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Messages - Bauman
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77
« on: January 14, 2025, 09:36 »
Only professionals can compete with good quality ai.
The amateurs are suffering most from the competition.
Yes, but amateurs with the earnings from stock are happy to buy a lens or a new camera, while professionals have to pay their bills, So it becomes much easier for amateurs than professionals to compete against AI. But if professionals can no longer make a living from it, what will happen to stock agencies? Will they only sell AI and snapshots of amateurs?
78
« on: January 14, 2025, 04:30 »
79
« on: January 14, 2025, 04:29 »
If you were the editor of Lonely Planet or National Geographic would you risk buying AI images?
AI images and texts are the result of probabilistic and not deterministic algorithms. Errors are always around the corner.
With Photoshop and retouching, errors were very rare, but when they happened, magazines were laughed at. With AI, the probability of running into these errors increases a lot.
80
« on: January 13, 2025, 12:22 »
The majority of content on the micros looks horrible and is mostly endless duplicates of duplicates.
And the same over all agencies.
I agree with you, too many accounts with poor-quality images. One of the problems of the stock industry (thought of a professional) came when the agencies started taking everyone by removing the entrance exam. Today, over 40 downloads so far (my normal day is 15-20 downloads on AS, it's my third agency ...). All photographs, no AI in my portfolio. However, I believe that it is due to the return from holidays of European customers.
81
« on: January 13, 2025, 09:38 »
Stock photo images are not real.
Only editorial is real.
No photograph is real, but is the result of the photographer's framing choices, the use of light, the choice of camera and lens used, and the final retouching in post-processing. It is a transposition into 2D of a 3D scenario. But, a photograph is still a sampling from reality, and if one does not make a collage, everything is in its place. I do Travel and Landscape and for 15 years I have obtained excellent sales results because I try to be faithful to the original scene. On the first page of Adobe Stock's London AI images there is this image.  When was the second Big Ben built? Tonight? Today my Adobe Stock sales have taken off like a rocket and I will probably make my historical record of daily downloads. Back from vacation in Europe or the new search without AI? I don't know. But it is a shame to see images like the one above. And there are so many in Adobe Stock's AI offer.
82
« on: January 13, 2025, 05:36 »
Soai is not going away, you will probably see more and more ai being used online.
I agree, but given the speed at which AI content can be made, the web will be increasingly full of junk content. And I think people will associate AI = junk. If you were a customer and you have quality content, would you buy an AI image and run the risk of being associated with junk content? I wouldn't. So in the future we will definitely see a lot of AI content, but I think it will be used mostly by customers with medium-low budgets. The web of the future will be dominated by "good enough" content ... and for me I don't think it's a good thing, in life I have always tried to learn with " the best" content on the market (books, courses, articles, blogs ...)
83
« on: January 13, 2025, 04:21 »
It seems more and more buyers are fed up seeing AI images.
I am not an image buyer, but I read blogs and scroll through social media feeds... and I too am really fed up with these fake images and videos. Also, 90% of AI images and videos are associated with poor-quality content, so now, if I see an AI image or video (and I usually recognize it), I skip to the next one. Just look at the number of fake images and videos on X about the fires in Los Angeles. The web with AI is becoming a sewer. Probably buyers who want to create quality content know this and therefore prefer to stay away from AI. I would do this ...
84
« on: January 06, 2025, 02:24 »
Currently own 6 websites.
What do you use to make your websites? Wordpress? Wix? Squarespace? 6 websites are a lot to manage!
85
« on: December 27, 2024, 04:43 »
Well being able to do this full-time is a remarkable achievement and especially so without video. What size generally are your portfolios?
5500/6000 images. Yes, very small for almost 15 years of full-time activity (I am very selective about quality). But until 2022 it always worked. Today it doesn't anymore. Before, I sold a lot of photos at high prices (>$50) every month. This doesn't happen anymore because (IMHO) Shutterstock and Alamy have lost a lot of customers (they were my best sellers) and this loss has not been compensated by Adobe, where high-priced sales are very rare and in any case almost never exceed $20. Then, my content has lost visibility due to the competition of AI images which are really a lot. This year, to date, compared to 2023 I have made a -16% (revenues) on SS and only a +2.2% on Adobe Stock.
86
« on: December 27, 2024, 04:12 »
Interesting perspectives.
Bauman I recall you do quite well with regular microstock? You offer photos and video?
Yes, I am full time. But I only sell photos with microstock, no videos. Unfortunately in the last two years I have lost 25% of my annual earnings. And now I can no longer afford to lose earnings, otherwise I will have to go back to doing microstock part-time  . 2025 will be very important for me. I have always focused on the quality of my content and this has worked for 15 years. I have always uploaded 300/400 images per year of the highest quality, and this has allowed me to be full-time for many years. Now this does not seem to work anymore. Halfway through this year I changed some strategies. I increased the quantity at the cost of losing a bit of quality ... let's see if it works. Selling prints contributes only about 10% of my earnings. Maybe I haven't done a good job of marketing in these years; I should have worked more on the blog than on social media. But I can say that selling prints with European content is much more difficult.
