Quote from: Findura on December 20, 2021, 11:31
The new look looks unprofessional. From my point of view.

Some media info for footage is missing, like the fps info. Has it been deleted or just hidden?
And the title is half hidden. You have to scroll down a bit first and then unfold the text if you want to read the full title.
Instead, the buyer is offered other videos, right next to the object of desire, which are not relevant at all.

I mean, the new look is almost as bad as the look on some free content sites.

That's exactly what my wife said when she saw the new format.

I know from my own photos that the SS rating of a shot is garbage. I see that new work once marked as unsold is now marked as 'medium' having sold twice in the last 2 years. Stuff that sold maybe 15 times in 5 years is marked up to 'high' and 'frequently used' and 'Superstar Shutterstock customers love this asset!'

The new format with 'select a color that may or may not be appropriate' can be pretty awful. One of mine of a whole boiled ham (isolated) was in a surround color similar to the ham color (but more salmon-colored) and it looked really cheap and nasty.......as if made by someone without a clue about graphic design......cheapo internet sites from the early years and not graphic-savvy.

What is worse is the placing of other contributors' never-sold but similar photos next to my 'seller'. The competition's similar photos used to be placed below the image the potential customer had clicked on to view larger....now the competition is alongside and distracting from the shot the customer has selected. There's also something wrong with their 'software'...........

.......If I click on one of my own shots from recently sold, I get the enlarged version in the crappy-colored frame with the competition next to it. If I then click on one of the competition to see how much it never sold, I get the large version and the contributor's name but with my mugshot next to their name! Eek.....I'm Polish now! I then go to another photo that also never sold and I click on the contributors name to see their port (female from Latvia). Then, I go back to my own original shot of the ham to discover that my name is correct but my photo has changed to the Latvian female whose port I just viewed.

Unless Adobe has has changed since I last looked, their presentation is much fairer. They show similar work from the same contributor first in 'more from this series' rather than similar work from competitors........and they, of course, know what good graphic design is!

Interesting that a few of those shots with windmills and tulip fields do not actually exist and are montages!

https://www.shutterstock.com/nl/search/holland+flower+fields

I live a couple of miles away from the windmills at Zaanse Schans and there are no fields of tulips close enough to enable taking the 'combi' shots shown there. As with all desirable/commercial photos, give the buyer what they think they want even if if it doesn't actually exist!

I agree with almost everything said by Pete and Annie...especially Annie about the numbers game. As a starter in microstock today, the numbers are stacked against you. For me the numbers mean, "What are the chances of my latest upload staying on page 1 of 'New' of the category long enough to be seen and bought by potential buyers looking for something other than they've already seen on pages1-5 of 'Popular'.

When I started around the same time as Annie, my new shots could be found on the first page of 'new' for around 3 days even in the most popular categories. Then SS has ~35K contributors. Now it has 650K+ and for me that says that your new image/illustration/vector has nearly 20X less chance of being seen and bought today compared to when I started (2012). That new image today could be gone from page #1 of 'new' within an hour of approval no matter how good it is/was. That to me seems more like a lottery than a business!

I consider myself very fortunate in starting when I did (albeit a little late) and get a fairly regular $150/month form SS and Adobe with only 900 photos in both. Accounts have now been static for 3 years, Uploads seemed to gain no traction after 2018 so I stopped feeding the beast. Considering getting back in soon and with photos in a similar genre to those that still sell regularly (simply because both SS and ADBE show other similar subjects from that contributor's portfolio which gives advantage....not so much for non-established contributors).

Still find it difficult to recommend microstock to anyone other than a hobbyist that wants to make a few bucks from their photos. In the good ole days (2013-2016), I was making 3X what I make now from 50% less photos......then it was great but now not so much!

