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Messages - axon_guru

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1
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 13, 2016, 16:23 »
Frankly, new images sell elsewhere but not on SS. I've made quite a few of my newest exclusive on Adobe/FT, which gives me higher royalties per credit DL, which occur a lot more than equivalent sales on SS.
You can do whatever works for you, and I'll do what works for me. At present, this strategy makes sense to me. If that changes, I can always upload again to SS.


I have a terrible suspect about this (New images not selling on SS): since they started accepting everything without a proper review they are ashamed to show the new images to buyers; they just need more and more images to have the largest collection in the universe, provide those images stay hidden from buyers.


Well, my recently uploaded photo had a sale on the day it was uploaded. It was approved in 26 minutes...

2
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 13, 2016, 16:10 »

...

 Our keyword generating tool is based on image analysis and real keywords from quality stock photos. The 7 keywords required by SSTK does not usually cover all features and meanings of the images content. Otherwise, there won't be a saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." We produce 30 keywords per photo that captures many aspects of the photo that user often times ignores or can't think of on the spot. It is much easier to kick out a few incorrect keywords than to think of and type out 30 keywords.
....

highly unlikely -- one only needs to edit iptc once, then all submissions are easier; and cut n paste even eliminates retyping similar lists; and even the best algorithm will still likely require additional editing to add missed but important keywords

instead, your process will require re-editing just about EVERY image to eliminate poor or spammy keywords

also, how do you handle categories across all the agencies? do you keep separate categories in the image iptc for each agency?

I do agree with you that the AI tools are not perfect. We did not create it or market it to replace human keywording entirely. To clarify, our tool currently does read the keywords from the IPTC metadata from your photos.  We also add machine generated ones to your existing keywords, i.e. union. It would be easy to add a feature to let the user to decide whether to include the system generated keywords or not. Please feel free to use our Support => Feedback form (after login) to file a feature request. We will be happy to implement it for you. Our current tool was initially designed for photos that have no manual keywords at all. The tool will certainly save time for the initial batch of keywords.

As you pointed out, each microstock agency has different categories. We map your photos automatically to each of  the categories separately. We store the categories in the database. Then automatically fill in the categories on agencies' final submission site (Chrome browser required). If you use any ftp tools to upload files to ShutterStock, you will still need to manually pick the categories on ShutterStock's contributor's site to finalize the submission. We eliminate the need of that. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other tools can do this category auto fill trick right now.

BTW, you can't save categories in the IPTC header. It is not supported by IPTC. Even if it does support, one would have to generate separate copies of photo for each agency. Our approach does not do that.

Thanks for your comment, I hope I have addressed you concerns. Please feel free to email [email protected].


3
Is this a thread about axon guru or google's keywording? I mean, the guy spams every topic which contains any mention of keywords and tries to plug his product. Moderators, anyone?
I was just answering sarah2's question. I had no intention to spam this thread. I will post future answer in our own thread and direct the user to that. Thanks.

4
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 12, 2016, 17:47 »
I wonder if maybe opening up a new thread, introducing your product and talking about the benefits, and having all questions related to your specific product in one thread, would be more beneficial for anyone looking to use your product. Otherwise, you are just posting your marketing spiel on a bunch of different threads where it will eventually get lost and not be of benefit to anyone, including you. Just an idea.


Thanks for the excellent suggestion. We did have a thread announcing the product earlier:

Hi Guys, we have created a new site to streamline your stock photo submissions. It will save you 2-5 minutes per image! Just host your photos on one of the leading photo hosting sites (Google Photos, Amazon CloudDrive, Dropbox, Smugmug etc.), and we will do all the heavy lifting. We will recommend the marketable photos, tag them automatically and pre-fill categories automatically. We even let you compare your photo to similar ones already on the marketplace. All you have to do is review and submit. There is no FTP or sharing passwords. It is using the latest AI and cloud technology. It is free for basic plan with unlimited low priority processing right now.  http://axonguru.com

We are also looking for testers and reviewers. Drop me a line if you are interested.


