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Messages - Firn
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476
« on: April 16, 2021, 06:01 »
I'm trying to find the positive aspects of this, if there are any.
Try "Adobe will make more money"?
477
« on: April 15, 2021, 23:54 »
Whenever a stock agency makes some change in favor of their customers and themselves while kicking their contributors with feet I am not surprised. Customers are valued, contributors are not. There are too many of us. We are easily replacable, there is an over-supply of us. Even if thousands pull a port from an agency, it doesn't hurt them. So I thought nothing could shock me anymore. However, this move really surprised me, because Adobe is primary a softwear producer and secondly a stock agency. (Or is this shifting?) Did Adobe forget that their contributors - artists and photographers - are also their customers who use their products? Is making these deals to some of your customers really worth pissing of many other customers? There are good alternatives to photoshop and lightroom after all. 
478
« on: April 06, 2021, 07:05 »
I deleted an image and re-uploaded about an hour later. They rejected it as Approved on Site: This image has already been accepted into our collection.
Some people say that you should wait a while, because it would take a while for the image to disappear, but that has never been an issue for me. For the past days I literally only deleted images after I hit "submit" on the new uploaded version and they were all approved again without problems.
479
« on: April 06, 2021, 01:03 »
And after 5 or 6 threads, with four new in two days, the answer remains the same. "We're aware and looking into this." Plus the advice, don't upload again, they are already in the system. Of course out of 300 million images, some people are panicking because a buyer might just want that one photo that's missing and oh my, we'd miss out on that dime? 
I can't see deleting and uploading and taking the chance that the newest might be rejected by the Bots? Also how much time do I want to spend deleting and uploading, what confidence is there, that they will actually be deleted, or kept for 90 days? Has anyone been getting rejections for duplicates? LOL 
But I suppose if anyone wants they can fight the system instead of just waiting for SS to figure out what's wrong.
I am not "panicking", but I had, for example, Easter related photos that were approved, but did not appear. What good is it to me if they appear in my port after Easter? Then I might just as well not submit them at all, or wait till next year. Also, on Shutterstock it is hard enough to get an image "noticed" and become a regular seller as it is. A lot of it depends on luck: When you upload a photo, someone needs to buy it pretty soon, so it will move up the ranks, otherwise it will be lost in a black hole. But if you submit a photo and it only appears in the database 3 weeks later, it will appear on page page 52 from the start instead of the first page of the new image search. Your small chance to have that photo noticed becomes pretty much non-exitant and the photo is wasted completely. This is not about a "dime", at least not for me. In every season I manage to get at least one seasonal photo of my dogs thrugh that will earn me a nice 3-figures sum. I put a lot of work into these photos and am not going to waste my chance with a photo because of some stupid random glitch. So, yeah, of course I'll delete time-sensitive images and re-upload them if they don't appear in the database after having been approved. It's annoying, but it works. I don't have a problem with image rejections other than the rare really random ones like having a photo of my dog rejected for mature content and photos with property releases, because apparently reviewers have trouble noticing there are property releases attached  . But the focus/noise rejections a lot of people seem to have problems with? Well, don't submit photos that are out of focus or have noise and you should be fine. And if you want to wait for SS to figure out what's wrong, you risk waiting a long time. I have had technical issues reported to them 2 years ago that stayed unresolved. So, yes, if I know a work-around for an issue, of course I will use it instead of relying on SS to fix it.
480
« on: April 05, 2021, 03:46 »
so hopefully these images will be available normally within the next few days."
Don't count on it. I made a thread about it in the SS forum and there someone reported that they had this happening to them already last month and images approved on March 12th were still not showing up in their port at this point.  Unless you don't mind waiting weeks for the images to finally show up, your best option is probably to delete the approved image (you have to go to the catalogue manager and select a different image and then switch out the image ID as you also won't find these images in the catalogue manager) and re-submit and hope that they show up instantly next time.
481
« on: April 05, 2021, 01:19 »
What about royalty with minus. Does Istock reduce our earning?
They make adjustments if a person purchased a picture and got refunded or scammed iStock. Then this will result in a minus amount in your eranings the next month. But most agencies do this. It just seems to be a more regular thing there.
482
« on: March 25, 2021, 01:18 »
I just got a payment from Depositephotos yesterday. Made the payment request on March 13th and got the mail on the same day, so everything seems to work fine. If you're not getting the e-mail to confirm the request, that sounds more like a technical error.
That's probably the obvious thing you checked first, but just to make absolutely sure - did you check your mail account's spam folder?
