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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
Pages: 1 ... 92 93 94 95 96 [97] 98 99 100 101 102 ... 291
2401
« on: December 09, 2015, 00:40 »
I couldn't quite believe the numbers, but SS says they have 69 million images and added 723,000 this week alone.
Their rate of additions has risen considerably in the last 6 months, and in 5 years, SS is adding 10 times the images per week that they were in December 2010
Dec 2015
69,500,356 royalty-free stock images / 723,027 new stock images added this week
Nov 2015
66,810,021 images / 541,431 added this week
Oct 2015
64,309,494 images / 584,033 added this week
Sept 2015
62,729,120 images / 572,393 added this week
Aug 2015
60,106,448 images / 475,892 added this week
Jul 2015
57,612,942 images / 408,490 added this week
Jun 2015
55,612,068 images / 277,017 added this week
Dec 2014
45,829,180 images / 299,682 added this week
Dec 2013
31,515,979 images / 200,883 added this week
Dec 2012
22,886,384 images / 72,658 added this week
Dec 2011
17,171,871 images / 90,921 added this week
Dec 2010
13,629,356 images / 74,474 added this week
2402
« on: December 08, 2015, 20:58 »
FIVE+ YEAR OLD THREAD ALERT!
2403
« on: December 07, 2015, 20:21 »
I read more in the forums and all products must have both licenses. So I guess you could just put $9,999 for any product you didn't want to have an EL  I posted a comment in their forums - it'd be good if anyone else who sells there adds thoughts now (before it goes live)
2404
« on: December 07, 2015, 19:47 »
I just took a look and got a 404 error until I logged in
This goes live Dec 10th ( they need to remove the MM-DD-YY boilerplate from the FAQ;)
Not sure about their 10x recommendation for the extended license price - I'll have to figure out what I think will work. I didn't see whether you could opt out of extended licenses if you wanted to for particular items
They also refer to use in logos. Later they note that you cannot trademark any logos with licensed components or hold copyright / they'd do better to just say you can't use in logos. Who wants a logo other people can use?
2405
« on: December 07, 2015, 10:58 »
Did you try hitting the return/enter key after entering the ID?
2406
« on: December 07, 2015, 10:53 »
Am I missing something on the search? There's three boxes and a pulldown, but I don't see a way to make it ... search.
I don't have access to that interface any more, but unless they've changed it, when you're looking at the complete list of everything in your portfolio (pending, approved, rejected) over on the right somewhere was a box where you could put the media ID and search. I used this a number of times as they started deleting approved files to see what was gone.
2407
« on: December 06, 2015, 20:43 »
Just found someone on eBay selling prints of one of my photos. I didn't even realise this was allowed?
In general that requires an extended license. Some agencies (Fotolia, for example) allow someone to do this and pay license by license as prints sell (one license for each sale) My favorite "strange place" story was from a few years ago. My sister in law saw my picture (I do self portraits) in an ad for a visiting nurse service. I was pruning shrubs in the shot and the ad talked about how much better I was doing after my heart attack thanks to the visiting nurse. She shows this to another family member who complains "No one tells me anything! I didn't know she'd had a heart attack"! Another one was when a teenage nephew opened the mail and a booklet from a local realtor touted how well he could do selling lakes region vacation homes. He was horrified that this awful company had broken into their lake house to take pictures of their garden and dock! I have a release from his parents for the shots of the house
2408
« on: December 06, 2015, 13:27 »
Well, I've been bit by the deletion bug too. Last time I looked, I had 1800 images, now I have 1300. I only looked because my last sale was not showing a thumbnail in the sales list. BTW, there's no way to see the missing images, right?
You can search for the image in your list (the portfolio list only available to you). The media ID will find it. And if you complain about the deletions enough, you can go to zero right quick - Canva's quite adept at that I'd love to hear from them about your low quality images - tossers!
2409
« on: December 05, 2015, 13:42 »
I don't remember seeing this before, but Shutterstock has a new feature allowing a buyer to pick certain pre-set sizes (Facebook header, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.) and Filters - named after cities but a small-ish simple-ish set of tonal variations.
Underneath the small/medium/large radio buttons is a new one "Custom Size" and selecting that enables an Edit Image button (versus Download).
I think after you pick a set of choices you get both the edited version and the original when you download.
Possibly this might help buyers who need something quick for a Twitter post or email header (two of the choices). It's marked as Beta so I guess they're trying it out - nice to see improvements for buyers (I'm assuming they must have had feedback suggesting this would be appreciated).
2410
« on: December 05, 2015, 13:36 »
...this basically comes down to there being a need for an improved image SEARCH tool out there. Totally what I think, too, @cobalt. The "finding them quickly" is increasingly the point these days -- pretty similar to web search in the early days of the internet, until websites started coming along in volume!