I will add new questions and answers to the main thread. I am also a contributor on Shutterstock. We built the software based on our personal experiences as contributors. Thanks.

5
OK - decided to have a look - signed up via FB. Once in, it seems you must then be hosting your photos on FB but in FAQ I see:

Q: Why can't I submit photos from Facebook, Instagram or 500px to microstock sites?

A: These providers do not provide high resolution photos that meet the minimum 4 MB resolution requirement of microstock websites. Therefore, we will skip the recommendation. In the future we will let you upload the high resolution photos and submit.

Not a great start.....or am I missing something?

Thanks for trying our service. We still can process photos from FB. FB's photo has only 2M pixels. We just cannot recommend them automatically since the resolution is below 4M pixels. Once the FB photos are processed, you can click on them one at a time to see the auto-generated text. In the future, we may add a feature to let you upload a high resolution photo for your FB photos so that you can submit to the microstock sites. Until then, we recommend you use Google Photos to upload your photos at "high quality (free unlimited storage)" which is currently 16M pixels.

Google Photos has apps to back up your photos from your phone. I personally use the desktop version called "Google Photos Backup" for all my DSLR photos. You can add the folders that you wish to backup and sync to Google.  Once the photos are on Google Drive, then use our "Manage Providers" page to connect it. We also support Amazon, Dropbox and Smugug but they are not free. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thanks again for trying.

6
Lookingat Axonguru I see:

Your act of posting your User Content on this Website shall be deemed that you grant Axon a world-wide, irrevocable, sublicense-able, royalty-free, perpetual, transferable, non-exclusive license to use, modify, reproduce, publish, edit, store, convert, distribute, publicly display and perform, and create derivative works of such User Content and your personal information contained in your User Content in any form, media or technology, known or developed in future, for use for Axon Services and Axons business in any manner. You also grant other Users a non-exclusive license to access, use, reproduce, display, distribute and perform your User Content as permitted in accordance with design of Axon Services.

Am I getting paranoid?

This paragraph only applies to "Your act of posting your User Content." In social media, it means any posts, comments that you post on Axon's site and wish others to see.

Here is the definition regarding just the User Content from the T&C:

9.1 User Content refers to a) any content you may post, display, or otherwise make available on Axon Services including your profile information, questions, comments, views, image, graphics, drawing, public album, suggestions and any other information or content; b) your images that you may allow us to get from your online album with your photo hosting provider; and c) the image description you may enter and tag.


The user always retain all the rights to his/her copyrighted photos as outlined in T&C:


9.2 You have full rights to your User Content. We dont claim any ownership rights in or to your User Content. However, by sharing your User Content through Axon Service, you grant us license to allow other Users to view, edit, use and/or share your User Content subject to your User Account setting and the Terms and Conditions. We reserve the right to remove any User Content at our sole discretion.


Feel free to contact us via email [email protected].

7
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 12, 2016, 14:33 »
I dont think people leave SS as such they leave their portfolios but dont upload.=

That's exactly what I'm doing.

My older images still sell on SS, but newer ones die there. So now, all my newest images are going to Adobe and Dreamstime, where they do sell.

If you don't upload them they will never sell. Perfect plan. Then you can say, sales are down on SS, because you don't give them new files?

That's right. If you don't upload new images, perhaps you can at least update the old images with better keywords so that they match the user's current search trend. Think of it as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you still have old unsubmitted ones from the past, it is worth giving a try again. AxonGuru can simply the process with auto-tagging that saves your time.

So instead of having keywords like 'snazzy, groovy and far out'... you could have 'lol, yolo, fam and peng' instead? Ya get me?

On a side note... do you contribute to any threads where AxonGuru doesn't simplify the process?
If the buyer searchs by "'lol, yolo, fam and peng'" and the buyer downloads these resulting photos, then the contributors who do not follow the trend change will lose out the sale. Contributors are in the microstock business to make money not to argue with the market that which keyword describe the image better. Our keyword generating tool is based on image analysis and real keywords from quality stock photos. The 7 keywords required by SSTK does not usually cover all features and meanings of the images content. Otherwise, there won't be a saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." We produce 30 keywords per photo that captures many aspects of the photo that user often times ignores or can't think of on the spot. It is much easier to kick out a few incorrect keywords than to think of and type out 30 keywords.

