Quote from: Noedelhap on Yesterday at 08:07

All strokes should be outlined. This is a standard requirement for submitted vectors at most (if not all) agencies. And yes, it reduces editability, but it prevents unintended issues with the artwork not being displayed correctly, when for instance resizing the artwork.

It's not a standard requirement. I upload to many agencies, and have for many years. Iconfinder, for example, does not require outlined strokes. I've also supplied icon sets (16+ icons) to Adobe with editable strokes.

Fully understand about the pros and cons of outlining, but as a designer I want to be able to edit and change the stroke weight, and have had many people ask for them to be supplied that way.

Adobe says here: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/vector-requirements.html

Follow these best practices:
- Outline all strokes as paths or shapes.

I don't know about Iconfinder and similar agencies, YMMV. Perhaps there are some exceptions, it could be agencies have loosened up their requirements over the years.
I do understand where you're coming from regarding editability, maybe simple icons are the exception to the rule.

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 23, 2023, 04:49

Quote from: Zero Talent on March 22, 2023, 19:55

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 22, 2023, 19:46

Cashed out some revenue: what should have been €140, was now $140, which converted to EUR and Paypal fees included, resulted in €125 to my bank account.

A more than 10% decrease in revenue. Thanks Adobe.

Welcome to the club many of us outside the eurozone were part of since the very beginning.

Still, that's different; most other agencies outside Europe never had a € payout option, so you accept the $ currency when you sign up, simply because there was no other option.
Fotolia had €-accounts from the beginning, so you sign up for that and expect € payments for life.

Suddenly Adobe decided to change it unilaterally and practically overnight. It's a disservice and a big middlefinger to all contributors overseas. It's taking away a service that should be standard for any international agency.

This isn't Fotolia anymore. You got a bonus that others didn't, now that's done.

How is being paid in your own currency considered 'a bonus'? Everyone who wanted to could sign up for a €-account, it wasn't a special privilege or anything.
Adobe simply wanted to increase their profits (or reduce costs) at the expense of €-contributors.
How can anyone defend corporate greed? Unless you're just grumpy about having signed up for the wrong account back then and you finally can say: "if I can't have €, no one can!"

The only good thing about AI is that artists can use it to create new (computer-aided) art, it can save time and increase quality, and open up ways for artists to visualize their ideas.

The downsides in the future:
- Oversupply of AI generated images/video, the market will become saturated if it hasn't already. What was once considered a genuine talent or hard work (in drawing, photography, painting or animation) will at some point be replaced by AI.
- The microstock industry will be disrupted, causing those who fall behind to go out of business due to oversupply/diminishing revenue; perhaps agencies will create their own collections, or together with a handful of contributors who have embraced AI as a tool.
- It will be more and more difficult to distinguish between 'real & handcrafted' vs 'computer generated'. (Although this is already a thing with cgi in general, like deepfakes). People might question the authenticity of a photo or artwork, i.e. is it the work of manual labor and talent or was it made by a computer? Is the person in a photo a real living person or AI-generated?

I think the AI trend is unstoppable, and every attempt to postpone it is futile. It's a matter of time before it's here and microstock industry (as well as other industries related to art) will change. The sooner we embrace it, the better. We should however make sure we get compensated fairly for the use of our work in this new technology. 

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 22, 2023, 19:46

Cashed out some revenue: what should have been €140, was now $140, which converted to EUR and Paypal fees included, resulted in €125 to my bank account.

A more than 10% decrease in revenue. Thanks Adobe.

Welcome to the club many of us outside the eurozone were part of since the very beginning.

Still, that's different; most other agencies outside Europe never had a € payout option, so you accept the $ currency when you sign up, simply because there was no other option.
Fotolia had €-accounts from the beginning, so you sign up for that and expect € payments for life.

Suddenly Adobe decided to change it unilaterally and practically overnight. It's a disservice and a big middlefinger to all contributors overseas. It's taking away a service that should be standard for any international agency.

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 20, 2023, 15:40

Quote from: Schadenfreude on March 20, 2023, 14:17

Me: I see. How do the customers qualify?

DP: It's the special plan our sales department offers to some of our customers. Unfortunately, I can not answer the question regarding the qualification system

Interesting. I doubt there's any qualification at all.

So All of a sudden I see I'm 'opted back in' after the said they would remove me.

Firing off another opt out email.

Where do you see that? I saw nothing in my profile except for the email.

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 20, 2023, 11:28

I was opted in automatically. Is there any way to opt out?

When the opted me in October 202, I sent them an email telling them to remove all my files from that program  - They got back to me in 90 minutes saying: "We will exclude you from the Revenue Share Program shortly. "

And they did.

I did the Live chat, and requested an opt-out, she said 'Sure' and I was opted out immediately. She didn't give an explanation, but she did acknowledge everyone was opted in automatically. "But you can opt out at any time."

Yeah well, it's still shady and unethical.

It can be anything from $3-4 to $28. My latest sale was $8.59 for a lvl 0 sale of that video.

But video sales are so infrequent that it's hardly relevant. Most of my (image) sales are $0.35 subscription.

The only reason I can think of for relaxing the requirements:
- More approved submissions > increased assets
- Fewer guidelines for content reviewers > keep the cost for training and paying reviewers as low as possible, perhaps even downsizing the number of reviewers

Of course this means lower quality control and more copyright infringement, especially with auto-traced work and filtered photos. This was already difficult to check, if at all, now they simply absolve themselves of any possible infringement. Not a good sign.

I've never seen this before in my sales overview: a little red "-" instead of a $ price. See attached screenshot.

Is this a refunded or cancelled sale or something? If so, since when does Adobe allow that?

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 03, 2023, 19:04

Quote from: HalfFull on March 03, 2023, 03:16

The people paying for the software are unlikely to be contributors... and if they are, most likely using some other software that is cheaper as they're not making as much money from it.

I think most contributors use Adobe CC to some extent, actually. Most contributors (like me) do microstock part-time but use Adobe CC for other types of work (video editing, animation, photography, illustration, music/sound design...)

And most pass the low minimum of 250 dls per year to receive free software. Thats why I said that people paying for the software are unlikely to be contributors.

But the free software @ 250 dls consists of only Photoshop and Lightroom, video editors and illustrators need more apps which have to be paid for if they don't meet the requirements for the free All Apps plan.

I received my level up confirmation email Tuesday evening.

Quote from: Noedelhap

I guess it has something to do with the fact that my Paypal account is set up from inside the EU so it has different textfields to link your bank than a US Paypal account? That would be ridiculous. Paypal isn't any help either.

have you tried to reach wise helpdesk?
 

It's not a Wise thing, it's a Paypal thing.
I might try HalfFull's tip. But already I think it's too much hassle. Should be much less cumbersome to transfer some money.

I tried to setup my Wise account but how do I link my Paypal account (which has USD as primary currency) to my Wise USD account? I can only link a bank using IBAN...But my Wise USD account doesn't have IBAN.