The relationship between subscriptions and SODs is becoming increasingly bizarre! 2:10 yesterday. These days I hardly have any ODs anyway, Enhanced are now as rare as a total solar eclipse.
12 downloads is shameful. But it's very pleasing when this kind of income comes out of it!

mindoozas and DaLiu: I'm curious, and since you both started much later, I'd be interested to know whether your downloads are spread over more files, or whether a few files make up a larger part of your downloads.

Quote from: Big Money on December 02, 2023, 14:57
For me I have only 7873 images and 186 videos. I do this as a hobby thus part time and shoot only what I want to do. Never wanted the pressure of this being my main income source thus I am not considered a professional photographer. Plus a very high end professional told me that if I did photography for a living it would ruin it.

It's also a hobby for me. But I started it with serious intentions. One year before shutterstock at fotolia.

There was the financial crisis, which started sometime in 2008. That was the time when companies were saving money. The marketing sector was badly affected. Budgets were set to zero, so my office had a correspondingly difficult time.

As there was correspondingly little to do, I dived into the microstock business in 2009 and invested my surplus time in images for Fotolia. And a good year later, I also invested in shutterstock and other agencies.

Unfortunately, I haven't been very motivated for a few years now. But it was definitely not a mistake to have done that back then - it still brings a little extra money into the till today, although nowhere near as much as it did a few years ago. And when I think that I could have wasted the time pointlessly, it was definitely the right decision. And even if the future in this area should develop in such a way that Microstock disappears from the market, it has to be said that it has been worthwhile to be part of it in the last few years.

I was also very lucky that the algorithms were kind to me with a few images. 10 images make up a quarter of the shutterstock downloads. At AS there are 11 (mostly other) images that make up a quarter of the total downloads there. Since I have 10% more images online at AS, this is almost identical.

I had to notice that the "success" is extremely dependent on the decisions of the review. And this review certainly had it easier in the past than it does today - simply because there were fewer images to select.

My most successful image on shutterstock sold 34 times more often there than on AS. That actually says it all. We depend on the decisions of the review and the algorithms based on that decision...

Congratulations to all the successful ones!

DaLiu: super nice portfolio - well deserved. And you've also been busy over the last few years - the portfolio has grown considerably.

I myself have only passed the 80,000 mark, even though - like Big Money - I've been with shutterstock since 2010.

Quote from: cascoly on November 28, 2023, 21:17

Quote from: Wilm on November 26, 2023, 10:56

Quote from: cobalt on November 26, 2023, 09:41
eta

...then I am just adjusting the clothes a bit, changing out the sky, removing the glasses, changing the hairstyle...

Yes, I have also exchanged skies. For many years now. But it was always a sky that I photographed myself. I've never used a sky from one of your photos. That wasn't allowed either.
And that's exactly what the AI providers get around. Without paying a single cent for it. Why are you not allowed to use elements from other people's images, but AI is? Can you explain why?...

one more time -- i don't know your specific knowledge, but, in general, complaints about being victimized show an underlying ignorance of how these models work.  -- AI does not use ANY elements from images when creating new images - in an entirely separate process it trains on billions of images to create its dataset.  when creating a new image (which may take millions of steps) it no longer has access to the original hundreds of millions of images it  used in training. there are many descriptions, of varying detail, on how this actually works - posted frequently here & available online, so there's really no excuse for continuing to promote this false idea.

the completely separate argument is whether there should be any payment for images to be used in training, but no one has been able to show that pieces of their image shows up in a new creation

To say it right away: I don't have any specific knowledge because I haven't experimented with AI yet. In this respect, I agree with you.

So I can only try to draw conclusions from what I can see.

Maybe I really don't understand the working principle of AI software.

But, if it were as you say, that AI does NOT use ANY elements from existing images, how can it be explained that, for example
- the Apple logo
- the Apple mouse
- the iMac
- the keyboard
- the Mercedes star
and so many other elements can be seen unchanged from the original in the images? Then why doesn't the AI "design" a new Apple or Mercedes logo, a different foot of the iMac, a new mouse etc.? I see here exactly the design features of Apple (material/color, radii, shapes, etc.).

And, if it is as seen here, who can rule out that elements from your and my pictures appear 1:1 in other pictures.

If you have a link that helps me to understand this, I would be grateful.

Funny! Exactly the same image - sold today at shutterstock and the day before yesterday at AS.

