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Messages - Uncle Pete

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26
Highest position = 97 79 (last 12 months), annual low of around 900 and currently 337 but improving still. A steady avg of around 400. Lifetime Rank 494. 20k images sole trader.

That is worth quoting for the turn of the page.  8) 400 is a very nice number.

27

For what I can see the "custom license" earning for contributors is not really "fluctuating": at the contrary it decreases regularly from january 1st
It started with about 1,47$, then started decreasing and it had never went back to that price

I can't see a single sale with a higher amount than the previous ones.


I think that summarized the situation pretty well. We start at a higher number each year in January and then it adjusts down by March to a stable value, that continues for the rest of the year.



28
One thing I find funny is people need to use words correctly. The "training" is "stealing". Call it for what it is. The "ai" (which is not true ai, but essentially sophisticated theft & pattern re-arrangment) STEALS images. They need data to STEAL. If it doesn't have data to steal, then it can't "train".

Is training stealing when they pay for the image use?

29

Thank you for the information.

What does customers response mean?
How many customers how often viewed the image with the same searched keyword order of the image during the first 30 days?

It's currently a dumb thing.
They should replace the algorithm by letting the AI identify and describe the images and their content, so the customers could search more precisly.

/Edit:
Well probably the algorithm will remain a business secret.

Found various statements.

On the offical blog it is stated that titles are not used for rankings.
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2019/06/18/stock-keywording-tips)

On the developer blog it is stated that they already use AI since several years to increase the variety of search results.
https://blog.developer.adobe.com/evaluating-addressing-position-bias-in-adobe-stock-search-9807b11ee268

You are welcome and thanks for the additional.

"Do not spam keywords irrelevant keywords can actually hurt your visibility on the Stock site."

The whole article about position bias was interesting. Yes, Titles are not searchable in Adobe Stock.

I assume you mean the same thing when you say image rank as search discovery? But not searchable means much more. If you have a word in the title and not in the keywords, it's not going to be seen in a search for that word. Which images come up on the first pages, is something different.

"What does customers response mean?" yet another mystery in the secret system that determines image rank. We don't know, they aren't telling. No agency gives up their "secret sauce" recipe. The assumption that it's views and sales, or how many related word matches, is like saying, to make soup, you need to add water.

Everything after the basics is what makes the search what it is. Those basic starters aren't the intricate and complex answer. 12-13 years ago, you could pretty much see that IS and SS were based on the time on the system divided by sales. On IS a new image with one day and one sale, would leap to the front. Then after a week, no more sales, it would start to drop and after a month, if no more downloads, would fall back in the general pages.

SS until they fixed the search (a view depending on who you are) to avoid some of the bias, someone who had an image up since the first years of SS, with lots of downloads, would be on page one, and the rest of us,could get into that page. Kind of a king of the hill situation, where top images, stayed on top, and got more downloads, because they were on top.

Sometime years back, they changed everything, you might find the threads about how "I've been on page one for years and now I'm on page 12!" That's life. The favorites with an unfair advantage, got adjusted.

The search changes, or can, by location, season, specific keywords, simple one would be, St. Patrick's Day will be higher now and Easter will get a priority. In a month, they will drop down and some other events or holidays will be raised and favored. Everything is always changing, so how would someone know what it is?  ;D

If you go to church every day and pray that your images move high up of the algorithm they will eventually rise. If you pray, you will be listened. That's what I was told since I was a child.

Yes, I admit, I think that's intended as humor and it's also true. Since we have no control, we can pray, or burn incense, or sacrifice chocolate chip cookies to our inner sales hunger. The answer is, best keywords, best images, upload quality with proper tags, sit back and hope for the best. Worrying, conspiracies, trying to play the system, and many other side efforts, are mostly useless and a waste of time and energy.

30
Slow start this week.  It's depressing.
Mystery solved: accounts can share a rank!

If 10 people had the same number of sales, of course.  But not 10,000 people having the same number of sales at this level.  Maybe at the very bottom, it's possible 10,000 contributors share a rank with 0 sale.

That's true, but people with 0 sales do not get a rank. Look on Monday morning, just after Midnight. No sales, No rank.

Can you tell how many total contributors Adobe has?

