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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
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26
« on: May 03, 2022, 16:06 »
These look like they're generated from parts of existing photos. Possible infringement problems? I do agree this eventually will partially, but not totally, replace the need for photographers to produce stock photos. Then these stock companies will just license the AI and create their own images to bypass paying people.
ETA: I watched the full video. How else would it create something with Mona Lisa, Gollum, or Pinkachu without using an existing image of them? They claim to have safeguards from using things such as political figures. What about copyright? They had to have used bits of existing photos for eyeballs, cookies, etc.
27
« on: April 22, 2022, 18:19 »
Hahahaaa. Oh boy. That's the soft warning for whats coming. Here's the translation.
We are in the process of rebuilding our platform for better performance and usage (and this is costing us a ton of money). Exciting improvements are coming soon (mostly for buyers). Learn more about (how we're going to soon tell you that because of these improvements and huge costs that the royalty model will need to be changed so contributors can pay for these improvements while we simultaneously achieve record profits and executives get richer)
There. Fixed it.
28
« on: April 11, 2022, 08:53 »
Hard to say without seeing your work and how much you're expecting to earn. The fact you mentioned art would already suggest you should be looking elsewhere like Zazzle, Redbubble, and the other bazillion POD/Art sites.
Return Per Image Per Month (RPIPM) on micro has fallen off a cliff. Back in the good old days I was earning $2 per image per month. So if I had a 1,000 image portfolio I would make $2,000 per month, 2,000 images would be $4,000, etc. Now I earn a small fraction of that and dont bother submitting new work because it would be an unprofitable waste of time. I've seen people posting here earning $100 per month from 10,000 images which is a 1 cent RPIPM. With no offense intended, that's an incredible amount of work for extremely low return. I'm sure some people do better than that but a small fraction.
29
« on: February 12, 2022, 07:00 »
Shutterstock is on an irreversible down path. Adobe is already the leader and will be for a long time (quicker than I thought). If they would add editorial they would crush even more Getty and SS.
Getty has long arms and still a big foot inside many doors. If they get the money they need selling their BCC- stock with their return to the stock market the nexts months they might also surpass SS. Oringer chose the way out and cashing with his pal. Good riddance to both. They will be gone quite soon and whoever owns SS in the future I doubt they will be ever recovered the trust of their stabbed in the back contributors.
Dont be surprised if Adobe follows the practices of the other companies at some point. Some of you should recognize the pattern.
"Getty has become evil! Istock is great so we need to support them!"
"Istock has become evil! Shutterstock is great so we need to support them!"
"Shutterstock has become evil. Adobe is great so we need to support them!"
Lets all hope this wont happen!
To paraphrase Winston Churchill "A microstocker is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last."
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet" - Abraham Lincoln
30
« on: February 11, 2022, 15:26 »
Shutterstock is on an irreversible down path. Adobe is already the leader and will be for a long time (quicker than I thought). If they would add editorial they would crush even more Getty and SS.
Getty has long arms and still a big foot inside many doors. If they get the money they need selling their BCC- stock with their return to the stock market the nexts months they might also surpass SS. Oringer chose the way out and cashing with his pal. Good riddance to both. They will be gone quite soon and whoever owns SS in the future I doubt they will be ever recovered the trust of their stabbed in the back contributors.
Dont be surprised if Adobe follows the practices of the other companies at some point. Some of you should recognize the pattern. "Getty has become evil! Istock is great so we need to support them!" "Istock has become evil! Shutterstock is great so we need to support them!" "Shutterstock has become evil. Adobe is great so we need to support them!"
31
« on: February 06, 2022, 23:46 »
I highly recommend "14 Dirty Little Secrets to Making up to 10 Cents a Day in the Microstock Industry that Pro Contributors Wish You Didnt Know!". I paid $847 before it went on sale but I am totally satisfied. It will only take me 23 years of microstock earnings to pay for the book.
32
« on: January 10, 2022, 17:14 »
Here's my list. None of it is related to microstock which I'm no longer spending time on. - More photo shoot trips than last year
- Experiment with selling photos as products like phone cases, etc
- Continue evaluating more places to sell photos
- Sell all non essential photography equipment
- Automate sales fulfillment as much as possible
33
« on: January 09, 2022, 08:10 »
For the type of stuff I would submit to micro, yes it's a total waste of time which is why I havent submitted anything new in years. At its peak, my return per image per month was around $2 and I was planning to go full time. That all changed when the agencies went from treating us well with incentives to wringing us dry with constant cuts. My RPIPM is now less than .10 cents. With SS latest cuts and resetting the royalty annually, my revenue dropped 75% with them.
The gold rush and glory days are long gone but I keep hoping to see a turnaround. The agencies continue to move things in the wrong direction for contributors.
34
« on: September 26, 2021, 23:02 »
Depends on the trip. If it's a photo trip to make money I bring the pro equipment. For a leisure trip a phone is good enough for me.
35
« on: September 01, 2021, 21:59 »
Depends on the terms of the contract. You should really find out what the images are being used for and make sure there isn't any legal verbiage that may be problematic for you later.
36
« on: August 19, 2021, 08:04 »
Best of health and fortune to you!
37
« on: August 09, 2021, 09:07 »
How is your experience with contest on FAA? That contest help to improve sales? Thanks!
This is my profile there. fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-alexander-sanchez 
I've tried a couple. Probably not enough to judge sales effectiveness. All of the extra likes, comments and other stuff and supposed to improve search engine placement and in turn improve sales. I'd prefer to spend time on creating new work and let SEO do its thing.