Still this is a lousy month!

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on November 28, 2023, 08:49
The topic here is: "I will never use AI".
To all the pro-AIs who sell their faith and prostration on this thread: Why not open a topic "I pray I will get eternal AI" for the simple sake of consistency and intellectual respect? 

[Edit]:I know that most AI critics tend to leave this forum, and that's unfortunately really understandable.

I agree with Ralf. I found the discussion interesting and would find it a shame to only read one-sided opinions against AI here. Especially as we won't be able to avoid AI anyway.

Personally, I would just like to see fairer rules concernig the financial aspect of it.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 27, 2023, 17:18

Quote from: Josephine on November 25, 2023, 08:38
I can only answer from the point of view of an illustrator. I easily could generate a coloring book for kids within minutes and sell it on Amazon.

Machine Learning, AI that creates images does not use the original images, it's not making a composite or taking bits and pieces of our images to make new images. The machine is trained to create new images, from what it has learned. At least that's the way AI like Dall-E and Midjourney work.

We don't know, Pete, how that works.
When I search AS exclusively for AI-generated images, I clearly see Apple products, an Audi A4! A Mercedes star and so on...

If the software worked the way you say it does, it would develop its own computers or cars. But it doesn't. And you can't be sure that it doesn't use 1:1 components from your images either.

Quote from: Bauman on November 26, 2023, 18:57
Let's not confuse generative AI content with AI software.

The copyright problem is gigantic for generative AI content and affects little-known authors.

I agree 100% with Wilm.

That's exactly what I mean. I was still learning at the drawing board. Then came computers and CAD software. Of course, these tools are an immense relief. And they help enormously to save time.

But I still had to - and still have to - design things myself.

When the architects at Gerhy develop new buildings, they naturally use the latest software. They are no longer living in the last millennium. Nevertheless, what is created there is a creative achievement for which all these architects are paid.

None of us are allowed to upload Gehry buildings for commercial purposes - it's forbidden. And if someone were to upload AI-generated Gerhy images, their portfolio would be blocked. But only because Gerhy has the money to make sure that this is forbidden.

But platforms like midjourney and others allow exactly that: that what someone has spent a lot of time creating is simply used to teach their own software. Which wouldn't be a bad thing per se if midjourney paid to use these images. But they don't do that. They even take money from their users for the theft. That's exactly the point! From my point of view this is incredible!

Quote from: stoker2014 on November 26, 2023, 21:57

Quote from: RalfLiebhold on November 26, 2023, 19:22
I was active on Midjourney for 2 months and I think I produced over 1000 pictures.

And how is the income? More than a standard photo?

At midjourney you don't earn money, you pay money to generate images with the help of their AI, which you can then upload elsewhere.

Quote from: cobalt on November 26, 2023, 09:41
eta

...then I am just adjusting the clothes a bit, changing out the sky, removing the glasses, changing the hairstyle...

Yes, I have also exchanged skies. For many years now. But it was always a sky that I photographed myself. I've never used a sky from one of your photos. That wasn't allowed either.
And that's exactly what the AI providers get around. Without paying a single cent for it. Why are you not allowed to use elements from other people's images, but AI is? Can you explain why?

If someone were to develop an AI that made it possible to open any car, start it up and drive it around, that would also be a great innovation. And there would certainly be a lot of social and environmental aspects in favor of this. Great! Anyone who didn't have a car before can now just take one that's standing around. All they have to do is pay money to the developer of this software. I am sure that such an AI could be developed without any problems.
But if someone were to use your car and not have to pay you a penny for it, would you still celebrate this innovation?

In the case of brand companies, artists, musicians and architects who can afford to have their work protected under trademark law, the agencies are very careful to ensure that this copyright is observed.

As for us, who can't protect our work because our income is too low, they ignore it because they know that there is nothing to fear legally. And that's a huge mess!

The fact that AI even copies protected works 1:1 can be seen perfectly in the countless examples of clearly recognizable Apple products. Even with the brand logo!

So you have to assume that other works - like yours and mine - may even be copied 1:1. Anyone who thinks that's okay is really beyond help.

Quote from: cobalt on November 25, 2023, 13:25

Quote from: Josephine on November 25, 2023, 08:38
I can only answer from the point of view of an illustrator. I easily could generate a coloring book for kids within minutes and sell it on Amazon. Is this fair? without a single stroke, without any knowledge and costs of any software. Its the matter of typing a few words into the search engine and you are done. You can proudly call yourself illustrator.

