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Messages - wordplanet
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51
« on: December 12, 2023, 16:13 »
DT slogs along slowly for me. Since 2018, I've made payout roughly every 18 months. Before that, I made payout 3-4 times a year with a very small portfolio (250-350 images). Since 2022 I increased my portfolio to 500 images since their upload process is so easy, but with a drop in RPD from $1.35 in 2021 to 89 cents in 2022 to 53 cents this year, my income has remained nearly the same even though number of sales increased.
DT isn't the only outlier. I have 100 files on Getty/iStock (unchanged for years) and their $100 payout gets me paid every 18-20 months.
It ticks along, so why would I close the account? I look at it as a surprise $100 every other year, rather than something more reliable.
52
« on: December 12, 2023, 13:57 »
After posting this in a much older thread I saw that people were scolded for reviving something so old so thought I'd start a new thread for Tear Sheets for this year and next: https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2023/top-cities-post-military-service.htmlMy model here is not a veteran - I know there was a NYTimes case that said it was okay to use an image of a person in this way even if they are not actually in the profession mentioned. Just glad it's his back. I submitted it as editorial only. Actually, given today's prices I'm happy with this one - I made $30+ on ss for it, so I made payout LOL. I've hardly uploaded anything there in years, but it's generally my best bet for editorial images. They've licensed others from this set too. I was driving from Ohio to New York and it was a beautiful autumn day. As we approached Harrisburg, PA, it seemed like a good place to stretch our legs. I took photos (of course) while wandering around. It's got a nice downtown area with pretty brick buildings. I enjoy architectural photography and managed to get in some of my steps despite a long day in the car. So I guess it was a win-win.
53
« on: December 12, 2023, 13:42 »
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2023/top-cities-post-military-service.htmlMy model here is not a veteran - I know there was a NYTimes case that said it was okay to use an image of a person in this way even if they are not actually in the profession mentioned. Just glad it's his back. I submitted it as editorial only. Actually, given today's prices I'm happy with this one - I made $30+ on ss for it, so I made payout LOL. I've hardly uploaded anything there in years, but it's generally my best bet for editorial images. They've licensed others from this set too. I was driving from Ohio to New York and it was a beautiful autumn day. As we approached Harrisburg, PA, it seemed like a good place to stretch our legs. I took photos (of course) while wandering around. It's got a nice downtown area with pretty brick buildings. I enjoy architectural photography and managed to get in some of my steps despite a long day in the car. So I guess it was a win-win.
54
« on: December 06, 2023, 09:16 »
Interesting - thanks for sharing.
"Wonder Panic" is the perfect expression for all this. I find myself drawn to the speed and diversity of images that I can generate - I can set up a concept in minutes - while I'm similarly repulsed by the fact that my own work has been appropriated by these engines.
Disruption is certainly the key to all this - it's change for the sake of change rather than for any constructive purpose and there's no way to know where it will all lead.
Will AI be the final death knell for microstock? So weird than an industry - microstock - that started around 2005, will probably be gone less than 20 years after it began - but the concept of selling creative effort for pennies was probably never sustainable. Even without AI, it was those who appropriated our work in another way - the stock agencies that take 2/3rds or so of the profits - that were always making the bulk of the profits, disrupting the traditional photography market and making money off artist's work with their algorithms.
56
« on: November 20, 2023, 11:46 »
I've been wondering the same thing - Photoshop certainly makes it much easier than it used to be - but it still can take a lot of time to fix those little bits of background that aren't automatically removed.
I took a bunch of images of stuff intending to isolate them when Adobe first started accepting pngs, but since I was sick for much of the past couple of years, never got around to isolating and uploading them. Then it was time to upload Christmas images and I took the easy road and uploaded illustrations that I had drawn in Photoshop on transparent backgrounds for the previous season.
It's hard to compare them to their "on white" counterparts since the images I uploaded the year before were all sets. Whereas, when Adobe started accepting pngs, I uploaded the isolated individual components to Adobe. I've sold sets more than isolated components, but it's really apples to oranges since the sets were online a year longer and offer more components than the pngs. It's also a very small set with a limited Christmas selling season.