483
« on: March 22, 2021, 07:16 »
Shutterstock is doing well financially, especially so since they cut contributor's commissions with the new payment structure. Why would they sell it?
484
« on: March 20, 2021, 01:45 »
I started microstock in late 2018 and my experinece so far is a bit different.
There is no downwards trend for me, even with SS's pay cut. I keep submitting content and on most agencies my earnings keep rising. One year ago I made around $450-500 a month, this year I am at around $1000 per month. (All agencies combined, only photos, no footage) Some months are better than others, but on most agencies the trend is clearly onwards. I know it's not "big money", but it's enough to make a noticable difference in my overall income and is not a waste of my time.
On Shutterstock and iStock the upwards trend is most noticale.
There is also one on Dreamstime, though there it is less noticable, because my overall earnings are much smaller.
I only started submitting to Depositphotos and Bigstock at the end of last year, so I can't say anything about trends here yet.
The only two agencies without any real upwads trend are Alamy and Adobe for me, though there is also no downwards trend.
Alamy is generating sales for me only once in a blue moon. Has always been like this and still is like this.
Adobe was having an onwards trend for the first 1,5 or so years, but for the past year it has been stagnating, no matter how many new images I submit. That's actually the most puzzling to me, because within a year I rose by over 20.000 ranks on Adobe. So what does it mean that my overall rank there keeps improving, while my sales don't?
What has proven a good tactic for me is to "not put all my eggs in one basket" and by that I don't mean to not only stick with one agency, but to not stick with one topic of photography. My portfolio is all over the place. I do a lot of dogs, but also food, flatlays, plants, travel, news concepts, if I have an idea for one and so on. I feel like by this, if something like Corona happens, and one thing like travel photos almost stop selling completely, I still have a great amount of other topics to offer. And something will always be in demand. I would like to expand my portfolio with footage and people, but I am not really good at videos yet and obviously I don't make that kind of money to be able to afford models.
485
« on: March 08, 2021, 03:51 »
The quality is higher in the sense that because of the sheer increase in volume more quality images can be found. In absolute terms the average quality of images has plummeted.
Absolutely agree with this. More contributors mean more potential high quality contributors that submit good content. But it also means more images of really poor quality. I see so many photos on stock agencies where I don't even understand how they were ever approved. I would even go as far as to say that percentage-wise the amount of poor quality images outpasses the amount of good quality images, simply because nowadays everyone can snap a photo with a cell phone, so more people who have no idea what they are doing submit photos (Not saying that a photo taken with a phone has to be bad, just that the means to take a photo have become easily available to everyone)
486
« on: March 07, 2021, 01:35 »
Hopefully customers won't be using that as a search qualification.
Not as a search qualification (at least as long as it's not a selectable option in the search), but probably as a buying qualification. Think about it: You want to buy a photo, you search for one you like and the site you want to buy it from says the "quality" was 6/10. Never mind that by "quality" they don't actually mean "technical quality", but some "visual appeal". Would you buy the image? I know I would assume the image was of poor quality and had technical flaws like noise, soft focus or bad exposure and search for a suitable replacement with better "quality".  If at least they would name it different. Calling it "quality" is really misleading. Either way, I can't see this new feature. Apparently people say that it will show when you have your langauge set to English, but Shuterstock won't let me and always loads in German, no matter how often I select English.
487
« on: March 03, 2021, 11:49 »
I just gave my honest opinion on his portfolio.
People need to stop justifiying being rude and insulting by saying "I just gave my opinion!!!".
There are a lot of forum rules on Shutterstock, one is "be polite" another "Provide honest, constructive feedback without being disrespectful or mean" How is saying someone's profile "sucks" constructive? Next rule says "Refrain from using the forum to call out other contributors work in a negative light", which is exactly what you did. Jon Oringer certainly did not come to the forum to ask for your opinion on his (test) portfolio. You made a thread specifically for calling out his work in a negative light. And then there is a rule saying "Refrain from making defamatory remarks about Shutterstock, our contributors, our customers, or our competitor", which you have broken in many of the 446564 threads you post daily.
I don't like Oringer any more than anyone else here does, but you broke several rules, you got a well deserved warning, stop whining.
This is so lovely. You are such big fanboy of Shitterstock!
Sure... (I am woman, by the way...)
488
« on: March 03, 2021, 06:44 »
I don't think anyone got paid for Ferbraury yet. I only got the mail that my payment was calculated this morning.
About January's payment: There seems to have been a problem with a lot of contributor's payment in January. There are many threads about it in the support forum. One person even managed to get hold of a real person when contacting support and was told that there has been a technical error with payments, so that many people were not getting their January payments and that they would get it along with their February payments.
