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626
Adobe Stock / Re: How fast you can fall?
« on: June 14, 2012, 07:37 »
About time agencies start promoting regular uploaders don't you think? Or do they want to keep selling old stuff from sunday shooters?
At least these guys appreciate the dedication some of us put into this business.
My sales are good, zero rejections, 24h reviews and they are my third best earner so they have my full support.

Good weekend all

that would be good, if they rewarded  the hard-working ones .but i am not that optimistic on that sense,I don't think best match changes based on this kind of approach   especially considering  ranks  playing so much role on the amount of commissions we get.


Exactly.  I've been uploading steadily for the last couple of months and my sales have completely tanked there too.  It's not about rewarding hard workers.  It's about padding the site's bottom line by pushing sales away from higher ranked members. 

As already discussed in the other threads on this topic. 


I've done a bit of delving into the recent search changes and there's more to it than just favouring recent uploads, there's also a definite bias towards certain contributors (to the exclusion of others) but not necessarily based on ranking.

Take this image:  http://eu.fotolia.com/id/42250005

Very recently uploaded and appears in most searches within the first 2 or 3 pages of many of the keywords associated with that file.
Try searching 'tortilla' , 'chard' or 'eggs' .........same image appears early in all those searches despite having no views, downloads or even title (seems to be 2 Japanese/Chinese symbols). Take a look at other recent uploads in that port, take a keyword that's obviously wrong, enter into search and the image (or ones from that series) comes up yet again within the important first pages of the search. How does this figure? I don't know. Author is emerald, has files starting at 3 credits and is certainly not being excluded from the search.

627
Really excellent (hard) work. Thanks.

628
Adobe Stock / Re: How fast you can fall?
« on: June 10, 2012, 06:41 »
What gets me about the search change is that there seems neither rhyme nor reason to results. This is one example.

Go to FT and search 'french fries'. On the first page that comes up, there's one glaringly obvious file (around the middle of P1) that has not a French fry in sight. You'll see it has no downloads, is from an emerald contributor and has a very recent number. Progress to P2 of the same search and in the second row there are 2 shots (admittedly with french fries) and a whole burnt-offering chicken (IMO not too well lit either!). Click on file to find same contributor as P1 who didn't even bother to give the burnt offering a title, just a file number. Why do potential buyers get this sort of stuff on their screen in the first (all important) pages of search? How some of the stuff got past a reviewer in the first place beats me.

Edit: Besides accept/reject/reasons buttons, do reviewers for agencies also have a 'like' button which will guide their choices directly into top search positions? Just askin'.

629
Adobe Stock / Re: How fast you can fall?
« on: June 09, 2012, 20:27 »
Just went from one extreme to the other. Not so long ago, new files got no views for weeks or months and now almost all that's immediately offered in search (default 'relevance'), similia and alternatives for a chosen file is new files with numbers starting with 40million+. I'm sure that someone must be smart enough to work out an algo that gives almost equal chances to new uploads as historical best-sellers.........they should give the 'infinity' series a separate section instead of plopping them in between Fotolia-priced images. Then they could give that space to the 'proven' sellers.

Difficult to say whether there's any other bias against higher ranked contributors other than the predominance of files from 'serial uploaders'. Among the serial uploaders there are some golds and emeralds and their recently accepted files appear regularly in the 'newly accepted' section which is definitely the place to give your new files the bottle-rocket start that everyone dreams of. The same names do crop up frequently in the 'new accepted' section but whether that's due to some sort of 'favouritism' or just simply serial-uploadism, it's difficult to say.

If I were a corporation (intent on making as much money as possible in the shortest period of time), I would have an algo written that promotes the files that: cost the least in payout to contributors ( hold back exclusives and non- exclusive near-emeralds who would soon be able to increase prices which buyers don't like paying), promote subs of the lower rankings because it can take 200 subs to reach payout (whilst the sub payment from the buyer is on your account from day one) and promote any files that are currently HOT(minimal time in database vs most sales in a short period). Needless to say, these corporate goals may be the antithesis of the established contributors' pecuniary interests. :D

630
Hey I went to read it and it said page not found...did he take it down?


Same here. Try this: http://arcurs.com/
and click the top/first article.