We (and content buyers/editors/media pros) definitely do need a better search process, one that really works for finding specific images without losing hours on end wading through irrelevant "results"!
A good search tool is really important, but it depends, in part, on good keywording. There is some really awful keywording, largely because the agencies don't want to spend the money to police spam effectively. There's also some terrible keywording where important keywords are omitted, either by those new to the stock business or those who can't keyword in their native language and whose English is limited. Keywording that doesn't allow for phrases - DT splits everything into individual words leading to all sorts of problems - is a barrier to getting good results as well SS, and other agencies are looking to trim or hold the line on costs, so I'm not expecting to see major changes here.
2411
« on: December 04, 2015, 19:25 »
I'm sure someone at Shutterstock has the data to answer that question - and if they don't they should - but I really have no information. I do believe that people get very frustrated if they have to look through too much stuff that isn't what they're after. I suspect that if they come back to a search they did earlier and see what appears to be all the same content, that may create an impression that there's nothing new, which also isn't great. If you step away from the default search order, there's "Undiscovered" which seems to produce unpleasant results whenever I've tried it - the sorts of images that I think deserve not to be downloaded. Not really sure what Relevant does - it's clearly different from "Popular" but not sure it's any more relevant. New is better than Undiscovered, but seems to be more a victim of terrible keywording/spam, showing images that have no relevance to the search terms at all. So if someone did want to see the next tier of good & relevant images after the most popular ones, I guess they could just start the search at page 10 (or something)? I expect that most buyers are only willing to spend so long looking for what they need, so there may be more downloads for the super-popular images and a slow withering death for the vast majority of the collection. But that's just wild speculation
2412
« on: December 04, 2015, 10:29 »
...What I found interesting in the chart was how much more revenue we and SS get from a sale to large enterprises despite the free comps. Much more money.
Or much less, depending on whether you're one of the 50 or the 550
2413
« on: December 03, 2015, 19:42 »
Welcome. Are you planning to share links to your portfolio - if so, you can edit your profile to have those added automatically to your posts. As you've probably gathered, some people prefer to remain anonymous to avoid any repercussions from agencies who don't like what they post. But if you're not anonymous, it's nice to see portfolios to get an idea of the sort of things you do/like. It's an interesting time in the microstock business
2414
« on: December 03, 2015, 19:37 »
The rather large number of comps relative to the number of paid downloads in the enterprise plan may have a bigger effect than we realize. I assume that one of the ways a new file gains a good search position is sales. Even though the money received is good for the Enterprise sales - for the 50 people who get them versus the 600 who did under the subscription example - only 50 images get a search boost from having had a sale. I'm assuming the dollar amount of a sale is not factored in, just the volume. So new images sink quickly, with a few exceptions that become big hits. I think this might explain the patterns seen in the last year or so of good sales for older images with good search position and newer images not selling. Big contrast to when subs were dominant and new images enjoyed a big blip in their first week. It'd be nice if all the unpaid comps would count for the purposes of search ranking. As it is, I'd expect over time the enterprise download patterns would result in very stark divisions between the big hits and the vast body of the collection with minimal sales. On the other hand, if that consigns image spammers (marijuana and the plague of boring icon copies) to the dustbin, then I guess that's one small good side effect
2415
« on: December 02, 2015, 23:49 »
...However, as far as this forum is concerned, the main complaint against SS is the excessive rejection rate.
So, a high rejection rate is OK when applied to a beginner, but not OK when applied to an established contributor. Hmm.....
I can't speak for anyone else, but my complaints are not about the quantity of rejections, but the inconsistency and ignorance (white balance rejections for sunrise or sunset shots, for example).
Shutterstock's review process is seriously flawed and it's the flaws, not the rejection numbers, that are the problem.
Fine, I get that.
But then what makes you believe that the same flawed rejections are not applicable to the first 10 photos, denying access to some really good photographers?
Following the same logic as in the previous post, are the flawed rejections only applicable to established contributors?
I guess not.
Then the talk should be about flawed rejections in general, be it for the first 10 or the next 990 and not about removing the admission test, which is flawed by your definition, therefore irrelevant.
I don't know anything about the process of reviewing the initial 10, but I'm assuming that it is given more individual attention than the reviews of accepted content. I don't think it's any more logical to assume it's the same process (which at other agencies it isn't) that to assume it's different. And as far as talking about the flawed review process, that's been done. Nothing will happen until Shutterstock decides to focus on something other than cutting costs.
2416
« on: December 02, 2015, 22:21 »
...However, as far as this forum is concerned, the main complaint against SS is the excessive rejection rate.
So, a high rejection rate is OK when applied to a beginner, but not OK when applied to an established contributor. Hmm.....