Not really. We don't know anything about artist account numbers either. But if mine is 13-14 years old and 205931477 and yours in new, subtract and see how many new users since 2010. There are all kinds of pitfalls in trying to estimate how many users. Active users or dormant people who once uploaded, or DOA accounts of people who signed up and never upload or had any images accepted.

205 million?  ;D JoAnn's ID number is so low that Adobe software doesn't recognize her sometimes. Not enough digits.

Here's a number that might be of interest? In 2018 on Shutterstock, there were 17,877 artists who had 1,000 or more images. But SS said how many millions of contributors they had signed up.

I can't give a good answer, but I think what you would want to know is, how many active users and "active" would be our definition. Should we say, uploaded 20 images in 2023, or 100, or ??? That's pretty minimal and that's your competition. That and up. All of this is difficult to understand or define with any accuracy. That's why there are so many guesses and assumptions on the forum. We just don't know, and they (Adobe) aren't telling.

Good Luck, your main concern, and I don't mean this in a smart ass manner, you should be looking at what you produce and upload and your sales, and worried less about how images are ranked in a search, or how many images your competition has, or who or how many others are doing the same thing. Unlike many other businesses, knowing your competition in stock, isn't really useful for making yourself better or more money. Knowing what sells, yes of course, but not who or how many?

Your most important knowledge and information should be, how to make good and useful images that buyers want to download. And maybe as you move along, what is a waste of time, shooting, uploading and editing, because there's not enough demand?

31
Adobe Stock clearly state they give a boost in sales to its active contributors, meaning that if you upload 10 images a day for 20 days, you will get a boost over a contributor who uploads 200 images in one go and then stops uploading for the next 19 days.

Really, they say that? Where? What makes active? One a week, ten a week, ten a month...


32
Just wondering if people with a higher acceptance ratio find their images higher up the algorithm?

Just a thought
Its not a higher acceptance rate, but your weekly standings score that pushes your images to clients.

Weekly Standings mean nothing. They are only for our own information.

Where did you get this information, that they are artist or image rank?

 Because after a successful week all of the sudden old images that I never sold before are somehow visible in searches and get sales. What changes? Definitely not my acceptance rate. If not successful ranking, what do you think it is then?
Do you know how Adobe decides whose images to show in searches?

One of my new Easter bunnies image with 1 sale is on page 3 now. So search is not only based on sales of that particular image or keywords/title -

I don't claim to know how ranking works for the search, sales, or matches, or featured because of the season, but I do know it's NOT based on your artist rank. Did you see what Mat posted?

No.

-Mat Hayward

Did you watch the webinar about image rank and how it works? There were two of them.

After both webinars, here's what I think they have told us. This is after listening to the discussions of all three people from Adobe and making text notes.

In Order...

1) Images initially get ranked by customer response during the first 30 days. Your keywords and title are most important during that time.

2) After 30 days, changing the keywords or order, will not have much effect on image rank, from the customers. There are other factors that still can move an image up or down.

3) Adding detailed information, location, keywords or concept word combinations, will still help get an image found. Updating older images may not change the rank, but it will make the image more searchable.

4) Categories are not very important

Repeated many times, and the way I have viewed keywords and titles. Please understand these are paraphrased quotes, not exact word for word. But they represent what Judy and Mat said:

Only use relevant keywords you don't need to have 49 keywords, only the appropriate keywords.  "If you were looking for this image, would you use this word to find it?" "If you searched a word, would you expect to see this image?"

"Is this something I'd expect to see for this search term."

If customers are looking at images and they are not a good match for the words included, the rank will be dropped. Anyone who includes words that are not relevant, will be hurting the image rank, and that rank will be attached to that image, pretty much fixed at that rank, after 30 days.

Watch Please? This comes from Adobe not someone who just thinks they see something. Adobe Stock search

Hi Everyone,

I've scheduled a webinar with our Senior Product Manager in charge of search this Thursday, February 27 at 2:30PM PST. It would be great if you can attend. We'll do our best to take as many questions as possible during our 45-60 minute conversation about Adobe Stock search. How you can use the tools to your advantage as a contributor at Adobe Stock. I hope to see you there!