Excellent. Congrats, all the best to you Yuri............but it's not for me........prefer a quieter life. ;D

631
14 of my last 20 sales were subs.  What is with this subs explosion?  Is it just me?

Same here........madelaide is getting all the dl's and we're getting all the subs. :D

Oh dear, sucked into ancient thread........mind you, much higher percentage of subs than 2 years ago.

632
If you ask me, FT could leave just one reason for rejection: "Your photo did not meet aesthetic level"

Nah. That's reserved for the ones that they can't find a single objective thing wrong with but the reviewer doesn't like (maybe because of some repressed childhood trauma).  ;D

633
Adobe Stock / Re: fotolia sales number
« on: June 08, 2012, 07:34 »
Hi all,

I know fotolia consider 4 credits sale as 1 download, and will 4 credits sales appear as 1 sale or 4 sales?

on the contributor page, under 'files overview' which showed your latest downloads.

I have 1 file have been downloaded 7 times out of 20 latest downloads, but all the thumbnail display is same number sales.. i can't figure it out, shouldn't the number of sales will be increased?

Methinks you may have alerted them to a glitch as it seems to be fixed. I too thought that the sales number wasn't updating properly after a sale but it is now and any sale (sub or DL) updates the file by one digit. For sale of file both subs and DL's count as '1' , although subs only count as 1/4 towards ranking.

Edit: Forgot to add that if you have an image that has sold multiple times in that week, every sale (DL or sub) updates all the thumbnails of that image on the page to the latest number.

634
Has anyone heard of any agency enforcing this?  I'm just curious how the stock agency would know if their buyer has reproduced something over a certain number of times?  :-\
I remember SS took legal action against a calendar company that hadn't purchased EL's.  Several of us here received a compensation payment that SS passed on to us.

I would imagine that FT has given such 'breadth' in standard license usage because they couldn't be bothered enforcing anything anyway. They got theirs when the subscription was paid.

635
Well Im sure its a glitch, bug or something, I mean I just did a search on "construction engineer"  and among the first 5 pages, there are 3 pages with guys and girls in a hardhat isolated on white, ALL!  with zero dls,  yep,  zero dls.

cant be right, can it.

The search does seem to return an odd selection.  A simple search on "milk" with the default as Relevant returned only vaguely relevant images - #1 was a couple in a field with some dairy cows in the background.  Also in the first 2 rows were a recycling tub with a milk carton, pink desserts that seemed to have milk as an ingredient and milk chocolate.  Changing to New wasn't much better - lots of bad keywording - there were blueberries without any milk in sight, an illustration of cats and a cup of black coffee taking up about a 20% of the slots.  Sorting by Downloads and Popularity returned the same odd mix of images with just a few more glasses of milk or milk splashes but still a lot of cows, generic cosmetic tubes and bottles, etc.  How is it that the second most popular download for "Milk" is an overhead close up of a box of Butter Cookies with two downloads?

Narrowing it down didn't seem to help that much either - changing it to "Milk Dairy Glass" still had the two pink desserts in the first row. There was part of a jar with pink something in it which I guess was enough to keyword it for "glass".  If I were searching as a buyer I'd be pretty frustrated with the results returned.

Yep, the keyword spamming and totally innaccurate keywording has reached monstrous proportions at FT. On every page of search there are numerous examples of images that just should not be there and by the time you've waded through the unrequested infinity pics, there's not a lot of relevant images to choose from.

636

My 7 day rank has declined to 64, and my overall rank to 590.  Sales in May, 2012 were down 58% on May, 2011!!  Earnings on FT now comprise only 7% of my total, down from a high of 28% two years ago.  According to FT, the decline is due to "competition within FT", and that "...it really comes down to awesome images."  That's b*&()t.  I'd say that at best it's due to a screwed up search engine, and a site that doesn't care two hoots about (previously) top-selling contributors.

First....you have a FABULOUS PORT!!  Secondarily, between you, Fotographer, Lisa (Mrs. FX:)) and a few other big guns stating what amounts to the same thing (going from good rank to crummy rank and therefore making less money) is pretty good anecdotal evidence that FT is indeed favoring new or non-selling images so they pay out less, keep more in their coffers.  It's a shame that potentially more appealing images are being shoved up the FT BUM where no buyers dare to go.