( Have to add that with a couple of commissions/year I can make $10K for 2X3 weeks work on location and that 5 years ago I saw microstock  as as a way out of commissioned work. Build up the portfolio etc etc to such an extent that $10K+/year from microstock was doable. Very difficult to do today starting out for all the reasons outlined above. It is possible ( see Annie's suggestions re video with scene setting shots) but the amount of work required for stills seems horrendous. That's why it's difficult for anyone established to offer advice to newbies...advice is colored by their experiences in the past and what was valid then for newbies is almost certainly no longer valid for newbies of the present day.... hmm difficult!)

PAID!

Quote from: Annie on December 12, 2021, 18:50

Quote from: rushay on December 11, 2021, 06:27
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/getty-images-to-become-public-company-again-in-4-8b-spac-deal-building-on-seattle-tech-roots/

Oh god, not the Carlyle Group :-( 

..........The leading light in the darkest excesses of malignant capitalism. 

Still no payment and 'contributor support' is non-existent....just refers to a FAQ page.

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 10, 2021, 11:29
I received it via PayPal on the 6th as well.

Thought it might depend on which country/continent but it clearly doesn't...you got yours and I haven't got mine yet despite being in the same country.

For October I still had my minimum payment set at $60 and made only $59 and so didn't get paid out. That $59 carried forward to November when the total of the 2 months came to $160. Strangely, December was 'zeroed' very quickly on December 1st (whereas it's usually days later).

I did get the email confirmation of the calculated payment on December 2nd and which will be made before December 15th (usual date given as the latest date given for payment) but have not yet received payment. I can't remember another month in the last 9 years in which actual payment came in later than the 10th of the following month. No worries however until after 15th December!!

  Me neither! No rejections since May 2020....haven't uploaded anything since then.............but if the subs of >$0.38 continue to increase and the ten&teen-cents decrease then will maybe reconsider.

Must find a symbol for Adobe Stock instead of 'Adobe Stock formerly known as Fotolia' (ASFKAFT)

 Funny thing about SS this month is that I'm seeing more subs for >$0.38  ($0.59 to be exact)! Still get plenty tens-and-teens but these higher value subs seem to be increasing. AS doing better than October but port is food-oriented.

Quote from: Firn on December 01, 2021, 07:42

Quote from: Roscoe on December 01, 2021, 07:06

I really wonder which criteria they use.

The only thing I could figure out was that time of upload seems to play a role. Images I uploaded less than 12 months ago always seem to be "not used yet", no matter how often they actually sold.  What a great way to promote newer content.... 

Yep. Incredible. Older images if they've only sold a few times get the 'SS customers love this asset' predicate whilst new images that have sold many more times get the 'not used yet' label.

Quote from: fotoVoyager on November 23, 2021, 16:25
Has anyone actually sold any images as NFTs?

I know someone who has but they're not a stock photographer. They've sold a few via Cardano and got paid in ADA (around 200ADA/shot). I assume that they can convert those ADAs into real money. They are an iPhone shooter which is they're claim to 'fame'.

My thoughts on the NFT bizz is that some financial market whizz kids thought about how they could make some moolah selling fantasy digits to the 'there's always a greater fool somewhere in the future I can flog this crap to for more than I paid for it' crowd. They are probably right but I would never be a buyer as that is the only purpose of NFTs (greater fool theory).

As a buyer, you don't even get to hang a nice print on your wall unless you pay for a print to be made (or maybe that's not allowed either as you don't own the copyright!). I have no idea about what 'rights' the purchaser of an NFT has but, hell, if you are an artist and can make loads of dosh with it, why not? Maybe the buyers of today are the greater fools but become the genius investors of the future!

Whatever. It's not about beautiful photos or art...it's just about money and profit/loss and that someone in the financial world is making their commission which is all that matters in the banking/finance world!

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 29, 2021, 20:10

Quote from: Mantis on November 29, 2021, 13:55
Sad where the industry has gone.

Sad that anyone would upload to a place called Freepik in the first place and expect to make money?

Eggsactly! 

