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Messages - Mifornia
76
« on: February 22, 2024, 14:18 »
Cobalt, really appreciate your reply.
The rating must be according to the amount of images divided by amount of sales one has?
Or its strictly based on amount of sales?
77
« on: February 22, 2024, 09:54 »
That is your total rank. You can switch to a weekly rank, which gives you a better indication of how you are doing compared to everyone else.
You see it when you are logged in via tablet or computer. At least for me on my phone it is cut off.
Thank you! This week, it shows 1,850 - surprising that its so much better than 17,538 lifetime rank, yet , its a really slow week for me? So confusingso 1,850 number must not be a good weekly number? I hope that most people have better numbers!
78
« on: February 22, 2024, 09:43 »
Thats crazy I only contribute to Adobe. Why do people bother contributing to other stock agencies if they pay so little? Is it a habit?
You really should look in to it more, you won't get Adobe earnings on others, but you will earn more on 10 stock sites than on 1 (at least x3 times total), and you already have the images...
Thank you, I will 😀 its interesting that only 1-2 images from series are selling usually, so I definitely can upload non selling images ( that are very similar to selling ones ) to other sites.
79
« on: February 17, 2024, 02:42 »
Same here, no longer get anything more than $1.01 My last $1.42 was on 1/14/2024
Now overwhelming majority are 0.32 cents. My downloads are growing, but % of $ that I get are getting lower and lower.
Plus my bestseller sales disappeared in January.
Mat, I will sent you email with my files as well. Thank you in advance for your time.
We get 200% more on Adobe Stock than Shutterstock at lowest payment. Look at the bright side!!!
Thats crazy I only contribute to Adobe. Why do people bother contributing to other stock agencies if they pay so little? Is it a habit?
80
« on: February 17, 2024, 02:32 »
There must be some secret sauce since my images get accepted much faster than a year ago when I started. I submit daily now, I think it helps.
There is a display on of some kind of ranking on the top left on your main screen, for me its 17,583 have no idea if its good or bad or how to measure it.
81
« on: February 15, 2024, 13:29 »
I dont do more than 3 in a set usually. For whatever reason, only 1 image sells well out of my sets, everything else just has 1-2 sales or nothing at all. Majority of my buyers dont buy more than 1-3 images from me at a time.
I usually upload 1 image and wait if it gets rejected or accepted, then I add more. But its definitely easier to add all 3 images at once and forget about them, move on to a new subject. There is so, so much to do, so many ideas, so little time. I tend to loose my prompts in the amount of folders that I have on my discord server.
82
« on: February 15, 2024, 13:18 »
There are a lot of people wo are selling 120 images of dogs for $1.50 and seems to be making a lot of sales. Those images are not processed well, but just rendering them, converting them , zipping and uploading + customer emails - scaring me off from trying it myself.
Anyone tried it successfully?
I haven't but I have seen just what you say and they list sales, and they appear to be successful. I see sets that are nothing but a large selection of right click images, zipped and then sold for a low price. No I haven't done that and I won't.
I tried to make some high quality sets of specialized images, high resolution. No market. That's the way it goes. Crafters and scrapbook people just want bits and pieces, not high res, high quality.
since i already have galleries on my blog , and collections in FAA, all meta-dataed, i'll try this out -all i need to do is resize to 640-400 n& list on my dormant etsy acct - it's worth a try & will report on the monstrous sales i get
That would be a fun experiment!!! How is FAA compared to ADobe Stock? I heard that its much better, but I didnt upload anything yet.
83
« on: February 15, 2024, 13:12 »
January was great with so many $1.40. Thank you for explanation why that was. Too bad it didnt last and now majority of mine are around 0.36
84
« on: February 13, 2024, 18:34 »
Same here, no longer get anything more than $1.01 My last $1.42 was on 1/14/2024
Now overwhelming majority are 0.32 cents. My downloads are growing, but % of $ that I get are getting lower and lower.