+1

It just takes effort/time on the part of the buyers to see the images most downloaded (ie the better stock images) by using the filter 'downloads'.
And the one thing that buyers usually don't have is time.

Well not necessarily. There's a lot of old, outdated files among them. They did sell great back in 04/05, but what can a buyer do with a business shot full of CRT monitors, old mobile phones, suits that make business ppl look like they can't afford new clothes (that doesn't make them look particularly successful) etc . Just an example, and there are tons more. No to mention the IQ, lighting etc, most of 2004 bestsellers wouldn't sell today, hell most of them would get rejected

Depends on the image/search category. If I take lagereek's category of 'industrial engineer', I do indeed get a load of what are obviously modelshots against white (sort of fake industrial engineer). If I then filter on 'download' I get some real (but old) images of real (or what appear to be real) engineers in industrial surroundings which I would likely be wanting to see in the first place. Filtered in default/relevance and looking as far as page 3, I didn't see the shots that I saw in download..........in fact on page 3 there's some loon dressed in an overall against white who appears to be dancing. In some sectors, the technology dates images quickly but in many other sectors it doesn't. For dated pics at FT the place to look is in the infinity sections........some of those are really ancient history with a RM pricetag to match! :)

637

My 7 day rank has declined to 64, and my overall rank to 590.  Sales in May, 2012 were down 58% on May, 2011!!  Earnings on FT now comprise only 7% of my total, down from a high of 28% two years ago.  According to FT, the decline is due to "competition within FT", and that "...it really comes down to awesome images."  That's b*&()t.  I'd say that at best it's due to a screwed up search engine, and a site that doesn't care two hoots about (previously) top-selling contributors.

First....you have a FABULOUS PORT!!  Secondarily, between you, Fotographer, Lisa (Mrs. FX:)) and a few other big guns stating what amounts to the same thing (going from good rank to crummy rank and therefore making less money) is pretty good anecdotal evidence that FT is indeed favoring new or non-selling images so they pay out less, keep more in their coffers.  It's a shame that potentially more appealing images are being shoved up the FT BUM where no buyers dare to go.

+1

It just takes effort/time on the part of the buyers to see the images most downloaded (ie the better stock images) by using the filter 'downloads'.
And the one thing that buyers usually don't have is time.

638
I don't understand exclusivity at all on FT.  For the buyer is there any way to know that a file is exclusive?  I don't even see a place to search for exclusive files, I would think they would want to promote that.

Now that's always been the crazy thing about FT. Exclusives are revealed to no-one and because of their ability to opt out of the subs program and get a higher proportion of the download price are, in fact, less profitable for FT. As an exclusive at one time there, I upped my price on some of the better sellers and opted out of subs...........got virtually no sales for the 4 week period that I tried that. I get the impression that all FT wants is to sell subs. Easy, bulk money coming in, payout is a standard pittance and never amounts to more than 50cents ( half that for the lowest ranking). I would be surprised if many subs clients even download one tenth of the permitted 750 images/month. And, if all you are selling is subs, then it takes smaller contributors far longer to reach payout; that's money longer in their bank too. Now virtually all my sales are subs and my old moneymaker downloads seem to have just vanished from the search except when I filter for 'most downloaded' but that's not the default setting.

The problem now with most 'stock agencies' is that they don't act in any way as 'agents' for the contributors. They act as many large corporate entities operate; all that counts is the short-term bottom line as the senior management cream off the profits into their bank accounts...the bigger and the faster the better. Interests of the contributors and the corporate entity are diametrically opposed to one another. The small guy loses.

639
The shot of the key looks to me more like a tracing paper screen from rear to front at, say, 45 with a hole or vertical strips cut towards the rear and a spotlight or relatively focused light directed from the rear. This explains the beam of light, the general filling of the shadows and the bright strip along the key top edge. With a black card cookie there's not a lot of fill if you rely on one spotlight.

640
Unlike iStock, there's nothing to be learned from Fotolia rejections re. improving and re-submitting. Far too general and sometimes seeming quite illogical. Better to fugeddabout 'em and move on.