87
« on: December 27, 2024, 03:26 »
I do also sell through POD sites, but sites like FAA and Pictorem barely sell anything for me, likely because I've got very few images of interest to US buyers (I am located in Germany).
I agree with Mike, Steve is doing a great job, but this does not apply to us Europeans. It is much more difficult for us to make these numbers. FAA and Pictorem have customers mostly from North America and want content related to their places. Just look at what FAA sells on the " sales announcements" page. Similar Web says that FAA has customers divided as follows: United States 70.24% Canada 3.6% United Kingdom 2.59% Germany 1.68% And Pictorem: United States 42.36% Canada 6.16% Indonesia 3.44% France 2.86% Then we must add that the FAA algorithm rewards contributors who have been registered for a long time. (open a sales thread in their forum and check who are the ones selling: all registered at least 9/10 years ago) And Steve has been registered since 2011, one of the pioneers of FAA. And on Pictorem Steve's portfolio is one of the few that is always in the list of " featured artists" and this gives him great visibility. https://www.pictorem.com/collectionartists.htmlFinally, I add that, compared to the United States, there is little tradition of hanging photographs on the wall as art in Europe. (Look at the difference in the walls of homes in American and European movies). People prefer original paintings, historical prints, IKEA budget prints, or photographs of their family (wedding, travel, children ...). All this makes it much more difficult for us Europeans to sell wall art. And I agree with Mike that the best way is to find customers through good SEO and interesting content on the Blog.
88
« on: December 24, 2024, 08:31 »
Just in time for the reset 
Can't complain, was a good year at SS.
Congratulations. Can you write your profile link? I'm curious about how you reached 25,000 downloads in a year.
I wouldn't do it. You risk unleashing the copycats with AI 
89
« on: December 24, 2024, 08:27 »
I'll side with what majority seems to believe, which is that Microstock is on its deathbed with AI placing final nail in the coffin. At some point these famous photographers like Yuri were paving the road and showing what's possible with skill and hard work. Not anymore; microstock is nowdays "Uncle Pete hobby", which for average contributor can hardly even finance cost of gear. I look sometime at amount of work Brutally Honest Microstock guy Alex Rottenberg invests, shooting, technology, extremely well researched blogs - and what does he have to show for it? Few 100's a month.
It's really a shame because photography, when done properly, is form of self expression, art and can bring lots of joy beyond just financial aspect. In particular this downright despicable mess AI is creating. Today, while researching potential trip to Alaska next summer, I went to Adobe (as customer would) and searched for "Chilkoot Lake". Wanted to throw up when I saw results - some guy spammed with 100s of AI generated shots of grizzly bears that look about just as ridiculous as anything I have ever seen. Shooting wildlife is art, waiting, patience in the wild, having proper equipment/lens - not this. AI is downright evil in my view, not just in photography. Why don't all these Googles and Apples (and Adobes) invest effort in figuring how to save the planet that is dying in front of our eyes with human caused global warming, instead of working on software algorithms that won't mean anything once Planet can't support life anymore. Sorry for rant, just very bitter about it.
10 minutes of applause for zeljkok! I agree with every word you wrote.
90
« on: December 16, 2024, 03:25 »
I'm uploading an average of 200 contents per month,in my opinion 2/300 contents per month is the right balance also to be able to take care of indexing in the best possible way.
I think the number of uploads is really not very relevant to measure future sales. The important things are two: quality and saleability of images. Here on the forum someone mentioned the Adobe Stock portfolio of Romolo Tavani: 3000 images, more than 1,000,000 downloads. And then we read some blogs of contributors who with 20,000 images do not exceed 100$ per month on Adobe. And looking at their work you can understand why they make so few sales. So I think the focus should be: quality, quality, quality on images requested by customers. And not 2/300 or 1000 images per month. If you dont improve the quality of your work you will remain at your current level.
91
« on: December 10, 2024, 06:45 »
No.
I'm full-time, and my earnings are at their lowest point (inflation is skyrocketing).
But if I change my photography business in 2025, I think I'll have to return to commissioned work.
I've tried selling prints for the past 3 years, but the results are poor. Too much competition and too much marketing is needed. I've only made a few thousand dollars a year. Too little money for all the time I've spent on POD sites, social media, and my website.
But I really don't like AI.
Too fake, too many similar images, too much competition, and low-quality details. And then you don't own the copyright to the images (obviously because they were copied/stolen from other authors, AI without previous data wouldn't exist).
So for me, it's a big NO
92
« on: December 03, 2024, 09:52 »
I uploaded nearly only ai the last two years and at the moment 80% of the port is ai. So sales are mostly ai.
But this will change when I go back to uploading non ai next year.
Thanks. I agree. AI has some advantages: fast (image production can be 5-10 times faster than a photograph), no equipment needed, and the learning period is very fast. But the disadvantages are: the images all have the same style, they all seem to be from the same author, customers risk getting tired quickly, images taken from reality are more authentic and today's marketing seeks authenticity, some details (especially in landscape AI) such as trees, meadows are really bad or even unreal and many buyers are very careful about this (if you were a publisher would you publish a travel guide or a travel magazine with an AI photo?). Dividing the portfolio between AI images and photographic/illustration images is definitely a great long-term idea. The important thing is to find the right niches. And this is not very easy. I remain faithful to photography. I don't like Ai, it tires me out very quickly. To do AI I would need another account. I don't want to risk my photography portfolio with the risk of being suspended or banned for an error in uploading AI images (copyright and more).
