Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 15, 2024, 14:29

Quote from: Wilm on January 13, 2024, 16:55

Hello Pete,

No, that's not what I mean. I'm thinking more of sites that sell products with purchased images. The images themselves are the main selling point - so they would have to be sold with an extended license or via API. Photo wallpapers, wall tattoos, photo puzzles and many other products already mentioned...

So I'm looking for one of my photos, used on a product that's for sale on Amazon? If that's it, yes I suppose that would require an extended license.

As what I see as a humorous aside. I made a free FAA account, which they used to allow, and I added 17 puzzle photos. (room for more) Or what I thought would be challenging puzzles. No sales. Yet my paid account, I sold two puzzles of just my usual things like an Indycar race and something else. I thought evil, puzzling, puzzles would be a good Holiday item. Oops, I was wrong again.

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/2-pete-klinger

I've never sold a mouse pad on FAA.

Yes, Pete, that's what I meant.

And on the subject of the FAA: I've never uploaded anything there. But you can still find products there with my pictures. I've never understood how that works either.

Look and see who it is. Some agencies have accounts on FAA. I suppose that's a partner or something?

Just an example:  https://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/shutterstock

I don't know all of them, but some others have mentioned this years ago.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 15, 2024, 14:11

Quote from: KuriousKat on January 14, 2024, 03:53

Judging by those who smugly announce their earnings on FaceBook groups, I'd say that plenty make some decent money before being shut down. The fraudsters also recommend setting up multiple accounts in various family member names, so that if one gets shut down, everything is not lost.

And you believe them?  SS has shut down family members because of IP address, camera data and computer sharing. It's not as easy as some FB brag.

...

What FB group, I'd love to go read what they have to brag about. I can't understand how thieves, with collected images, make more than people here who are smart and work hard?

Family members don't necessarily live at the same address or share an IP, and I know for a fact of some contributors doing this. As I also know of legitimate contributors  running two separate accounts from the same IP.

The thieves make money because they skim off better content. We all know that, as a general rule, 20% of the images make 80% of the money, but if they are selecting the best images, then they can certainly increase the sales percentage in their favour. It's always been quality over quantity, so if you steal 50 spectacular images, then they are likely to make more than a beginner with 50 snapshots of his back yard.

I'm sure people wouldn't keep contributing if they weren't earning anything as, even with stolen content, you still have to upload it. If you only make a dollar a week, then people wouldn't bother.

If you then add on the number of 'free trial' accounts that only download this content, then it doesn't take long to start earning.

Bottom line, I don't care whether it is lucrative for them or not, but I care about a database being flooded with stolen content that heavily competes against the legitimate stuff.

As for the FaceBook group, search Shutterstock Contributors, Shutterstock Contributors Worldwide, etc. There are loads of groups, and they all have a smattering of crooks bragging about their successes.

Yes, true, and thanks.

I want to read the crooks bragging about how much they make, stealing images. Maybe when I have a boring day.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 15, 2024, 13:23

Quote from: Andrej.S. on January 15, 2024, 06:11

Thanks, seems to be useful for some content, which already exists. Also interesting to analyze how often one keyword is used.

For new or niche topics I still use just ChatGPT. You can generate with it as many comma seperated keywords as you want by just describing the title of the image.

ME: keywords, comma separated with a space after each for a photo of a triple cheeseburger with lettuce tomato catsup mustard sesame seed bun on a natural background

ChatGPT: triple cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, sesame seed bun, natural background

Upstock: (Triple Cheeseburger)  fast food, cheeseburger, burger, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, tasty, food, hamburger, bun, juicy, meat, fast, eatery, epicure, meal, delicious, pickle, ketchup, savoury, sandwich, onion, grill, beef, lunch, culinary, photo, diet, cookery, isolated, background, double decker, deliciously, sizzling, triple, patty, flavorful, cheddar, mouth-watering, condiment, variation, crispy, satisfaction, appetising, layer

Ok, just tested it with following ChatGPT Promt:
Please give me 40 keywords without numbering and comma separated for the following content "triple cheeseburger with lettuce tomato catsup mustard sesame seed bun on a natural background".

