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476
« on: February 07, 2018, 13:02 »
Even more important than the race to the bottom is the fact, as Zack mentions in his video, the total ignorance of (amateur) photographers about model releases and the possible legal problems arising from the commercial use of those not-model-released pictures.
Yes. I could see in the future (after some nasty legal cases) that companies will move away from crowd sourcing imagery from people who don't know/understand that releases are required for people and property. As Zack says, how free is that free image when later on your company is sued for 1m's. It'll only take a couple of high profile cases before CEO's order all marketing teams to avoid any unreleased imagery from non professional sources.
477
« on: February 07, 2018, 03:39 »
Unsplash is an image sharing website where photographers share high quality/res work and it is 100% royalty free. It seems, for all intents and purposes, like the 'race to the bottom' that is plaguing the stock photo industry has gotten Zack unhinged. Zack nails it and very briefly mentions iStock:
http://youtu.be/6M_OZWtpokc
There's already a thread on this but.... statements like "100% royalty free" when referring to free images on the Creative Commons licence do not help. It goes towards confusing inexperienced image buyers to think, "Royalty Free" means the images are free when they are most certainly not.
478
« on: February 06, 2018, 16:37 »
So you felt, you need to open new topic about it? Probably about 639439349 topics about "no sales" already.
However today they are correct. No sales. There's been a technical problem that resulted in sales appearing and disappearing for the first half of the day followed by nothing at all. Jon Oringer confirmed the issue had been identified and they were in the process of resolving it but no data was lost.... they just need to rebuild "Daily Earnings". Starting to see the sales filter through now. People who spot these issues shouldn't be ridiculed but thanked.... as it is those people who highlight problems that are then resolved rather than go unnoticed.
479
« on: January 29, 2018, 16:05 »
I contacted them. They've referred the issues to contributor support for further investigation. I'd suggest others do the same so they know it's not a one off.
480
« on: January 29, 2018, 14:48 »
Same here, missing sales data and more than a little concerned about their ability to correct this.
481
« on: January 28, 2018, 14:04 »
Amazing are the new bugs like this one
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/healing-and-spot-healing-brush-lag
That's a 'feature', not a bug!!! (You can change settings).
I'm finding more often than not that I need to close PS via the Task Manager nowadays. 
I had to close Adobe programs via the Task Manager as well. That is, on my previous computer (i5-2700K CPU, 8 GB RAM and HDD).
Since I have my new computer (i7-8700K CPU, 32 GB RAM and SSD), it opens and closes smoothly. So it may just be your computer 
For sure, it's a few years old and underspecced for the new PS bloat!
Take a look at Affinity Photo. One off payment (48), no subscription and it looks and feels like Photoshop but without the bloat. You can get it for a free trial. It accepts all of PS brushes, plugins as well. After trying it and their Affinity Designer, I stopped my CC subscription.
482
« on: December 16, 2017, 12:07 »
Last week was solid, approx $400 with $180 on one day. This week, opposite, struggling to get over $180... for the week. Before and just after Adobe took over, FT was on fire but now... very unstable sales and nothing like it was. New files always sold easily there but now they seem to take a while (if at all) to find their feet. SS used to be like that but, of late, new files selling well. When FT has weeks like last week, then great... unfortunately, there are too many weeks like this one now
483
« on: December 07, 2017, 06:34 »
^
I have good sales too.
If you have bad sales it does not mean that Shutterstock does not sell
It means that the customers don't buy your images and buy somebody else ones
mine for example 
Not suggesting that at all. Over $30 for the 1st hour this morning and sales still coming in strong. It was just yesterday. If I get 60+ sales a day (vid and pics) and it stops at 5 then I have a fairly good idea something is wrong. Especially as it was just one day like that and either side of it was perfectly normal.
484
« on: December 07, 2017, 03:57 »
Yesterday was very slow. I reported it as they had said they were experiencing problems with DLs the previous day but had now fixed it. I questioned whether they had actually fixed it as everything stopped after the 1st hour.
Today, seems to have started off as I'd expect and it after the 1st hour or so it is already past yesterdays total. Hopefully that means any problems there had been are...now resolved!
485
« on: November 30, 2017, 15:14 »
Well feel a bit guilty now I'm actually getting around 8-900 a month but with only Ft it used to be almost double that.
Same here.... 850- 1100. Did used to be $1500. Took a hit after DPC closed and reaching emerald.
486
« on: November 30, 2017, 05:26 »
wait till the "ghost-busters" arrive at your topic. They will destroy your first-hand experience of how an algorithm is capping your sales. "It is all in your head" they will say. Naive people, that don't know what you can do with technology.
We know about the same algorithm sales capping crap from SS, which is less noticeable than this from Adobe. At SS you have less noticeable but constant sales, which are slowly increasing yearly. We never had over 100 sales in a month (with almost 13000 video files), but we are near this number. Maybe in 2018 we will finally reach it.