A photographer can easily steal someones sky and use it for the own purpose. The one who spent maybe days waiting for this very sky with this very special light. If anybody feels this is correct, fine.

Sorry my English is not perfect.

You are using a computer to create your work then offer it online to the entire planet via agencies with the potential to create a million copies or downloads.

How is that fair to the real oil painter who painstakingly creates their art on canvas from scratch and probably even makes his own paints and brushes???

It used to take YEARS to complete a great painting or portrait.

Yet here you are using modern tech to create it in mere hours.

How is what you are doing fair to the REAL artists?

And even worse if you use a camera, photographers are just one button pushers.

If you actually believe what you are saying, you MUST stop using any modern version of photoshop and forgo all modern cameras.

And please stop using your smartphone.

Because all modern tech will be using ai in the future.

Basically - freeze yourself in the tech and software of 2015, or maybe even earlier.

Forever.

So good luck with that.

You're comparing apples with oranges. So I have to disagree with your statement.

If someone creates something, then that person needs visual, linguistic, musical or creative know-how. That is something completely different from typing in prompts.

It doesn't matter whether you use a paintbrush, a camera, a guitar, a keyboard, a computer or any other tool.

A work created by a human being, be it a painting, a photograph, a poem, a piece of music or whatever, is therefore an achievement that represents a value.

The fact that this is the case can be seen in how many images you are not allowed to upload anywhere for commercial purposes - be it an Eames chair, an Apple computer, the light installation on the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, a Harley Davidson and countless other subjects.

This also applies to AI-generated images, which are not allowed to take up these protected works visually.

The fact that a normal image contributor does not have the money to legally prosecute the illegal use of their work does not mean that a corporation offering AI software has the right to freely use the work of these "normal" contributors to make money illegally!

Anyone who produces something creative - with whatever tool - is the author of that thing. And no artificial intelligence has the right to circumvent that!

You're welcome! 

It doesn't matter whether you upload the images in 240 or 300 ppi.

The size/resolution of the image is relevant.

If an image has a resolution of 3000 x 2000 px, it has this resolution - regardless of the ppi.
The ppi only plays a role for the image size when printing.

For offset printing, this means (for an image with 3000 x 2000 px):
At 300 ppi, this would be 25.4 x 16.93 cm.
At 240 ppi it would be 31.75 x 21.17 cm.
Strictly speaking, however, 300 ppi is an old unit from the time when printing was still done in a 60 grid (60 lines per inch / 60 lpi).

Since most printing today is done in 70 or 80 grid, 300 dpi is actually too low.

For perfect image quality with a 70 grid, an image should be switched to 350 ppi. Then you could only print the image with a resolution of 3000 x 2000 px in a size of 21.77 x 14.51 cm.
With an 80 grid, it would only be 19.05 x 12.7 cm, because this would have to be switched to 400 ppi.

However, when it comes to print products that are significantly larger than a book or magazine, such as posters or large-format banners, significantly lower ppi figures are sufficient, as the viewer has a greater distance to the printed matter. Depending on the size, 100 to 150 ppi is sufficient for large posters.

For huge banners that are viewed from many meters away, 60 or 40 ppi may be sufficient.

Quote from: pancaketom on November 16, 2023, 21:02
I haven't noticed it on Adobe, but on SS and IS a regular seller would suddenly stop when the search got changed.

It can happen on AS as well. A little change in algorithm - and you are out.

I find it all strange anyway.

People are paying money to platforms on which they can create images that cannot be protected by copyright.
These platforms themselves earn money by infringing copyright without paying any compensation to those whose copyright they infringe.
It's all absolutely absurd!

It will become even more absurd when those who offer such images commercially and have also spent money on creating the images find that these images are copied exactly 1:1, because there is no copyright protection.

The whole construct is absolutely sick! It will lead to money being shifted around once again. The winners will be a handful of companies that offer AI technology. The losers will be those who have made a living from the creation of intellectual, literary, musical or pictorial works.

We will have even more monopolists, such as Google, who will then have global market power and dictate prices.

I didn't make my way into this list - so I can't say anything about this from my own experience. But another successful contributor told me exactly the same. She found herself several times among those bestsellers and her downloads went down in those weeks.