Results: triple cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, catsup, mustard, sesame seed bun, natural background, food, burger, fast food, delicious, savory, indulgence, meal, culinary, gourmet, appetizing, homemade, juicy, tasty, fresh, condiments, sesame seeds, culinary delight, mouth-watering, comfort food, classic, American cuisine, fast-casual, stacked, layered, culinary photography, gastronomy, temptation, flavor, bun texture, food styling, culinary art, beef, cheese, pickles, onions, condiments, grill, sesame seeds, bun, culinary creation, foodie, deliciousness, hamburger, mealtime, epicurean, condiment harmony, culinary satisfaction, appetite, gastronomic pleasure, culinary masterpiece, food indulgence

Yeah it's a little bit tricky. One probably have to explicitly request a mix of adjectives to describe the burger, but also the taste, etc.
Will perhaps sometime try to define some prompts for creating keywords for various contents.

The AI is only as smart as the prompt, and thanks for making me a little smarter. 

There is a dramatic decrease in sales compared to previous years. Did most of the customers move to MJ or other AI services and cancel subscription? I really don't know. Shutterstock always adjusting the site. They removed the info on the preview screen telling the photo is a good seller or not. This might have affected the sales also. There is also a significant decrease in Adobe stock.

You mean the inaccurate data claiming some photo was hot or not, when some of mine that sold best, were not ranked high and some with no sales, had been marked as interesting or climbing in popularity. That was one of the dumbest features SS ever added. It was BS.

Nvidia is a heavyweight cooperation partner that brings a lot of technical and theoretical know-how in the software/hardware industry and model development of AI.
NVIDIA Picasso for example seems also to generate 3D models and has a web integration of user applications like photoshop, etc.

English Version Link:  https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/gpu-cloud/picasso/

Thanks, seems to be useful for some content, which already exists. Also interesting to analyze how often one keyword is used.

For new or niche topics I still use just ChatGPT. You can generate with it as many comma seperated keywords as you want by just describing the title of the image.

ME: keywords, comma separated with a space after each for a photo of a triple cheeseburger with lettuce tomato catsup mustard sesame seed bun on a natural background

ChatGPT: triple cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, sesame seed bun, natural background

Upstock: (Triple Cheeseburger)  fast food, cheeseburger, burger, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, tasty, food, hamburger, bun, juicy, meat, fast, eatery, epicure, meal, delicious, pickle, ketchup, savoury, sandwich, onion, grill, beef, lunch, culinary, photo, diet, cookery, isolated, background, double decker, deliciously, sizzling, triple, patty, flavorful, cheddar, mouth-watering, condiment, variation, crispy, satisfaction, appetising, layer

For my test I updated a few images. I did chop off the last 7 keywords or so. I agree that 45 is more than enough and most of my images only have 25-35 words. The weighted sort is a nice choice.

Looks good.

Quote from: cascoly on January 13, 2024, 13:35

I didn't think amazon supported digital delivery - how are these images being sold?

Prints on canvas, printed coffee mugs, calendars, postcards, printed mousepads and so on and so forth...

If it's one of the POD sites, they don't pay for the license, until something is sold. They use the thumbnails for free to advertise.

Really? Do these people have inventory or are they shops like FAA that have an Amazon store. Highly unusual.

You mean one like this, or something else?  https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/F4E82D18-8DF0-4087-95FC-1070C75CF5EB/?_encoding=UTF8&store_ref=SB_A0367353WSK8MBPG929W&pd_rd_plhdr=t&aaxitk=05e19d141be29abf039f6ce8f30fcdd0&hsa_cr_id=9878709820001&lp_asins=B0897W64GZ%2CB08DK2Q6H5%2CB08D6VXJ8H&lp_query=amazon%20coffee%20mugs%20on%20demand&lp_slot=auto-sparkle-hsa-tetris&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_lsi4d_ls&pd_rd_w=WxMbb&content-id=amzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b%3Aamzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_p=417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_r=FM2G86J1H096TMR35346&pd_rd_wg=J6R8o&pd_rd_r=68f32856-391b-4d15-b79c-e9cf16b79aa4

Not sure how long there have been Premium AI images - $249.99 for large, $119.99 for small.Why on earth would a buyer pay that much for AI generated stuff? None of the typical reasons for the premium collection apply to genAI images. Nothing at all wrong with this image BTW, other than the price

Premium AI images? There's something that just seems all wrong about that.

