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Messages - MicroVet

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1
I was always under the impression that most agencies do not allow upscaling. Am I mistaken there or has this changed with AI?

Agencies don't like upscaled images because they always sold upscaled versions themselves. Just check the sizes the agencies allow for sale and you'll discover that on many of them there are sizes bigger than the original file you've submitted. At least they used to do this.

2
Hi.

The title basically says all. Is it better to upscale older and lower resolution jpeg images before working on them, or go through the workflow of an image and upscale with AI after all is done? Can't find any discussion about this.

I guess that upscaling before the workflow would give the AI software more detail to work on than on a finished product where noise removal software would already been applied.

On the other hand, working and finishing the image before would make the AI Upscaler to process only what is relevant and reduce the chances of it confusing noise for detail, and thus produce a cleaner result.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks.

3
General - Stock Video / Re: 1080p video still worth to produce?
« on: October 25, 2023, 11:24 »
Thanks for all the replies so far.

4
General - Stock Video / 1080p video still worth to produce?
« on: October 25, 2023, 07:07 »
Hi.

Since 4k has been around for a few years now, is producing Full HD 1080p footage still worth? Will the AI tools mean that these resolutions will still be useful to be used on 4k due to the chance of higher quality upscaling and editing?

Unfortunately video has always been an after-thought to me despite ok sales and since I don't have 4k equipment I was wondering if at this time it wouldn't be a waste of time.

Thanks.

5
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy Image Submission Fee
« on: July 07, 2022, 05:08 »
There are comments in the Alamy forum that this is a bug - an obsolete storage program that  surfaced when they made the changes for the new 20% royalty rate July 1. Several people say they reported it, but perhaps the more reports the better?

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

Alamy is reducing commission to 20%?

6
Will we know if our accepted images are being downloaded in the free collection and how many times?

7
Microstock News / Re: Are sales on Alamy lower because:
« on: May 11, 2021, 15:01 »
Just had a bunch of sales netting me 0,03 each. Fantastic!

8
Just had a bunch of $0.03 (net) sales. Hooray!

9
You are lucky because I got two sales for $0.07 each.

10
Where do I exactly find that free collection. Been looking for it but could not see it anywhere.

As for the news I've stopped bothering because I know where to get all the Adobe software for free as well. So you sabotage our work and I sabotage yours. I think it's fair.

11
General Stock Discussion / Re: Respect your elders?
« on: July 02, 2020, 04:25 »
Are we older people to be respected for building this crappy society that we give as a legacy to our children and grandchildren?
Certainly not!

Why do people expect for a single generation to solve ALL the problems of the world? Are we handing over a world full of problems to the younger generations? Yes. But what world have we inherited?

People talk like these are the worst of times and older people have done nothing but wrong. Did any of you went to school at all?

Up until recently there were countries where apartheid was the norm. In the US there are a lot of people still alive who lived in legally institutionalized racial discrimination. Where black people could not attend to school. It was the older people (at least part of them) that fought against that system allowing today for people from the minorities to go the the university and become highly respect intellectuals and scientists. Does that count for nothing?

European countries let go of their colonies, much to the struggle of the people in those colonies. But would that independence have been granted if the governments hadn't also faced internal support for the liberation of those colonies and against colonialism?

Labour laws are under attack in Europe in a clear regression regarding workers rights. Weren't all those rights a conquer from the older generations? Have people forgotten that working 8 hours a day wasn't something universal so long ago? In fact it's the lack of spine and cowardice of the younger generations that's allowing for all the benefits conquered in the past being lost.

Or the rising of the idea of ecology. This is not a concept invented by the 20 year olds. From the 1960/70s that people have been fighting for it with increasing success.

Is 2020 all that worst than the 1950/60's with all the racial discrimination and colonialism? Or the 1930/40s with the fascist and nazi regimes and a World War? And so on and so on?

Let's be real. Life isn't a Marvel cartoon where a superhero solves all the problems with his super-powers during the course of a 90 minute film. Things evolve in smaller steps.

Honestly it's what this generation of thin-skinned snowflakes, keyboard SJW, radicalized in puritan views of right vs. wrong, totally dependent on technologies that killed their privacy like social media and location devices that allow for control from the authorities that I fear.

