I haven't seen anything like this. On Adobe Stock (contributor interface) I just went to look at Manage My Adobe ID (top right drop down) to see what privacy settings were there. There are some for how they may contact me - mail, phone email - and what newsletters/Adobe Create I want.

If there were some type of privacy settings, that is where I'd expect to see them. Perhaps this is rolling out over time and just hasn't reached all of us yet?

Did you get any email about this head of seeing the options? An explanation of what was changing would be nice.

In general I expect to opt out of sharing any information with anyone - in the US there are no privacy laws to speak of; you can't get back anything you've shared but no longer want to; and anyone who wants information is going to be selling to someone or using it to sell me something (which is already a massive nuisance, so why make it worse). This isn't just regarding Adobe, but anyone who wants to gather and keep information.

...yes, it is very logical to me, but this is a theory, unless, somebody did analysis of this algorithm in a real situation, basically a test, an experiment with real numbers, not assumptions... I would assume somebody did it already here or elsewhere and can share the knowledge...

Mat Hayward - Adobe's contributor rep - relayed information from one of Adobe's product managers about how it worked. It's possible that it has since changed or the information was wrong in the first place, but not sure how you could possibly do a valid test live, given the need for the same file with the same sales record and upload dates with two different keyword orders to check differences in search rank. Given that, why not go with what Adobe says about how they made it work?

http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/new-adobe-stock-portal-feature!/msg502623/#msg502623

http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stockfotolia-keyword-ranking/msg492118/#msg492118

Ordering keywords for newly uploaded files isn't hard. For older files, I would only make changes for your known (from other sites) best sellers to save time.

Photos only.

To some extent this will depend on portfolio content - contributors with content not much in demand in the US market, such as homes or food that wouldn't appear here, will see different results from those with a more world-wide appeal or more US-focused subjects or styles. Hyper-local content can be great, but it will dictate sales patters, I would expect.

I've been surprised to see house-related stuff in my portfolio show up in SS's world maps all over the globe, not just in the US. With SS, my non-US sales have typically been 50% or higher (I think 61% non-US was the highest)

This month so far, Adobe Stock has been beating the pants of SS, but AS is now almost all US (average non US for 2018 is 10.68%; this month so far it's 3.05%) where SS has held to its 50/50 split. When Fotolia was new-ish, it was almost all non US (2007 it averaged 87% from outside the US).

First, you need a plan to market your site to buyers before you start thinking about trying to attract contributors.

Second, you need to find someone who can translate your site into good English - right now it's really not adequate.

Third, you need to think like an international site if you want to sell world wide. You have a business team photo titled "Foreign businessman" and it's a team of caucasian men and women. They may be foreign in Japan, but they are not foreign everywhere.

Fourth, you need a decent search. I did a search on your site and on Shutterstock for palm trees - your first page was full of hands (palms), nuts, daisies in an egg and so on. Shutterstock had a page of palm trees. I understand why your search behaved as it did, but it's not useful

Fifth, get rid of the free small sizes if you want to attract serious contributors

Sixth, answer the question about why anyone would buy from you versus Shutterstock or Adobe Stock.

I looked at the description of royalties and if I understand it, I would get 3 yen per download. Google tells me that's 27 cents. No deal.

There is no way I would upload under these conditions. You're sincere but really misguided, in my opinion.

...My keywords are all using adobe automatic keywords, I did not fill in myself, but the title is my own to fill out

Just because you did not fill them out yourself does not mean you are not allowed to (a) modify their suggestions or (b) enter your own.

You asked why your images aren't selling. If you care about sales, keyword images yourself and store those in the metadata of your image files. If your English isn't good then you'll have to hire a keywording service or take your chances with Google translate.

On the issue of the quality of automated keyword suggestions: If those keywords came from Adobe's keywording hints then they need to improve the software - even considering the rather unusual subject, having horse three times should be a firing offense. Not to mention offering multiple different animal keywords when there's only one animal in the picture.

How do you edit or add more keywords once accepted ?

From the contributor dashboard, find the image to be edited (that's the hard part!). Click on the thumb and then the pencil next to the keywords. Make the changes you need and then save.

The app keeps crashing, anyone else seeing this?

Yes. Was working fine yesterday. Last App update was Nov 2nd so I assume they've busted something on the server end versus a bug in the app itself.

There is no law on this in the US (and each country is different); it's just risk avoidance on the part of the agencies that sets their policies. They don't want to be sued - even if you win, that eats up profits. The agencies have no interest in establishing clear legal boundaries, just in staying far enough inside they avoid lawsuits.

As a photographer, you probably want to be risk averse too - royalties are small and lawyers are expensive.