I just finished processing a few AI kittens last week - some I isolated as pngs, but the whiskers were really a nightmare since I rarely do any compositing - I'm primarily a travel/editorial photographer and my fine art work is also realistic, so I'm not sure it's worth my time.
I assume most designers who need components can isolate them quickly themselves, but for small business people, bloggers, and art directors/photo editors who are on a deadline, I'd guess isolated components are very attractive. I assume that's why Adobe decided to offer them. And AI can't give you an isolated image so it might be worth the effort.
Like you, I'd be interested to hear how well they are selling for those who've got enough of them online to make a comparison between transparent and white backgrounds. I believe I've read here that they were big sellers on Canva - though I believe they cater more to the do-it-yourselfers than to designers.
57
« on: November 20, 2023, 11:04 »
...
- Adobe clearly states that they use all user-generated input to train their algorithms, as long as you upload the images on their serves. That is if you use Adobe Firefly, or even if you use Photoshop and save the images in the cloud, and not on your own computer, they will use them for further training. You can opt out of this if you disable Content Analysis from your Adobe Account (which is opted in by default), but in their own words "This setting does not apply in certain limited circumstances". I would stay away from this.
- ...
In any case, read the Terms and Conditions before even considering uploading an image.
Yikes! I've been thinking that when the free Adobe PS/LR I have from Adobe Stock runs out, I might just go for the $20/mo with the 1TB storage to make it easier to move between Fresco & PS - although I can do it with iCloud - but if they can access the stuff I've got in their cloud, no way will I do it since with 1TB I'd obviously use it for non-stock backup too. It's bad enough that they've trained it on my stock photos, but I don't want them using my fine art or of course any personal family photos, which are often mixed in the same folders with photos from travel or hikes that I've taken primarily for stock or fine art and of course are organized in my LR Catalog. My files should be private, bad enough everything that's for sale or to be licensed is already accessible to unscrupulous web scrapers, but stuff I've purposely kept off the web should not be used for AI training. No way can they even argue that's "ethical." Thanks so much for the head's up!
58
« on: November 20, 2023, 00:33 »
regular photos I shot on cameras. Anybody else feel the same?
I pay $120/month on Midjourney and also bought Gigapixel AI to create those AI photos. So, it's a confirmation that what I'm doing is working for me. That doesn't mean I stop shooting stock photos with my camera, but it's good to see people are actually buying my AI generated photos.
At AS - how can you see which images sell? I don't think one can see all the individual images one have sold like on other agencies?
If you click on "View my Statistics" on the far right above your sales graph on the Dashboard page it will show you the amount you've made from each image you've sold during whatever time frame you've entered on the top left (i.e. "this month," "this week," or a date range you've entered. You can't see how many times an image has sold in that time but you can see how much you've made. You can enter up to a year in the time frame and then print/print to pdf pages and pages of what's sold for that year. You can also enter a time frame in the past (only one year at a time) and compare your best sellers from year to year. It's not the most helpful statistical set up but with a little work you can see how you're doing. Re AI:
When I checked my recent sales, my first AI image sold this past week*. I've uploaded a few dozen in the past 2-3 weeks and have 29 on sale so far, with another 10 awaiting review. Right now my photographs are selling much better than my AI images but I figure it's a skill I should learn. It's easy to generate thousands of images, but time-consuming to post-process and keyword them. And a lot of what looked good at first glance needs way too much work upon further inspection. One thing I'm really enjoying is how I start with one concept and it sparks new ideas so I go off in a completely different direction. It also gets me thinking about things I want to set up and shoot with my camera and it's making me think it's time to dig out the easel in my attic and start painting again, or perhaps easier, really learn how to take advantage of the tools in Photoshop and Adobe Fresco. Although I've used a Wacom Bamboo Tablet & now a Xencelabs one for years to post-process photographs and sometimes add digital painting, there is so much more available than the limited tools I was using. It seems weird to be trying out all these new amazing brushes to post-process stuff that started out as AI. I think it might get me back to drawing and painting - from scratch. *The 99 cents I made won't even buy me a cup of coffee here in NY.