The older generation that in 40 years will have 80 years old may be the last to remember how it was to be free. Just look at the Big Brother being built in China and surreptitiously copied in Europe.

12
Deactivated +10.000 photos, video and illustrations on SS.

In fact I went exclusive with Pond5 about a week ago, so the videos will not go up anyway.

13
If you are lazy to do the necessary calculations, don't take up valuable forum space. Thank you.

Arrogant POS.

I've presented enough data, that can be extrapolated to any month on the past 14 years I'm on SS, to show that your attempt to manipulate the contributors in favor of SS is BS.

Besides, this forum is not yours.

EDIT: Just to open a bigger hole in your personal exception case or manipulation (whichever is the case), my RPD from March, April and May is 0.85c. My RPD from June is 0,62c which represents a 27% drop.

But if we consider that I already have big sales this month that are not likely to be repeated for the rest of the month contrary to the 0,10c sales that will pile up, that 0,62c RPD will drop even further making that 27% income fall be much bigger.

14
Total BS.

My RPD from subscriptions and OD from May to June dropped from 0,53c to 0,34c (level 4 / previous 0,38c). This represents a 36% drop.

From April to June there's a 46% drop (0,63c to June 0,34)

I've excluded the Single & Others, EL's, Videos and other factors that are a lottery and not the brunt of the income and cannot be considered with just a week in June into any estimation but if I did the June drop would even be bigger.

I won't even bother to do more calculations. It's absolutely clear that there is a HUGE cut in my income.

Either you are an exception believing to be the rule against everybody else testimonies, or you're here just to create chaos and dissent among the contributors on SS orders.

15
I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

Stan Pavlovsky ... is that you?

No he's not Pavlovskly. He's that guy that cracks the whip on the back of the workers on orders of the bosses. Just as poor and miserable as the others that get exploited, but who feels good being the attack dog of his millionaire owner. I know the type from the ditatorship times, and history is full of examples like him.

16
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0
« on: June 05, 2020, 03:27 »
I really hope that Adobe would make a move, namely accepting editorial photos and videos which are a huge part of my SS income and other agencies and is a very large market.

Unfortunately I don't know how willing is Adobe to make a move because that would empower the contributors and give us a sense that collective actions and pressure does make a difference.

So, in the short term Adobe may see this as a good move to get a greater market share but in the long term the sense of power and unity the contributors gained could mean trouble for them.

After all we're talking about big capitalists whose worst nightmare is having the workers united. As an example, I know a story of a big farmer that decided to pay more to his workers because people were little more than slaves in the region. He ended up never having a crop after that because the other farmers burnt down all his crops fearing that their workers would start demanding better payment. That farmer had to leave the region.

So, as much as I would like to see Adobe make a move, the truth is Free Market and competition is an illusion and things are always under control and well orchestrated by the big players. At least in my country Free Market meant the establishment of Cartels that act as monopolies.

17
Shutterstock.com / Re: What does Shutterstock really want?
« on: June 05, 2020, 02:14 »
I would not be surprised that they are positioning themselves for acquisition.

And that explains why they created the $0.10 minimum per download when 15% actually represents $0.04 of most sales, 30% represents $0.08 and so on, for example. Does it make any sense that they created a 15% level when the sales of that level will almost always be bellow $0.10?

They created the $0.10 limit so that a new owner already has the tools to reduce even further the payment expense and make SS more attractive to potential buyers.

And it may not even take that long as I believe that later next year, after they have reset the levels in January, SS itself will drop the $0.10 limit and put all sales in the correspondent level to increase their earnings again. The $0.10 limit is just the well know strategy to soften the first blow.

So prepare yourselves to earn $0.04 per sale or little more.

18
I'm at risk of suffering the same situation as our fellow artist. Currently scrabbling to reinforce my presence in other areas but far from guarantee any return greater than I have now. And certainly not fast enough.

The wort part is that I beleve that after the January 1st reset, SS will drop the $0,10 minimum royalty and effectivelly implement the percentages for each level.

It just doesn't make any sense defining levels and then create a flat rate that make people in the higher levels earn the same than those on the lower levels. Prepare yourself to be earning $0.04 per download.

The drop won't be 60 to 70%. It wil be 90% in most cases.