Plus my bestseller sales disappeared in January.
Mat, I will sent you email with my files as well. Thank you in advance for your time.
85
« on: February 07, 2024, 04:00 »
There are a lot of people wo are selling 120 images of dogs for $1.50 and seems to be making a lot of sales. Those images are not processed well, but just rendering them, converting them , zipping and uploading + customer emails - scaring me off from trying it myself.
Anyone tried it successfully?
86
« on: February 07, 2024, 03:54 »
My review rates slowed down in last 2 weeks, no more daily acceptance of most of my files. Now its weekly and they take only 2-5 files out of my 50 files queue. Acceptance is almost 100%
May be they hired more people for Holiday rush?
I also dont care for Gigapixel that adds lines around everything. MJ v6 has small upscale, so I still use v5 then downscale it and sharpen it in Photoshop or Lightroom. Adobe does like very sharp images, even when its not needed: I made an experiment and sharpened files to my liking and similar others I sharpen too much - AS took too sharpened files and rejected regular sharpening ones.
I probably spend way too much time on processing my images, but sold some for several hundred each at times only to be copycated later and then loose that income. So bestsellers dont last.
87
« on: February 01, 2024, 13:35 »
Thank you for letting us know.
But why dont you report this, to get that account removed?
because agencies require the actual copyright holders to complain and send in proof.
if enough theft is proven the accounts get pulled.
which is why you keeping seeing criminal ports always being posted in stock groups.
Actually, you don't need to be the actual copyright owner to file complaints to remove them. I've reported fraud accounts of somebody else's videos many times and got them removed from Adobe Stock and Shutterstock. After you report them, they do their own investigation and remove fraud accounts.
How do you do that?
88
« on: January 27, 2024, 02:27 »
After I dutifully ticked the box for the new annoying superfluous confirmation for the terms and conditions, a window popped up that I had never seen before:
Are You human?
I would have spontaneously said yes.
But I was presented with 9 pictures in which I had to click on cats. I hate cats. Nevertheless, I passed the test, which fills me with a certain pride.
However, I was very unsure about one picture.
...
this called invisible recaptcha
from developers POV:
"reCAPTCHA v3 allows you to verify if an interaction is legitimate without any user interaction. It is a pure JavaScript API returning a score, giving you the ability to take action in the context of your site: for instance requiring additional factors of authentication, sending a post to moderation, or throttling bots that may be scraping content."
https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/versions
so most of the time real users won't need to answer a captcha. i have it working on my WP site & it eliminated most bots while letting actual users in.
re having to be exact in the puzzle - if you make a mistake it just gives you another chance
Did you know that reCAPTCHA was the first program to train AI? How did it do it? By humans clicking on traffic signals, etc. 🤣 we all been training AI for years clicking on cats!
89
« on: January 27, 2024, 02:14 »
2-10 files a day if they are really good quality and widely useful is more than enough to build a very good income.
I have seen people with less than 1000 photos making more than 10k a month. For years.
While the environment has changed from 10 years ago, portfolios where literally EVERY SINGLE FILE is a true bestseller quality will greatly outsell all those ports with 70k files filled with 1000s of extreme similars.
You can read that in various groups, new ai producers with 50k+ files cannot even make a weekly payout.
All agencies promote "efficient" portfolios, i.e. with a good factor of sales to portfolio size.
If you just have volume but no sales, you will sink your own boat.
So best of luck to you. If you have great ideas, you will always outrun the copy cats.
Thank you for encouragement. Those incomes are quite impressive, I didnt know that it can be done. I honestly thought I was doing quite bad, was surprised with 3 times on top sellers list for illustration , but then I thought for sure people are making peanuts, since I wasnt making anything sustainable. I know what will not sell. I know approximately what may sell, but still surprised by what becomes a bestseller. Most times nothing impressive, many of my favorite designs that I would spend 3 days drawing would make $5. Now, Im making the same amount with 30 pages that I use to make with 5 (copycats) Onwards and forwards, thank you again for advice.