59
« on: November 15, 2023, 22:23 »
After putting my portfolio on hold for nearly 2 years in protest of the new royalty structure, I added a few new files when I unfroze the account and some sold. This year, I added about a dozen travel editorial photos and some have sold; I even got a nice $30 SOD for one, but most of what sells there are the same bunch of images that have been my best sellers there since 2010-2012. I have only 563 images there, so I can't do a statistically significant comparison. But given how tiny my portfolio is, I can attest that new photos can still be found and sell.
61
« on: November 13, 2023, 11:53 »
Personal photography (portraits, events), editorial, authentic travel, these should still be important. Even amateur photography - people aren't giving up their iPhones to use AI -
But for stock, obviously integrating AI into your workflow will probably become much more common even for creative professional photographers. I hate to admit it, but AI can be creative - maybe it's the writer in me, but I really have enjoyed coming up with different concepts and developing them without the need for props and lighting equipment. Though I'm spending way too much time processing them afterwards.
I generated thousands of images that looked great on my small laptop screen but many did not hold up upon closer inspection. Although with post-processing some are actually quite interesting and good quality, which is both satisfying and depressing.
It's depressing that so much of the AI accepted by Adobe is subpar, but more depressing that it's selling. I've only uploaded a couple dozen images so far, all accepted in the past couple of weeks, but no sales yet. My photos are still selling, so it's not over yet.
62
« on: November 13, 2023, 11:38 »
I tried signing into my ChatGPT account to give it a try and got this message, "Oops! Our systems are a bit busy at the moment, please take a break and try again soon."
AI is taking over ...
I'm curious and will try again later. Thanks for your efforts.
63
« on: November 13, 2023, 01:41 »
64
« on: November 09, 2023, 01:55 »
Reviews are moving much faster now. This month, I had a batch of AI images approved in a week which totally surprised me. I only uploaded a little over twenty images and haven't uploaded much since late May due to ongoing vertigo, so my uploads for the year are low. I waited longer for regular non-AI illustrations to be approved back in mid-May, while photo reviews have been consistently speedy. It seems they've gotten the review process much closer to normal now, at least when not uploading hundreds of images at once.
I really jumped into using Adobe Firefly late last month and already have a few thousand to do a second cull through, then process and upload a small fraction of those. I did a huge batch the last few days and hope when I view them at 100% they are as good as they looked online on my laptop. Did a bunch of anthropomorphic animals so I'll have to pay close attention to those paws and faces but from a cursory look the program has really improved.
I find it is very creative. Working on one concept can really get my mind going in so many different directions. I can try out a concept immediately without setting up my lights and buying/building props which is fun, though the better the program gets the worse it is for those of us who have actual photography, drawing and post-processing skills. Given the improvements in such a short time, I worry that it will affect all our livelihoods, although a customer who doesn't have the imagination to come up with a concept will still need someone to create images for them even if they use AI.
I figure it's a skill I have to learn and so far, it's been really fun. Hopefully they'll start selling.
I held off on uploading Christmas stuff figuring it's too late so I'm focused on stuff for the spring and summer or timeless concepts. Will see how it goes. Glad I have time to practice before having to buy the pricier plan because it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right, though I'm getting much faster and better at prompting. It's awfully fun and very addicting so I'm thinking it'll be costly down the road.
65
« on: November 06, 2023, 18:43 »
I actually joined redbubble 10+ years ago to make a custom cover for my daughter's iPad and ended up selling phone covers there too.
Reviewing my last few years' spreadsheets quickly, sorting sales by product shows that I sell more iPhone cases, clothes, home decor, journals, greeting cards & stickers on Redbubble compared to FAA, where most sales are prints (followed by Puzzles). Obviously my profit per sale on Prints is many times higher than for other products, but my markup on home decor and phone cases still adds up nicely. Depending on the kind of case, my markup is between $6-9. Not a get rich quick item, but it adds up okay.
In terms of quality, I've purchased iPhone and Android cases from redbubble for over a dozens years now, and they have held up nicely, outliving my phone and my family's. We tend to keep our phones for about 4 years, so they are good quality. I haven't bought cases from FAA, but I've been happy with samples of various other items I've purchased there and I assume they're the same as RB.
