The only way I can give away my images is through my website, to do marketing FOR ME, not for agencies.

So, this year too: opt-out! Not a single image of mine in the Adobe Stock Free collection, if you want them, you pay! 

The current system is rewarding the spammers, wether ai or camera, that upload gigantic quantities a day.

Whereas the creators who edit very strongly and upload 5-20 files a day are severly punished and basically cannot grow their ports.

Yes, I agree. This system harms those who do high-quality work and favors those who work in quantity.

Even in the past there were photographers who uploaded thousands of useless and unsellable snapshots. Or illustrators who produced thousands of horrible 3D images.

The problem is that AI (with its production speed) has multiplied this type of contributors (the spammers) infinitely.

The world is moving towards an algorithm-driven society that rewards quantity over quality. We are seeing it everywhere. This has always been my biggest fear about AI and unfortunately it is happening.

The challenge of the future will be to be able to bring out the best, most original and creative content. Today, platforms are not succeeding, just look at social media. "AI slop" is a consequence of all this.

As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance the content discovery experience for both customers and contributors, we have identified and are removing duplicate files on Adobe Stock. You should have received an email regarding this update on February 27, 2025. All assets have been carefully evaluated to ensure minimal impact on your portfolio.

I am a landscape and travel professional photographer, two unique images have been removed from my portfolio. Of these two locations I have ONLY ONE PHOTOGRAPH. How is this possible?

In other cases, the vertical version has been removed. It is not the same photo cropped. It is another image. Customers often like to buy two versions of the same location, the horizontal one is for the blog and the vertical one for social media such as Instagram or TikTok.

Your approach to similar images is completely wrong for me. I am a professional photographer, and you are not helping professionals.

Yeah, totally understand, I was curios only about prints, don't worry, it's fine.

Thanks for understanding DaLiu. I have had a couple of unpleasant episodes in the past.

If I can give you some tips, you have to choose what type of prints you want to sell.

The easiest way is Print On Demand. You upload your images, and they do everything for you. However, sales are very low. It is a very different market from stock, you have to do a lot of marketing on your own and today it is very difficult. Having visibility on social media is almost impossible if you do not pay. And POD websites usually do not do marketing for you.

The most complicated way (but the most satisfying) is that of your own website. However, you have to be familiar with building a website (I suggest Wordpress), you have to integrate a plugin for sales (Shopify or WooCommerce) and then you have to decide how to print your images. You can choose to use a Dropshipping service (but you have no quality control), or you choose a printing service, order it for yourself and then ship it.

I use this system, so I can sign the limited edition copies. As for the smaller editions, I have an A2+ printer and I do everything myself with cotton paper.

However, the biggest problem with your website is visibility. How do you attract people? You need excellent marketing with SEO (the blog is the best resource for acquiring organic) and Ads (be careful, they are increasingly expensive and often useless).

In two words: you need experience. You have to try, make mistakes and correct.

It gives me a lot of satisfaction, but the money you earn is not much.

I think I know very few people who can live only with prints. It is a very difficult market.

Usually those who do it have a parallel activity to earn money in workshops and photography trips. For family reasons, I cannot travel all over the world, and so I chose stock photography.

How do you do that, I am thinking of doing that myself.

I've been doing this for 20 years. I sell my photos taken on film (medium format) in some galleries (brick and mortar) and something through my website (These images are not for sale on microstock sites).

But to sell, you need to do very good marketing and have some awards to show. You have to gain the customer's trust.

Otherwise you can try with the Print on Demand. POD worked well until a few years ago. Now, AI has flooded many of these websites and you sell very little. Only those who have been at the top of searches for years can sell with POD.

This is very similar to Envato Elements with unlimited downloads for a low monthly subscription. In the case of Envato, Elements has basically killed the normal marketplace. I predict that on SS the unlimited downloads subscriptions will eventually replace the normal market and if you are not opted in you will see very few sales on SS in future.

This looks like a desperate move of SS. Not surprising and is probably the final phase of the microstock industry in the race to the bottom.  I am sure others will follow this trend of unlimited downloads very soon in order to retain market share.  Very sad.

I am in Envato Elements with about 15% of my portfolio (about 1000 images out of 6000). I only have very old images or I upload junk.

The images sold are really a lot and the earnings are very low.

Every day I sell about 60/80 images and the earnings are 3/4$. The RPD varies between $0.03 and $0.05.

I think this is the future of those who agree to join the Shutterstock Unlimited Downloads program, effectively destroying the market.

They are trying to make the photography market like the music market with Spotify. And I fear they will succeed.

I am sure I am blind, but can you help me where to find that ppt-out switch?

Trying to find it for about 10min now, but cannot find the contributor setttings... pretty sure its time to look for some glasses

Edit:
Found the contributor settings - they were scrolled out of the window bottom left.
But there is no opt-out option for the unlimited subscription in my account - just:
- Image licensing
- Video licensing
- Image data licensing
- Video data licensing

You probably weren't selected... your photos don't please the gentlemen of SS 

Opted out immediately

Unlimited Downloads = Thieves Paradise

The advent of AI is the revenge of those who have never learned any skills in life. Those who have never sweated over books, those who do not have the patience to wait, those who prefer everything immediately to those who invest in the long term, those who drink a young wine rather than an aged wine.

We will be overwhelmed by a tsunami of content of all kinds, but our human attention span remains the same. Who will watch all this content?

Maybe AI will watch content made by AI. There are already bots created by AI that increase the engagement of social profiles ... made by AI. 

For many people, it is all very beautiful. I will continue to take photographs while traveling, walking, and cycling ... until someone who appreciates the effort of a human and not a machine buys them.

I hope that this type of person who loves things made by humans will continue to exist.

Good to hear someone is doing well.

Are your files being accepted?

In one of my groups camera people are also seeing entire batches declined, just like ai content.

I have had 2 not accepted in the last 100 (reason: similar). No AI and no video.

I send batches of 10/15/20 images at a time every 3/4/5 days.

The only problem I have is that some images are sitting in the queue for months. I think it is due to some copyrighted keywords, but I can't figure out which one ...

Very true but yesterday was a good day for me at least on SS, I had so many of these days last year, lets hope they are coming back this year.

I'm happy for you! 

I had it last week one day with earnings > $100... but that was pretty much the only one this month. I was used to having at least one every week.

Earnings 2% better than Feb 2024 and 7% better than Jan 2025.

Awful RPD on IS: $0.43

And that makes February my worst RPD ever (over 15 years of stock) at $0.59.

But watch out! March is doing even worse! Right now, after 19 days my RPD is $0.57. Downloads are good, but the very low RPD is making me miss out on all the download gains.

You may not care because I only do photography - level 5 on SS - (no video), but that is going down too. I'm only down 10% in downloads, but RPD is plummeting:

March 2024 $0.75
March 2025 $0.48

February was $0.42

To make $1000 a month now, you need more than 2000 images sold.