I am most knowledgeable in the cloud, deep learning, image analysis area. AxonGuru currently supports Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia submission without using ftp. Therefore, it is no surprise that I post more in these threads where AxonGuru can actually help. If your photos are already on Google Drive, Dropbox, Smugmug, Amazon CloudDrive, the integration could not be easier.

8
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 12, 2016, 01:13 »
I dont think people leave SS as such they leave their portfolios but dont upload.=

That's exactly what I'm doing.

My older images still sell on SS, but newer ones die there. So now, all my newest images are going to Adobe and Dreamstime, where they do sell.

If you don't upload them they will never sell. Perfect plan. Then you can say, sales are down on SS, because you don't give them new files?

That's right. If you don't upload new images, perhaps you can at least update the old images with better keywords so that they match the user's current search trend. Think of it as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you still have old unsubmitted ones from the past, it is worth giving a try again. AxonGuru can simply the process with auto-tagging that saves your time.

9
Shutterstock.com / Re: Goodbye Shutterstock
« on: October 11, 2016, 17:45 »
Forget it... Shutterstock is on a highway to the inevitable abyss. The turning point was the entrance in the stock market. It became a corporation that only sees numbers, no matter what. Doesn't matter the quality of work uploaded, doesn't matter the respect to the contributor that worked well to follow SS rules: "Don't upload duplicates or similar images. Upload only the one you think it's the best" - This was in the Contributor Guide Lines once... Not anymore. Today It could be - "upload all your stuff! The more the better!"... 1 Million a week. Insane! And this is only possible with the end of the "7 out of 10" exam. That goes to show how much SS cares for quality these days.

That's why new images don't sell. They get buried under the overwhelming load. Only images that had the chance to get somewhat popular in past years will continue to sell in an ever slower pace. Ultimately, contributors will stop uploading because it's not worth it and buyers will refrain from buying because all they can find is loads of repeated cr*p and the good images are always the same old popular ones. Revenue per image will be lower and lower, and finally, the only happy contributor will be the one glad to see his image of an apple in a banner in some site, living out of the "fantastic exposure" he is having to his work.

This month turns 10 years that I'm in Shutterstock and other microstock agencies. I was quite successful for my standards and needs. I've been a fulltime contributor for the last 8 years and I reached a peak in 2013. Since then it's been all downhill.

So, if you need some graphic design or photo editing to be done, please leave a message.

Yes, ultimately contributors will stop uploading when it is not worth their time any more. Fortunately, our AxonGuru.com tool can save you time if you decide to stay on. We automate as much as possible for tagging, categorizing and submission.

It is understandable why SSTK is doing it. They are NOT really selling stock photos. They are selling subscriptions. How many people watch all your cable channels or use all your minutes on your cell phone plan? Yet, you still pay the subscription because you may need a show or two and they are only available via a subscription. So long as the buyer needs more than a few photos a months, they'd think they need a subscription. In order to keep the buyer feeling good, SSTK will add more and more photos just like the cable company keeps on adding new channels and shows to justify the monthly subscription fee. Well, the message seems clear, the buyers want more photos in the database, SSTK just answers it with more photos. That will in turn force everyone to be more productive. AxonGuru tool can be a little helpful in this race.

10
But I feel it is not worth any more. I dont sell anything new. Just old crapy images (speaking for SS), and new more quality images are never sold.... dont get it.


Shutterstock is likely using "robo" reviewers  these days to increase the amount photos accepted with the same amount of human reviewers. It is simply not worth your time to tag the photos the old fashion way by hand. That's why we developed Axon Guru (http://axonguru.com) to help you automate as much tagging and categorizing as possible.