Even Pond5 has some kinda capping algorithm. We even experienced 14days no sales (we have 13000 files?!) and then full-throttle another 14days of sales. The worst is when a whole month has almost no sales and then another month is very good.
I believe it is now.... it seemed to shift from SS to FT/AS at the same time a certain member of staff switched sides! Since they left, the weekly Algo dance at SS seemed to come to an end and the changes that are made now are not so dramatic or often. At FT, it feels like it's almost a weekly event that somethings changed with the search (as it was at SS) and it can have a dramatic impact on income. Last month was a good month but Nov, it seems like they are trying to rebalance that good month with a crap one. Violent swings. Not just a few $ but hundreds. It seems like the Analysts have been allowed to run riot with the Search Algorithm, trying different things to see what works and what doesn't. As an ex-analyst I know how much fun it can be to tweak this and that and see what happens to the numbers on the spreadsheets etc. However, it can also be easy to lose sight that the changes also impact the lives of real people as well. People rarely like to much change and when it happens often, it becomes destabilising (contributors and clients a like). The more changes that are made over a short period of time, the easier it is for a mistake to go unnoticed, and, is itself tweaked until the search falls over and it becomes very difficult to unravel the mess (IS Search). Hopefully they don't leave it too long to realise this otherwise we'll have another IS in the making. Don't get me wrong, search tweaks are always required but elsewhere (RM), you normally see them being applied every 100 - 180 days and even then, they're rarely night and day changes. More evolution than revolutionary. At least SS is more stable that it used to be.
487
« on: November 25, 2017, 08:28 »
For those experiencing the same pattern, report it to FT via the message system. Ive already done this with a copy of last months percentages. It could be something they are not aware of so its worth reporting it so they know to investigate it!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
488
« on: November 25, 2017, 04:58 »
Even after AS took over, US sales were still 30-50%. What is odd now is the complete lack of ANY non us sales. It feels like the search, which is likely to have some form of geo feature (as is often used), maybe out of balance.
There was a point when it was the other way round, minimal US sales and it had similar results. Long spells without sales until the priority country/ continent woke back up for work. What we are seeing is a tweak to the search that has created an imbalance of geo exposure.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
489
« on: November 24, 2017, 06:47 »
Just looked at % of US sales to the rest of the world. I'm routinely over 90% US sales, often 95-98% even though I supply work that is not specific to the US (I'm based in the UK). It's like my port is not visible anywhere else other than the US. It certainly explains why my sales plummet when the US has a holiday. The last couple of days have been terrible yet SS is good. They seem to have a good balance of visibility across all countries.
It just seems that they've badly broken the search at the moment. My weekly position dropped massively to 700 this week, lowest it's been for years!
Good news is that good sales came in from Archangel.... 4 sales = 1.5x FT monthly earnings! I'm thinking of just focusing on them and other RM agencies now and send quick and simple stuff to micro.
490
« on: November 23, 2017, 12:09 »
After a good October, November has been poor to say the least. The stability their search engine once had seems to have gone. SS went through a period when there search was radically changing every couple of weeks. Their's seems to have stabilised to a degree while FT AS has taken the same characteristics as the old (bad) SS search. Makes me wonder if that has something to do with Scott being over there now. Either way, it's no where near as good as it once was.
491
« on: November 05, 2017, 07:57 »
I for one wish I could just have stayed with Ft since I had ten times more sales then before this merger with Adobe. I recon I know why. Two week back I suggested to an AD at an ad-agency to look for four of my shots at Adobe and he said " adobe?  why? its a programming company"!
I dont think its sunk in that they are also dabbling in stock?
Sounds like that art director isn't keeping up with Adobe products. Anybody who uses the creative suite should know that images are integrated in from the apps.
I am fan of Adobe and its creative cloud suite but I hate what it's doing with Fotolia...
Fotolia already is a well-established stock photo agency and it's among the top ones I really don't understand why they are trying to stop or remove it
From where did you get the new that Adobe wants to stop or remove Fotolia? Some sources?
They automatically encourage all traffic on route to FT to go to Adobe Stock instead. No more new accounts can be set up at Fotolia and Alexa Rankings show a continued (large) decline in traffic to FT due to their traffic management. No need for sources, they're own actions tell you that they are trying to suck the life out of FT and divert it to Adobe Stock.
492
« on: September 26, 2017, 03:16 »
Nothing.... but looking at search results it's not surprising really. It's not the best search.
I only just joined them a few weeks back. Getting regular $50 video sales but zero photo sales from 8k+ port which returns over $2.5k p/month with other RF agencies.
I guess I'll not be uploading anymore stills until I see some drastic changes.
493
« on: September 20, 2017, 07:56 »
Yeah, out of all the companies Getty should have been the last one they took on. They're well known for their aggressive legal action! Might end up in tears for them...... hopefully!
