Feb 2024 numbers are in...

Applies +10%, Exports +3% -> Earnings -4%
Magic Creator Payment 2nd month in a row at "nothing", not even a number there...

Does anyone else have the impression that we're being screwed over here?

nope - my MC payments have been steady even with  canva doing instantaneous 100% rejects of new uploads -- earnings dropped about 20% a year ago, but have remained at that point since then

funny how so many assume there must be a conspiracy when their individual earnings go down.

Disclosure has been dealt a blow by ex head of AARO in his leaving report for historic reporting on UAP - Sean Kirkpatrick states in summery " its all fake and misidetification brewed up by a select few to hoodwink the government"

and the response https://www.youtube.com/live/Vw_uTkRe8rI?feature=shared

the report itself is much more measured though surely a disappointment to true believers - it said there was no evidence of extraterrestrials nor of crashed ships and that testimony from 'experts 'lacked actual corroboration from physical evidence or others and was often hearsay or worse ("a friend of a friend knows somebody...") they also discuss interpretation of various recording purporting to defynphysics and show errors in  their analysis.


conclusion - still no there there.

Quote from: cascoly on March 04, 2024, 14:18

Quote from: Ruga123 on March 03, 2024, 19:57

Quote from: cascoly on March 03, 2024, 17:49

Quote from: DaLiu on March 03, 2024, 09:56

The problem with all these AI tools, they don't provide the location, keywords and description about location which for me is very important, even tho the test image had the coordinates in the picture, Udream (the only one tested) didn't use any of that info to provide the location, so useless for me.

when i use chatgpt i ask for tags from my description which does include the location

The way I understood the comment, the ask is for the tool to figure out the location by itself which it can do if the image contains the gps metadata (which is more reverse geocoding than AI) or if the image is of a recognizable location.

but location alone can't tell what's in the background,esp'ly for landscapes - eg a view from a pass may be looking in any of 4 directions with different mountains to be named.

The ask was merely to obtain the location from the location metadata in the first place (in lieu of manually as you say you do).
From there, most would expect the location helps set the context for the rest of the keywords with respect to what�s in the picture..
eg. A picture of a big metal tower in Paris, or a big canyon in Arizona, or a large waterfall in Zambia. With location, a good guess could be made as to what each description is referring to.

Another example would be of wildlife where almost all Id forums ask for location (and date) because different species can otherwise look identical.

but there can be different species in the same location - eg crows vs ravens, or multiple species of antelope, etc

i'd rather enter the actual information rather than have the AI 'guess' what i'm photographing - if location is 'pisa' it cant know whether image is the tower, the cathedral or a zoom of the coat of arms on a wall, or a detail of columns or sculptures; in Nuremberg several cathedrals are visible from one place.  better to use a AI that does an image search in the first place
 

Hell no. It is a lot easier and much faster to take a good series of pictures and videos with a camera than to do stuff with ai.

At least for me.

true, that's why i use ai to produce images i couldn't take in RL

...It used to be that the highest was 100 and everyone else was based off that. So the new system is an average based on the factor of $5. I find the 231 for Adobe to be unusual and high. (personal opinion) ...

if i remember correctly the 100 was a value set for earnings on SS(?) and others were normalized to that. so an 80 would mean that agency was producing 20% less than that initial number -and even SS number would change

AS 231 means twice what that number - but your description about gaming the poll really makes it unusable today (and remember too, AS got only 40 votes - compared to hundreds? thousands? of active readers here

Quote from: bpawesome on March 03, 2024, 04:11

Quote from: stoker2014 on March 03, 2024, 03:30

I do not need it.
At best, you can choose 1 or 2 images in your model. On average, everything it shows is not suitable. Therefore, your model should display not 10 images, but much more. That's why I'm telling you that you should connect to the search results on shutterstock. In general, the way your model works does not suit me.

again with the "model", it doesn't mean what you think it means
you don't have to use it, please don't

So remove this topic from this forum. Your model will not suit stockers.

you dont get to decide who can post here!

you've given your opinion without providing any actual DATA to support it

last month for first time SS was 3rd behind AS ($1 more!) and wirestock (which has t-3 times normal over last 3 months.  canva will likely also exceed SS

last month was one of WME overall, th o 5-month  rolling avg has been steady for last 18 months

Here is what you need to make to afford a comfortable life on the west coast--- you better upload a lot to be able to afford it here. Probably half of us (including me) cannot make it here.