The discrimination thing was meant as a joke. Sorry - I probably should have used an appropriate emoji.

It is absolutely understandable for me that the search results must be different. A Central European family home usually looks different than one in the USA or Japan. This also applies to the topic of food and many other topics as well.

If I am a real estate agent in Germany, I search at AS optimally in German, because then I get more country-typical results displayed than with the English search - that also makes sense.

But if we stick to the example of Tuscany, it is not understandable that in Germany, the German name of Tuscany gets less than one tenth of the search results compared to the search with the English name of Tuscany. Because it doesn't matter whether I travel to Tuscany as a Turk, a Chinese or an Australian - it looks the same to everyone.

Quote from: Injustice for all on October 26, 2023, 20:19
I don't know Wilm,see what Mat tells you,but I don't see particular discrimination or particular problems in different searches results from different countries.

maybe there will be reasons,related to legal issues,marketing issues,or any other reasons.

What I know and what I see is that Adobe's sales system seems the fairest for everyone,if I compare this to other agencies.

Well, i think the translation problem is also detrimental to the agency AS.

If all customers know that they have to search in English, it is not a general problem. Then it is only a problem for the contributors who have been keywording in their native language for years.

But I think that many customers don't know that. Because it doesn't make sense that there is a language selection and a region selection if these potential buyers get less than 10% of the results displayed that are actually in the database.

This is comparable to a customer coming into a supermarket where less than 10% of the goods are visible relative to the goods actually present in the stockroom. There is a risk that these customers will go to the competition because there the shelves are bulging.

I have written a PM to Mat concerning this. I don't know what to do because lots of my images with German keywording don't appear in the search results. I loose lots of money.

Quote from: Injustice for all on October 26, 2023, 18:22

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on October 26, 2023, 16:42
Changing regions produces completely insane results

even the search from Italy for AI contents is different from yours.

"AI" search show 13.199.418 AI images and 128479 AI videos.

"IA"(intelligenza artificiale,Italian language) show 13.248.660 images.

This is one way the Adobe Stock sales system is perhaps supposed to work?Maybe there is a reason why the searches are different?Maybe not?

242.005 results for "Toscana" near home 

Advantage for you! Searching for ,,Toscana" here from German region I only get 163.400 results! I feel discriminated now!

Quote from: cruiser on October 22, 2023, 08:18
It is interesting to see how, since the AI hype, people are popping up all over the net, including here, trying to tell the "old-timers" how the business works and how great AS has become.

I am sorry, but those of us who have been around for a while know AS and especially Fotolia very well.
But unfortunately I have to agree that AS has become much worse in many aspects and this has not only to do with the flood of AI images.

Especially from the customer's point of view. For example, the search in German has become so bad that you have to question whether there are beginners at work behind the scene. This has to do with some peculiarities of the German language, such as the way words are written together and other factors.
It is probably the same with other languages.
I wouldn't complain if it hadn't worked fine before, but this is just bumbling now.

That's right! The translation does not work at all anymore! But this has nothing to do with complicated words, where the translation software has a hard time.
An example:
- Tuscany (search Region USA) = 417.000 results
- Toscana (search Region Italy) = 242.000 results
- Toskana (search Region Germany) = 37.000 results
If you do not do the keywording in English, you will not be found, because search terms from other languages will not be translated.

Mat, can you please comment on this?

I have just been informed - via e-Mail - that there will be a payment delay this month.

Quote from: task150 on October 10, 2023, 20:40
The first regarded wood textures, which by nature are quite similar.

Recently I needed wood textures for 3D visualizations. These included spruce, pine, larch, meranti and oak (and more).

I have not found any usable textures at AS. There were several reasons for this in combination:
- The algorithm did not show useful results.
- I did not need any planked textures.
- The textures could not contain knotholes.
- The scale did not fit for me.
- For many textures it was not obvious if it was really the exact wood species. Or if there was keyword spamming on the files.

I then bought a texture bundle from a specialty vendor. However, these were not usable because the textures only contained numbers - it was not obvious behind which number, for example, pine or spruce was hidden. I got my money back.

The fact is that pine, spruce and larch in particular have a very similar grain. It is a huge mistake for a stock agency to reject such textures, which are difficult to distinguish, because of similarity.
This has nothing to do with spamming!

I am very sorry for you and I hope that the problem will be solved as soon as possible.