90
« on: January 26, 2024, 11:38 »
it's mostly automated uploads, so very little effort.
How do you do automated uploads?
usually using a service like microstocksubmitter. there are several on the market.
Thank you
91
« on: January 26, 2024, 11:27 »
While this is very unfortunate that this is happening and while I actually 100% believe this to be true (have seen to many AI images that had the exact same title as other people's photos), I do not believe there is anything you can do about it or Adobe will do anything about it.
The stance of microstock agencies has always been that it was completely okay to steal other people's ideas.
I know this from the past when people came here showing illustrations/vectors that were copied. It even happend to me once myself. People take other people's artwork, basically redraw it with minor changes and submit it. And in some cases there were way too many almost identical illustrations in the ports for it to be a coincidence only.
I know that whenever the contributors complained to the agencies the reply from the agencies where that there was nothing wrong with this. Stock agencies only consider it theft when an exact image is stolen, but don't care when the image idea, title or keywords are stolen.
It has always been very upsetting and of course it's even more upsetting now. At leats with illustrations the thieves "only" stole the idea, but still had to do some work. Now AI does all the work and other people just leech off other peoples' real work.
Thank you for this detailed explanation. Ok, I get it now. The only solace that when so many people copy a bestseller, it becomes a tiny-seller for them as well, yet it brought me good money (I clicked on their accounts and its not even on their first pages) Ugh, the most thing that I enjoy is to think of new ideas, thats why I can only submit 2-10 images per day, unlike 50-100. Its the process of seeing my idea on paper (IPad now) that brings the most pleasure and frustration if I cant transfer it to paper. Processing images in Lightroom, doing healing brush, uploading, keywording, is my least favorite task. With MJ, its the longest tasks now, and with BFA in Fine Arts its a very sad reality. I really need to find another outlet
92
« on: January 26, 2024, 11:10 »
They take your descriptions on ADOBE and feed them into midjourney. And many of them have public accounts, so now the prompt and the resulting image are publicly visible.
Even if your midjourney account is private, your descriptions on Adobe are public. Hence my suggestion to adjust your descriptions so it will not generate a copy on midjourney.
A lot of ai people just copy each other, what you think are copies from your port might be an endless stream of copies from people copying others.
I now have extremely generic prompts "Beautiful easter eggs with copy space" but nothing special that will generate a duplicate.
They can still take a screen shot and ask midjourney for a description. But when I tried that with my own images, the results were very different photos.
I used to have copy cats on istock, especially when istock marked high selling images with little flames. As soon as one of my new images got a flame it was copied by at least 10 ports.
And while I do "simple still life" with easter eggs and flowers, the precise composition can make the difference between earning thousands of dollars or nothing. It often takes me a whole day in studio for 2-3 really, really good images.
I understand the frustration with copy cats. But your first post was not very helpful, sorry.
Adjusting your descriptions is the only useful suggestion I have. Some people also add slightly misleading keywords in the title. It still describes the image, but will generate something very different with midjourney.
My description for that image will not result in a prompt that will resemble my bestseller image, since it was mostly hand-drawn. (I tried it after Ive read your post) But describe eventually will. However , I tried it on my MJ generated images and you are correct, even I dont put prompts as my description, if description is detailed, v6 now easy spits out very similar images. Good to know not to put detailed descriptions. Good point about misleading words as well, I didnt think of that. I also see some bestsellers from others with a 3 word descriptions, does description even counts? Or its mostly keywords? So it seems, (mostly) hand-drawn illustrations do have at least that going for them, not easily copied for now.
93
« on: January 26, 2024, 02:25 »
This does sound like copying of public midjouney prompting.
Somebody perhaps used your unique description in midjourney and was able to generate something very similar.
Others found the prompt and used it as well or just clicked on variations and got something very similar.
Write to Adobe with the examples.
