Is the FTP down?  I can't login.  I thought, from the mail, the new system didn't start until Friday.

It's having problems, yes.  Some contributors are connected and uploading now.  Many are getting a timeout error.  If you can adjust your FTP setting to wait longer before timing out, it'll connect.  But I recommend waiting until Friday to use the new system, which won't have all these issues. 

+1 on all the above Lee. You guys are doing a great job. I can't remember seeing a micro startup this successful this fast.

Thanks.  But just wait until you see what's to come.  We're just getting warmed up. 

Just wanna say I'm impressed with how Lee manages to answer all requests in this thread!  Very cool!

I just applied for contributor on Canva - solely because of this thread. I don't know if I'll get through - but my point is, that Lee's support and writings here, are very reassuring and promising for how Canva is run.

Thanks Jakob, it's always nice to be acknowledged. 

Canva is an awesome company.  We may have the worst contributor interface in the industry for the moment, our FTP server may go down every second day, and we're still not ingesting the vectors our illustrators uploaded three years ago, but we are considering very carefully where we allocate our resources.  We've recently passed 2 million users and revenue continues growing very rapidly.  Thanks to those choices, we're now in a position to further expand our engineering team and build something truly inspiring. 

So while it might look like things are a mess from the contributor perspective sometimes, we are actually very committed to the contributors who've chosen to come along with us on this adventure.  I'm pleased our effort in responding here reflects that promise, even if our contributor functionality doesn't.  Yet.

Lee, is it possible to check the status on my portfolio? I still have no approved nor rejected illustrations.
Should I re-upload them as PNG? Thanks!

We're still not ingesting vectors at any meaningful pace, but it's getting closer.  Illustrations uploaded as rasters (PNG or JPG) are not being accepted.  Sorry, you'll just have to keep waiting with all the other Canva illustrators.  I'll let you know as soon as there is any change. 

Lee, I am wondering if other types of licenses will be offered to buyers? It'd be nice to have a big sale here and there, so I guess I'm wondering if the contributors can expect that or it will be 0.35$ forever?

Yes, other licenses are coming.  And soon.  Sorry, that's about as specific as I can get at this time. 

Among the (about) 1000 images "to be cut out", I find many photos that I consider as impossible to cutout.  These are photos on a black background (100% black), with the subject partly in dark shadow.  If such a subject is cut out and placed on a white backdrop, it will be HORRIBLE.  If it's meant to be placed on a black background, why cut it out at all?  (example : MAA4-Qu36ww).
Other (IMHO) impossible cut-outs are :  a white lightning against a black sky, a transparant piggy bank, burning candles, a glass of champaign (with the black wall shining through), flowers growing in the snow ...

I'm not asking you to look into these individual files, I'm just asking :  will these be cut out anyway, or "thrown back" into the collection.  And if a file is unusable in the cutout version (because of the shadows or color cast), will the original non-cutout be available?

Yes, there's lots of images that will be near impossible to cut out, or will not look good when they are.  These probably won't ever be cut out, but the current policy is to keep these kinds of images out of the collection.  Keeping them in the cutout queue is how we're currently doing that. 

They're actually (aside from the one obvious one) Christmas lights poked through the blue velvet background.  Takes quite a bit of time and duct tape.

Cool.  The things we do for stock!

Quote from: Lee@Canva on March 27, 2015, 10:41

Quote from: rimglow on March 27, 2015, 10:31

Wow! Canva has just about caught up reviewing my entire portfolio, including submissions from late last week. 100 approved today alone.
Good job Canva! 

Yes, having completed the backlog we're now working through the files uploaded while we were reviewing the backlog.  We're going through contributor by contributor in the order of signup, so early adopters like yourself are already up to date.  Hopefully only another few weeks before we're up to date with everybody. 

Thanks Lee, any estimation of when will the pending cut-out files be on-line?

I recommend you don't hold much expectation for isolated files being cut out by us.  We already have close to 1 million in the queue, and we pay a high per-file price to have them cut out to a high quality standard.  We're looking through the queue for super high quality files on the subjects that are in demand from our customers, and prioritising these.  And it's still going very slow due to the cost. 

It's possible the files you have in the cutout queue will come through shortly, but it's more likely they'll take years, and certainly possible that some will never be done. 

So that's why I encourage you not to have your expectations for isolated images too high. 

You're always welcome to cut them out yourself if you think it's worthwhile, but please send me a test file before you invest too much time in it.  We have very high standards for the quality of the cutout. 

Quote from: Lee@Canva on March 27, 2015, 10:41

Yes, having completed the backlog we're now working through the files uploaded while we were reviewing the backlog.  We're going through contributor by contributor in the order of signup, so early adopters like yourself are already up to date.  Hopefully only another few weeks before we're up to date with everybody. 

And what about the files that need to be resubmitted (by Canva) due to technical error?  Last week you said I had 489 like that.  I suppose they have not been resubmitted yet, since my total number of accepted files has not changed.

We're still working on those.  They're more complicated than the backlog, but I won't forget.  I get questions about these daily and I'm working closely with the engineers to get them sorted out properly. 

What does Rejected(S) mean?  Also, I have a couple of really early ones, like MAA32Ek_Ip8 that just say "Processing" and some from the same series, like MAA32OE5CoI that say Pending Cut Out, even though it isn't a white background.

It means Soft Rejection, the image can be submitted if the issue is corrected.  But we're not yet telling you what the issue is - it's on the list to do so.  Shoot me the Media ID for any where you want the reason. 

I just updated MAA32Ek_Ip8, putting it into the cutout queue along with MAA32OE5CoI.  The background doesn't have to be white for it to be considered isolated. 

