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Messages - cascoly
Pages: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7 [8] 9 10 11 12 13 ... 170
176
« on: June 21, 2024, 16:25 »
I have been in this industry for a looooong time, I still earn thousands a month on my stock "mostly video" As I see people getting hammered on photos and I have the same concerns I was wondering if we all went to P5 which is not perfect and priced our largest size at $10 and just uploaded there then hey we would at least see a decent return on our images. Oh I am aware of the getting sales and traffic problem but I think it could be done!
first, we'd be just as small % of folk charging 10%, but bigger factor is pond's poor performance and there's not much we can do to influence their sales & traffic -- these are not just a 'problem' they are a massive wall that prevents us from reaching the marketplace on our own we don't have the resources to compete in google searches. google ads never were useful, but my ads on ebay (for non-photo items) have a return of $40-50 for each dollar spent. mostly that's because i dont take ebay's 'advice' on what to spend per click and - ebay has about about 10K listings for my categories, so it's easier to pay to rise to the top. we can't afford to that whe there are millions of images avaialble o google
177
« on: June 21, 2024, 16:12 »
I have over 4k images on sale (3D + AI + some videos)
Adobe used to make $250 a week at ~2k images, I'm down to $40 a week now, with 4k+ images
I have to feed the beast daily because I'm sure that last upload date is part of the search algorithm, but even that doesn't help anymore...
It's not just adobe, sales down x5 on all sites I contribute to, this is a horrible waste of time
where was the scam - did you not read the ToS before submitting? did you not do your research on this forum & others to see if this was a good fit? it really matters what your portfolio contains - i continue to get decent sales from 10+ years ago. my portfolio is weighted towards non-time sensitive images -- medieval castles & ancient ruins don't change much over time, nor do traditional markets, nature, etc. i also sell many editorial images on sites that accept them - my drop in sales over the last 5 years, compared to 2018 sales - 2023 -2.78%
2022 -24.90%
2021 -3.82%
2020 -4.50%
2019 -11.80%
of course a 3% / yr average increase in inflation over that time period makes those numbers worse, since earning would have increased by about 20% by 2023 to maintain pace w inflation - but still a drop but not a disaster i've always seen microstock as a supplement to my other retirement income, so my situation isn't comparable to those needing more income for time invested
178
« on: June 21, 2024, 15:56 »
we've seen this coming for years now, but my drop in sales has been minimal to modest these are my losses compared to 2018 total - 2023 -2.78%
2022 -24.90% while non-photo eBay & Amazon sales doubled under covid
2021 -3.82%
2020 -4.50%
2019 -11.80%
SS continues to be my best source - consistently about 2 x AS, with canva and SS contending for 2nd place much of the reason i've been able to minimize losses is i've opted in to every option for income for training, AS $5 to list as free, etc.. how many of those complaining about drop in sales have declined this low hanging fruit? FAA, alamy and pond have low sales, but larger ones when they do occur i've branched out to selling galleries (20+ images for a single price) on my blogsite (with links from my content) and started an etsy store a month ago so still filling the shelves there
179
« on: June 20, 2024, 14:07 »
There can only be one copyright owner of a photo. Multiple people can't resell if they are not copyright owners.
wrong - no problem as long as the creator/copyright holder gives a license for re-selling withount needing to hold the copyright. and if they keep the copyright, they can sell to as many people as they like whether this is good business model is a completely separate issue
180
« on: June 20, 2024, 14:01 »
i get only $5-10/mo from canva, but their monthly bonus/creator plan usually outperforms AS and all others except SS
would be nice if they started accepting new content again instead of immediate rejections, but they dont bother to respond eighter here or thru customer 'support'
181
« on: June 09, 2024, 11:13 »
saw on youtube as comment lol:
"
"We only train AI on licenced content."
Fine print:
"By using our service you give us a license btw."