19
Seeing images that went for $0,38 now going for $0,10 like I'm seeeing now, feels like being stabbed.

I'm a full time stock photographer and things were going terrible for the past years, but this move may have killed my business. To earn 25% of what I used to earn is sickening.

It's a very hard decision with a lot of serious financial consequences for me to deactivate my portfolio, but I may have to go kamikaze.

With such a huge drop it won't make a difference if I earn 25% or 0% of my previous SS income.

20
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0
« on: May 26, 2020, 12:30 »
Some girl named Katty from Shutterstock just came and said that it will not bi lower than 10 cents, not 3 or 6 cents as we assumed. What a relief.

Relief? I hope you're joking!

Getting closer to put my stock +20.000 images for free on the web and ask for donations for those who download them. Soon it won't be worse than having them on stock.

Hope AdobeStock launches a wrecking ball into SS headquarters.

The first step would be to accept editorial content which is a huge part of my SS income, and them promote good exclusivity conditions.

21
Shutterstock.com / Re: How I got from 400 sales a day to 130
« on: April 03, 2020, 03:22 »
I also have an abrupt drop in the number of sales. But the drop in the income is even more worrying. Not only the value received for the EL's is much lower, it has become almost non-existent. The Single & Others only sell by small values contrary to the beginning where I had sales for $100, $60 and so on.

The quality of the images uploaded almost doesn't matter has to produce good images I cannot focus on large quantities. So, when they become available for search the images enter immediately into the 10th page of the Fresh Content becoming invisible in the midst of all those spamming trash SS now accepts that it's downgrading their collection.


22
Yes that could be upsetting. I've never had a keyword rejected, that I know of. Do they notify me or just make it disappear?

You get a very fast message saying that incorrect keywords have been removed or something like that. I haven't seen the list of removed keywords but noticed that they removed Easter. SS does conjugate words like run/running, etc.

But in this case I had Easter separated and used in conjunction with other words like "easter bunny" and "easter eggs" so to me it doesn't make sense that they would erase the single word since the others a set, if I'm explaining myself correctly.

Unless each single word in a set also works as a single word ("easter bunny" also is treated as "easter" and "bunny" seprately) I cannot understand why they would consider a repetition.

As Jens G, the deleted word ends up showing in the suggested keywords. If you add them they get instantly deleted everytime.

23
I have noticed they do this sometimes if for example "easter' is repeated a few times - like "easter egg" "easter basket" "easter" - they might remove "easter" - without telling you they removed it or why - if you try to add it they remove it again - at least once I removed some of the other instances and they accepted it, but if you didn't notice they removed the most important keyword....

I guess that was it. All keywords were relevant. I cannot understand why would they remove a relevant keyword, that is not used as spam but the name of the items just because there are several of them!

And the worst is what you mentioned. I haven't seen a reference regarding what keywords were removed, much less the reason.

SS is just getting absurd.

Thanks.

24
SS is now rejecting images as similar even if one portrays a woman and another a man doing the same action!!!

Yes I know that they are doing the same action, but aren't a man and a woman different enough to justify the approval of both images?!

Besides, not only the physical appearance is totally different but the clothing has nothing to do with each other.

So fed up!

25
When Shutterstock submission page deletes the keyword "Easter" as an incorrect word and makes it impossible to add it, in Easter themed images, than something very wrong is happening there.

I cannot understand how they did not learn a thing with what happened to IS. A few years back almost everyone raved about how well SS worked pointing their good decisions in contrast with IS, the agency everyone developed a particular hate. And that made SS without doubt the strongest agency.

Now, SS seems to be following the same path of IS, instead of preserving their strong points.

At the moment SS is still my number one agency but the fall has been so big, not only in terms of revenue but also in terms of review quality, that I'm getting fed up with them.

They deleted the word Easter? Was it an Easter Image? I have some images with the keyword Easter, so I'm trying to understand what are you saying?

2,397,414 Easter stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty-free

If Easter painted eggs together with rabbits aren't Easter symbols than I do not know anything. Let's put it this way. Imagine images of Santa Claus having the word Christmas removed.

I even tried to add them manually more than once but the system deleted them all the times. Lets hope they get approved so I try to add them in the Catalogue Manager.

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