93
« on: December 03, 2024, 08:23 »
99% are images, I have few videos and few video sales.
Congratulations on your ranking and sales Cobalt! Do you know how many of the sales are AI and how many are normal images (photo or illustration)? In percentage.
94
« on: November 25, 2024, 16:39 »
just look at all the complaints here about being copied & people won't post their portfolios links for that fear (as if there are so many copyists here as opposed to those copying from MS sites)
Yes, I do stock full time, I have some niches and I have to pay bills for my family. Is this a problem for you? Please be more respectful.
95
« on: November 25, 2024, 07:59 »
But if you are losing income and think it is because of AI, then learn to shoot videos. You have time.
I've thought about it many times, but for now I continue to be a photographer. I think my success in these years is due to the high quality of my shots. Quality for me is the most important thing. So if I were to make videos, I would have to do it with the highest quality. And I think it takes a long time to get good earnings. I read online about some contributors who publish their earnings, have 2000/3000 videos and earn $200 a month ... so it would just be a waste of time.
96
« on: November 25, 2024, 07:47 »
I would also start generating AI images myself. But there are problems that I dont like.
1. Adobe often bans the portfolios of these authors.
2. Not all stock agencies accept AI images.
I agree and ... 3.How does one develop their own style with AI so that their art doesn't look like the work of 10 million other AI artists? 4.If I have an idea before anyone else, how can I avoid having it copied since copying with AI is so easy? I still sell some of my 15 year old photographs well ... while I have many doubts that an AI image can continue to earn money for 15 years.
97
« on: November 25, 2024, 06:26 »
Why did you decide that AI generated images are sold as well as your photos? I think that the AI image database is already a dump where few people buy anything.
Shoot videos. At the moment, AI has not reached video and does not compete. I do not think that AI will reach video and it is unknown when this will happen.
No, I don't think AI images sell like my photographs. The problem is that they occupy search results and some buyers buy them. Here on the forum we have cobalt that sells a lot of AI images, so there is a market for AI. Maybe buyers will get tired, but we don't know yet. (They've already tired me, when I see a newspaper article or a blog post that has AI images I associate it with a low quality article and I don't read it. Many people are associating AI with low quality. Making images, texts or music in AI takes little time and people are learning it. And they avoid it.). I take photographs because I am a photographer with 20 years of experience. I am not a videomaker. It's a different job, it requires different equipment and new skills. And I don't like it like photography.
98
« on: November 11, 2024, 05:30 »
AI is ruining the market for both buyer and seller.
In another discussion I read this sentence: " I was able to generate about 6000 high quality images within about 4 weeks, of which I upscale and upload about approx 100 a day." 4 weeks = 6,000 high quality imagesI am a photographer who has been doing stock full time for 15 years (microstock gives me about 70% of my total earnings as a photographer), I have earned just under 400k so far with about 5,700 high quality images (I spend on average about 1 hour for each image for retouching on Photoshop). With AI, a contributor can now create in 4 weeks what I created in 15 years. For now my earnings are holding up, but everything is becoming more difficult and I have had to increase my annual production up to 100 images per month. I can't do more, otherwise the quality of my images decreases. I am looking for new niches, images that are difficult to copy with AI, but what future will we original photographers and illustrators have? We need agencies to protect us and this is not happening by allowing copycats and spammers to invade the image market and suffocate the visibility of us who have original ideas. In the last few months I have given up on consistently uploading images to Print on Demand sites, there the invasion of AI images is unstoppable and with the old methods of artistic creation (painting, photography, digital art) it is impossible to keep up with AI production. I have no desire to become an AI creator, because it can bring in money, but I cannot control my artistic creations: the machine does 90% of the work and the artist with his prompt only 10%. It is the AI that decides the output based on the average taste of people ... and this is truly the death of art, because art is error, art is divergence, art is novelty. I just don't like making art with AI, I don't feel like it's something I did. I think it's a production of the people who created the algorithm, with their tastes, their choices, their way of seeing the world. Not mine. Unfortunately I do not see a bright future for us original creators.
99
« on: October 30, 2024, 13:15 »
Not an argument so much, but how much did the 425 DLs on SS earn vs the 38 on Adobe. You don't have to divulge $ numbers, Just round percentages, or average RPD.
I checked on Stock Performer, this month the sales of SS - 2024 files - had a 15% better RPD than Adobe. On Adobe Stock I sell almost exclusively old bestsellers and very rarely earn above $1.
100
« on: October 30, 2024, 12:41 »
And plenty of people still have growth with normal photos and videos.
In this October, with the images uploaded in 2024 on SS I had 425 downloads, on Adobe Stock 38 downloads. (from Stock Performer) The images are almost the same (about 800 images), I have almost 100% acceptance rate. On Adobe 160 images are missing because they are still to be reviewed. Why this difference? My only explanation is the competition from AI images on AS.
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