Quote from: cthoman on April 05, 2015, 21:16

You can export your vector file into a layered PSD from Illustrator. You may have to clean it up a little in PS though. It likes to export groups and paths as well as the layers.

I've done that many times - and it can be really useful to have the layers in Photoshop - but today it wouldn't work on a particiular image (a vector I purchased to do a design job for someone). With a bit of checking, it had to do with transparencies and certain effects in the AI file - there's a set of those (at least in Illustrator CS6 and Photoshop CS6) that cause you to get one merged layer instead of separate ones.

With the unnamed chaos of someone else's Illustrator file it wasn't worth trying to find all the offending objects or layers, so I just worked around the problem, but just be aware there are some files for which the export to PSD won't produce layers.

It's also worth noting that opening the .ai file from Photoshop doesn't offer the option of making layers, only the export from illustrator.

That's never happened to me, but I don't use a lot of transparency so that makes sense. I guess you could put the transparent object on its own layer, then take the transparency off and reapply it in Photoshop after you export it.

Outsourcing is modern slavery, imho.

Aren't we all outsourced labor in stock art?

Sounds like a decent opportunity if you need some extra cash.

I usually just choose illustration. At one point in time, they made a big deal about things not being vectors until the vector file gets approved after the raster file was approved, so the process of uploading vectors was a little confusing.

Quote from: PixelBytes on February 26, 2015, 13:38

Quote from: Semmick Photo on February 26, 2015, 13:31

Lets say they only raise the sub royalties. 2 cent on every tier, thats 8 cent. They had 125.9M DLs in 2014. Lets say 50% of those are subs. It would mean a $5M cost increase. No chance in hell there will be a raise. Even if its only $1M annually. They need to increase revenue, reduce cost and maximise profit. A raise does NOT fit that strategy.

True and I am sure this is their thinking.  But it is very short term thinking.  GETTY is the example of  where short term thinking leads.  If SS was smart, they would think long term and figure out that a small raise to top tier contribs would earn good will and also help producers of HCV images to stay in business and keep supplying them top quality work.

so what does reduce cost entail??? none of that spiffy surrounding of HO??? who is going to speak for the contributors???  would IT give up that comfy life and get the system back to running...
so downloads are back to the ss old standard???
once you are so used to all that freebie perks at HO, you can forget about the real ppl who is paying for your comfort viz you and me the cheap jack-ass running the watermill

I would assume their biggest costs are paying contributors and advertising.

Do you think robot Brian follows a guy named Dave around the office asking him, "What are you doing, Dave?". Because I would totally do that. I think I'd vote Tumblr too.

Thanks.

Quote from: Tror on February 25, 2015, 07:37

If SS would give a raise now it would be a further incentive to focus more on SS and dry out the competition. They could achieve finally a total market domination. As such, it would make perfectly sense.

Yes, i also think it could work this way. A generous raise from SS at this point could damage a lot of the low earners trying to sell subscriptions, newcomers to subscriptions and DPC. Why buy a competitors site to close it down when you can drive them out of the market by keeping the contributors happy!

That would be the iStock lesson. They went the opposite route though.

If nothing else, it would be nice to see prices raised at the bottom (subs & small sizes). It's definitely holding back profits (for me).

I thought of it this way the other day...

This is basically my full-time job. Imagine if the company you worked for hired thousands of new people to do your job every day. Those people asked you to help them to get better at their your job and said things like, "hey, don't worry. I just do this for fun and don't really need the money". All this while you get paid less and told by your company how great everything is going.

OK. Now, stop imagining because this is reality for a lot of us. Honestly, I probably should be happy that I'm still treading water because reality is kind of insanely unreal.

I was pretty excited about this business back in 2008 when I was new and sales were growing with the number of uploads. But those days are over. Prices are going down and our royalty hasn't even been adjusted for inflation. Sales are going down as well. So it's pretty hard to stay positive. 

But I'm glad for you if you still have faith in this business. 

Yeah, there used to be a lot of things to cheer about. I'd love to go back to that and be positive most of the time. It just isn't very easy to do anymore. I kind of stopped complaining too though. I'm just not sure if it changes anything either. Maybe, one day it will.

Quote from: Semmick Photo on February 11, 2015, 06:12

But I have been told that its ok to copy an idea as you cant copyright an idea, or something in those words.

Copying other people's ideas is a d*#k move tho,  unless you do a totally different take on it.

I can't say I have a ton of ideas, so if you are copying me, you are probably copying the design.

Quote from: melastmohican on February 11, 2015, 11:01

They can survive without single new photo for years so there is no hurry to throw resources on contributor side of their site :-)

+1

They no longer pretend to care about the welfare of their contributors.

This problem has been cropping up, off and on for at least 4 years.

Considering many of the agencies have these problems at one time or another, it must be a little complicated to keep the giant machine running. Not that that is an excuse for it being broken, but it is something that is going to happen from time to time.