pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - gnirtS

Pages: [1] 2
1
https://petapixel.com/2023/11/27/adobe-stock-changes-policy-on-ai-images-depciting-real-events/

From older article here: https://petapixel.com/2023/11/07/adobe-stock-is-selling-ai-generated-images-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict/


A "policy change" isnt going to do anything.  Vast numbers of people are submitting AI fully aware of the policies and rules, have no intention of following them and have no chance of getting caught.


2
Pond5 / New rules - Editorial content etc
« on: November 30, 2023, 23:31 »
Email states the changes come in from Dec 4th.

Looks entirely to align it with Shutterstocks world view/lawyer view.

Editorial videos must now be labelled as such by the contributor and have an editorial caption.

Reminder about trademarks not allowed in keywords.

3
Adobe Stock / Slow payments?
« on: August 11, 2023, 11:18 »
Anyone noticed a slow down in payment processing?

Typically its 7 days near enough every time.

This time my request from July 31st still listed as Pending.

4
Adobe Stock / Gaming the system
« on: August 04, 2023, 11:48 »
The Shutterstock FB group is full of people trying to game the system.

Here's one from today who is a (i) AS contributor and (ii) AS account holder offering openly to buy images of other contributors on request for a fee to boost search rank.

FWIW given his posts elsewhere its likely using stolen account credentials as he's selling LOTS of different things.

There are more and more of these types of post now.

5
https://petapixel.com/2023/07/31/adobe-staff-worry-their-ai-could-kill-the-jobs-of-their-own-customers/

Seems relevant to here.

Quote
According to a report from Insider, Adobe employees are expressing concern that moving forward with AI technologies in the art space will cause companies to downsize graphic design departments, and one senior designer at the company says that is already happening.

The employee cites a billboard and advertising business they are aware of already made the move to reduce the size of such a team because of how effective Fireflys integration into Photoshop has become and that is still in beta.

The situation has gotten to the point that some Adobe employees are experiencing an existential crisis and are calling it depressing in an internal Slack channel seen by Insider.

6
Was looking at the keyword suggestions earlier and got sidetracked when i noticed this.
Many of the top hits for certain phrases contain keywords that are duplicated multiple times in a single keyword.

Things like "waterfalls waterfalls waterfalls waterfalls water" and so on.

Attached image is just from "waterfalls" search showing the most common keywords from the 50 images it displayed.

So is this actually effective algorithm gaming given how many times it seems to appear or just some random artefact?  I guess it definitely proves theres no human checking keywords for accurate or content on upload...

7
Shutterstock.com / Level reset - the damage!
« on: February 01, 2022, 13:45 »
OK so January is over so the full scale of the SS level reset can be seen.

For reference i finished the year on levels 5 images and 4 video to give it context and finished January on levels 4/2.



Firstly the earnings graph (actual figures removed due to T&Cs etc etc).
Can see (i) how brutal the reset is and how similar it was to last years as well.  Download numbers also near identical.

Now for the RPDs:


Actually seeing an even lower image RPD than last year although video is *slightly* better.

RPD a mere $0.32 per image (2021 average $0.72) and for video $7.35 (2021 average $12.42)

Unexpectedly given the time of year Adobe provided me with a best month ever in earnings and just over double what SS provided.


In short as expected the level reset makes for a fairly horrible January.  Will see what Feb brings as i slowly crawl back up to where i was before.


8
Adobe Stock / Keyword ordering on uploaded images messed up?
« on: January 27, 2022, 13:02 »
Just tried to upload a batch of images using my usual method - Bridge to set keywords in priority order then upload.
All of the uploaded images have the order messed up - sometimes its alphabetical, some times it seems completely random so it looks like it's ignored the file settings.

Anyone else experience this?

(They all show in priority order on the jpg themselves locally)

9
Shutterstock.com / First full year of the "levels"
« on: December 31, 2021, 11:54 »
Just run through my yearly SS figures so the first 12 months of the level system.

Firstly, January as expected was a huge drop.  Over 80% decrease in revenue.

One thing that did surprise me for video in particular is just how random the RPD for video was regardless of level.  The graphs are all over the place throughout the year.  So many special offers/giveaways and so on the thing varies by a factor of 3 from month to month despite actual volume remaining fairly constant.
Both do show a shallow increase throughout the year which makes the reset even hard to stomach.  Somewhat surprising of an increasing average despite constant levels though.

Data set is likely large enough to not have huge fluctuations from individual freak sales.

Overall average for year RPD for video $12.40 and images $0.72
(Contrast with roughly $19 video and $0.98 before the new system).

10
Shutterstock.com / Video upload issues?
« on: November 01, 2021, 11:37 »
Anyone seeing any video upload problems?
I sent a load last night and they didn't appear, tried again today, those haven't appeared either.

11
iStockPhoto.com / ESP login issues?
« on: April 08, 2021, 09:43 »
Anyone else having login issues on ESP or DeepMeta?

On DM it seems to take an eternity then going to "Login Failed" and ESP website giving "Those details don't match our records. Double-check and try again." instantly.

Yes the details are correct - ive been having this issue for 48hrs now.

