I don't often look at 123RF these days given the low volume of sales.  But I did check my account balance today and was surprised to see a message that 123RF now accepts PNG files.

I couldn't find any explanation on the web site, and using search filters I couldn't see any options for selecting PNG unlike Adobe which has transparent backgrounds as an option.

Is this something new and early days for 123RF?  Does anyone have any experience of PNG files there?

I've downloaded DeepMeta to a new computer, logged in etc.  Portfolio has been idetified and added to DeepMeta.  However there is no sales history or sales statements.  Do I have to do something special to download these to DeepMeta?

When I first went non-exclusive a few years ago I could reliably make about $100 a month at BigStock.  However over the past couple of years sales have declined, declined, declined and I'll be lucky if I now reach $10 in a month instead of $100.

Clearly this isn't worth the time and effort, so I've decided to stop uploading.

Perhaps others here have a different experience, but for my portfolio I clearly have to take decisions.

Good luck to anyone still active there.

How are things going at Stocksy?  I've heard they are becoming very successful.  Anyone have any experience there?

Attn Franky please.  I've just had two or three batches rejected with the rejection reason "this subject isn't suitable as editorial - please resubmit for the creative essentials collection".  Strange because I rarely do editorial and certainly wouldn't have submitted those batches as such.  When I checked DeepMeta I found that those batches had been created as editorial by default (something I didn't notice at the time).  I don't remember DeepMeta having such a default in the past - it always defaulted to Creative.

Anyway, with resubmit permission I used the 'move' function to move those files to new batches.  Interestingly in the 'move' function I am given the option to create a new batch.  Fine.  But once again the editorial checkbox is checked by default.

It seems to me that this 'editorial by default' situation is rather strange; I imagine the vast majority of submissions to iStock are creative or illustration, with only a minority as editorial.

On the other hand perhaps I've accidentally clicked something somewhere that has told my copy of DeepMeta to default to editorial.  Unlikely, but possible.

Franky, perhaps you could have a look at this situation - perhaps the editorial default has appeared in one of the recent updates.

Over the years I've noticed that when sales are made the keyword order of images gradually changes from alphabetical to 'most popular'.  That also has something to do with search placement for those most popular keywords.

However over the past two or three months I've noticed that the keyword order for new uploads isn't changing and remains alphabetical even for images that have sold a few times.  I've also found that instead of new images with sales gradually becoming more popular, they sell a few times then disappear.  I wonder if this is also something to do with the keyword order not changing.

Has anyone noticed something similar?

I've noticed a declining trend in sales and views over the past few months.  Others have commented about an apparent change in geographical exposure.  What I'm experiencing is a dramatic change in sales volume from one day to the next.  Fotolia used to be very reliable but nowadays I get very good days followed by very bad days, then another good day etc.  A good day might be in the 25-35 sales, a bad day will drop to perhaps just a dozen.  Today I got only a handful of sales, whereas yesterday was in the 'normal' range.

This change in sales pattern seems to be accelerating, with the variance between good and bad becoming more pronounced.

I did some searches to see if that might give some answers.  I was surprised to see a big emphasis on illustrations in my search results.  Then, a couple days later, I did the same searches and the results were dominated by photos.

I'll guess that Adobe/Fotolia has got some 'clever' tech people who have come up with all these ideas about how to provide variation for customers, how to give better search results based on geographical location etc etc.  I remember that istock tried all these things years ago - none of them 'worked' and all that happened was that contributors got lower sales and became more and frustrated and confused.  In the end the entire istock search got broken (and the keyword priority system still appears to be broken today all these years later.

I'm certainly frustrated and confused.  Adobe/Fotolia has been a very good agency for me from when I went non-exclusive a couple years ago, but now all these 'clever techy' things are going on it just reminds me of all those frustrating years at istock.  Shame.

A couple of days ago the quick links black bar disappeared and now I can't find any way to get to the 'my uploads' page.  Anyone else having this problem?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-adobe-systems-results-idUSKBN0TT2WF20151211

Has iStock implemented a 'stacked images' policy similar to the one used by Getty, where only one image from a series is actually shown in search results?  Has there been any announcement about this?

Today I looked at my portfolio sorted by 'newest' and was rather surprised to find that more than half of files uploaded in recent months are not visible.  More specifically all the similars are missing.  If I'd uploaded a small series of four or five, only one of those is actually shown in my portfolio.  When I click on that image I can see all the others in that series shown in the similars carousel.  But they don't appear in my portfolio and I cannot find them if I search.

This appears to be similar to Getty's 'stacked images' system where only one image from a series is shown in the search results, and the others are only visible as similars.

Has anyone else noticed this?  If implemented across the board, this could eliminate millions of images from the search results and have significant implications for sales.

I plan to start to make stock videos from the beginning of next year, and feel that I should go straight to 4K.

My 5Dii only does HD I believe, so for 4K I'll have to invest in new equipment.

What equipment do people here use to produce high quality 4K?  What's the best to buy in terms of the best balance of budget and results?

Are non-exclusives seeing any solid growth in subs sales at istock?

I thought I'd start a new thread on this, as I think it's a subject that's important.

For those involved with Canva, presumably you've all seen the announcement email giving details of new RF licencing, subscription services, on-demand sales etc.

Personally I'm very pleased with the progress at Canva, and I suspect they'll continue to grow.  According to Lee's email they are adding about 300,000 new potential paying customers every month, which is quite some growth rate.

I hope that over the next few months we'll start to see on-demand sales.  At $3.50 a sale, those will be worth having and could make a huge difference to the money earning potential.

I have a doubt about the new RF subscription, which might cannibalize the current multiple sales, but Canva seems to have done everything right so far so presumably they've got this one thought through.

It's not clear whether RF sales can be 'taken away' for use in other projects, or whether all sales remain just for use in the Canva platform.  Perhaps Lee can clarify this point.