Why Shutterstock thought it was acceptable to just stay silent instead of notifying these people about their missing payment, or to just postpone the payments to the next month (some people acually rely on their Microsock income for living!) instead of paying the earnings as soon as the error was noticed, it a mistery to me, but so is a lot of the stuff SS does these days.
Eiher way, if everything goes according to plan, you should get your January earnings along with your February earnings within the next few days.
489
« on: March 03, 2021, 03:53 »
I just gave my honest opinion on his portfolio.
People need to stop justifiying being rude and insulting by saying "I just gave my opinion!!!". There are a lot of forum rules on Shutterstock, one is "be polite" another "Provide honest, constructive feedback without being disrespectful or mean" How is saying someone's profile "sucks" constructive? Next rule says "Refrain from using the forum to call out other contributors work in a negative light", which is exactly what you did. Jon Oringer certainly did not come to the forum to ask for your opinion on his (test) portfolio. You made a thread specifically for calling out his work in a negative light. And then there is a rule saying "Refrain from making defamatory remarks about Shutterstock, our contributors, our customers, or our competitor", which you have broken in many of the 446564 threads you post daily. I don't like Oringer any more than anyone else here does, but you broke several rules, you got a well deserved warning, stop whining.
490
« on: February 25, 2021, 04:14 »
This issue pops up from time to time and usually you can't actually purchase the images. There is a purchase button and all, but if you actually want to go through with the purchase, it won't work.
Don't know whether that's the case here or whether your images are really still up for sale, just know that there were plenty of cases where people thought their images were still up for sale, when really they weren't.
491
« on: February 22, 2021, 10:43 »
February's sales will be published in March.
January's sales have been published rather early his month, I think on the 17th already.
Mine were much better than expected and much better than SS or Adobe.
492
« on: February 21, 2021, 02:53 »
......
So how do they know what your job is? Without contract or anything.
I just enter "photographer / artist" in the field that says "occupation" and that's it.
with millions of taxpayers it's trust & sometimes verify - with penalties, most people follow the rules & random audits provide some deterrence. IRS et al don't have resources to check every declaration. just be ready to back up what you declare
Exactly. Since a few years ago in Germany I actually don't even have to send in any bills for my income and my costs anymore. I just enter the number. However, I am required to keep the proof for 10 years and be able to provide it for that long, should they ask. However, not everyhing is super logical and paperwork-free in Germany. I play the same stupid game with them every year. Each year I fill in what I paid as health insurance and each year they send me a letter saying that they want proof of that (of all the things that's the only thing they want to have) and each year in return I send them a letter from my health insurance company in which they tell me, that they send my overview with my payments to the tax office months ago....
493
« on: February 20, 2021, 13:04 »
Also, how can a printed PayPal transaction list be of any relevance? It is a piece of paper that could be altered in Photoshop before printing?!
Every piece of paper can be altered in Photoshop, so a PayPal transaction list is as valid as document as every other.
I am from Germany and I have submitted my PayPal transaction list as proof of my income for years without any problems.
With the other questions I am afraid I can't help you as our collection office does not want to see any contracts, no matter whether you are a freelancer like me or employed.
Thank you very much for this info!
So how do they know what your job is? Without contract or anything.
I just enter "photographer / artist" in the field that says "occupation" and that's it.
494
« on: February 20, 2021, 06:37 »
Also, how can a printed PayPal transaction list be of any relevance? It is a piece of paper that could be altered in Photoshop before printing?!
Every piece of paper can be altered in Photoshop, so a PayPal transaction list is as valid as document as every other. I am from Germany and I have submitted my PayPal transaction list as proof of my income for years without any problems. With the other questions I am afraid I can't help you as our collection office does not want to see any contracts, no matter whether you are a freelancer like me or employed.
495
« on: February 18, 2021, 15:53 »
Hi,
I just applied with Cavan and realized after uploading 10 videos that they are content exclusive.
They have just accepted my content, so I asked them to delete my account via the 'contact us' page.
Hope I've not made a big mistake
Dear friends, any comments about such experience are welcome please...
Best
Did I miss something? Nowhere in the contributor agreement does it say that submitted content needs to be exclusive to Canva.
cavanimages, not canva
Ahhhhh, that explains everything! Now I feel stupid. Never heard of Cavan before.
496
« on: February 18, 2021, 13:35 »
Hi,
I just applied with Cavan and realized after uploading 10 videos that they are content exclusive.
They have just accepted my content, so I asked them to delete my account via the 'contact us' page.