11
We are very sorry about that  login bug. It was introduced when we added new features related to scalability. We have just fixed it. Please try sign up or login again. Many thanks!

I thought I'd look at Axon Guru just out of curiosity. I signed up, got the confirmation email, went to log in and got the "something went wrong" message.

I think I should then wait a little  :)  ;)

12
ShutterStock gets most revenue from selling Subscriptions not individual photos. Their subscribers will continue to renew so long as they think they've got their money worth which means more quantity and more automation. We contributors will need to retool for such trend change.

Yeah Jon Oringer is yacking about the same automation stuff.

It just goes to show how little these people either know or care about selling photos

It's just a commodity let the machines take the photos too while they are at it.

13
Yes. I do agree that good keywording is essential. I also don't think any AI tool can fully automate and replace creative photographers. I view AI tools like a newer camera gears or editing software that make photographer's life a little easier.

Good keywording is one of the most important aspects of being successful in Microstock. If you want to rely on an automate tool, go ahead, but don't complain if nobody can find your images.


14
General Stock Discussion / Re: Keywording Tools Bias
« on: September 28, 2016, 23:27 »
Our Axon Guru keyword generation tool was trained from multiple image sources. Therefore, it would have much less "bias" towards a single microstock provider. It does not need user to pick similar images. Once the user connects his/her cloud hosting providers, Axon Guru would automatically process the images and generate the keywords.

Even the best AI technology still makes mistakes and can't match human creativity and insight. However, it does produce 80-90% of correct keywords such as red, fruit, tomato. It might miss "beefsteak" or "organic". From our testing, it is much easier and more efficient for user to add/subtract keywords than starting from scratch each time.

15
Wow, thank for the guide. These happen to be my common rejection reasons too.  Thanks for providing before and after fix comparison. Hopefully, we can automate some of the fixes with AxonGuru soon.

16
Actually, you don't have to wait. The future is here today. AxonGuru.com does the tagging automatically and submits to ShutterStock, Dreamstime and Fotolia for free now.

Interesting article on google's auto keywording and the software used that has just been released as open source. 

It's not long before we won't have to keyword our images anymore.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/7658223665/google-algorithm-can-describe-image-contents-with-93-9-accuracy

17
General Stock Discussion / Time saving tool for photo submission
« on: September 26, 2016, 14:47 »
Shutterstock has recently amassed 100M RF stock photos. About 30M were added this year alone. If you are still spending the same amount of time to tag each photo by hand, your time value just got diluted. To maintain the same amount of earning as before, you may have to upload more photos than before. Our free automatic tagging and submission tool helps your to cut down the manually tagging time significantly.  Please refer to this thread http://www.microstockgroup.com/28366/28366/msg464355/#msg464355

AxonGuru - auto tagging and auto categorizing with latest AI and cloud technology

Hi Guys, we have created a new site to streamline your stock photo submissions. It will save you 2-5 minutes per image! Just host your photos on one of the leading photo hosting sites (Google Photos, Amazon CloudDrive, Dropbox, Smugmug etc.), and we will do all the heavy lifting. We will recommend the marketable photos, tag them automatically and pre-fill categories automatically. We even let you compare your photo to similar ones already on the marketplace. All you have to do is review and submit. There is no FTP or sharing passwords. It is using the latest AI and cloud technology. It is free for basic plan with unlimited low priority processing right now.  http://axonguru.com


18
Hi Guys, we have created a new site to streamline your stock photo submissions. It will save you 2-5 minutes per image! Just host your photos on one of the leading photo hosting sites (Google Photos, Amazon CloudDrive, Dropbox, Smugmug etc.), and we will do all the heavy lifting. We will recommend the marketable photos, tag them automatically and pre-fill categories automatically. We even let you compare your photo to similar ones already on the marketplace. All you have to do is review and submit. There is no FTP or sharing passwords. It is using the latest AI and cloud technology. It is free for basic plan with unlimited low priority processing right now.  http://axonguru.com

We are also looking for testers and reviewers. Drop me a line if you are interested.

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