Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 09, 2017, 18:10

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 09, 2017, 17:09

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

Anything specific that makes you think they're garbage? Aside from the recent PhotoDune thing of course, as I'm assuming you felt that way before that.

1. Their "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process.

2. They are intentionally misleading potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library.

We all know iStock is a terrible company. We should know by now that Envato isn't much better, by their behavior and lack of ethics. Contributing to them as an individual isn't going to end the world, of course, much like throwing your fast food trash out the car window into a pristine forest isn't going to either. But both show a lack of respect for the greater good, your fellow humans, and should be discouraged.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people make a few bucks there. So do people that rob old ladies on the street. Doesn't make a * difference in determining if these companies are good or bad for the industry as a whole.

Encourage and promote the good companies, and let the bad ones fail. This is our only power.

1. They've been around for ten years and it's not like there's been a massive rush at SS or iS to drop HD files to $8. The market is big enough for multiple sites to exist at multiple price points. 

2. The list price is the price that the item is sold for. The item price is the list price, minus the buyer's fee. It's not the clearest structure, but it's not exactly hidden either. The fact the pie chart shows $36 from a $100 sale demonstrates that. 'Confusing' would probably be more accurate than 'misleading', but all the information is there.

3. Maybe a valid point, but maybe a fresh start is what they needed. Their experiment with Unstock showed that a different approach could result in a massive increase in revenue per image, both for Envato and for the authors.

$11.22 based on total average revenue (in the last six months), across all sites (but just for my non-exclusive stuff - no After Effects or anything like that), divided by the total number of clips currently in my portfolio, on the site where I have the most clips (140 on Pond5, some I;ve only got about 100 on... couldn't be bothered to carry on uploading there).

So it might be a bit higher than $11.22 when I take into account that I had less then 140 clips for a good chunk of that), but that's about right. Let's round it up to $12! 

 

Wait, I think I might have done the math wrong! I think it might be $11 to $13 per clip, per month. I'll crunch the numbers and get back to you!

The relationship is multifactorial and depends on four main factors:

• Images quality
• Number of images
• Keywords quality
• Demand on the themes of the images

What any one individual earns, does depend on those factors, but I think the guy just wants to know what the average is per image, across all levels of quality, number of images, keyword quality and demand for the images.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 19, 2017, 10:33

Ahoy there! Maximum average of $5 per month, per clip, per site. That's on places like Videoblocks though. Total combined across all agencies... about $14 to $17.

I have two lots of stuff though... non-exclusive, which covers the stuff listed above, and exclusive which is a bit different. It includes a lot of stuff I made recently which makes a lot more than $15 a month (AE Templates and the like) and a lot of older stuff that wasn't very good... which makes a lot less than $15 a month.

$14 to 17 sounds really amazing! What do you do mainly in terms of your (not computer) time, 3D footage or AE templates?

Well the AE templates make me a decent amount, from $10 a month, to $350 a month, so I try and do a few of them whenever I have time. They're a specific niche though, maps, so I've kind of done all the profitable ones already. I.e. The World and USA sell best, Tajikistan not so much!

https://videohive.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=map+kit (Mine are the ones that have the AE timeline showing in the preview image - mainly the blue and white ones, or the green world one, or the US flag one for the States etc)

The $14 to $17 ones on my non-exclusive account are all motion graphics though. Made in C4D and After Effects mostly. The best one gets me about $100 profit a month ($43 on VH and the rest elsewhere).... the worst, about $0 a month!

I try and work smart, so I might spend a decent amount of time creating some kind of 'Earth Reveal' clip, and then it's a pretty simple procedure to swap out the textures and render a Mars reveal, Jupiter Reveal etc etc. Experience has taught me that Earth sells pretty well, Mars sells pretty well, everything else doesn't sell very well! But if I've already set up the Earth and Mars versions then I may as well do the rest while I'm there.