Both done.

Fotografer, can you say something more about your idea? 

Hi Ariene. Anyone can register on Canva as a user.  Sounds like that's what you've done. 

I uploaded 40 photos a few months back. I just checked that they have been approved and I have my first sale. Keep them coming! I will upload more photos in the mean time. *excited*

P.S. And a quick suggestion. Is there a way to add a bigger thumbnails (pop-up thumbnails) for the content in the search engine as I find it pretty hard to see what the photo looks like. I have to add it to the project canvas in order to get a real feel of it and then delete it.

I made the same suggestion when I saw the first shell of the Canva designer over two years ago. The fact it hasn't been address in all that time is a pretty clear indicator that it's not important to the decision makers.  I think they like people having to add it and remove it.  Gets them interacting with the system more.  But that's just pure speculation.  Our UX experts know what they're doing. 

nice going on reducing the backlog -- I've had 2000 images added in the past 2 weeks

when will the total images reflect the actual number submitted?  recent uploads don't show up in the total

Thanks.  We've been working very hard.  The backlog is almost complete, and I'd like to thank everyone for your patience. 

But of course all the images we didn't submit while we worked on the backlog create a new backlog.  Backlog#2, if you like.  As stated in response to the complaints that prompted us focussing 100% on the backlog, after it's done, we'll be going through the unsubmitted files in the order that contributors signed up.  If you signed up really early, your images will all be submitted in the next couple of weeks.  If you signed up relatively late, then you have a bit more to wait. 

Mathematically, we have capacity to catch up on backlog#2 quicker than we did on backlog#1, assuming we don't see any significant increase in the quantity of submissions. 

How long is the response time for canva to get back to you once you register?

If you register on the website, the response is near instant.  It's fully automated. 

If you apply to become a contributor, it's usually within 24 hours, except on weekend.  If you've applied and haven't heard back, email me. 

Quote from: cascoly on March 20, 2015, 13:47

nice going on reducing the backlog -- I've had 2000 images added in the past 2 weeks

when will the total images reflect the actual number submitted?  recent uploads don't show up in the total

When did you submit those 2000 ?  Just asking because my backlog of almost 1800 files is not moving at all (since September/October).

For files in the backlog, the date you uploaded them has no impact on when they get reviewed.  If they're not all reviewed by next Friday, email me and I'll look into it for you. 

I'm seeing a steady stream of older images getting reviewed which is good news.

Today though i can't connect to the FTP server, it's been fine for the last few weeks.
Is it just me? (i've contacted supported, no reply yet but I'm an impatient cuss who wants to keep the momentum going!)

FTP is down.  It happens about once a month.  The engineers in Australia will fix it when they get up in the morning, which will be about 6 hours from now.  We've built a new distributed FTP solution which will be WAY more robust, and is fully integrated into Canva.  We just have to make one final alteration to the way it works and then we'll be able to roll it out. 

Submitting a ticket to general support means the ticket has to go to a support rep who then has to forward it to me.  Fewer than 600 of our 1.7 million users are contributors, so they're not very used to recognising what's a contributor issue and what's not, so sometimes it takes a while.  You're always welcome to email me directly for a faster response. 

Quote from: Lee@Canva on March 05, 2015, 19:16

Quote from: cascoly on March 05, 2015, 16:31

sales are decent, but I don't even know how many images are still in q, what's been rejected, or why, so I have little idea what to upload next

it's not a question of EITHER a simple db dl OR full interface

final comment -- doesn't make a lot of sense -- creating a fully functional contrib interface is a major project

adding a link to a db download is trivial and would remove MANY of the frustrations reflected here - in cost benefit terms it should be high priority -- eg, how much time do you spend getting detailed stats for contributors and sending them by email?

Not sure what else to say here Steve.  I already explained why it's not trivial on our system.  If you knew everything we knew you'd understand our prioritisation.

maybe I misunderstood your earlier post - I thought you said that sales did use a special db, but that others used std sql -- the db I was talking about was not sales but the portfolio db for each contributor -- so that we could sort by status, etc to find # of rejects, accepted, pending, etc - basically a dl of what we see incrementally when we do canva.com/portfolio

Ok, portfolio data 'without' sales data all comes from a SQL database, so yes, that would be easier.  It's still not "trivial" as systems that cater to millions of users (we currently have 1.7m) have complications like change management, peer code reviews, quality testing, etc.  Building a database download function would be 70% of the work of building something that everyone can use, so that's why we're planning to build the pages. 

Sorry Maurizio, but I don't think your portfolio will get accepted at Canva.  Canva is a design web site, and needs primarily backgrounds, textures and isolated objects.

Actually this is not accurate.  As Semmick pointed out, we need all types of images (except editorial, for now).  Backgrounds don't sell any better on Canva than they do elsewhere. 

Thank you very much for your reply!!!!!!

That's me: http://www.shutterstock.com/g/Maurizio+Biso
Why you said care?

Hi Maurizio, we look at an entire portfolio when we assess an application so sending through a limited sample won't help.  We're seeking contributors with consistently high quality and commercial sensibility (they produce images that sell).  We have a slight preference for less-stocky images, but we still take them if they're good.  The most helpful thing I can tell you is that you need to work hard on the quality of your images, not the quantity.  If there's one thing that's become crystal clear for me in looking at what sells in Canva it's that quality is crucial.  We have contributors with massive portfolios (high five-figures) who earn only $100 a month.  One of our top 10 earners who got close to $1000 last month has less than 100 images in her portfolio.  So if you're in microstock to make money, forget about taking shots you like to take, and invest as much energy as you can in taking great shots. 

I hope that helps and doesn't offend.