If you want to offer cases, I'd do it soon since sales have already started picking up for the holidays. Sales of products peak every year between November and early January.
66
« on: November 02, 2023, 12:47 »
For 15 years now, I have been uploading what a now, not so famous stock photographer called it "Snapshot images" I am an Exclusive and never looked back. I will never play with AI. My portfolio has paid my mortgage for a 2900 sq foot house in Florida every month from the third year I started. I am turning 65 next month and am very happy with the 22000 real life images I have in my portfolio. I don't worry or care what others do. I just focus on my own port. I can't believe 15 years has gone by so fast when this other photographer made me cry with every submission. I am older and wiser now. I can't lift my Canon5DM1V anymore because of fractures in my back but I still manage to get those "real life shots" everyone laughed at with my Iphone. And I must say, They do sell well. When AI came out I thought "oh goodie" I will just lay in bed and type words. I played around with different programs and the AI architecture pictures were so real looking. But nothing gives me the satisfaction of taking that"snapshot photo" and having it sell 30 times for the month. I still upload but not like I did every day for 12 years. Now I am just sitting back watching everyone look at other peoples ports instead of concentrating on their own and building the shots they have the talent to shoot. I am not with Adobe, but I do use all the photoshop programs. I am not going to upload the new version so there will be no mistake in my uploads. There are a lot of oldtimers in this thread that I have read for years without commenting but I thought It was a good time to drop in and say, shoot what you shoot best and you will never get in trouble with that. Your port won't be disabled. Keep looking at the fraudulent accounts and you will cause yourself a lot of turmoil on the very fast tract to age 65 when all you can hold is an Iphone. And actually I am very happy with the sales of my Iphone pictures. It isn't the camera, but the eye that looks through it.
iPhones are pretty amazing these days especially if you use the Photoshop or Lightroom camera app for more control, but you might look into mirrorless if you want a camera your older bones can handle. I switched to mirrorless when I turned 60 because herniated & bulging disks made my heavy Nikons a burden. (I turned 65 last month) One thing, with a large lens, my Sony mirrorless are still somewhat heavy, but my little Olympus is light as a feather and it may not have the 60 or 42MP of my Sonys but it's great for stock. Your attitude is excellent by the way. Age does bring us wisdom, at least it has for you. 
67
« on: November 02, 2023, 12:33 »
I never tried licensing microstock on my own but I licensed full priced stock back in the day to magazines & web designers who'd find me via searches. These days, however, I usually only license photos to clients with whom I already have a relationship, such as local magazines & various calendar companies I work with.
Even when I licensed stock regularly to non-clients, while they sometimes found my work via Google, they mostly found it because Photoshelter (my site host since 2008) hosted the URLs of thousands of photographers and search was built into both individual websites and also art directors could go to Photoshelter directly and search all keyworded images that all the photographers' sites they hosted had available to license. So I had that working for me ... the effort to market on my own would have been daunting.
It's a shame that it's no longer viable because Photoshelter has easy stock & print pricing & ecommerce built in, and even lets you do image packages. It's still worthwhile since it also provides unlimited storage of RAW, PSD, etc, excellent organization & search, client sharing tools, private galleries, and numerous templates so even this 65-year-old grandma can build & change my site with ease.
I never had the volume I'd need to make licensing microstock worthwhile but IMHO, even when the market was strong, it only ever made sense to license full priced stock because I could provide unique RM images that weren't on other sites. Today, the microstock model has mostly supplanted RM. My only licenses these days are to clients with whom I already have a relationship, done via private (hidden) galleries set up each of them, a far cry from random Google searches.
Hard to believe how much has changed in 15 years.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
P.S. I love that you are making antique looking images like the books and some Halloween images with the latest AI tech. Beautiful stuff! Great idea licensing as image packs too.
Thank you for sharing your story, I found it quite interesting!
IMHO images like yours are way too beautiful, classy and soulful to be wasted on the microstock market amid those billions of 'click-and-upload' hasty amateurish snapshots. I agree that licensing them individually to people you know and respect is the right way of selling them.
Yes, I'd like to expand the notion of licensing my images as bundles.
Thank you for your kind words!
