for photos it was very low, like 10ish percent.

after 2 excellent months i knew a "correction" was coming and this month was less than half of the last two.  a few decent image sales but no huge ones.  still a better month than where the year started.  all this despite more images and video sold.

Quote from: cascoly on August 08, 2024, 20:01

Quote from: odesigns on August 08, 2024, 00:30

Quote from: Pacesetter on August 07, 2024, 23:56
August 1 - 6, 2023: $289.34
August 1 - 6, 2024: $21.77

My August, 2024 is bad, but my August, 2023 was horrible.

August 1 - 6, 2023: $22.42
August 1 - 6, 2024: $177.84

Starting August 8, 2023, the month picked up tremendously, so I am still holding out hope for this August.

again, given the wide variability month to month,  single month comparisons aren't as useful as 3 or 4 month running averages

this is comparing a single week of a single month

Quote from: stocker2011 on August 07, 2024, 22:16
Does anyone know how stock agency search engines rank content?

Last year I took a brief vacation from the world of stock and tried uploading to YouTube which was interesting but didn't work out.

However, it did get me wondering about how stock agency search engines rank new uploads and if they work in a similar way to how the YouTube algorithm monitors 'signals'.

I know the YouTube algorithm is a complex beast that uses many factors to determine if your content is good, and then apply that data to decide whether or not rank or promote your content higher within the search results. But do stock agencies use a similar approach to ranking content every time a customer uses a specific search term?

are you willing to share your youtube experience?  i've been dabbling for a little while and after a few years got my channel monitized a few days ago (not photo related channel). 

Quote from: zeljkok on August 07, 2024, 02:47

Quote from: yuriy on August 07, 2024, 02:00


you may be right but that would be a ridiculous position from my perspective.  i know ai images are having a moment and probably will always have a use for certain type of images but i don't expect photography to go anywhere.  a few years ago silly obviously staged smiling face images were the norm but once that market got saturated every agency started begging for "authentic" images of "real" people.  there wasn't enough diversity now every agency brief asks for diversity.  i truly believe ai will never fulfill every need or even most needs of most buyers. time will tell i guess.

I totally agree with you.  I dislike AI, not just in photography, but as overall direction everything is taking.  But question is what business guys that define strategy think.  It would not be surprising to learn Firefly is heavy bet & Adobe is trying to establish overall market dominance.

that's true but even so they'll still need more photos to improve firefly.  i know they have like a billion images already and i'm sure it's pretty stellar at clouds and flowers the way it is but they will need more to stay current.  my guess is the stock business is worth a little something besides just data for ai models so hopefully the review process will return to some for of respectability. 

as things stand nothing commercial has been reviewed since may 20th and it's been this way for about a month.  on the bright side if you have a decent sized portfolio your older photos are selling better because the competition can't get any new images in to compete.  i've been doing a lot of work lately, i'm going to try to get my "in review" section to be larger than my entire portfolio, wish me luck.

Quote from: zeljkok on August 07, 2024, 01:51

Quote from: DanielVisuals on August 06, 2024, 20:52

Quote from: zeljkok on August 06, 2024, 20:48
No, but this is discussion forum and it is good to see perceptions people have and exchange information.   Adobe Review Time for RF images is very peculiar with total lack of information why this is happening.

Well put!

May I ask what does RF images stand for?

Royalty Free.    Non-editorial and non-AI generated

I have strong feeling Adobe doesn't want regular photos anymore, unless they are editorial.  So they like out of pool of 10 reviewers, allocated 5 to AI, 4 to editorial and 1 to RF.  All for purpose of Firefly promotion, as company belief is that "art photographers" are thing of the past, soon to be extinct.  If true, it is quite sad.    Canon, Nikon etc reaction would be quite interesting.

you may be right but that would be a ridiculous position from my perspective.  i know ai images are having a moment and probably will always have a use for certain type of images but i don't expect photography to go anywhere.  a few years ago silly obviously staged smiling face images were the norm but once that market got saturated every agency started begging for "authentic" images of "real" people.  there wasn't enough diversity now every agency brief asks for diversity.  i truly believe ai will never fulfill every need or even most needs of most buyers. time will tell i guess.

just get started on your holiday content for 2026

this month was very exciting.  for most of the last year AS was about 5-7x the sales of SS.  SS has slowly improved the last few months for me to the point where it has been competitive with AS.  istock has been right up there as well but because the numbers come out 3 weeks later i can't speak to how they did in july.  SS got off to a great start and was ahead for a long time with larger sales volume and a few higher sales in the first week.  one strong week from AS though put them right behind SS going towards the last week.  it was a difference of a few dollars up until the final days of the month but a couple small video sales pushed AS over the finish line to take first place.  i much prefer it this way over AS being the only show in town and the other agencies earning pennies.  had a best month on alamy and DT  but those numbers are so small i don't see myself ever getting a payout.  absolutely nothing from p5 despite uploading a lot of stuff in the last 2 months, seems like a waste of time so i'm pausing uploads there.

Quote from: Jim Cumming on July 30, 2024, 23:10
Hello Mat
I have about a dozen or so still sitting in the review queue with one waiting 5 months File ID: 743934467
The others say 2 months but that was 2 months ago..
Could you please look into this

Thanks
Jim

this is hilarious.  the image id i shared was a photo of a wood duck.  the same one as your upper image.  i think adobe's reviewers have some kind of avian phobia.

