Pixelmator is fully 16 bit now. It's a strong contender. If you don't need all that content aware stuff then it's good enough IMO. Also  - it's lightweight and properly Mac native...

After CS6 I think this might be where I go for a PS replacement. Currently I have the PS, AI, ID combo version of CS6, but if forced into CC I might opt for the single AI license, forget InDesign (just don't use it as much these days, less client work and even less page-layout client work), and replace PS with Pixelmator. I don't do much work in PS as it is, Illustrator is where I spend 99% of my time, so even if Pixelmator is not a direct match to PS, it won't matter much to me.

I'm hoping that by the time I need to upgrade from CS6 there might even be some better Illustrator alternatives out there.

...But what will happen in 2 to 4 years?  There will be a new version of Windows, and suddenly, CS5 and CS6 will not be compatible with the latest Windows anymore, and the "old" program on new computers will get buggy or not work at all. Then there will be no CS7, but only CC to go to.

And when everyone finally has no other choice, and Adobe has us all by the short ones, then we'll see what they've really been planning. There are lots of great deals right now, great discounts, incentives to upgrade to CC. But what happens when Adobe has no need to incentivize the upgrade?

I'm a legal CS6 holdout. And honestly I would have just stayed on CS4 longer than I did except that I was able to find a reasonably priced CS6 and figured I'd make the jump now and try to run this version for at least 5 years before being forced to make some sort of change.

I'm weary of a monthly subscription. As mentioned above, what happens when Adobe has 80-90% adoption rates of CC from previous version users? I'm worried it becomes a cable tv sort of thing, and all of a sudden we're paying $100+ per month for software.

This just in:

On October 10, 2014 we made the following royalty adjustments to your account but we mistakenly attributed the royalty payments to Redeemed Credit level rates. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

The following file(s) were recently licensed to an iStock customer in a transaction that did not occur through the website:

FileID XXXXXXXXX

We have made an adjustment to your account and added your royalty from the license(s), which totals:

FileID XXXXXXXXX = $X

Quote from: EmberMike on October 11, 2014, 20:03

Did I miss something? I thought independent vector folks were at a fixed 20% for a while now. How can I go up a level?

Yes, you missed replies #3, #6 and #9 above.

Sorry but I still don't see anything here that answers my question. I don't understand how any sort of adjustment can be made for vector folks when we've been on a fixed royalty rate for well over a year now. There's nothing to adjust, no levels to go up or down, no royalties to change.

Did I miss something? I thought independent vector folks were at a fixed 20% for a while now. How can I go up a level?

Are you going to opt in to DPC?

Just wanted to share some of this funny email exchange I've been having with a designer. I was contacted about a single graphic that is part of a set. This designer claims to have created a similar graphic for a client logo which has since been registered as a trademark, the client then found my similar stock graphic and is upset about it. My suspicion is that this designer either created a similar design based on my stock graphic or just outright used the stock graphic as the logo. The latter scenario happens a lot.

So this designer now needs to buy the rights to the graphic so I'll stop selling it as stock. I quoted my price for the buyout, a price that I've asked for in most buyout situations and which I've never had any issues or complaints with.

The response I got was basically that my price is "unfair", that we should "work together on this" and figure out a fair price. I've been told before that my price is beyond someone's budget, but I can't recall ever being called "unfair". I feel like a kid on a playground. "Hey, that's not fair!"

To me, this is another perfect example of the weird situation that anyone in a creative professions frequently finds themselves in, in which other people think they have a right to decide what I should be paid. And fortunately it's a situation that happens often enough that I can just laugh about it now.

In thinking about some of the buyout requests I've had, there have been some other interesting ones. Particularly the guy who contacted me wanting to buy the rights to an icon that he had tattooed on his arm thinking it was a custom design that his graphic designer created for his company logo.

Anyone else have any interesting/weird/funny buyout request stories?

Wasn't there one place that got upset if you sold them lower elsewhere?  Was that Fotolia?

Yeah, Fotolia was mad about Depositphotos coming along and undercutting them, so they forbid anyone above a certain rank from keeping their rank if they worked with DP.

Then, of course, Fotolia launched DPC and undercut everyone, so...

Hard to believe, but:



It's not a great picture, but in person it was obvious. I could see the entire 123RF watermark.

Not cool, Walgreens.

Tweeted it out here: https://twitter.com/emberstudio/status/517011663904845825

I just saw a Fiverr tv commercial. It must be karma for bringing up the Fiverr topic again today.

At one time I think it was worthwhile. For a time I was making decent money there. But lately I'm making less than half of what I previously made.

I've also recently stopped uploading there as better options have become available. I'm not really motivated to go through a more involved upload process just for 33% of some pretty badly-priced products when I can go elsewhere, get a better percentage, set my own prices, etc.

My vote on GR these days would be a solid "pass".

I actually do better at Redbubble lately than Zazzle. Although that's not saying much since sales at Zazzle are pretty much non-existant lately.

The one thing I don't like with Redbubble is that sales are mostly small items, especially stickers. I think I've had just one t-shirt sale. But lots of stickers.

Yep, people discussing going over to DPC :-(

To their credit, DPC has been doing a nice job of responding to disgruntled iStock customers on Twitter and inviting them over to try DPC. Maybe we need to invite some of these customers to try better options if they are intent on leaving iStock.