"
and what's wrong with that? it's boilerplate ToS (always fine print). if you don't agree they won't se it - isn't that solving the complaints that AI training doesn't ask their permission? - some go much further, such as many contests which state when you submit you are giving them license to use your image in any way they wish.
182
« on: June 08, 2024, 12:56 »
Sounds like a few of the folks have watched one too many X-files episodes 
except they only watched the first 15' and forgot that many X-files applied science to show the alleged supernatural events were explained by science
183
« on: June 07, 2024, 13:59 »
In this article ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/06/change-to-adobe-terms-amp-conditions/
it states ...
A change to Adobe terms & conditions for apps like Photoshop has outraged many professional users, concerned that the company is claiming the right to access their content, use it freely, and even sub-licence it to others.
To Repeat: Adobe is claiming the right to access users' content, use it freely, and even sub-licence it to others....
it's nowhere near as dire as you imply-- it might help if you read his followup post! https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/07/adobe-terms-clarified/he writes They go on to specify that this review is for CSAM, as well as app usage which breaks the companys terms of use such as for spamming, or hosting adult content outside of the area designated for this.it appears to apply to content you supply to adobe - FROM ADOBE: Adobe does not train Firefly Gen AI models on customer content. Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired. Read more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/faq.html#training-data
Adobe will never assume ownership of a customers work. Adobe hosts content to enable customers to use our applications and services. Customers own their content and Adobe does not assume any ownership of customer work.
184
« on: June 06, 2024, 13:10 »
my SS portfolio is heavily weighted towards editorial esp'ly since SS requires editorial submission when there's just a few people in the deep background (AS often accepts these where people are incidental to the image subject)
when traveling I often shoot tourist activities - guides talking to their group, cafes, street scenes, etc and emphasizing my fascination exploring markets with many shots of interactions, esp'ly the anachronistic sight of people for gods with brightly colored paper (most recently the most incredible seafood market I've ever seen in Cadiz and a huge 2 storied stadium-like market in Uzbekistan and was dominated by stalls selling horse - one ribs would be a complete meal )
i haven't done the detailed analysis Steven did, but just judging from a back-of-the-envelope view of recent at sales , my editorial sales are in the 30-40% range on SS, and may reflect the continued dominance by a factor of 2-3 for SS vs AS. my SS portfolio is much larger than AS but that's mostly due to AS not accepting editorial.
185
« on: June 06, 2024, 12:58 »
... in addition to companies like "ipsos mori" polls (which is latin for "they die") pushing the convid scam ....
Your Google translation is wrong.
Ipsos is either a nomen or the plural pronoun of ipse. This would then mean themselves and not they. Depending on the context, mori has the meaning: dying, blackberry, law, regulation, etc.
Latin cannot be translated, but must be analysed in context.
But it doesn't matter. There is also a comprehensible explanation for the naming:
Our name - Ipsos MORI - was formed in 2005 by the merger of Ipsos, founded in France in 1975 with its named derived from the Latin phrase ipso facto and Market and Opinion Research International (MORI), founded in the UK in 1969. This merger created our name: Ipsos MORI, it explained.
Incidentally, I would also be careful with the MSG Forum. MSG = mori sadistici grex
.....
As a different example of the mocking (making fun of, part of their 'rituals' - basically 'they' (the people who organized what was going on) - feel they "have" to let people know what is going on, but generally like to do it slightly 'coded' because they think they are smarter than everyone else, and subsequently like to make fun of them (aka 'mocking' them) because they figure they are too 'dumb' to understand. As another example - the major 'variants' (which btw are ALL bogus) - were promoted heavily -.. [more of this blather redacted ]
why is your response in every thread here that you disagree with do you regurgitate your silly anti-covid nonsense?
186
« on: May 31, 2024, 14:20 »
I totally agree, this is a scam
So, I made it to $100 and cashed out for good. Now I want to close my account, but Dreamstime won't close account unless you delete your photos/videos one by one by yourself. They know exactly what they're doing. They want to keep whatever less than $100 sales left in your account multiplied by thousands of contributors. I'm deleting my bestselling photos first, but it takes ridiculous amount of time to delete hundreds of files one by one. Dreamstime is disgusting. Shame on them. I call it Nightmaretime now. 
confusing - you can't reach $100 but you have 'best sellers'?