So, you follow agency rules even when you don't agree with them or think they're being nervous nellies. At one time (years back) Dreamstime rejected images you provided a model release for if they didn't think one was needed - only part of a face, or hand and arm was showing! As you were penalized for rejections back then, it was a truly silly policy, but they'd just introduced searching by model release and they thought this would mess their search up.

Context, clothes, hairstyles, hardware (like a cane or wheelchair), and such can make someone identifiable without seeing a face.

You'll find lots of variations in the agency on property releases and when they're needed. Similar story.

If you have releases or can get them, supply them. If you can't and you love the image, perhaps try editorial licenses vs. commercial.

Quote from: derek on November 08, 2018, 02:34

No Fotolia!!!!  I cant get in there at all now??  whats happening??

Fotolia is still up and running. You will have access until Nov 5, 2019. The features will be limited after February 5 but you will still be able to log in.

There should be a link to continue to Fotolia after you see the prompt to go to Adobe Stock instead.

-Mat

It's there, but even when you have a direct link to the contributor page in a bookmark (https://us.fotolia.com/Contributor) and are already logged in, you frequently get the page directing you to Adobe Stock.

You don't want to click the link to log in to Fotolia because it will do just that, try to log you in anew even though you're already logged in (and that means you have to log in twice because of the capture problem where it tells you to accept the hidden capture that has no check box to accept it)

If you just go to your contributor link a second time, you'll get to the contributor page.

This is all clearly buggy, but I doubt it'll be fixed given the site's on a path to the exit. As long as the workaround (load the page twice) says functional, it's manageable.

The reality is that for stats, contributors will go to Fotolia until there's something useful on Adobe Stock or Fotolia stats are shut down completely.

I am not sure I see what is wrong with this agency. SS pays me 38 cents a sell. This company pays 35 cents a sale. I highly doubt they will sell the numbers of SS but the pay per image is nearly the same. ...

The amount of money you receive is a lousy way to compare two business transactions to see which one is better - it omits a bunch of factors that may make a huge difference to you over time. A money difference.

First, you need to be sure the same rights are being sold for the two compared amounts - more rights should result in higher income for you.

Second, you need to look at the overall deal for the buyer in both cases. If a buyer pays $5 in one case and $499 in the other and you get 38 cents for each, you got a much worse deal in the second example. It's highly likely (and it was this way before microstock) that in a business that charges buyers $499 to license an image that you'll see overall lower numbers of images licensed. The market will be smaller at those high prices.

Third, what volume commitment, if any, comes with a particular price. If two buyers pay $1 to license an image at different agencies, it matters - to contributors - whether their $1 price came with no commitments at all or only as part of a volume deal. If the buyer can just buy a single image for $1 (and you get 38 cents), you're much worse off than if that price only occurs if they commit to buy a true monthly subscription (i.e. a use-it-or-lose-it deal) of 250 images. While it may be someone else's images that get licensed this month, over many months, the fact that the buyer only gets a deal if they're a volume purchaser benefits the contributor community (excluding the spammy, schlocky, repetitive portfolios, but that's OK as they deserve to be ignored).

Fourth, how many different entities are getting a share of the buyer's money - just you and the agency, or you, a distributor or partner, plus the agency. In an era of low price deals, adding in more entities to those taking a share makes it hard for the business to succeed (and if an agency fails, all your work uploading their is wasted even if you get paid before they go belly up). IMO distributor arrangements are almost always lousy deals for the contributor, especially from any smaller/newer agencies

Understanding who benefits and who is shortchanged by the various agency arrangements is important if you plan to build a portfolio and continue to sell it for a few years. Top tip: if an agency email says they have "exciting news", you're about to get hosed

...Once we�ve got the product up and running and have a strong customer base we�ll be launching our contributors� images for licence....

So the product will initially not have contributors' images available? Just Getty's 37 million+ images?

Anything about how and when the conversion to USD from local currency will happen? I'm sure you recall several agencies playing games with currency conversion rates and timing...

Think TAP Learn is flogging courses at $9.99 a month, although it doesn't appear there's much there. You have create an account to watch the free courses and I'm not interested enough to do that.

The author of the stock course is Rich Harrington and his LinkedIn page says he's the CEO of Think TAP Learn (it also says he's VP of Education for Skylum)

His Facebook page is stuffed with links to all sorts of how-to videos

https://www.facebook.com/RichHarringtonStuff/

What I was looking for was a link to his stock portfolio - assuming he'd actually done this himself vs. just taken it as a topic for another how-to video.

I didn't find a link anywhere, but if someone does, post it here.