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/search-tips-and-tricks

Mat Hayward


33
I will check my screenshots from the happy days. That would be really interesting, if you get into the top 1000 the ranking is real?

dec 26 pos 253, dec 28 pos 263

I dont know why I cannot upload my screenshots? I keep getting an error message.
The highest that I noticed was 800. (I have to click something specific for my rank to show - lifetime or weekly - at times I cant make it to appear, even in the same week. Maybe its a bug)

This website doesnt accept.jpeg, but only accepts.jpg It also accepts png even they are in larger format. I actually have to go to photoshop to convert the file - a pain.

I'm trying to understand what you wrote?

Here's what the site accepts:
Allowed file types: doc, gif, jpg, mpg, pdf, png, txt, zip
Restrictions: 4 per post, maximum total size 2000KB, maximum individual size 500KB

This could be important... maximum individual size 500KB

Here's what I think is the lowest position is, which could be thousands of people. No downloads will show - - -  at the beginning of the week.


34
Hi, does ftp uploading work on Dreamstime? I get "530 Login incorrect." while trying to use filezilla. I'm 100% sure I'm using right credentials - took the user id as login and my password but it won't connect.

Does it look like this? The settings?



Good Luck:  https://www.dreamstime.com/ftp_instructions

35
since the rankings are based on download numbers it makes sense that there will be a lot of people sharing ranks, especially at the middle of the bell curve for download numbers. There probably aren't that many people getting over a few 100 images a week (see previous post for how many), but in there are probably a lot of people getting the exact same number of downloads in the 10-50 range.

Yes, just imagine how many people have (making up a number) 20 DLs this week. The system at Adobe isn't going to make a group for 20-21-22-23-24 Etc.

Many people, and I'm one, if I look right now at my weekly rank, it's just showing - - -  and I know someone who has a lifetime that's that, because she hasn't made enough sales yet to be ranked at all. It's just a relative number to tell us, personally, how we are doing, compared to other people. And the fact that someone might have 30,000 images or 3,000 and someone else has 30, the rank is meaningless.

36
Basic bad economics and a bad plan. If anyone thinks raising the prices will make more money or lowering the prices on AI will help us, that's terrible.

The effect would be, driving customers away to a cheaper AI product and away from more expensive real photos.

The way to make more for us would be, raise the prices on AI, so customers who shop, will buy the real thing, for less. But that's not going to happen.

37
Just wondering if people with a higher acceptance ratio find their images higher up the algorithm?

Just a thought
Its not a higher acceptance rate, but your weekly standings score that pushes your images to clients.

Weekly Standings mean nothing. They are only for our own information.

Where did you get this information, that they are artist or image rank?

38
   DT doesnt use the description or subject from meta data

For me it does.
  I have embedded titel, description and keywords in my metadata and all I have to do with Dreamstime is select the category. That's why I do not understand why people here say the upload process was compilcated. It was even easier when they auto-detected the categoeries, all you had to do was click on submit, but unfortunately that does not work anymore.

I agree, and I don't understand. The auto select categories has to be turned on, each session. I use my own keywords, title and description. I don't do hundreds at a time, so that could be different. But the same keywords, title and description are used for every other site, except Adobe, where I have to remove the Title.

But I uploaded three images this morning. DT reads all the data...  All I had to do was look at the words and categories and click submit. Basically three clicks and they were all in review.

No I don't use their auto keywords, it just makes a mess of things.

39
AI Generated Stock Photography / Night Cafe' Free
« on: March 04, 2024, 12:08 »
Basically it's based on Stable Diffusion, but does many others, offers styles and you can also go advanced and use your own original images. Variable seed or select, use the same. Same in so many ways as the rest for size. I'm finding it's different from DALL-E and doesn't make the icons and illustrations, logos I mean, as well. Seems that NC wants to be more complicated and intricate.

Making cartoons and illustrations, the results for mine have been better than DALL-E.

All the usual flaws and problems of AI images, but since it's free and you  can get a minimum of 5 free credits a day, where 1 image is 1 credit, there's some good fun.

https://creator.nightcafe.studio/?ru=PeterPorroKlinger

SPAM Notice = Referral Link if that does anything for me, I don't know. They just started that today.

But give it a try, another source for fun graphics.