187
« on: May 31, 2024, 14:17 »
for the poll - does filezila count as manual or a tool/website?
what does 50 credits let us do?
188
« on: May 31, 2024, 13:43 »
Given that Apple only have 16% of the US personal computer market (2023, Q4), one wonders who the sheep are. 
And just over 18% of the world uses iPhones, but reading the web and the news, you would think, it's the biggest, best invention of all time. Every new release, the loyal sheep, line up to buy an upgrade. Until recently we didn't have the right to repair our own phones. What Apple does, is makes the old products obsolete by just saying, they are, and then doesn't support them anymore.
I have an iPhone, I think it's 100 times better than any Android phone I ever owned. Reliable, works, doesn't lock up. Good design and interface. If someone asked me what phone system is best, I'd say iPhone. That's as a phone and for Apps....
58% of smartphones in us are apple, but 70% android global which may be why there's more apple hype here. since the early days of mac & PC the latter gave us chance to examine & tweak the machine (we discovered 3 hidden colors and did simple animation by screen shifting which ibm never promoted [we'd found unused graphic memory].) apple gave us nothing but had better marketing & gave free apples to schools. i bot my first smartphone only 6 years ago - android, and anecdotally have never heard of anything iphone had that i couldn't do, on android, and the later doesnt require approval by apple to get into the store - so more innovation & choices.
189
« on: May 28, 2024, 20:02 »
I uploaded an image just now and had to do the pick images of cats and then describe an image. I last uploaded the day before yesterday and up till now the "verify" stuff only appeared after a long absence.
I was sorely tempted to write complete rubbish to describe the image, but don't want my account blocked for being a pain in the tush. This is absolutely trying to get some free labor out of contributors for AI training and it's disgraceful. Pay someone to do the work if you want it done; don't B-S contributors about it being necessary to establish their humanity.
If that shows up every time I upload I may just pause uploads for a bit until Adobe comes to its senses
i haven't seen the second verify, but in setting up google captchas for my blog, the 'cat test' is randomly applied and doesn't look at history. it's an' invisible' captcha, so most users don't know it's checking for bots et al; and it has separate checks to eliminate bots, so the net result is most users aren't forced thru an 'are you human' check sequence
190
« on: May 27, 2024, 12:52 »
...
How much AI can you jam onto the market, before there's just too much? Individual and unique, useful images, will always be more valuable than many, many, of the S.O.S. The more I look at AI, the more it looks the same and similar to all the rest of the AI images. It has a look, style and appearance, that's what AI looks like. The look is becoming that's had it's time and will be like all the rest, eventually.
...
but that applies to other stock as well, with at least an order of magnitude more images to compete against... plus ca change...
191
« on: May 23, 2024, 17:57 »
For me SS is by far the best agency and the number of sales are constant.
same h ere - my running average has been about the same over last few years, down maybe 10%. AS has been slightly up during that time but is usually < 50% of SS sales. for me, it may be that SS sells my editorials, while AS won't
192
« on: May 23, 2024, 17:54 »
...
It would be interesting experiment to deselect say 5 images from nominated pool you believe have highest potential, keep track of sales and after a year see if any exceeded $5 they would earn in free pool. My guesstimate is none would, or maybe just 1.
Free pool is in some ways like Bank GIC. Low return, but guaranteed
i agree with the last, but the experiment forgets that the images you remove may not have been accepted if you left them in.
193
« on: May 23, 2024, 17:52 »
Not going to nominate any of my selected images.
Some of them are already good sellers on Adobe and others even more so on other agencies.
Also, I value my work enough not to give any "free photos".
I respect other photographers enough not to endorse free photos.