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on November 16, 2021, 20:34
Out of my last 10 sales there, 6 were for 10 cents and the highest was 49 cents - pathetic!  I won't delete them - as others have said may as well get something from your past work - but stopped uploading when they made the change and have no plans to start back up.  Still get the occasional high-value sale, but not enough to make the whole enterprise worthwhile - leaves more time to play with the cats, which is much more rewarding.

Exactly. Haven't uploaded for 2 years nor will I ever again......still money for nothing even though it is only 20% of what it used to be. Should that drop to 10%, then I might consider deleting my and their biggest money-makers. Leave 'em with the trash!

I noticed that SS's last '5 Tips for creating stock photography that sells' showed (exclusively) examples from 'Image Source' on Offset.

Is this some re-branding of Offset because I've not seen them use 'Image Source' on Offset before? I have to say that I don't usually pay attention to these 'How to create' messages from SS. I wonder how many contributors they can fool into submitting 'Offset-type' photos including model/property releases for 10 cent dls in (non-Offset)SS?

Quote from: Brasilnut on October 27, 2021, 14:40

Quote from: DOP on October 27, 2021, 11:24

Quote from: Brasilnut on October 27, 2021, 11:16
Trying to up my book cover game for Arcangel

How are you getting on with that?
I'm only getting photos accepted with (family) models.
I watched the 'thriller' book covers video on the app, saw the baby booties photo that had been used as a book cover, looked at their stock and saw there are very few, uploaded 10 and they were all rejected.
I haven't had any sales yet but my port is small.  I'm also spending time working on the keywords.

Doing OK, still many rejections. Recently had a very productive chat with the Sales Director at Arcangel who went through my port and gave excellent advice. Basically, I need to up my game big time....my images are very mediocre compared to some of the top-producers. Served me a large portion of humble pie.

He has also confirmed that standards have got tougher during the past few months, as suspected. They're aiming at the high-end market.

Keep going!

Noticed that too when I tried a year or so ago. Hardly surprising with everyone wanting to get more than 10 cents for a photo!

Quote from: Anyka on October 26, 2021, 08:21
As I "officially" retired on 1st September, I plan to start selling my studio props.  But before selling, I will photograph each item, isolated and not isolated, for stock.  Which means I'll be "milking the cows" before I sell them haha

Good luck! Great to get free money...been getting it for 5 years! takes the pressure off having to work for it.

Quote from: Firn on October 21, 2021, 09:02

Quote from: Unamas on October 20, 2021, 22:37

Quote from: thijsdegraaf on October 20, 2021, 21:08I left it as a holiday photo on my website and did not put it on Shuttestock.
Now it is of course much worse at sunsets photos.

Keep in mind that you could win the competitors with the correct keywords.

I don't think the lottery has much to do with the correct keywords - but with luck. It was just luck with timing that lead the first photo to be successfull...........

It's actually one of the things I find so extremely frustrating about microstock - Luck is too big of a factor, so you can spend lots of time, effort and even money creating a really great photo, but a much worse one (and usually not yours), will get all the downloads because of sheer luck.

Agree absolutely.
And the thing about 'luck' is that in the past your image stayed on the first page of 'new' for a few days thereby enhancing the 'luck' of finding a buyer who was looking for something they couldn't find in or didn't want to use from 'popular'.
When SS opened the floodgates to contributors by only requiring one good image instead of 7 out of 10, your images in 'new' stayed on page one for a couple of hours instead of days as contributor numbers multiplied by a factor of 20X or 30X and submitted images multiplied by similar factors. In the past your image had a chance if it was good enough to get noticed and bought but now it's more like winning the lottery or being struck by lightning!
The only improvement in that 'luck' can come from a potential buyer seeing 'similar images from same contributor' but first you have to have a successful image that they click on to view and even when you have similar images in your port but submitted later, there's no guarantee that the SS algorithm will show those newer images (that's my experience at least).

