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Messages - dragonblade
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176
« on: September 04, 2023, 22:15 »
I wonder how many refunds are being sent to clients who didn't initially spot these flaws when purchasing the images. It would suck to buy an image of a board room meeting only to discover later that there were some mutants seated at the table pictured.
177
« on: September 04, 2023, 17:55 »
i agree on the silly rejects, esp'ly when the reason given is worthless ('something's wrong - guess what it is!") Exactly right. I don't know why they make this a guessing game. but the bigger problem is when entire batches are rejected (and most i submit have already accepted by S & DT) and taking a month to review is ridiculous
When I first joined AS, about half of my photos were accepted if I recall correctly. Then later on, the reviewers seem to become less strict and they accepted just about everything I submitted. Ive been out of the stock game for a little while and now that I'm back, I see that something really weird is going on with the AS review team.
178
« on: September 04, 2023, 11:05 »
What is even more fun is our content ferments for a month or so only to find out your content suddenly does not meet Adobe qaulity standards, evenwith years of a proven track record.
Yea their reviewers are becoming ridiculously strict. Some of my latest images were rejected for technical reasons and they look fine to me. I used to have a very good acceptance rate. My last photo was rejected because there is supposedly a similar image already in my portfolio. That is complete nonsense. I went through my port twice and I see no images that are similar to this latest submission. The latest photo is a close up of a very young tree. I do admit that I have a close up of a plant that is already in my port but these types of vegetation are completely different and look nothing like each other. For example, one has large leaves and the other has no leaves. I guess Adobe are hinting that we are only allowed to have a maximum of one plant close up in our port and no more. Never mind that there are probably thousands of different types of plants out there but we can only have a closeup of one of them. So choose carefully.
179
« on: September 01, 2023, 22:03 »
I am trying to increase my output, but the absolut max I was ever able to do was 30 in one day. Usually I do 50-100 a week.
30 a day still seems like a massive amount to me. Way more than I could do. Ive been doing stock now for a bit more than a few years and I admit that I am a very slow uploader. Well I do shoot Raw so the files need time to process and get everything looking just right. Even if the Raw processing is done quickly for a particular image, there's always something else that takes a lot of time like research. I wish there was more time in a day to produce more files for stock. I am constantly amazed at how fast some contributers are. They're able to build huge ports in a very short space of time while keeping the quality high. I envy that.
180
« on: September 01, 2023, 21:50 »
Sorry to hear about your account being blocked. This is very unfair and seems like an overreaction on Adobe's part. I had no plans to create or upload AI imagery and after reading this thread, my feelings on this matter are stronger than ever. It's not worth the risk. I'll stick to traditional photography.
181
« on: September 01, 2023, 19:39 »
similarly, many ordinary microscope images are of stained-prepared objects
I still see that as a representation of the real world. It's an example of real world staining - something that many scientists and hobbyists do in labs etc every day. So I don't see that as misleading. Someone may be looking for an example of a specific type of staining. And of course there are many types of microscopy such as bright field, dark field and polarisation that will give very different 'looks.' And I would consider each of those 'looks' to be authentic. However, I would label them appropriately in my descriptions if I submitted some imagery as stock - ie dark field imaging.
182
« on: September 01, 2023, 19:08 »
If you're asking about resubmitting after a rejection, it really depends on the image, the rejection reason, and whether it looks good after you made whatever changes you thought were necessary.
The trouble is that AS are quite vague when it comes to rejection reasons for technical issues. They are not specific at all as to exactly why a particular image is rejected. It could be due to all manner of reasons - focus, noise, over processed etc. So it's hard to know exactly why a photo was rejected when they state 'technical reasons.' A lot of the time, I wouldn't know what to 'correct' since I'm left with a bunch of possible rejection issues. And sometimes none of them seem to apply to my particular image. By the way, when I first started submitting photos to AS a few years ago, they were very strict with their review process. I had quite a few rejections but also quite a few accepted images also. Then later on, they appeared to be a lot less strict and most of my images were accepted nearly all the time. Well looks like they've become strict again just recently as my two latest commercial submissions were rejected. I don't see anything wrong with these images myself other than a bit of noise in the blue skies. I did do some noise reduction while retaining good sharpness. I also downsized the images somewhat. Maybe I should resubmit again with even smaller file sizes.