Hope I've not made a big mistake
Dear friends, any comments about such experience are welcome please...
Best
Did I miss something? Nowhere in the contributor agreement does it say that submitted content needs to be exclusive to Canva.
497
« on: February 17, 2021, 06:32 »
I don't think the person who complained was offended by the word "afro", like some seem to think. She was offended by the misuse of it and thought it would imply that all african women had "afro" hair, when afro is the term for a certain hairstyle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfroThe woman in that picture is not having afro hair. She is having braided hair. It's sometimes a bit hard to understand what one person finds offensive and why, especially if it doesn't affect you. If someone mislabeled german hair as "blond hair" or whatever, I wouldn't feel offended by the possible implicaton that all German women had blonde hair, even though I don't, but people of ethnic groups that have suffered from discrimation are more sensitive to these things. I think more problematic here is really that you tagged the picture with wrong keywords as there is no afro hair to be seen there. However, if you used the keywords " afro american woman" and "braided hair", at least on Shutterstock, the search for "afro hair" would have lead to the same results, so it doesn't really seem to matter?
498
« on: February 15, 2021, 13:07 »
Many years back there was a big argument between Scott and Rinder it all ended up with Scott leaving and got about 50 peple banned in the process of leaving! and I'm talking some very big names getting banned! being banned from SS is nothing new!
I remember talk about such an incident (though it wasn't many years ago, so maybe I am confusing it with a different incident?), but I thought the people were just banned from the forum, not actually banned as Shutterstock contributor?
499
« on: February 10, 2021, 10:29 »
I think I'll need to watch new images as that's what you mentioned, and see how that goes, but I'm essentially down to two active agencies and Alamy for Microstock. I really don't see anything new catching on like they used to do, anywhere. Everything is a long slow ride, and maybe in a year, I'll see what's going on. There is no more, upload on Monday and watch for sales during the week.
I've only been doing microstock for a little over 2 years, so I can't really compare whether new stuff is catching on like it used to. I can only make an observation for that short period of time and it's like I described above. For me one image selling 50 or 100 times within a month is very good (maybe some will laugh at these numbers, I don't know. I am content with this. For me very few images manage to do this. ) and some of my newly uploaded seasonal images have managed to do this both on Shutterstock and iStock. Even on Dreamstime and Depositephotso some of them have sold 10-20 times within a month (I know these numbers don't look great, but these agencies just don't generate many sales for me, so it's a lot in comparison to the overall sale number), it's just Adobe where sales on these images are missing. Most of these images have not sold one single time on Adobe, a few maybe once. It's basically as if they did not exist. But the few images that have been selling regularly for me for the past 2 years still kept selling. It's just that the difference between how these new images performed on Adobe compared to all other agencies (expect Alamy where I sell an image once in a blue moon) is quite noticeable, so I am having a hard time believing that it's the microstock market in general or that it's my images.
500
« on: February 10, 2021, 05:20 »
Is there any way how to know if part of buyers migrated from SS to Adobe or other websites? Maybe someone can see it in his stats (with portfolio big enough to get stable and not so random results).
Unfortunately my own stats are not clear, because I don't upload new images on SS since Juny. I'm down 50% on SS in earnings and 20% down in downloads. Other websites do better now for me (Adobe is 50% up), but I uploaded a lot of new images there (but not so many to get 50% up) so I can't say clearly if they do better because of my new images or because they keep bigger part of the market.
I think it still depends a lot on luck and randomness and on an individual port and the content. My February earnings on SS are for example 400% of my Adobe earnings right now. Adobe has been doing really great for me sometime around June last year where it was doing better than Shutterstock. Then my earnings declined and have pretty much been stagnant there for months now even though I constantly add new content. I think actually Adobe is the only one of the agencies I submit to, where adding new content does not have any positive effect on my sales.
I think more than any other agency they seem to have a problem in promoting new content over best-selling established content. I had such great results with my new Halloween and Christmas dog photos on all agencies (Hundreds of sales on some individual images, adds to various agencies' curated collections), expect Adobe, where they basically didn't sell at all - instead the same old images of much poorer quality from 2 years ago would still sell. As long as that's not changing, I don't think my future with Adobe is looking too bright.
The quality was far, far better years back simply because pro photographers submitted portfolios! they have now left SS in droves. Nowadays they accept and promote any old crap! working on the concept of quantity rather then quality and of course silly buyers that dont know the difference!
I am not sure what this has to do with the fact that on Adobe my old - much crappier - images sell, but my newer ones with much more experience and much better equipment that sell well on other agencies, don't.
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