494
« on: September 18, 2017, 05:41 »
Not the cleverest of name changes. I googled it and 1st entry is a content provider / charity called..... wait for it...... Storyblocks http://www.storyblocks.orgThat should have been the first thing they checked. I can see this causing confusion for both companies.
495
« on: September 05, 2017, 04:59 »
However, what I can say is that I tend to generally agree with you in that veterans need to be more encouraging to newbies while at the same time "keeping it real".
As has already been said, it's not our job to make others feel good about themselves in the world of Stock Photography. This sounds harsh but think about it for a moment. How many Solicitors, Mechanics or Accountants etc go round providing moral support to their competitors? Giving them advice on how to improve their business so they can ultimately take customers away from them.... None.
Moral support is the type of thing you'd find on photography groups or clubs. If that's what is needed then I guess the cut throat world of Stock Photography is not the place to to start until you're more confident and have a better idea on what you need to do. You should not expect moral support or advice from your competitors. Why would they want to improve your chances of taking more money away from them and reducing the food on the table for their family.... that would be plain foolish.
Personally, I make business decisions based on what is happening to me and not what others are saying. The advice could be wrong or deliberately misleading. Do you want to make financial decision based on a game of chance?
If it's a hobby, don't expect full timers to pass on info that will make it easier/quicker for you to make money...that could be money that was destined for their pockets. If someone does give you advice, don't treat it as gospel. You're better off doing the leg work yourself.... look around you, see what images are used and for what.
I'm constantly amazed by the numbers of people who fall over themselves to provide advice and support to newbies and in the next breath complain their income is dropping. Yes, this is harsh but thats business for you.
496
« on: August 23, 2017, 16:34 »
Microstock --->> Pennystocks
In this case two penny stock photos?
RPD: 0.75 average June 2017, but sales are 1/10th of SS and below FT for my image income. I count real income, it buys things. RPD isn't worth a penny.
RPD for someone with 5,000 images and 1,000 sales a month, is a fair measure. If it's 5,000 photos and 8 sales a month, RPD is useless. Same as RPI, what are your images, how many near duplicates or series shots? Remove the padding and see what you really earn. It could be a higher RPI figure.
0.02$ iStock Essentials 30-Apr-2017
-0.23$ iStock Essentials 27-Jan-2017
but the same image has a .30 sale, same month, I'll assume these negative numbers can be explained by adjustments, not negative commission. Trying to be fair about this.
And, I see far more payments over the previous .28c marker than I see below it. Subs popping up between $2-$3 are quite frequent. Carrying out a simple average of all sub sales confirms the current system is working in my favour compared to the previous one. YMMV.
497
« on: August 20, 2017, 05:48 »
I just tried Deep Meta 3 for the first time to analyze the monthly sales data. Forget my previous post suggesting to use TodayIs20. Deep Meta is far superior in terms of data analysis and it puts it all into one screen. You don't even have to download the data files yourself or sacrifice your privacy by uploading your sales data files to a privately owned 3rd party website. Deep Meta does it all for you and only downloads your sales data onto your own computer.
Also, if you still have Deep Meta 2 installed, it can import all your old data from Deep Meta 2 from all the years before iStock switched over to the new Getty system which was switched over on January 1st of this year. So now you can have both all of your old and new file data together in one app. It only provides sales statistics though from January of this year onward.
Yes, I've been impressed with Deep Meta 3.... shame iStock still use that crazy keyword system but that's no fault of the Deep Meta 3 programmer!
498
« on: August 19, 2017, 13:04 »
Question : How can i see my Graphicstock portofolio through my Videoblocks account ?
They have accepted hundreds of my pictures and not see them ... only video or it is not available until sep 18 !?
September 18th is the launch date from what I was told...
Yeah, they were sending out emails last week. Had a busy 5 days, uploaded 8k files to them... thank god for fibre optic broadband 
499
« on: August 18, 2017, 06:00 »
Hey Derek,
you can use our app to track iStock/Getty sales. It automatically downloads the reports and shows you every sale since the transition to ESP(december 2016).
We're still in Beta so it's free to use. If you're curious you can download it here: http://microstockr.com/microstockr-pro
Unfortunately, as it's been mentioned before you have to wait for the 20th of the current month to see the sales for the previous one. Also, sales made before December 2016 are now gone from their site.
That''s the problem, it just tells you you have $0. If you don't make payout each month then yes, but anyone who does this for a living it's not much use (for iStock) as you should always be over payout.... otherwise a career change may be needed ;-)
500
« on: August 12, 2017, 09:37 »
I was approved for images but don't see how to upload them even on their site. Am I missing something?
When selecting "Upload Media" it provides the option for Video & Photos / Images. Select Photos and it then gives you a choice of Photo, Illustration or Vector.
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