I want to share my custom keywords generator.
I've used it for thousands of stock images I've published in the last year with great results.

It's quick and easy to use,
generates a list of keywords and a breakdown for each keyword with amount of results.

it's free, try it here:

https://upstock.guru/keyword_checker

Interesting. I like the 45 words and they appear to be ranked by how many images and uses. The keyword separator works with my Breeze Browser Pro, some of the others, if I copy a word set, and there is no space after the comma, it makes one big mess and only one word. Nice!

Looks like Shutterstock images? The database doesn't include "all" images. Did you have to pick what you wanted to include?

It works. Next image I'll give it a try for real.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 11, 2024, 14:50

Just for comparison, what percentage of real photos have been sold from the entire collection?

AI in so much alike and so many that more of the same helps no one. Not us or the agency. When does Adobe say, enough is enough? At 66 Million or when the new images change nothing for the volume of downloads? There has to be a wall.

According to the Adobe search engine in total around 194 million of the 242 million classic photos and illustrations were never sold.
This corresponds to a share of almost exactly 80%.
Conversely, 20% were sold at least once.
In my view, this is a plausible result and can often be observed as the Pareto principle in markets with very unequal concentration distributions.

It is possible that the AI images will sell better in the future after there has been a market shakeout of the bad skilled contributors.
But I'm also very curious to see whether Adobe will close the floodgates for AI content this year.
I can't imagine that they can manage 2 to 3 million new images every few weeks in the long term.
I also fear that the ranking and keyword order will suffer damage. There are so many images either with the wrong tags or in the wrong categories.

All in all I am surprised that nobody tries to individualize the Midjourney image look with own filters.
It's like a collective frenzy at the moment, who can generate more content.

20% of the entire collection with at least one sale is an amazing number. Although people here, have listed their stats for sales, and are higher than that. I'm lower.

Keep in mind that a number of agencies and other places, offer AI image creation, directly for consumers. Anyone can go to many of those and make their own images, get just what they want, without artists, so they don't need to buy one from a stock site.

I have to laugh that you worry about rank, tags and keywords. I think we've been writing the same thing about stock sites since I started and that was 17 years ago. Spam keywords, deceptive tags, just plain wrong locations and tags, and never in the whole time of guessing how image ranks work, has anyone come up with anything that shows a benefit to keyword spam, or incorrect information that leads to more sales or better rank. In fact, if the system works at all, bad data would harm the rank of images with spam or inconsistencies.

Use Alamy clicks and views, and zooms and sales, as a starting point how other agencies are likely to rank images. Too many negative results and the image drops in rank. I don't think any of this is as simple as views and sales, it would be illogical to think and agency is that thoughtless to have some simple rudimentary system.

And then there are the "secret" reviewers rank, when an image is uploaded. Might be AI now, but you could upload 20 of the same image, and one of them will be ranked much higher, show pages higher, and come up more often in a search. Wouldn't they all be equal? Uploads have a rank, before they are live on the site. Spam, bad work, marginal content and junk files, won't have a higher than average starting rank.

We have now reached over 33 million AI photos and illustrations on adobe stock.
Of these, less than 3 million have been sold, which corresponds to a share of just 7%.

The majority is therefore literally data garbage that has no buyers.

@Cobalt
I think that there will no longer be a market for generic motifs (people, life style, interior, etc.) and that this will be completely replaced by the stock providers' own AI models.

Where there is still some market potential are only niches, where AI can't produce high detailed images without errors.
Contributors like https://stock.adobe.com/de/contributor/205024019/ipopba are now melking for short future the current demanded niches.

Some successful contributors specialized on generic motifs have already switched to the video market in time.

Just for comparison, what percentage of real photos have been sold from the entire collection?

AI in so much alike and so many that more of the same helps no one. Not us or the agency. When does Adobe say, enough is enough? At 66 Million or when the new images change nothing for the volume of downloads? There has to be a wall.

Quote from: stoker2014 on January 09, 2024, 13:48

Or are you trolling and flooding?

Are YOU trolling or flooding?

 

I don't think someone should have to explain a joke or humor, especially if the person who doesn't "get it" reacts with insults and can't see past their anger.

There will be NO being silly here. ALRIGHT? 

None, you hear?

My favorite foil is aluminum.