Thank you for yours. I'm on here because I have been licensing many photos via the agencies, although I have kept my fine art work separate for the most part, though with travel there is some overlap with certain images that do well as stock and prints - if I lived by the sea and photographed lighthouses frequently, I wouldn't need to photograph anything else LOL but I'd be bored. I still love traditional black and white photography best, however, though it may get me into shows, it would never pay the bills. It's always tricky finding the right balance between commercial work, editorial, and art but I've stopped worrying about which is which since I enjoy all three. I have learned to be a much better photographer thanks to learning to shoot stock, so I would never put it down
68
« on: November 02, 2023, 03:42 »
I never tried licensing microstock on my own but I licensed full priced stock back in the day to magazines & web designers who'd find me via searches. These days, however, I usually only license photos to clients with whom I already have a relationship, such as local magazines & various calendar companies I work with.
Even when I licensed stock regularly to non-clients, while they sometimes found my work via Google, they mostly found it because Photoshelter (my site host since 2008) hosted the URLs of thousands of photographers and search was built into both individual websites and also art directors could go to Photoshelter directly and search all keyworded images that all the photographers' sites they hosted had available to license. So I had that working for me ... the effort to market on my own would have been daunting.
It's a shame that it's no longer viable because Photoshelter has easy stock & print pricing & ecommerce built in, and even lets you do image packages. It's still worthwhile since it also provides unlimited storage of RAW, PSD, etc, excellent organization & search, client sharing tools, private galleries, and numerous templates so even this 65-year-old grandma can build & change my site with ease.
I never had the volume I'd need to make licensing microstock worthwhile but IMHO, even when the market was strong, it only ever made sense to license full priced stock because I could provide unique RM images that weren't on other sites. Today, the microstock model has mostly supplanted RM. My only licenses these days are to clients with whom I already have a relationship, done via private (hidden) galleries set up each of them, a far cry from random Google searches.
Hard to believe how much has changed in 15 years.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
P.S. I love that you are making antique looking images like the books and some Halloween images with the latest AI tech. Beautiful stuff! Great idea licensing as image packs too.
69
« on: September 17, 2023, 11:46 »
Wondering if Mat Hayward can answer this - I understand that you can only share what Adobe permits you to but I hope they are in a sharing mood...
I keep running out of the 20MB of space on Adobe Creative Cloud - partly due to Photoshop's bias for saving large layered PS images online as its default mode. With a 62MP camera, layered files are huge. ...
Regardless of your question, which is absolutely valid, I would like to give you an additional thought:
My computer is full of images in layers.
I always save them as LZW compressed tiff. This reduces the storage space requirement to a considerable degree.
Thanks - I usually save layered files as PS. If I don't think I'll need the layers to do additional tweaking, I usually flatten the image and then a condensed tiff rather than single layered PS file, but will experiment with layered tiffs and see how much space it saves. I guess I have bias toward PS files when saving layers but should check out my options.
70
« on: September 13, 2023, 19:06 »
Wondering if Mat Hayward can answer this - I understand that you can only share what Adobe permits you to but I hope they are in a sharing mood...
I keep running out of the 20MB of space on Adobe Creative Cloud - partly due to Photoshop's bias for saving large layered PS images online as its default mode. With a 62MP camera, layered files are huge. It's quite slow and tricky to actually download and then permanently delete what's there when I get the "storage is full" warning. I can't even open files right now to see if they are worth keeping so I am slowly downloading them one by one to a hard drive.
I was ready to pony up for the extra space online but here's the message I got:
"How to upgrade your storage plan if you purchased it with a redemption code
If you purchased your plan from a retailer or an Adobe reseller, you would have received a redemption code.
Additional storage isn't currently available for plans purchased with a redemption code. However, this facility may become available soon. Meanwhile, to add storage, you can purchase a plan with higher storage capacity." [emphasis mine]
Kinda makes that first sentence, "How to upgrade..." misleading.
So, basically I can't upgrade my storage. Instead, I need to pay for LR which I already have and don't even use (I use Lrc). I don't need a full TB of storage either but the way Creative Cloud is working these days, I have no choice since so much must be done in the Creative Cloud space and 20MB isn't enough. So, I'm happy to pay for 1TB of storage even if I just use a fraction of it, but I resent having to purchase a product I already have in order to get it.