641
"Has there been a big increase in sales volumes at FT?" Not for me. Income a four months ago was double what it is now, around $175-$200 a month.  Then, voila!! 50% less and been that way ever since.  I think they have a lot of back door, shady things going on for which we can only speculate.

They do seem to have some favourites in 'newest uploads'. Same names seem to crop up time after time. Serial uploaders? but it is the way to get a head start. Some of those files get amazing sales in the first couple of days and get into the search immediately on the first page. I can envisage something...........nope........better not get started on that. ;D

642
I didnt see any differance in sales then but now, some time later, I have to admit, sales are way down. I dont know what they are doing really, is it the sale of the company which has an effect or what?
The best match, seems to be just about the same, or is it?
All I know is, during the last 2 weeks, sales are terrible and for no reason?

anybody?


Fiddled with the search. Newer uploads are being bumped up to the first pages of the ordinary search. Search any subject in the default setting and mostly images with 41,40 starting digits appear. To see the 'old' best sellers you'll need to change from 'relevance' to 'downloads'. Take a look at this page for Yuri's image:

http://en.fotolia.com/id/17954443

All the 'suggestions' and 'similia' are very recent uploads (and most are neither sensible as 'suggestions' or in any way 'similar').
People must have been complaining that their new uploads just weren't being seen, so they turned everything upside down and show only new work ( thinned down a little by their insertion of 'infinity' images; the price of which only serves to induce apoplectic fits in potential, budget-minded buyers)!

643
Adobe Stock / Re: Did Fotolia lowered commisions on subs?
« on: May 22, 2012, 17:28 »
Silver too but today's sub sales (FTUK) show 29p and 25% on downloads.

644
General Stock Discussion / Re: Sure Enough Getty For Sale
« on: May 22, 2012, 17:22 »
Vulture Culture. I suppose it's what happens when the 'big spend' investments like commercial RE are in the tank, Da Money Boyz start looking for other profitable opportunities.

645
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia sells 50% stake in business
« on: May 21, 2012, 04:08 »
1. Techno Cash

2. Getty has annual revenues of almost $1bn. It is a portfolio of brands across many different markets. It seems hugely unlikely that any little brand would buy them. Especially a company with no experience in many of their markets.

^ that isn't me being for or against any company. I tend to think they are all interesting and often amazing companies and brands in different ways. It's exciting seeing how it all evolves and what happens next.

3. The exciting Shutterstock IPO is not a certainty until it happens. Suppose the markets are way down before then. Suppose the Facebook share price collapses over the next months. There are all sorts of factors which can affect sentiment.


With all unsutainable, debts, etc, etc, and whatnots, it wouldnt take too much to buy Getty nowdays.

However Im not at all sure any of these wants to takeover or buy anything, I think possibly, the owners, CEOs, etc, just want to get out of the business with as much as possible, its been 10 years now, people get burnt out, stress level, etc, 20 hour a day work, etc. Tough indeed.
I know I would, get 100 mil, and just retire, period.


Yup. Enough to spend the rest of your life without worry and stress!

646
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia sells 50% stake in business
« on: May 19, 2012, 09:02 »

I believe they havent punished emerald and superior ranking, there was a time because of DP that they were going to decrease their pricing but nothing happened actually, so they are still respecting top contributors


Believe me Emeralds have been punished. Some of us were pushed so far back in the search that my I lost 75% of my earnings virtually overnight and it never has recovered.  I know others that had similar treatment at the same time it happened to me so it wasn't anything that I did or didn't do that caused it.

+1.  Most days on FT I'm down 50-60% from where I was just a few months ago.  Very discouraging.  But given how poorly I'm doing at DT since their recent changes, and how I've all but given up on ISP, these reduced FT sales still make them my #2 seller.   Very frustrating to know that things are down not due to anything I'm doing wrong... it's most of the big players sabotaging me.  Here's hoping SS remains steady.

Noticed a recent post on the FT forum from a 'gold' contributor (close to emerald) asking whether anyone knew if there was a deliberate policy to prevent golds becoming emerald (and bumping up their prices). He/she had sold almost nothing since April, their emerald carrot getting pushed even further out in time.