One of the things I like about VideoHive is that you can upload a bunch of clips in one pack. So you can make a kind of compositing kit with different layers and background options. It pretty much doubles the sale price and also gives more options/value to buyers.

As for what to make, that's always a tough one. I was thinking about starfields the other day. When you're compositing a starfield, you're usually always using static star images, or static images you've created using CC Star Burst or Particular... and when you look at the night sky, the stars are always twinkling due to the dispersion of the light within the atmosphere. So I thought I'd try and replicate that. Just trying to think of things that might come in handy when people are compositing elements together.

Didn't think there was a massive need for such a thing, and didn't expect it to be a big seller, it's far from impressive.... but it's currently my most profitable clip when it comes to one single agency ($50 profit a month). It's new though, so sales might fade a bit.   

https://videohive.net/item/twinkling-stars/19281234

 

Ahoy there! Maximum average of $5 per month, per clip, per site. That's on places like Videoblocks though. Total combined across all agencies... about $14 to $17.

I have two lots of stuff though... non-exclusive, which covers the stuff listed above, and exclusive which is a bit different. It includes a lot of stuff I made recently which makes a lot more than $15 a month (AE Templates and the like) and a lot of older stuff that wasn't very good... which makes a lot less than $15 a month.

I also want to start doing videos. I don't know much at all but my camera is capable of 4K, should I start with 4K?

If it's a decent camera then 4K is the way to go. Maybe upload a 1080p version as well, to sites that don't have the option to buy smaller versions, to maximise sales. Some 4K cameras have small sensors, not the best lenses and a low bitrate, so might not look that good... although you can give it a try and always render to 1080p after you've edited, if it's not looking very good. 4K downscaled to 1080p should look pretty crisp.   

I guess the reason they'd want the RAW file is the same reason why you shot it in RAW in the first place. Unless there was some reason for me to suspect they had nefarious intentions, then I wouldn't see any problem with selling them the file. I've sold After Effects files before when people have needed them, making sure I have their name, address etc... and I've made it explicitly clear that doesn't give them the right to sell anything they make using the template. 

I obviously charge them a reasonable fee for the privilege, and the value they're getting for the file, but not so much as to put them off. $5000 would be nice, but if I'd create them a custom shot for around $500 or less, then ten times more for a non-custom shot is probably a bit excessive.   

Quote from: spike on February 15, 2017, 16:33

Try importing images (16 bit tiff) for a 30 second 25fps hyperlapse clip --> 750 images. Now stabilize position, rotation, add warp stabilizer once, twice, deflicker footage, add pixel motion blur. If you can get it to render below 15 minutes, you're a magician. It's more like 1h15min. And that's just the render time. 1080p is more than 4x faster in these circumstances.

Oh yes. On some hyperlapses I can spend two full days. It's extremely time consuming (especially if you were a bit lazy when taking the pictures)...

But here's a tip: Skip the tiff images step and work with RAW in After Effects. Saves time and space.

All valid points!

OK, so if there is no tax treaty, then the money cannot be claimed back? Not a single agency is clear about this. Canva is the first one to mention claiming back funds.

I guess they don't want to leave themselves liable to any possible issues if giving out tax advice. I'd be surprised if your country's tax authority would take into account taxes paid to a country that they don't have a tax agreement with... but you never know.

Do you live in Taipei? I just had a quick Google search, and I could be wrong (so don't get your hopes up!), but worth looking into... from the info below, it seems like Taiwan doesn't have a double taxation treaty, but Taipei might. Bit weird, but hey ho:

ttp://www.treasury.gov.au/Policy-Topics/Taxation/Tax-Treaties/HTML/Income-Tax-Treaties

Ah right, just assumed it was US withholding. Sorry!

It wasn't really clear what you were saying, but now you've edited it to indicate you had a photo rejected due to grain... it makes more sense!

It just sounded like you were making a general observation that wood and photos aren't the same thing... which kind of goes without saying!

It's sad that wood grain is not the same thing as grain noise?