Going forward you could try to use very short and simple descriptions and maybe even test your titles in midjouney if it will generate something similar.
But the ports you mentioned look like the kind of stuff that you get with just prompting and near identical content is in thousands of ports.
I do both, digital hand drawn on iPad illustrations and MJ. I have a stealth pro plan in Midjourney and description is not a prompt. However, it was a simple illustration that I made in Adobe Photoshop. Its an idea that counts and now its diluted. There is an increasing problem of copying other people best sellers with AI and not even changing the title. ( how do you explain the same unique long title and highly similar images from 2 dozens of different accounts? ) There should be a method to resolve it.
94
« on: January 26, 2024, 02:08 »
How do you report that your image or idea was stolen?
I found about 50 contributors who redid my best selling image and uploaded it using my exact unique description and keywords.
Now some of them literally follow my portfolio and rip it as soon as my images get approved. Its disheartening
Im not going to post a link to my portfolio, its just asking for more copycats. And my portfolio is not generic, its illustrations and png.
a) People will copy anything. For the images, tends to be east indians who do that (steal/spam/copy cat to "get rich quick"), create fake profiles using stolen assets then uploading those, etc, etc... (of course not all, and of course not 'just' restricted to them, but does seem to be a rather high percentage that do that to other people...)
b) Depending on "how" it was generated - you may/may not be able to do something, which is why I think people are asking... if you have a sample image (not your portfolio) - and can show the similarities between your image & the copycat, it would make it a lot easier to determine if it was ripped off, or it was more of a conceptual thing...
If you aren't comfortable sharing your images here - that's fine... I might suggest contacting adobe then and explaining what it is you need assistance with.
@SuperPhoto Thank you for your reply. I have Adobe Photoshop multi layers file to prove that I created it. I did use Generative fill in some places. I apologize, Im not comfortable sharing it, but apparently too many people saw it already when it was featured several times on Weekly top sellers. Before it, I was quietly doing quite well. (Since then, I uploaded a bunch of stuff that I know will not sell for sure, but hey, they are all high resolution  so I really hope never be featured again) So its a general email that you contact? The one that sends back we are too busy emails?
95
« on: January 25, 2024, 19:49 »
it's mostly automated uploads, so very little effort.
How do you do automated uploads?
96
« on: January 25, 2024, 19:45 »
How do you report that your image or idea was stolen?
I found about 50 contributors who redid my best selling image and uploaded it using my exact unique description and keywords.
Now some of them literally follow my portfolio and rip it as soon as my images get approved. Its disheartening
Im not going to post a link to my portfolio, its just asking for more copycats. And my portfolio is not generic, its illustrations and png.
97
« on: January 25, 2024, 19:22 »
How important is to add keywords to image metadata? I can do that from my computer, but not from my iPad (most of my illustrations are made on iPad) It it ok if I dont add metadata to my images?
You must add a title and at least 5 keywords before you can submit. It doesn't matter if you embed them in the metadata before upload, or if you add them in the contributor portal after you upload. It must be done. Not only is it required, it's by far the most effective way to get your content seen and sold.
-Mat Hayward
Thank you Mat for your reply. I have another question:
I see that numerous other accounts/people copied my description and keywords exactly word to word from my best sellers. Is that allowed?
We don't display the keywords added by the contributor in Adobe Stock. Instead, what is displayed is a list of recommended search terms that may produce results relevant to the subject the customer is looking for.
-Mat Hayward
Mat, and what about the title? I found about 50 accounts that copied my very long and unique title word for word (along with my best selling image) Is that kind of plagiarism allowed at Adobe Stock?
98
« on: January 17, 2024, 00:01 »
I often just google my name in quotation marks in google under images, or especially in the news section because images are used to illustrate news articles.
or photo/name or credit/name, photo:nameetc
On amazon I search my name in quotation marks in the book section. Many books use stock images, sometimes hundreds. Somewhere in those books is one of my pictures. Sometimes it is the cover image.