183
« on: August 18, 2023, 17:58 »
So, what SS is doing is misleading customers into thinking that if they sign up for a free trial on the annual subscription, they'll just be billed monthly. Instead, they're being forced to pay the entire year up front when the free trial ends.
Adobe use a similar tactic with the free trials of their editing software. Back in the old days, you could download a free Adobe trial for 30 days with no strings attached. Nice and simple. But then later on, they changed things and became very ruthless. Earlier this year, I downloaded a trial for Lightroom and Photoshop and the trial period was super short - about 15 days or less. Not only that but I would be billed after the trial ended (if I didn't cancel.) And I got the impression from their wording that I would be billed monthly which didn't sound too bad. Though some people advised me on another forum that that wasn't really the case. I would be billed for a whole year's worth after the end of the trial. I would not be happy about that at all. I definitely cancelled when the trial ended but gosh, I was cutting it fine. I was editing images right until the very end. I cancelled just a few minutes before the cut off point. Frantically trying to go through the cancellation process as the clock was ticking. I may have avoided that massive bill by about a minute or so. I was so desperate to get that image editing done. Gosh, I'm glad that the internet didn't drop out or go super slow during this critical period.
184
« on: August 18, 2023, 17:32 »
I was curious how microstock was doing because it seems as if Big Tech during the pandemic started losing its collective mind and implementing all of these brazen anti-consumer business practices. I knew what was happening everywhere else, but I didn't expect to see this happening in microstock.
In the old SS forum, someone posted a link to a list of angry customer reviews regarding SS. It sounded like shady and deceptive business practices that buyers were unhappy with. This was a long time before the pandemic and it was a very long list.
185
« on: August 15, 2023, 19:07 »
Plus most of those earlier instances were quickly identified as hoaxes. w AI that won't be as easy.
Regarding the earlier cases of image deception, I would say it depends on the skills of the person doing the Photoshop job. Yea sure, the internet is full of crude and badly done examples. Well some are better than others. The big name publications generally feature better quality fakery with Photoshop etc. As for me, I'm just going to worry about my own port and images regardless of how out of hand AI gets. Obviously, there's nothing I can do about the threat of AI or the inability of some agencies to correctly label it or categorise it. I'll just to continue to make the best images I can (the old fashioned way) and keep being creative.
186
« on: August 14, 2023, 19:32 »
You will not be able to believe any news backed up with videos, sound or photos anymore. Video, sound and photo evidence in courtcases will become useless
This isn't really a new issue. Similar sorts of image deception has been going on for a very long time now - especially with digital photography and software like Photoshop with image manipulation. Quite a few reputable newspapers and magazines have been guilty of using such software to lift certain elements from one image and add them on to another image to make a news story more dramatic or appealing. This is done with sports photography and I recall one example of natural disaster where a father holding a child on his shoulders was pasted on to a photo of a bush fire. National Geographic admitted to shifting the position of one of the pyramids in a photograph taken in Egypt. This sort of stuff has been going on for many years. And discussions about the legitamacy of using photographs as evidence in court cases has been going on since at least the 1990s (with the advent of digital image manipulation.) Also, the internet has been filled with all sorts of heavily manipulated images for a very long time (blending fact and fiction.) And before digital image manipulation became a thing, people were creating fakery in their photographs with more traditional means. Deceiving people with photographs is certainly nothing new. Remember that old story about the young girls who supposedly photographed fairies in their garden in the early 1900s? Many people were fooled by them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
187
« on: August 07, 2023, 20:34 »
Actually, it looks like it's a very similar situation under US law - according to this article. https://www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/If you read the section titled "A Note on Works Made for Hire", it points out that copyright of the photographs belong to the client / employer.
188
« on: August 07, 2023, 20:26 »
in the US it's the reverse the photographer/creator automatically owns the copyright
Yea here in Australia, it's very much the same generally. The person who takes the photograph owns the copyright to the image. The exception is if a client pays you money to take photographs for him / her. In that case, copyright of the images is transferred to the client.
189
« on: August 07, 2023, 09:25 »
Wait for the photos to go up online and then DMCA them with the host. You own the copyright and they've not paid, so they can potentially have their website taken down for copyright infringement.
Further to that, if they do go online, you can send a second invoice for copyright infringement. Using a copyrighted photo without paying incurs a fine.
Generally, in scenarios like this, the client owns the rights to the images, not the photographer. Unless there is a contract that states otherwise. Though this may depend on the laws of the country where the photography work was done.