SEATTLE � Emerald City residents need to earn more income to "comfortably afford" a home than locals in any other major metro nationwide outside of California.

Seattle-based Zillow released an affordability report on Thursday, finding there are seven major housing markets where a household�s income must be $200,000 or more "to comfortably afford a typical home." And yes, you guessed it, Seattle made the list.

Seattle residents must make $213,984 annually to "comfortably afford" a home, according to Zillow. The most expensive four U.S. markets are in California: San Jose ($454,296), San Francisco ($339,864), Los Angeles ($279,250) and San Diego ($273,613), Zillow said. Following Seattle are New York City ($213,615) and Boston ($205,253).

that's affordable home, not comfortable living - median income in seattle varies by neighborhood from $75k to $140K.. tho it's true it's difficult for 1st timers to buy a house.

'livable income' after taxes is about $50K (used to apply property tax reductions & exemptions among other programs)

65% own homes w median value of $250K, and rents can be $3K/mo - but prices in nearby suburbs are much lower

i've lived in seattle for 45 years

Quote from: Big Toe on February 25, 2024, 13:51

Quote from: cascoly on February 25, 2024, 13:31

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 25, 2024, 12:21

...

There's still space for real and editorial, that AI can't make...

depends what you mean by editorial - for AS it's anything that needs a model release, even if it's not newsworthy - eg generic people in an office - here AI is an easy alternative

Editorial images are images that can only used for editorial uses, like for example to illustrate a newspaper article and must not be used for advertisment. They also should NOT be altered in a way that compromises their editorial value

Generic people in an office with model releases are not editorial content. Where did you get the notion that for Adobe every image with people that need a model release is editorial?

I bet that's what you meant?    Yes, Editorial, news, real subjects, not Illustrative Editorial which is something entirely different. And no, to the other half, anything with a person or needing a model release is NOT editorial on AS...

but that IS the definition of editorial used by SS which i the largest agency accepting editorial - 30+% of my SS sales are editorial - markets, crowds, restaurants, hikers, etcl

I find the uploads really easy. I keep hearing that having some exclusive content with them will increase exposure and downloads. Might try that.

uploads are easy submitting is tedious -- not only do you have to submit 1 by 1 but you often need to scroll down (on a full screen window) two get to the submit button. and there are several seconds of waiting between each image - enough to be annoying but not enough to multi-task

whereas with batch submit you can process 100 images with a few clicks

Quote from: cascoly on February 24, 2024, 14:30

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 24, 2024, 13:43

./..
SS has diversified into other areas. They don't rely on just Microstock for earnings and income. Some day, the whole Microstock division could go away, and it wouldn't matter to the overall profits of the corporation. They won't care about our earnings or what we do as artists.

I know people here care and we're at the mercy of the agencies, but if the customers go to Adobe, and SS has much more profitable business gains in AI, news, or whatever else they own and do, they won't care about a division that's losing money. If it's too expensive to operate and unprofitable, they could shut down stock photos, as a cost cutting, expense reduction, initiative. ...

too many of the anti-SS crowd are quick to take recent numbers totally out of context w/o bothering to do their research
 and declaring SS dead -- look at the actual numbers, after a surge during the covid era (during which they were also declaring SS dead) its performance has reverted to the mean and their actual change over 5 years has been -2% - not a great investment stock, but also not a disastrous decline

by comparison tho, Adobe had a similar burst during covid, similar decline  but then has returned to its earlier high. Getty had  20% drop in 2022 and remained flat since.

It's hard to draw conculsions since Adobe is not just a microstock agency, but SS can declare "I'm not dead yet!"

Shutterstock is not just a Microstock agency. They have greatly diversified into other areas.

I wasn't referring to their investment stock, that's a different area. I'm looking at Stock Photos and Microstock, which for contributors has lost, and for SS their income from the same has dropped. Shutterstock, the Microstock division, (the part we care about) is dying.

The corporation and investment stock is doing fine.

but i was refencing the OP and topic name was SS is dead - not SS as a microstock agency is dead, and the numbers shows that's not true.  there's also little to show the ms side is dying - artist income is down for some (eg, for me, SS is down 10-20% over last 2 years but still doubles my income from AS), but SS continues to, make money in ms

I do it manually and very accurately.

it's not about accuracy - i can do that - it's that ai brings up further 'accuracies' i never considered