Spam and Eggs



40
Awesome earnings:
SuperPhoto, 😻wow!!!!! My brain is blown in several ways: congratulations on 1st place! Your number is so large that I cant even compute it 🤣 Your earning are higher than your downloads? and lastly, did you photoshopped this screenshot or created it with AI? 😉

Whaaaaaaaat? You mean you don't think that is a REAL screenshot of earnings? :P

Watch this video to hear the 'whaaaat' :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXnybkQ24v0&t=10

Yeah, never doubted you for a moment.  ::)

We dont know how many people share a rank.

It could be 10 000 people or more sharing the rank 1000


That's not how ranking works, you can't share a rank

Cobalt is correct, ranks are brackets not precise numbers. People do share ranks.

41
General Stock Discussion / Re: How to read the poll results ?
« on: March 03, 2024, 12:53 »
I guess that's the average of all the people who participated in the poll.

Do you mean the average dollars earned? If so, then according to the information provided, Stocksy should be ranked higher than Adobe stock on the graph since it's the best earner per contributor.

Additionally, we should see Storyblocks ranked below Adobe stock. However, neither Stocksy nor Storyblocks are included in the graph.

Only the sites that Leaf chooses to include are added. I'll guess that Storybooks and Stocksy are not Microstock and most people don't belong or participate, means he decided not to include them.

Yes it's  moving average based on recent data, entered by people. Roughly the poll numbers are $/5 looking right now, Adobe is 40 people and 231 which means the average was $1,155  :o A month. 123RF is 3.6 which is $18 a month, which seems a appropriate number. 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)

Even if a place doesn't show a number, because of not having the needed 50 votes, they are in order of earnings.

Being that the poll is voluntary and there's no way to verify any of the numbers, take it as advisory, not authentic and verified. Someone who doesn't have an account and has a grudge, could be giving some site, a $0 every month. The same way, someone who likes some other site, or a paid stooge, could be putting high numbers on that site, to make it look better.

I won't say witch one, but when it started, they had amazing high numbers for the first year. Then it dropped down to where it has stabilized at now. Just odd that a new site, with new people had such a great early success.  ::)

42
I don't know about all the third world parts and I doubt that this will change Microstock, but it was an interesting and very distant thought.

All those clauses and conditions?

One place I work, pays us on a day rate, then keeps track of the hours, because they want to prove to the state, that they are paying more than minimum wage. Some way for them not to pay us hourly, for some reason? That could change. I'll be watching. But I'm not sure that it will change anything for the better. We are independent contractors, all of us workers. Will there be staffing cuts, to save the added expense? Then who gains?

43
The new rules, set to go into effect on March 11th, redefine the classification of workers, particularly in the gig economy, as employees rather than independent contractors. This move, while intended to provide greater protections and benefits to workers, has raised concerns about its potential impact on businesses and the broader economy.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20240109-1#:~:text=The%20rule%20addresses%20six%20factors%20that%20guide%20the,a%20factor%20regarding%20the%20worker%E2%80%99s%20skill%20and%20initiative.

The new independent contractor rule restores the multifactor analysis used by courts for decades, ensuring that all relevant factors are analyzed to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The rule addresses six factors that guide the analysis of a workers relationship with an employer, including any opportunity for profit or loss a worker might have; the financial stake and nature of any resources a worker has invested in the work; the degree of permanence of the work relationship; the degree of control an employer has over the persons work; whether the work the person does is essential to the employers business; and a factor regarding the workers skill and initiative.


44
I know we all know this, but 33% of eff all is eff all...

Yes an absolute truth, across all of the industry. If they cut prices, we make less, even if the commission percentage is the same.

45
Google is now also playing in the AI league.
With the Gemini model Google is attacking at the forefront. Gemini is a multimodal model that can process text, images, video, music and other documents such as PDFs as inputs and generate corresponding outputs.

Google offers a cloud-based API platform for using and developing your own AI models, which can be created from the smaller Gema models.
Even some third-party open source models can be used.

In my opinion, Google created a strong overall package of AI models, API and cloud environment.
Despite the current problems I would assume that Google has a big chance to take the first place from Open AI in the long term.

https://blog.google/technology/developers/gemma-open-models/
https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/#introduction
https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/gemini-models-are-coming-to-performance-max/
https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-labs-imagefx-textfx-generative-ai/

Free testing of Google's AI Image Generator: https://aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com/tools/image-fx

Being Woke and diverse has created the opposite of what an honest AI would do.