12
Shutterstock.com / Customer end "predicted quality"
« on: March 06, 2021, 13:08 »
SS appear to have a new undocumented customer feature.  In addition to "Authentic" we now have "AI Predicted Quality".

Seems to be rolling it to images this weekend.

Nothing from contributor support about it, its not showing on all images yet.

I looked at a few of mine and my best sellers are often on 6 or 7 out of 10 whereas others that are out of focus or badly exposed are getting 9s.
Images that sell a lot aren't always high and images that have never sold sometimes are. On my stuff at least it appears totally random.

So, is the same famous SS AI that thinks trees are image noise and clouds need model releases now deciding how good an image is?

...wonder how long before they offer a "Filter quality lower than X" or "Less money for quality lower than X" appears.

13
If anyone has videos on Storyblocks you may want to check to see if they've been stolen by others and resold elsewhere.

There is a growing number of fraud portfolios cropping up on Shutterstock selling video that clearly isnt theirs and tracing the videos they all seem to originate from Storyblocks.

The SS facebook groups have people openly uploading these as well.

No idea how they're GETTING them off Storyblocks but ive identified 20 different original authors in about an hour this morning having work end up on SS and resold.

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/moonrabbits/video

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Shutterup+Gallery/video

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/LadyInForest/video

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Donna+Mims/video

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/SunriseFromEast/video

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/SugarBeans/video

Although quite a few of the videos are on multiple stock sites the one trend is they're *all* on storyblocks and descriptions are identical to the SS ones.

It might be worth checking to see if you have video used elsewhere (made easier by the fact the thieves are copy/pasting descriptions so it shows up easily in a search).

Ive contacted some of the authors to let them know.

14
Shutterstock.com / Image thief with a lower than average IQ
« on: October 20, 2020, 07:36 »
A thread has appeared on the Shutterstock Contributors Worldwide facebook group.

A guy posting saying he's reached the submission limit for videos "again" and asks whats causing it.
He includes a screenshot.

All the titles have videoblocks in them, a varied range of clips.  Suspiciously so in fact.

Someone else has done searching and found the original owner of some of those clips on there who confirms its stolen.

So this guy is stealing off videoblocks and uploading to SS as his own work.

What we cant find is his portfolio on SS as its not in the screenshot and the name is common.

Anyone fancy some detective work?

( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1686048705011055/permalink/2835310756751505/?comment_id=2835451206737460&reply_comment_id=2835568046725776 )

Edit:- 2 other videos are taken from an author called "aerocaminua" who has a VB and SS account.

15
General - Stock Video / Colour management / premiere ?
« on: September 27, 2020, 06:24 »
First let's start by saying although im fairly OK with colour management workflow in still i am NOT in video so beginner advice level is needed for me....

Basically, im editing videos for stock in Premiere Pro and exporting.  On my computer (VLC or windows viewer) the videos themselves play back exactly as wanted.  Colour and saturation is as i want. Both prores and h.264 outputs.

However, what im finding is when i upload to stock (SS/AS etc) the displayed thumbnails appear very washed out regarding saturation and contrast.  When playing back on the sites embedded customer end they look the same - washed out.

Im having issues separating if this is a colour management error on my *actual* videos or just an artefact of playback?

Some system details:-
- Windows 10 with Dell U2720Q monitor
- Monitor is running in sRGB and is calibrated using Dispcal
- Browser is Chrome (colour managed) and playback via VLC (also colour managed)
- Export Prores and h.264 same issues from Premiere
- Not trying HDR or anything. Simple rec709.
- Reason for running my display in sRGB not the P3 version is because a lot of windows is not colour managed so looks odd in general use outside of managed apps.

I've experimented with the Premiere colour management on/off option in the menus but cant decide which, if any, makes any difference.

Im aware of the table on https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/premiere-pro/using/color-management.html showing what are and aren't issues with different displays.

So basically, is there any reason why my videos all export to be more washed out and in Premiere, do i want colour management on or not?

Also "If the destination for your video is an online video channel such as YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, or played back on an sRGB display, you must not turn on Display Color Management. If the destination for your video is a broadcaster, you can turn on Display Color Management." is mentioned - for stock video im assuming most buyers would be using a non sRGB screen?  Or shall i optimise for that?



16
iStockPhoto.com / Disambiguation / Deep Meta
« on: August 02, 2020, 17:53 »
Quick query, im submitting using Deep Meta so obviously have the keywords/disambiguation stage.

A lot of things in my keywords that are relevant (name of place, name of animal and so on) don't ever seem to exist on their list of terms for disambiguation.
Do i add these anyway (they appear in red on the left then) or isn't it worth it?
Are ONLY disambiguated terms searched and indexed or can people search on things that arent in the IS dictionary ?
Ive found conflicting information online as to yes/no for this.

18
Pond5 / Location country and city - effect on search?
« on: July 05, 2020, 06:46 »
Couldn't find the answer to this on their FAQ in full...

But what exactly do the location country and city fields do regarding search?

There doesn't seem to be any search filter option for either customer end for example.