Also check youtube or other social media or blog sites.
@Cobalt That is awesome that your work is featured on so many different products
99
« on: January 16, 2024, 12:55 »
@Andrej.S. I click on the image and search Google for this image the results includes a few of how people use it, but surprisingly not many. My bestsellers, and I only had 4 so far, appear in various applications from social apps, FB, YouTube, LinkedIn, webpages for schools and churches, to government pdf presentations. I noticed that bestsellers take a couple of months to take off. To me it really seems random: its not based on quality or beauty of the image, since one bestseller I almost didnt upload (Ive later made similar better ones in a later/better version of MJ and it made $5). Im probably not the best example, since Ive been at it only for about a year.
May be someone with more experience can guess how Adobe search works and how Adobe decides what becomes a bestseller.
Ive read that reviewers can give ratings to images and upvote them.
100
« on: January 16, 2024, 00:30 »
The fact that she went from making about $100/month before uploading AI images to $1,000/month in 6 months is mind blowing. Will she make $10,000/month another 6 months later? Very unlikely. But I think she can reach $3,000/month in a year or two if she keeps adding quality AI images like she's been doing. This kind of stuff never happened. It's the only positive I've seen in the last 5 years in microstock industry for contributors.
https://youtu.be/F6fSIbMpri8?si=Zj8ag7628oTYYE8w
True, there are probably more santa claus images doing better than hers. My point was - for "santa claus" (while of course not every image is a santa claus), of the 425,000 results - basically you'd need to be in the top 10 or top 20 to see any 'significant' financial results.
Not sure why "her" santa claus was chosen over 425,000 other santa clauses (if I knew that, I could consistently produce a lot of different images that do well) - but I'd say it is a combination of luck, timing, happening to stumble upon the right keywords/etc... in other words - not necessariliy easy to duplicate. (I made some santa claus images that I thought were quite good, and for the 3-4 hours involved in coming up with concepts, making them, titling, keywording, upscaling, editing, cropping, fixing, categorizing, submitting, - I think I made... let me check... looks like about $5 (about $1/hour)... Of course, $5 is better than nothing, and of course there is the possibility for future residual income - so I am of course grateful for that... but... there are certainly a lot of santa clauses...
Plus - when she (and not just her) makes videos of "OMFG! look how I made SOOOO much money doing VERY little work, like and subscribe my video channel so I can make MORE money!!!" - it gets lazy people coming out of the woodwork to try and get rich quick...
If things stayed the same - then yes, maybe she'd get to $3k/month... I highly doubt it though - because quite possibly there will be 10x the contributors a year from now "inspired" by her get rich quick videos, + also competing platforms/sites/tech/etc...
It's "possible", but not sure if it is likely...
But again, go for it if you wish. I find it interesting, just saying it may not necessarily be 'easy' or the 'get rich quick' path you are looking for. Certainly is possible though, obviously other people have done it.
It's chosen by buyers along with many other best selling Santa images. You upload, have one sale, have 2nd sale and your ranking on keyword search keeps going up. That's how it works.
I have to disagree: I was lucky enough to stumble on right everything and one of my images started to sell big. So I made variations of that image, hoping for more sales nada, I didnt sell any variations. I desided to change it a bit more and even make it better by more detailed paint-over $5! At Adobe, seems that images are being chosen to be sold at websites outside Adobe and those will sell well. You can even search for your image on Google and if its all over the web, like 3 pages, itll sell. I have no idea what images will take off. For example one of my Halloween images keeps selling 2-5 times per day even now (  ) I have variations of it that didnt sell even once. My guess is that someone handpicked that particular image and put a link to it on their re-sale website and customers cant see other variations ? Some of my images are on the top of popular searches with only a few sales while my best seller that sells a dozen times per day is buried on page 7 Some of my best looking images sell very little and dont show up in search Its definitely not based from sales only. I dont get it how though.
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