Quote from: MatHayward on July 29, 2024, 23:04

Quote from: yuriy on July 29, 2024, 22:41
hey Mat, thanks for responding.  i keyworded and submitted these files 4.5 months ago.  i will get you some file new numbers when the pagination glitch is fixed since I'm unable to navigate to the end of my lengthy review queue.  i did send an email back in march regarding a few of these though and this is one that is still waiting:  File ID: 743968048

Thanks for the file number. You are right, that is an image that appears to be stuck in the queue. You hold the record for the longest wait that I've seen. I'm sorry about that. I've forwarded it to our moderation team and asked them to take a look.

-Mat Hayward

appreciate it.  i figured it was some sort of anomaly.  i have exactly 12 images stuck like this (and they are actually 6 versions each from 2 different shoots).  i hope there's some work behind the scenes to speed up the rest of the images that are 2 months in queue as things stand.

hey Mat, thanks for responding.  i keyworded and submitted these files 4.5 months ago.  i will get you some file new numbers when the pagination glitch is fixed since I'm unable to navigate to the end of my lengthy review queue.  i did send an email back in march regarding a few of these though and this is one that is still waiting:  File ID: 743968048

i guess development of the soon-to-be-released "reviews will take up to 6 months" banner broke the scroll functionality.

Quote from: RalfLiebhold on July 25, 2024, 21:39
Since 2015, artists have been uploading their work to Adobe with great commitment and expertise and have contributed to Adobe Stock becoming one of the largest agencies.

Many make a living from it or at least depend on the income.

Now we have AI. Any fool with a computer can now upload their work.

It's certainly not wrong to jump on this bandwagon from the adobe perspective.

Personally, I find the current review times completely unacceptable and disrespectful to those who made Adobe Stock great in the past.
Communication in this regard also seems to have fallen completely asleep.

I can't see anything positive about this development.

I would have expected at least equal treatment here, which is obviously not the case.

Adobe is really kicking its loyal and former useful contributors in the ass here.

i'm convinced they will rectify the situation right away... by updating the banner to "reviews will take up to 16 weeks"

quite a lot.  it was going well until 2 months ago when they stopped reviewing commercial images.  i also have 12 images like the screenshot that are 4 and 5 months in the black hole.

can't possibly be much longer

i had another strong month, more or less the same as last month which is much higher than average

i'm starting to think the only way to increase your portfolio size is to build a time machine and travel back to the brief period between february and april when images were actually being reviewed.  i'm waiting for the 'good news' that human generated content is no longer needed at adobe.

Quote from: Pacesetter on July 11, 2024, 01:39
...

you need to specify christmas of which year

the most recently reviewed commercial photo of mine was uploaded almost 2 months ago.  the last 7+ weeks are all sitting there aging like a fine wine.  video and editorial gets reviewed quickly though so i guess that's what i'll focus on.  sales are slumping heavily as well, sigh.

Quote from: Mimi the Cat on July 01, 2024, 16:19

Quote from: Pacesetter on June 01, 2024, 11:37
Second best overall month in stock photography and videography | BME on Adobe Stock | BME on iStock | Reasonably good month on Pond 5 | Mediocre month on Shutterstock

Shutterstock was the lowest of the four agencies for May 2024 though still running in 2nd place YTD earnings.

Three Charts

1) YTD earnings Jan to May - Comparison of each year from 2020 to 2024
2) YTD earnings Jan to May - Comparison by agency for 2024   
3) Earnings for the month of May - Comparison of each year from 2020 to 2024

I'm not being picky but without a Y axis the graph is meaningless.

As it says $ I presumed you made $6 this year

you can easily estimate the y axis.  OP said the total was about 1000.  just do basic algebra to figure it out from the last one with all 4 agencies in the same month.  i'm going to assume the graph is linear and starts at 0 (otherwise ignore what i just said).

Quote from: RalfLiebhold on June 28, 2024, 19:10
A nice surprise this morning at Shutterstock. My highest image sale ever.
It's an editorial photo from the 50s with 2 American celebrities.

congrats, i can tell you've been at this a long time

Quote from: milo22 on June 27, 2024, 16:12

Quote from: Dumc on June 27, 2024, 05:08

Quote from: lowbouncerate on June 27, 2024, 01:48
Hi,
can you guys tell me it free collection was for Photos or Videos?

Check out the name of the topic, dude...

legitim question. illustration and png files were also included with me.
i assume that there won't be another round. except for videos

when did the video ones happen last year?  was it in the fall?

i also got the email saying 12 assets accepted (that is a touch above 10%).  more than last year but now by a whole lot, sigh

Quote from: rushay on June 26, 2024, 13:22
All the images that show were previously chosen ones, none of the new nominated ones show so i wonder if this is the final chosen ones.

Quote from: cobalt on June 26, 2024, 12:18
Looks like 9 files out of 47 were chosen. I am sure the money will come soon.

i'm seeing this too.  i nominated over 100 images but the only one shown now is the single one from last year.  probably all the updates haven't happened yet and more than 1 was selected.

such a straight line this month