I understand and respect your viewpoint. It is a tough call. I don't nominate any that have sold well in the past or on other sites. Adobe is spending money on this and not getting anything in return so they must think the additional traffic justifies the expense. If some of my images that haven't sold well can get me five bucks apiece and help drive users to the site that results in increased sales later on then it is all good. Of course it people just take the free images and use them instead of buying anything from Adobe or anywhere else then we are just shooting ourselves in the foot for a short-term gain. If the free images cause people to buy Adobe subscriptions but not download any paid images then Adobe gains and we lose (except for the five bucks). Without full information it is impossible to know what is best for us.
doesnt matter what these earned in the fabled days of yore - the question is whether these images that havent sold recently are going to suddenly make $5 in the next year.
194
« on: May 22, 2024, 19:34 »
10% of the nominated assets for me will be very good! very probably less....
I go all in,then remove only some best-selling content.
but if they're best selling, they wouldn't be available to nominate
195
« on: May 21, 2024, 13:22 »
Is anyone else getting frustrated with the Adobestock rejection rate of Adobe Firefly AI generated images of people?
...
I find I am getting frustrated with the high rejection rate of Firefly v3 ...
Frustration intolerance is a serious issue for immature children, we can understand. But as the years go by, you will become more able to handle it.
Soon, it will no longer be AI images that will be rejected, but AI image contributors... I guess we'll hear more about frustration here...
Fake AI artificial faces with excessive smiles... you really have to want the dream that it sells.
i've had most of my portraits and individuals accepted - images that would otherwise require models which are editorial AS wouldn't accept. you have to learn the failings of generators & work around them (along with post processing - which i do in batches)
196
« on: May 15, 2024, 13:46 »
5) Practice counting the number of fingers
I plan to avoid fingers 
All you need is one finger (middle finger) lol!
yes, afterwards a pinched nerve i couldn't control my fingers, i lost the ability to communicate with other drivers.
197
« on: May 15, 2024, 13:40 »
... I'm just impressed that they somehow sourced a huge press machine thing. I wonder what its normal day to day job is? Looks too flat and open for crushing cars. Good bit of editing as they only had one go at it I assume. ..,.
yes, i thought it a good ad also (though i disagree w apple's closed system, especially for apps, and high prices). [and early on, Jobs defended apple graphics by asking why anyone would need a color monitor] but have you considered that this was AI generated?
198
« on: May 15, 2024, 13:30 »
...
I did articulate that it did not apply to 'everyone'. However, the statements are based off of actual data, correlation between specific types of people who do that, personal experience in working with/dealing a number of different races & cultures, as well as open discussions with a number of people who openly admit that's precisely the kind of thing they do - and it for the most part actually does apply to the majority. 'Stereotypes' are stereotypes for a reason, because they do tend to be accurate, or wouldn't have become a stereotype....
no, you were explicitly claiming ALL members of these groups were involved (eg calling for banning anyone with an Indian internet address, or even with an Indian name) - but since you never show your sources it's difficult to believe anything you say and stereotypes are often based on ignorance or madness of crowds - which in the past has led to blood libel, internment camps, pogroms, lynching & used by authoritarians, both left & right, to blame the 'other'
199
« on: May 15, 2024, 13:17 »
Sliced vegetables, all the way, all day, every day!
Thank you for reminder. Let me shoot a few more of sliced vegetables!
To be honest, I think I did a tomato one day, just to do it. One is probably all I have.  I never shot models, so I'm missing any of that. One pet dog photo, no cats. Maybe a few flowers... I'm missing all the classics?
Always glad to be a motivator and set a personal example for underachievers. 
i never shoot models and i don't collect release when shooting abroad, partly because i mostly shoot crowds -- cafes, tourist sites, etc. i've been concentrating on ai of shots that would otherwise require releases & these have sold 'well' - considering my ai portfolio is less than 1% of my total
200
« on: May 13, 2024, 15:18 »
note, though, you can't have them submit to any agency you've already submitted those images to
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