In April, the search drastically changed to favour more recently uploaded images with sales momentum (in the default 'relevance' search). All the 'most downloaded' files have been relegated to further back in the search pages in the default setting and the only way to see the 'most downloaded' is to use the filter; something, I guess, the majority of potential buyers don't do. That is why IMHO the golds/emeralds or anyone with established sellers are getting so few sales now. Sales momentum seems to be achieved by having one or more files added to their 'newly added' files section in which the majority of files chosen for exposition often come from seriously serial uploaders (300+ files in the last 6 months and often 20+ in the last week). If this is so then it appears that FT is determined to encourage large volume uploading of new files, thus displacing the old favourites and best sellers. Don't understand this but ours is not to reason why. Since April my, impression is also that the percentage of subs sales has now risen to around 90% from the previous 60-70%. Subs must be hugely profitably for FT. Only they know on average how many downloads out of the 750 possible are actually taken up but I'll bet that it's not even half, which at an average of 30 cents payout to the contributor amounts to $100 profit on every monthly sub. And the great thing is that FT gets in $200 multiples immediately but it takes contributors 150+ multiples of subs to reach their monthly payout (could take months)............all money in the bank for free and earning interest + a bit of speculation in currency derivatives and it's a real money spinner!

647
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia sells 50% stake in business
« on: May 16, 2012, 18:30 »
And after Fotolia was telling all and sundry that it is being destroyed by cheap competition? Either it was lying or the buyers have got shafted or, maybe, both.

All in the 'corporation' game. Screw everyone to make the business appear as profitable as possible because the owners know that there is interest from the Noo Yawk money men.

648
Newbie Discussion / Re: Home made photo isolation table
« on: May 14, 2012, 16:44 »
  I don't place a lot of value on white isolation tables. I usually shoot with a light grey background to maintain a nice under shadow and avoid background spill over. Also, trying to keep everything absolute white in the background has proved too time consuming, because every shoot has it's own little set of problems. I now just perform all isolations in post production. (Photoshop) I'm very fast at it, and it comes out very clean.
   Since I shoot so much product stuff, I usually make several exposures at different focus points (front to back) and  auto-align and merge the layers. Photoshop has made this very easy to do now. That's my workflow.




I too do a lot of isolations for commissioned work and I find your method of isolation closest to my method after some years of experimentation. I have a 50mm f1.8 Nikon lens which is prone to a nasty flare spot in the middle of the frame when there's too much white background so I tend to prefer the background to be light grey/flagged off to reduce flare generally. Haven't tried the multiple shot approach with align and merge but will try that in future. Advice to others......learn to use the pen tool properly. Can't beat it for good isolations. Thanks.

649
Adobe Stock / Re: FT rank
« on: May 12, 2012, 20:33 »
Are there any exclusives around here? I can't think of anyone saying he is (for instance a few mentioned they are/were excl at DT)

I was until recently but with a small portfolio. For FT there are only disadvantages to exclusive members. They  have to pay you a higher commission percentage, you can price your images at a higher rate from bronze up (makes the shots too expensive for buyers so they don't sell well) and you can opt out of subs which is where they make most money IMHO. If you opt out of subs, you'll get virtually no sales anyway because of the way their system is tilted. Ft was good until a couple of years ago for me but then they started to fiddle with commissions and the search. Since then only downhill with 50% loss from 2010-2011 and now it seems they've tinkered with the search again.........down by another 50% less than a couple of months ago. Not to be recommended.

Bit of a funny club! They seem to have their favourites in the 'newly added files' section. You notice the same names cropping up with amazing regularity..........same names that tend to adorn their 'meets/events'. If you can get into the 'new additions' section, it can be seriously good news.........hundreds of views and multiple downloads with the first few days; setting those files up for prime position in the search in future.

650
General Stock Discussion / Re: Paypal.... Scam
« on: May 11, 2012, 03:18 »
I've had the same mail via [email protected] which should be legit in my books and the link took me to the updated policies so all good here.

Same here. There have been changes to policy but you don't need to log into your account to read them. Likely phishing if you are asked to log into your account first.

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