190
« on: August 05, 2023, 23:24 »
Always consistent sales and always part of the top MS agencies.
It's good to hear that you're getting consistent sales. You must be one of the few that do. For many people like myself, sales on DT are far from a regular occurrence. They are super slow. Though I will still contribute to DT (even after I reach payout.) All those sales do add up over time. It's still money in the bank. And the commissions are some of the best around for microstock agencies. By the way, I'm not all that far from reaching my first payout there. I'm still hanging in there. Maybe in the future, I will have multiple payouts (though I know that will take an eternity!)
191
« on: August 05, 2023, 19:30 »
And yes, great for the thieves who get payment before being rumbled.
I remember when the old SS forum was still running, we would get thieves posting - asking questions about how to increase sales with their stolen content. The nerve of those people.
192
« on: August 05, 2023, 16:56 »
Last month I got around $1200 from Adobe. Previously that would have been 1200. But instead only around 1050 on my PayPal account, so I lost 150.
That does not seem right at all - or fair. Regardless, it sounds like you're doing extremely well with your sales. I'm assuming that you have a huge port with thousands of files?
193
« on: August 02, 2023, 15:40 »
I find it strange that they didn't ask us permission about this first. And I don't recall any e-mail being sent out explaining what is going on with this plan involving artificial intelligence 'learning' from our own images and the compensation. It's like we're almost being kept in the dark about it.
194
« on: August 01, 2023, 01:33 »
Then I realized the description looked familiar and looked at one of my images of that area. It was copied verbatim by the AI uploader. The same thing had happened a few months back with a very different image of mine.
The same thing happened to me in the past on DT. Another contributor had copied a large portion of my description exactly - word for word. And yea I suspected that this was someone whose first language was not English. Regardless, I wasn't happy. And yes, something should be done about this mess with the AI images and potential issues that buyers face. I agree that AI images should be specifically labelled as such and shouldn't appear in general searches.
195
« on: July 31, 2023, 02:45 »
It looks like this can be done very easily. I found a video tutorial here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sv-QS-K9GEThough I do have some questions about the project settings. Any advice on which checkboxes to tick and which options to select in order to produce good quality video footage for stock? Some things are obvious and straight forward like the resolution and frame rate. However, within Video Monitoring, we have 'Use 4:4:4 SDI', 'Use Level A for 3GB SDI', SDI configuration, data levels, video bit depth etc. And in Optimzed Media & Render Cache, it looks like there are some options regarding codecs. And other choices below that as well. For a number of these things, is it best to leave them at default? I would likely be using ProRes 422 for the codec.
196
« on: July 31, 2023, 01:53 »
Just wondering if it's possible to use Davinci Resolve for compiling a time video from a sequence of digital stills? And if that's the case, does Resolve accept Tiff files?
197
« on: July 31, 2023, 01:37 »
Ive been checking out the specs of 4096 x 2304 videos on P5 and the bitrate varies enormously. Ive seen examples of 748mbps, 205mbps, 497mbps, 697mbps, 693mbps, 782mbps, 188mbps, 170mbps, 620mbps and 133mbps. There are also a few clips that have enormously high bitrates like 1.01gbps and 1.31gbps. The vast majority of those videos are not h264.
198
« on: July 30, 2023, 22:51 »
You can drag and drop to POND5 upload page multiple files simultaneously. No slower really than FTP.
Ive tried that in the past and found it very problematic. Ive found that stock agency upload pages are usually fine for submitting photo files. But generally unreliable and buggy when submitting video files.
(spoiler - it's a small self-promotion) If you upload via Xpiks Cloud, we retry FTP upload until it succeeds on our side. So you only upload once to our (hopefully) reliable storage, and then we deal with Pond5.
Thanks for the recommendation. Ive been using Stocksubmitter with good success. Ive just about given up using the upload page for submitting videos.
200
« on: July 29, 2023, 23:01 »
But they have to realize that sloppy reviewing floods their database with junk, and in the end, this doesn't do any good for their customers either. In the end, they pass the reviewing over to their customers.: bad content doesn't sell and gets buried by the search engine algorithm. That system works fine for the occasional error that reviewers make, but if you flood your database with junk, nobody will bother anymore to wade through it.
I remember some time ago in the past when reviewers at AS were really strict and fussy and it was hard to get some content accepted. In more recent times, they seem to be getting less strict and it's not often when I get rejections these days.
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