Why does Adobe give us the bonus and then discourage us from paying the difference to get an upgraded product? We all worked hard to earn that bonus and it just seems like a slap in the face.
I'm already annoyed that my images have been used to train AI without my permission and rather than being compensated for such use, I was compensated based on the size of my portfolio and this past year's sales. Maybe the former would have earned me less, but I don't know and I feel Adobe isn't keeping track of how our images are used, so getting this message from Creative Cloud when I was already disillusioned was most unappreciated.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask about this, since "this facility may become available soon." It's to Adobe's financial advantage so what is the holdup?
So, Mat, can you try pestering the folks at Adobe for a date when it'll be available, please? Thanks.
I'll be even more disillusioned if I pay for LR and then Adobe does the right thing and just lets us upgrade from our redemption code purchase.
71
« on: September 12, 2023, 15:29 »
confused - if the order matters, why does LRC automatically alphabetize them?
One of the top features of Lightroom is the organizational capabilities. Alphabetical keywords makes sense for the vast majority of Lightroom use cases. We are the only exception I can think of.
As a compromise, the Lightroom team made an update in which the original order of keywords is retained as you add them. In LR the keywords are still displayed alphabetically, however when you upload to Adobe Stock, the keywords are added in the order you originally listed them. It's not the cleanest UI, but it is effective.
Personally, I add my keywords in Adobe Bridge to embed in metadata. I only use LR keywords to keep track of what I've got and where.
-Mat Hayward
Can you tell us a little more about this change? Link to a video/tutorial? I do everything in LRc but with stock images I'm uploading to Adobe, I'm forced into an additional step, where I paste keywords from LRc into a Pages (Word) document & then rearrange them so the ten most important are first. I then use that to paste into Adobe when I upload, which is very time consuming... Even if I do keywords in order in PS, if I opened the original RAW from LRc, it will rearrange them alphbetically in any saved tiffs or jpegs. Will Adobe Stock recognize what I did in PS? I often just use LRc, so with the change, can I simply paste my keywords into LRc in the right order and will it then upload them to Adobe in that order? Does that work or do you need to enter them one by one? What do you mean by initial order? Is it the first time you save metadata to the file? Or, the most recent? I have many saved LRc Keyword/Caption Metatdata presets that get added as I import my photos into LRc to be tweaked as needed, but this means the initial keywords will always end up in alphabetical order due to LRc's insistence on not allowing us to save a preset in the order we'd prefer. So does this then defeat the new system? I used to organize all my Adobe Stock images in the Adobe Stock plugin which no longer works - so how do you upload to Adobe Stock & have it recognize whatever "initial order" in LR means? Even if you embed your keywords using Bridge, if your file is in your catalog in LRc, LR will rearrange the keywords, and it's pointless to import into LRc only after it's been uploaded to Adobe Stock - organization is the first step. So I don't see that as a viable solution. Honestly, with all the amazing bells and whistles in LRc, why couldn't they just make it a Preferences option to organize keywords manually or alphabetically? Problem solved. I've gotta think you've got IT folks who can figure this out.
72
« on: August 08, 2023, 16:40 »
Why does Adobe reject for quality issues when there's nothing wrong with the submitted photos even viewed at 100 percent?
They just rejected all my photos yet again (a total of 7) for quality but there is nothing wrong. What's going on adobe?
I'm only mildly psychic and can't see your rejected images, so anything I'd say is a total guess. Could you post some examples for people here to see and try to help you figure out why they are being rejected?