"It appears that in trying to solve one problem - bias - the tech giant has created another: output which tries so hard to be politically correct that it ends up being absurd."

"Gemini also generated German soldiers from World War Two, incorrectly featuring a black man and Asian woman."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68412620

Reverse Bias is still bias. While trying to compensate for what the AI got from general images, they have created a mockery.

"When the AI was asked to show a picture of a White person, Gemini said it could not fulfill the request because it "reinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race."  :o


46
Dreamstime.com / Re: I can't upload images
« on: February 28, 2024, 13:31 »
I'm sorry to hear that you haven't received a response from the Dreamstime forum. Since it's been a while, it might be worth revisiting the issue and reaching out to Dreamstime support again. Sometimes, platform updates or changes in browser compatibility can affect upload functionalities, so it's worth checking if there have been any developments in resolving this issue.



Yes, no response since July 2020 would be "been a while".  :o

47
Canva / Re: Notice of violation emails
« on: February 28, 2024, 13:23 »
This afternoon I wrote to the people at Canva complaining about the fact that they send notifications on images uploaded 3 or 4 years ago that violate the new rules and they replied that they will solve this problem, do you believe it?

Sure, they will be forced to admit that the warning is some generic boilerplate to explain when an image is removed for sensitive content, violence, or some new restriction that they are backdating the collection.

Or possible solution, take that last sentence that threatens artists, off the standard notification message?  :)

48
..."The royalty rate remains at 33% of the price paid by the customer. The rate paid by the customer varies based on the plan."...Much less complicated than being concerned if I just got a 36 sub or a 37, 38 or 39 custom. ... It's a mix.

It's true that the 33% is uncomplicated, but contributors need to watch changes in agency pricing as well as what their royalty rate is. My primary reason for watching the mix of prices (as opposed to just the monthly total compared to last year) is that when agencies start competing on price with other agencies, unless there's a huge influx of new business - not just a shift from one agency to another - contributors lose out.


Correct and we've seen that over and over. Buyers moved from IS to SS, as SS cut prices and we made less. Adobe has set a more reasonable rate and stayed with that, as IS has cut prices and our commissions. We make less. So SS cut the commissions and instituted the reset, with lower prices in some areas, so we earn less.

I just looked at Oct-Dec 2023, one custom for $1 and then all the high ones are 97 to 99. We got better than usual Custom sales in January, and now they are back to the usual. The unusual part was a raise and more income, not the negative view, that something just went down.

Same for July-Sept. not one custom over $.99 for the three months.

How is getting paid more, in January 2024, seen as some kind of a concern? Take a look back and see if your numbers are similar. And what I mean is, the numbers now are the same as usual, for the past, except the positive boost in January.

49
All stock agencies will dissapear in 3 years with maybe the exception of Adobe.
But lets see how the downfall of this industry plays out..


You guys all wrong, all but Getty and Adobe will disappear in max 3 years, the industry is changing almost every quarter because AI. SS disappearance will shake the dying industry. SS business model is now obsolete with many agencies offering the same garbage to the public.

You just ruined it for the new people who are trying to build their portfolios, add a new agency or two and the people in denial that think, a change for the better is just around the corner.  ;D For over ten years, we've been doing an ask and answer, what do you see in the future.

While I don't see it as doomed and the disappearance in three years like you do, I also don't see any recovery or bright future for Microstock. For anyone who's just starting or anyone who thinks this is a way to make a living, maybe they should be spending time looking for something else, that has growth potential or a future.

Three to five years, we'll be down to the last of the survivors. Adobe, iStock, SS and Alamy. Each of those has a big corporation backing them, while the stand alone agencies will be drowning without a life jacket or anyone to rescue them.

50
Off Topic / Re: Trump has the rona
« on: February 28, 2024, 12:41 »
***  breaking news *** dead horse rises from the dead!

Because it's been four years and the elections are coming up again? The choices are a nearly dead horse and a horses a$$. Not much of a choice? And people from other countries ask, why don't some of us in the US take the time to vote?

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