38
« on: July 23, 2021, 06:42 »
I use Photoshelter and also Photodeck. Considering dropping Photoshelter after using them for probably over ten years.
Photodeck is a turn-key website platform. Licensing can be configured so I created a custom RM model. If you know SEO, Photodeck seems to do reasonably well with search engine ranking. They have trials so check them out.
39
« on: July 12, 2021, 09:21 »
https://www.artstorefronts.com/
It's under POD because that's what I see on the surface?
Not using it but looked into it a few years ago. It's a turnkey art platform to build your own website. I remember being put off because there was a whole involved process of demo and sales pitch. And I couldn't just sign up for a trial to see if it met my needs. Pricing also doesn't seem to be public and after I dug it up it's pretty expensive. Plus they take a transaction fee on your sales. Again, it's just a website platform. As part of their offering they claim to provide marketing assistance but some of the comments I've seen have been mixed. You only make as many sales as the customers you bring. This is older info but gives some perspective https://theabundantartist.com/artstorefronts-com-review-done-print-demand-service/I'm working on a Shopify site now.
40
« on: June 07, 2021, 22:26 »
Whether it's a new breach, or the old one, our data is already being sold. I use a unique email for every online account I create. I now receive spam ads to my unique 123RF email address.
41
« on: May 18, 2021, 08:59 »
Commission cuts always follow when a company gets shareholders.
Their next move will of course be more commission cuts.
When did Alamy get share holders?
Also when the company is sold to someone new, who will always try to get more of the value, that wasn't tapped before. 11 Feb 2020: PA Media Group has bought stock images business Alamy for an undisclosed fee, the company has announced.
Alamy can look forward to a fantastic future as part of the PA Media Group. 
And the obvious?
Alamy prides itself on offering a better commission rate than most other agencies. Will PA Media Group continue to offer the same commission rates to Alamys existing contributors?
There are no plans to change that.
Yeah we all believed that lie, as soon as Alamy was sold. Here we are with the new "no plans" changes, as expected.
LOL. Here's what it should have said. "There are no plans to change that... for now" "There are no plans to change that... until our plans change" "There are no plans to change that... and by change we mean no increase" Seriously, is anyone making a profit doing this anymore? What percentage of people even track profitability? Or is this just now hobbyists who don't care how much they spend on their hobby while these companies get filthy rich?
42
« on: May 17, 2021, 10:39 »
who/what is "PA"?
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/pa-group-acquires-stock-images-firm-alamy
I wasn't even aware this happened. Seems they're trying to get more return out of their investment using SS and IS as a template of how to wring contributors dry. I stopped submitting to stock sites years ago. I keep hoping something is going to turn around to give me an incentive to start producing stock again but this is just another move in the wrong direction for us.
43
« on: May 17, 2021, 08:16 »
45
« on: May 16, 2021, 19:54 »
You need to have a strategy. Just dumping your existing micro work on your own website will likely be a waste of time. You need to have something unique that's different from what's sold in micro. Otherwise, if you offer the same thing as micro why would anyone want to go to your site over just using micro? Offering lower price won't matter. You need unique content buyers cant get on micro. You also need to be an SEO expert to get traffic. A few years ago I created a completely new style of work just for me own site. I use Photodeck and have had decent results. I'm looking into creating a new site with Shopify.
I tried Google, Facebook and other ads and for me it was a waste of time and money. I'm sure other people have had success but not me. Same thing with social media as a whole. Some people are great at using it for marketing and I've had no success with it. If you're a social media expert that's great. Otherwise it's SEO.
46
« on: April 21, 2021, 06:42 »
Don't these agencies realize the quality of stock photography will diminish greatly if photographers are only earning 10 cents an image which includes enhanced/extended licensing? Even the "new/pumped up generation" would probably not stay long at that royalty ...
Also, inflation is coming. They are reducing our pay while the cost of everything is going up.
' I think they've realized quite the opposite. They can continue decreasing royalties and new contributors easily fill any losses. Unsplash has proven there is no shortage of gullible people who are willing to give free work away to ruthless businesspeople posing as philanthropists. They will keep decreasing royalties until they see a negative impact and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
47
« on: April 15, 2021, 21:17 »
I was just wondering
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope.
- Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock
- Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe
- Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love.........
Yeah, I actually do see that pattern. My question was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or maybe ironic.
Haaa, okay. I've seen this exact same question asked over and over so I missed the sarcasm on this one.
48
« on: April 15, 2021, 19:50 »
I was just wondering
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope. - Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock - Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe - Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love......... ETA: I keep reading about blockchain technology at some point potentially connecting individuals and cutting out the corporations. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
49
« on: March 31, 2021, 12:30 »
So let me get this straight. Getty Images, a company known for shrewd financial business practices, is going to take their profits and invest in growing a standalone company that provides free photos? Riiiiiiiiiggghht! If there wasn't a method or loophole to monetize Unsplash and boost Getty profits and revenue, there would be zero interest from Getty. It'll be interesting to see how they spin this in their financial favor while also continuing to not pay contributors anything.
50
« on: March 31, 2021, 07:28 »
Who didn't see the acquisition of Unsplash coming? In fact, who thinks the entire purpose of Unsplash was to build a free collection and sell it for a ton of money. Oh the irony.
I love the altruistic messaging of Unsplash. "Unsplash is a platform powered by an amazing community that has gifted hundreds of thousands of their own photos to fuel creativity around the world". And in the end, all of those photographers who felt a sense of philanthropy by "gifting" their work are now getting a lesson in ruthless business. It will be interesting to read reactions from their contributors.
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