I just added one new Dropbox link to see if it works
https://www.dropbox.com/s/30pipmd5luxldef/DSC04742.jpg?dl=0
Beautiful image. But, honestly, I think you might be oversharpening, which is hard to see when the image is small, but if you pixel peep (an annoyance required by stock), it becomes obvious. I didn't download it but zoomed in to 100% on Dropbox and thought maybe it's a little oversharpened? When I zoom to 195% (roughly equal to 100% with my Retina screen), I can see jpeg artifacts/halos especially around the tree. I'd try again with the RAW file, look at it at 100% (or 200% if you've got a Retina MAC) and make sure you only sharpen to the minimum needed. It's a really lovely shot. I hope you're not offended but I've made some specific suggestions below: When you use the Sharpening slider in ACR or LR Classic, you need to pay attention to masking and pixel size. A lot depends on the photo. For a landscape like yours, I'd do a tiny bit of sharpening at 0.8-1.0 pixels and (in the sharpening tool) use masking carefully, trying to avoid doing much if anything to the sky. If you hold down Option (or the PC equivalent) while using the slider, you can see what the masking effects. Next, create a mask of the sky, invert it, and add in Texture, Sharpening and Clarity very carefully for your scene- sometimes 5 is enough Clarity even on my large 61MP files, and sometimes I can push it higher, but it really depends on the photo. 20 would be very high. Texture is usually more subtle and can usually be pushed higher, but not always, Again, you need to pay attention to your specific photo. As you move the sliders, very slowly, you need to view all the open spaces and edges carefully to see the effect. Dehaze will also add contrast, so if you use it to bring up the blues in the sky and canal/river, then maybe decrease your contrast so it's not overdone. Too much contrast can leave halos especially where light meets dark like tree leaves against the sky. Removing chromatic aberration can also cause halos at the edge of leaves if you push too far. Sometimes you need to paint over the chroma with a mask and just adjust a part if you've got a really deep purple line somewhere without affecting the rest of the photo. If your photo isn't sharp enough when you use the tools in a subtle way, pushing them won't help, but as others mentioned, you can shrink your file down to where it is sharp. Most stock sites don't need big files. Just bump it to 200% if you have a Retina screen to see what's going on with the actual pixels. It's a lovely composition, great leading lines and beautiful reflections so worth reworking.
73
« on: May 26, 2023, 17:09 »
Check your dashboard for info.
Thanks for calling this out, Sean!
Yes! The Free collection is back for photos and nominations are open. Please sign into the contributor portal and nominate any and/or all eligible photos as soon as possible.
Let me know if you have any questions,[emphasis added]
Mat Hayward
Mat,
I nominated a couple last year which they took but there is one I now want to remove. I've read everything on the site and can't figure out how to remove it. It shows the little box with free underneath and it has the same nominate button as the 90 other possibilities, but I can't imagine that leaving the nominate button in the gray is sufficient since the rules say it automatically ticks over year to year.
Can you kindly explain how to remove it?
Thanks!
Thanks for the question @Wordplanet.The automatic renewal did not get applied this year. You are opted out by default right now. You must actively nominate your eligible files if you want them considered for the Free collection offer. If you don't want to nominate the asset again this year, no action is required.
-Mat Hayward
Thanks for the quick response Mat. Have a great holiday weekend/start to the summer everyone!
74
« on: May 26, 2023, 09:36 »
Check your dashboard for info.
Thanks for calling this out, Sean!
Yes! The Free collection is back for photos and nominations are open. Please sign into the contributor portal and nominate any and/or all eligible photos as soon as possible.
Let me know if you have any questions,[emphasis added]
Mat Hayward
Mat, I nominated a couple last year which they took but there is one I now want to remove. I've read everything on the site and can't figure out how to remove it. It shows the little box with free underneath and it has the same nominate button as the 90 other possibilities, but I can't imagine that leaving the nominate button in the gray is sufficient since the rules say it automatically ticks over year to year. Can you kindly explain how to remove it? Thanks!
75
« on: May 24, 2023, 22:01 »
Thanks for sharing this. I miss the days when RM on Alamy really meant RM.
I wish there was a way to view more than just the intro images on the site to see what they are looking for. I tried the "Invite" tab to see if I could get access that way but nothing happens and the ever sliding pages made it impossible to find any contact info. Am I missing something?
I keep hoping that with all the RF images out there being used hundreds of times, and the traditional agencies turning to micro pricing so everyone can afford the same photography from a blogger to a Fortune 500 company, at some point big brands would want RM images again (still way less costly that the photo shoots we'd all love to be doing). I hope this site does well and that this points toward a brighter future in stock - wouldn't that be awesome? A girl can dream...
If anyone figures out how to access the site, please share. Thanks!
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