a redesign of PhotoDune. That's a lot in under a year and there are bound to be mistakes and crossed lines.

I think there's like 1.2 trillion photos expected in 2017 which creates a need for stock content that stands out amongst what someone can produce with a low-end DSLR or smartphone. The good old days of stock are over. At Envato, we're hoping to create a sustainable earning environment for photographers. We're looking for creators to join our community who understand the industry is changing and are willing to try new ways of earning with higher-end content.

I hope you'll reconsider disabling your account but if that ship has sailed, maybe there are others here willing to try something new, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Don't be hypocrite!
Let's say things are they really are: your are working hard to find the way to put more money in your pocket (I had another colored expression in mind but due to the forum censure I cannot use it), on the back of photographers

Although to be fair, the more money they make 'on the back of photographers', the more money they have to pay out to those photographers.

Your answers about Envato look more and more like answers of somebody paid by them to do it��

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on August 07, 2017, 05:03

Although to be fair, the more money they make 'on the back of photographers', the more money they have to pay out to those photographers.

I hope you're joking? If not, you must be high and need to share your stuff with the rest of us...

I don't see why thats how every agency works....if you don't like them making money "off the back of photographers" sell direct. Whether or not they take a fair cut is a different question.........

Quote from: Tabimura on August 02, 2017, 02:53

They kept a minuscule amount of images out of my 20k portfolio (while sending me emails of praise about the high quality of my content) and logically, those aren't generating any sales. I waited a month, got zero sales, told them to delete my images, close my account and sod off. What a bunch of imbeciles!
In the praise email they even specified photos they especially liked that were actually NOT selected from my portfolio. Sent them an email "uhm, you know, those pictures you liked so bad were not selected", got a reply with "hang on, my bad..." and that told me everything I needed to know about their new approach to fcking things up.

I guess I am one of those imbeciles you are referring to. Nothing to say except to apologise that the experience wasn't great. There's been a lot of learning through this. We're doing a lot of training with our team of reviewers and in a few instances, they were off the mark in terms of our standards and what photos met those standards.

You're not the only one who was frustrated about sending emails to people with work done to try and find examples that we liked and that we thought weren't quite right, only to have the ones we liked identified for disablement.

Based on a few threads I've seen around here though, it appears that Envato is not alone in trying to figure out how to balance the size of the library with changing customer needs.

We're working hard to create a better experience for photographers. PhotoDune has gone through a massive amount of change in the last few months and we're on the tail end of that now. We've gone through the introduction of ADP (being able to set your own prices for items), removing content that doesn't meet our requirements, introducing a new way to earn with Elements, and soon, a redesign of PhotoDune. That's a lot in under a year and there are bound to be mistakes and crossed lines.

I think there's like 1.2 trillion photos expected in 2017 which creates a need for stock content that stands out amongst what someone can produce with a low-end DSLR or smartphone. The good old days of stock are over. At Envato, we're hoping to create a sustainable earning environment for photographers. We're looking for creators to join our community who understand the industry is changing and are willing to try new ways of earning with higher-end content.

I hope you'll reconsider disabling your account but if that ship has sailed, maybe there are others here willing to try something new, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Yes James, you are one of them... unfortunately. I don't know who's doing the math at Envato right now but things like "we're hoping to create a sustainable earning environment for photographers", "new ways of earning with higher-end content", "new way to earn with Elements" not backed up by anything, at the same time leaving people with irrelevant-sized portfolios is not gonna fly for anyone. Many of us have lots of years of working with stock and are not willing to start rebuilding portfolios from scratch because Envato thinks that good old days of stock are over. Also many of us still get the vast majority of photography-related income selling stock which is not quite dead. Want to sell different, higher priced content? Macrostock or sites like Stocksy, Offset are already doing it. If you need an example of something that REALLY is new and works, take a look at Canva. They are the newest in my book and already in the top 4 earners. Envato? Almost vanished my portfolio, left me with a handful of images and I got an absolute zero, from a regular 70-100$ / month. That's a no-no for me so yea, I had your people remove my account. Good luck with whatever you're doing there.

Quote from: Chichikov on August 07, 2017, 05:41

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on August 07, 2017, 05:03

Although to be fair, the more money they make 'on the back of photographers', the more money they have to pay out to those photographers.

Your answers about Envato look more and more like answers of somebody paid by them to do it��

That would be great... maybe you could put a good word in for me and they'll think about doing so? My comment applies to every stock agency though. Unless the commission rates change, then any initiative by an agency that makes them more money, will mean they'll have to pay out more money to contributors.

If an initiative results in them paying out less money to contributors... then that means that the agency is also earning less money. If it looks like that's not going to change, then they'll change their approach.