I can't speak for anyone else, but my complaints are not about the quantity of rejections, but the inconsistency and ignorance (white balance rejections for sunrise or sunset shots, for example). Shutterstock's review process is seriously flawed and it's the flaws, not the rejection numbers, that are the problem.
2417
« on: December 02, 2015, 14:52 »
In theory, open enrollment is fine, if you have a really good review process.
I learned an enormous amount from iStock's review process (early days) and some from SS's earlier reviews. It's a great way to learn, but only if there's a good, thorough and reasonably predictable review system. It's really painful to have your work rejected, but as long as there's enough feedback about what you did wrong and a decent mechanism (iStock's critique forum) to get more detailed help than reviewers can provide, it can work wonders with anyone prepared to put in the effort to improve.
Shutterstock's current reviews are a total crapshoot (I won't elaborate; there's so many threads on this already). In an environment like that you don't really learn anything.
2418
« on: December 02, 2015, 14:02 »
Bizarre if its 1 in 10 why bother at all......wonder if they will go down the Istock route of accepting everything......
It'll be more like rejecting everything - with the only mystery being whether it's for being out of focus or lighting/white balance
2419
« on: December 02, 2015, 13:17 »
I went to look, because I couldn't believe it, but there's a forum post on the topic.
I think they've automated so much of the review process that it doesn't cost them much to have lots of images come in and reject a huge portion (which is what will happen with no real initial screening). If a knowledgeable human had to look carefully over (at 100%) an entire image, there is no way they could afford to let anyone submit as often and as much as they like.
2420
« on: December 02, 2015, 13:08 »
I was going to install it, but Chrome said it wanted access to my most frequently visited web sites and to be able to read and change my data on all Shutterstock sites. Not sure if there's some marketing stuff they want from the list of most frequently visited sites, but I'm not sharing that with them.
I think the TOS says they can use our images for free for promotional purposes, and this is certainly about promotion of SS, so I don't see how one particular kind of promotion would be an exception to the general case.
2421
« on: November 30, 2015, 01:04 »
2422
« on: November 30, 2015, 00:42 »
I don't mind sharing, but I want to be sure I understand the ratio you're looking for. You're not comparing Enhanced Licenses or SODs, just ODs to subscriptions? So if you had $33 in ODs and $100 in subscriptions, your ratio would be .33
Is that what you're comparing? If so, mine is .84 and that's down from 1.00003 in November 2014
However the ELs and SODs are where some of the big differences come and I do think those are trending down
2423
« on: November 29, 2015, 20:32 »
It looks like Canva removed all my files as well. I don't think I've said anything bad about them in the past...they just seem to be in a purging spree as of late.
... I wish they were more transparent instead of being so passive aggressive about it.
Sorry to hear that. Transparency and honesty seem like two simple things that should be the bedrock of an agency/contributor relationship. Before I was removed, Lee explained that my portfolio had moved "back into our bottom 1%" - I don't know if that was by files in the portfolio, or sales or what - "... so now receives more attention from the cleanup team again". Perhaps the cleanup team just decided that all your files were not acceptable rather than you having transgressed in some way? I had seen my sales increasing month by month, so I considered that a success, especially as they kept deleting files. However if the sales for the site as a whole were rising much faster than my sales, perhaps they considered that a failure.
2424
« on: November 29, 2015, 17:00 »
... but they're tending to be what I'd call "overprocessed" they look slightly "smeary" in some areas, while being oversharpened where there are edges.
Exposure isn't great on a lot of them IMHO. Rather "flat and grey" lacking mid range contrast. I'd second the overprocessed issue. It's fine to post process your shots (and I'd recommend it as a general rule), but you need a gentler hand. Taking grotto2. jpg as an example: Long exposure water has that smooth-ish look, but to me, the water in your shots just doesn't look right, even for a 15 second exposure. Plus there are some transitions from blurry to sharp along a diagonal line of the church stone wall that don't look right-the camera couldn't have created that as the wall wasn't moving and there's a constant plane- and some sharpening halos (crunchy crispy areas around edges) that should not be there. It's a shame you cut off the top of the church spire and there's banding in the sky. All of these things will likely not pass muster with Shutterstock, which is what you want to concentrate on, IMO Good luck
2425
« on: November 29, 2015, 14:48 »
So SS did reply to my support ticket on this with some boilerplate "blah blah" that they can't be responsible for verifying keywords. There was a note at the end that they'd pass on this information to the person who curated this collection. However it's exactly the same today, months later. I went to look because a SS rep mentioned it in an article a Facebook friend linked to about Offset and a shoot for Offset https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/inside-offset-the-surreal-millennial-targeted-photo-market-within-shutterstock-111It really wouldn't take long to make a collection that actually did what they purported to do, but taking it down would be better than leaving it up when it's totally useless. And they don't take it down but make reference to it in an article!
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