A quick example, if ive got a generic shot of a cave (or anything) would adding the location country mean it ONLY turns up in searches or filters involving that country and if so, would labeling as "not relevant" be more useful?
The flip side is otherwise does the opposite happen, its prioritised searching for that country but not de-ranked if they dont?

19
Is there any way to edit/change the entire set of keywords on previously approved images by pasting in a new set (as you can do prior to submission)?
Ive tried deleting them all on the image in question then pasting in my normal coma separated batch but it doesnt seem to work - the engine treats them all as a single keyword and doesnt enable the OK box.

The reason for asking is ive submitted a load of images with completely incorrect keywords due to my having to repaste in the priority order ones from a CSV in Bridge since LR still wont support priority keyword export.  Entirely user error which i didnt notice at the time.

The end result is a load of pictures of windfarms with completely inappropriate keywords about roadworks and bridges etc.  I assume nobody manually checks keywords on review either as they should not have been approved like that!

Another thing i cant get to work - batch editing on submitted images.  I select multiple images, change the keyword by manually typing in one at a time but the change only happens to one image not all the ones selected.  Does this work somehow or isnt it meant to work like that?


20
123RF / Suspicious buying?
« on: June 19, 2019, 19:49 »
Normally on here i get relatively consistent monthly sales (within $20 or so each month of an average).

Ive had one really odd day in May where someone bought 11 pages worth of subscriptions - a large chunk of my portfolio here which is extremely unusual to the point of being suspicious.

Has anyone seen anything like this before or have i just had my portfolio stolen to be reuploaded on SS and others by the photo thief mafia?

21
Ive come across a fairly annoying bug (to me at least) that i can replicate.

Due to LR not exporting keywords in priority order it means i have to manually paste in my keywords on uploaded images again before submission.  These images obviously have alphabetical keywords by default.

On a sumission page if i select all images on a page, then "erase all keywords" and click save it works - keywords are cleared for all media on that page.
BUT it seems to only be valid for that session - if i close the browser tab, reload and go back into the page all those erased keywords have now come back (or worse, auto generated ones).

Is this intended behaviour or is there any work around?

Im having issues generally submitting multiple files at once (especially video) where ive just noticed some videos i have the first of a batch has the correct, pasted keywords, the others seem to have auto.  A fish farm is keyworded "circuit,computer,board,electronics" etc when i clearly didnt add it as that.

 Ive just spent a merry few hours deleting and dragging keywords to fix the obvious ones but fairly sure id have missed a lot.

So in short 3 questions:

(i) is the erased keywords returning on a reload meant to happen or is it a bug?  Is there a workaround?

(ii) What is the correct procedure for selecting say 4 files, applying the same pasted keywords to all (and removing the ones originally there) and submitting that batch?

(iii) Is there a way to completely change all keywords on an already accepted file by pasting in again?  I can only see the box to alter the order and delete specifics not completely re keyword?  Or is the only option to delete and re-add (not a great option with my 512kbps upload speed)?

22
Adobe Stock / Keyword management tips?
« on: August 16, 2017, 10:41 »
Im looking for suggestions on how best to store keywords ready for Adobe uploading.

I use Lightroom / Photoshop as a combination for my editing and libraries and store the image keywords in the normal EXIF locations.  The obvious problem with this is LR always exports them in alphabetical order.  While this is fine for most stock sites it means i have to manually edit each one on Adobe upload into priority order.

My current system is a simply .txt file with a list of keywords for my common topics, sorted into priority order which i end up having to copy/paste into the website after upload.  This clearly is a messy system so im looking for advice on making this more efficient.  Im guessing nobody has yet created a LR plugin that'll populate priority order keywords into exported photos?

23
iStockPhoto.com / Date range model releases
« on: February 08, 2015, 01:03 »
Is there any way at all to get iStock to accept a model release with a range of dates or open ended dates?

Im submitting to other agencies using EasyRelease with an open date clearly specified.  I've also tried a custom one with "and all from this date forwards" signed.  Both get rejected.

Do you REALLY have to get a separate release signed by each person for every single date shot?  If show then model released uploads for me are going to be a non-starter on iS as the type of stuff i do has the same people (normally work colleagues) on random dates and pretty much constantly and to get them to sign a single release and upload for every single shoot is going to be a nightmare and impractical.

FWIW the other main micro agencies all seem to accept the easyrelease with open date and the custom modifications - its only istock constantly demanding one per shoot.

If anyone has managed to get a date ranged or open ended release accepted by them can you please send me details of its exact wording or format?

24
Bigstock.com / Shutterstock Releases on BS?
« on: August 15, 2014, 08:05 »
Couldn't find a conclusive answer anywhere so i'll ask here...

Can i use valid Shutterstock model releases on Bigstock as they're part of the same company now?

Ultimately, i didn't get people to sign a universal one at the time but have lots of SS released images.

25
Ive recently (last month) started submitting content to BS.  My initial batch was approved and appeared about a day or so later.
My latest batch (40 or so pics) that were uploaded on the 13th Dec and approved shortly after still haven't appeared on my portfolio.  Is this normal or worth raising a support ticket for?

Pages: [1] 2

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors