...soon we would be sending condolences to each other, each time we get an email
asking us to opt in for an EL

They don't ask you to opt back in, just for permission to process the sale for a single customer. I had another request today - for $34, so I said yes to that I will remain opted out as long as they have pricing that can drop my EL royalties below $28 each.

Curious why you are leaving one?  If we deactivate them all do we need to retest?  I may want to upload some things there in the future, but they will not be as many as I would before.

In my case I left 100 images that were shot at an iStockalypse (when I was exclusive) and which I contractually may not sell elsewhere. I have access to my account and all the history that way - I'd leave one image just so I could look at deactivation dates, upload dates and so on (until they remove or break all the software that provides that information).

They can make any rules they want about passing a test - they could say that as I haven't uploaded since 2013 I'd have to retest if they wanted; contract can change whenever, and if you don't like it you can leave So keeping images doesn't insulate you from anything, but, for the moment at least, preserves some history

For anyone interested in Affinity Photo, they are offering a 20% discount through July 21 ($39.99) and free upgrade to version 1.5 when it is released later this year. They made a video of some of the new features (although I think that for me, batch processing and macro recording are more likely to be the big hits in the new version)

Getty has never allowed you to remove an image unless it is for the same reasons they have posted for removal from Istock. Hmmmm, come to think of it most of the macros operate the same way ever since I can remember. At least the ones I have dealt with did not allow you to remove anything on a bipolar whim which seems to be common place in the microstock world.

Alamy may not count in your definition of macro, but their 6 month wait is a very different thing from what Getty is looking to impose. Alamy just makes you wait to delete so customers can complete their cycle of transactions, but you don't have to justify what you're doing to them.

Alamy's restrictions (given their business model) seem very reasonable and a good balance of customer and contributor interests. Getty's are one-sided and unreasonable, especially given the much lower royalty rates they offer contributors.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshuaggarwal

The guy's only been there 10 months! So was he not working out?

He managed 2 years at Tumblr but only 11 months at the job before that.

On glassdoor, someone who left Tumblr in March 2015 (6 months prior to this guy) said:

"Pros
- Lots of free food, parties and alcohol. If you're a "bro" then you'll have a great time.
Cons
- Tumblr is run on a tangled mess of homegrown tools, horrendously fragile code and the worst engineering practices I've ever seen from any company. There is no QA, code reviews aren't taken seriously, anyone can commit to master and push their code to production at any time. The entire development process can best be described as institutionalized cowboy coding.

- Brogramming is real and Tumblr exemplifies it� "

So possibly it's a good thing that this person is leaving SS? I guess it depends on who comes onboard next...

Scary indeed, but things are ok now. ..

Glad it's been resolved, but given how long you've been with SS, I'm surprised you didn't get more considerate treatment. Not to say that longstanding contributors couldn't do wrong, but it's pretty clear they're not just in this for a few quick bucks made from stealing other's work.

Makes me wonder if they're testing out some new automated scanning of work (rather than you being reported by someone who thought you stole their stuff or who wanted to hurt you to favor their own work). I don't recall anyone complaining about this sort of thing recently (which you think would happen if a new tool was casting too wide a net).

Did they explain anything about the allegations made? Seems like due process principles would include a right to know the charges and see the evidence against you...

They do actually pay you when they sell a deactivated image, so you get an email about it.

They do pay (although I had to get in touch with support to get the image IDs for the money they initially sent me e-mail about), but they have no right to license deactivated images. Their rights were terminated when the file was deactivated.

I had an e-mail back and forth with them about this as they initially said they could sell extended licenses to someone who purchased an RF license while the file was active and I disagreed. After a long time, they admitted that they shouldn't have done that and that they do have checks to be sure they don't license deactivated files but they failed in this case.

I wasn't angry enough (and don't have endless free time and spare cash) to pursue this to make them undo the license once they admitted that they should not do that. But they were technically violating my rights over that image by selling a license to it without my consent.

Couple of comments based on what I see. I'm not a huge player although I've been with SS a long time (since 2004 with a hiatus for 3 years from 2008-11 while I was exclusive at iStock). I do this part time and my portfolio is essentially following my life around. Places I go, my home, garden and me.

My best month ever at SS was just shy of $1K and as I mentioned in an earlier thread about changes over the last couple of years, the biggie is that the money is decreasing even though the downloads are holding. For June, downloads were up 4% over 2015, but $$ were down 36% - almost all relating to SODs all but vanishing.

What I have noticed is that new work for me is selling, a very pleasant surprise. It can't be that they're just turning off things for those at the 38cent level (not saying that it's not happening; just that it's not that broad).

Last year we did a big remodel and I took tons of pictures (and blogged about it). Although I uploaded a handful of images at the end of last year, I've been working through more of those this year - plus a few from a Spring trip to Kauai. What has been pleasing - even though I know remodeling is a good topic for sales - is that these new images have been selling and are getting good search position in a category with over 20K images (depends on what you search for as to exactly the number).

My older best sellers are still showing up in the daily sales (which is good; not complaining, just noting it). There was a day last month (I'd check details, but the site is just gonzo today and I can't get it to load) where nearly a third of the day's sales was from new remodeling images uploaded in the last few months.

I don't know what SS is up to - although I am very concerned that they're trashing their long term future in the rush to make things look good short term to keep Wall Street happy - but it isn't as simple as turning off search position for the 38 cent tier.

I have no idea what the kit lens was, or what the exposure time was, but I'd be looking at an unstable tripod, droopy ballhead, shaking ground (trucks going by, people playing ball games next to you, wind, you touching the camera or some other source of motion that moved things during the exposure time.

http://photographyblogger.net/how-to-increase-sharpness-in-long-exposure-photography/

Motley Fool says the gain was because of the Google deal

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/12/why-american-airlines-group-shutterstock-and-weath.aspx

This article reports something similar, but refers to the Adobe rivalry growing. Problem is, other than saying that Adobe's library is 50 million and it's stock was up 0.4% today versus SS 14.2%, it didn't say how the rivalry was growing

http://www.investors.com/news/technology/shutterstock-jumps-on-google-deal-as-adobe-rivalry-grows/

jo ann on the link you provided it does put a limit on enhanced at 120 max. I know though don't question SS direct as the money can always go away.

I have no idea where to find it, but I'm pretty sure I recall them saying that the "up to" was based on the products they had at the time but anything negotiated as a deal would get that earnings-based rate. In other words, it's not actually a cap.

What happened? I thought the highest SS paid out for an image was around 118 bucks or so on the highest tier but just woke up this morning and saw that I have a single enhanced image that sold for 215.46.
Trust me not complaining but what happened?

I've no idea what they sold for that (in the way of rights) but you get a percentage (based on lifetime earnings) of all deals classified as SOD

https://submit.shutterstock.com/payouts

So if you're at 30%, the customer paid $718.20 for some set of rights. It would really be good if we knew what rights, but they've been asked and refuse to say.

Congrats

A Google ad deal?

http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Shutterstock+(SSTK)+Enters+Image+Licensing+Deal+with+Google/11822331.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inplay-briefing-com-055139997.html#sstk

Or the earlier inclusion in the SmallCap 600?

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/30/why-starz-schnitzer-steel-industries-and-shutterst.aspx