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on October 21, 2021, 14:20
Generally, is there any chance of giving a rough idea of number of dls or income we are talking about here? It is really hard to know what to think when someone says "50% down on SS" and it could be the difference between 2dls and 1dl or 20000dls and 10000dls. Or 500% increase because of a single random extended/ enhanced license. Of course no one has to provide any info at all, but seems a bit pointless without this context.

Yup true. Very small player with <1,000 images on SS. Been there since 2012, no model released stuff and almost no editorial. Fair proportion of food. In 2014-2016 (500 images) had normal monthly sales of $300-$400 with around 400 dls/month. Portfolio static since 2018 at <1,000 images (noticed that new work didn't sell so stopped uploading). Current dls running at 150-200/month until very recently and now dipped below 150/month. Currently at just above payout minimum of $35 but often get SODs to bring me back into the $70-$100+/month range. If no SODs this month then expecting WME of <$50 but ja never knows!

Almost same port at Adobe. Sales this month to date ~35% of sales(dls) at SS and 50% of $$ at SS. Had free PS CC and LR at AS for the last 2 years (that's worth $200+) and if I start uploading again, it will be exclusively to AS and not to SS...the $0.10 sales p*ss me off too much. At SS I'm going to let it bleed out! No effort until no reward. Then I'll delete the port (or maybe sooner if I conclude that their 'corporatism' irritates me too much).

Quote from: Noedelhap on October 02, 2021, 10:28
I've read so much about how contributors are being overlooked to make stakeholders happy. And how we can shout and scream and we're not being heard.
So here's my cunning plan:
Why don't we contributors ALL become stakeholders, massively buying SSTK stocks. And then dump 'em all at once. A classic pump 'n dump. They'll never know what hit 'em!

Or just become a stakeholder for profit and stop contributing. If you can't beat them, join them.

I think that pump and dump is illegal if you get caught!! 

Even if a load of contributors got together and bought stock with the intention of making money/hurting SS, I can almost guarantee that the amount of stock owned by all the contributors would be insignificant compared to the volumes owned by or pledged to insiders and would therefore be insufficient to affect the price (even if you could get every contributor's nose pointed in the same direction at once).

Since Stan started, the stock price has tripled but I have to wonder how long the company can keep going on existing 'stock'. I just cannot imagine that the image factories will still be submitting large volumes of model-released/property-released work that costs real money to produce when the rewards to those contributors have also been cut back so much (even at Level 5/6 they can sometimes only get 10 or teen cents for a sub that was previously $0.38).

I don't doubt that all the insiders have made tons of money since 1st April 2020 with all those stock and options grants that they get to pump up their poverty-stricken salaries (joke ) and everything looks hunky-dory for the time being but how long can it last without quality commercial input from contributors? Only they know whether their business model (screw the suppliers and make the shareholders rich) is sustainable and if it's not, how long they've got before cashing out.

Perhaps SSTK is already being 'groomed' for sale to a 'financial investment' group.

Thanks @For Real for the link.

Me wonders whether SS isn't being prepared for a sell off to an 'investment' group. When you're not prepared to invest in a couple of people to manage/moderate a forum it will get out of hand (sort of Godwin's Law-light). An unmoderated forum with all its adverse comments is going to be bad for business/stock price if your main interest is to get the stock price up so that all the senior management can cash out at the top.

Those guys are the insiders and must have a good idea of how the company is 'progressing' since the new rates for contributors were implemented. What if there's a trend by the major image factories to not give their new model-released work to SS because they can no longer make any money at SS? Then you know that in time your image base will become stale and that it's time to boost the stock price before you cash out. Any indications that the peasants are revolting must be quelled, otherwise a potential investor might be a little worried by the unrest among the natives/suppliers found on the forums.

Pure speculation on my part and only time will tell.

Has SS discontinued the contributor forum as it was? Now only 'Contributor Blog' in the dropdown menu and all the old forums have disappeared.

Posted by: Uncle Pete

Quote
Whatever anyone eventually finds out, in fact, hacked, or manipulated or whatever, it's SS that's broken and someone just found the loophole.

Yup.