That's the contributor base as a whole though... I think we've all been around long enough to know that there's no mystical agency where sales always increase for every contributor, no matter how many new people join, and how many new items are uploaded.

The thing is, I've seen people on Photodune (before 'the great cull') who may have been making reasonable dollar amounts every month, and they may have had top seller badges and the like... but with tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of images, they were making like 10 cents per image per year. Yes, Photodune are far from one of the big boys, so you wouldn't expect them to be making masses of money per image, but by the time you've included storage costs, reviewers and general marketing and maintenance of the site... 10 cents a year is hardly worth it.

So something had to be done. People always say that something has to be done, but when it comes to their perfect portfolio of immense brilliance... then they don't want anything to be done. But if somebody can suggest a something that Photodune, or any other stock agency, can do to make more money for the agency and more money for every individual contributor then I'm sure they'd all like to hear it.   

Not in all cases.  Istock sells video for the basic same price and only pays out junk. Their 4K? even worse.  Base customer rate is very much the same, but royalties much lower.  They keep a higher share of what the customer pays.  123 stole the IS model of pay based on sales volume so they could pay less royalties because its based on a merit system of sales and keep more for themselves. That cut a lot of people's pay while 123 gained.  The inventor of this was Istock who also introduced this pay incentive for more downloads, effectively giving them more of the pie.  And there is DP whose API's were selling our work for big bucks and giving us sub commissions.  That was not a cut for them only the contributor. It's infectious for agencies to try and find ways to cut COGS to enhance revenue and margins.  So your hypothesis is not totally correct.

envato wanted to keep my whole portfolio of 5000 photos - and asked me to sign up to elements - and on elements downloud is unlimited  for 40 $ subscription - which is insane!!! - I didn t sing up to elements - and they deleted my portfolio

You didn't fancy giving it a try for a few months, see how much money it could generate?

Just to give a real-life example (which, I'll admit, may not be indicative of the norm), I subscribed this month, and have downloaded 16 items. Although I can't say for certain, at this point I can't see myself needing anything else from Elements this month. As a result, each author will get an average of 90 cents for each item I have downloaded. While not exactly something to write home about, that is a lot more than 25 cents per download.

This is true and should also be said that all authors receive an equal share of the subscription from customers who haven't downloaded anything that month in the form of a contributor bonus

Quote from: joshsprague on August 08, 2017, 18:02

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on August 08, 2017, 10:09

You didn't fancy giving it a try for a few months, see how much money it could generate?

Just to give a real-life example (which, I'll admit, may not be indicative of the norm), I subscribed this month, and have downloaded 16 items. Although I can't say for certain, at this point I can't see myself needing anything else from Elements this month. As a result, each author will get an average of 90 cents for each item I have downloaded. While not exactly something to write home about, that is a lot more than 25 cents per download.

This is true and should also be said that all authors receive an equal share of the subscription from customers who haven't downloaded anything that month in the form of a contributor bonus

consequence that right after a positive comment Envato jumps in? Somehow I feel like we are getting baited...

If this were the case I would have a top poster badge by now! No bait from me, if we invited an author we want them and think we offer something different but good and the potential for an additional earning stream and want to make sure they are aware of important info where applicable.  Anyway, I don't think you have a lot to lose with a trial of Elements but I understand it's not for everyone.

All my images on photodune were deleted except for around 400 (which are moslty from first batch (and they are not really good, they are 10 years old) and a few last batches). And these 400 are definitely not the best sellers. So it looks like they have just deleted 89% or portfolio without choosing which images to delete and which ones to retain.

Also I saw in my earnings that (surprise, surprise) Austrailian tax cut is 30%.

So I have to upload my portfolio again to elements, spend time, attach releases. And with my 10+ years experience in microstock (and macrostock) industry I have serious doubts that these efforts will be repaid.

All my images on photodune were deleted except for around 400 (which are moslty from first batch (and they are not really good, they are 10 years old) and a few last batches). And these 400 are definitely not the best sellers. So it looks like they have just deleted 89% or portfolio without choosing which images to delete and which ones to retain.

Also I saw in my earnings that (surprise, surprise) Austrailian tax cut is 30%.

So I have to upload my portfolio again to elements, spend time, attach releases. And with my 10+ years experience in microstock (and macrostock) industry I have serious doubts that these efforts will be repaid.

I am sorry you have had a less than stellar experience with us so far. The 400 retained images really should have aligned with our new quality guidelines here: https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/217906203-Commercial-Demand-Guide

As for your efforts moving forward, an Elements author only needs to upload to PhotoDune once and your items will be automatically be ported to Elements.