Quote from: cobalt on March 14, 2024, 01:57

If I still had a port on ss, i would just leave the port there and maybe upload less if i didn't like the returns. or just upload the weaker files from a series, sort of a "teaser" and if someone wants the full series they can look at pond5 or adobe....

how likely is it that someone seeing your 'lesser' work on SS s going to think you have better work on other sites?  more likely they'll just find a better image on SS - stock is a commodity & users don't follow particular artists

I was thinking of editorial. Or content that not everybody can do.

If it is just another beach sunset, you are right. But if it is a specific beach location and perhaps a local event, you might be the only having that content. Put the stellar content on pond5, a few teaser clips on SS. Those who really need this will see it and find it.

Also doesn't SS not offer customers now some kind of combined search of both pond5 and SS internally somewhere?

Then your content would be easily visible for them and they can choose what they like according to their plan.

really sorry about your situation.

as others have said it will be difficult to get the money. if they have a 100% royalty day, you could ask a friend to buy your content, cash out and give them the money back.

alternatively - are there any images you could use? are you a designer? you could use the 42 dollars to buy needed images on dreamstime.

or maybe somebody you know needs images, you buy them for them and they pay you the 42 dollars.

if you can create ai content on your computer, you can supply both adobe and dreamstime.

for me dreamstime is maybe 5% of adobe, but it is growing very slowly.

last year was 35 dollars, this year 13 so far. with around 2500 files.

i estimate that at 5k files i might make 120 dollars a year..and at 10k perhaps it will be 30 dollars a month.
but it all adds up and if i need 50k files to get a regular 100 dollars a month, why not.

but personally i find the upload very easy, so they get all non people ai content and normal photos and videos.

 i now have a very good acceptace rate with ai illustrations. when i had a lot of declines i asked for feedback from the discord community and they helped me immensly to understand the issues.

now i hope my customers like my files or through sales can guide me to what they need.

adobe is a fantastio place but the way they close ports while �investigating� for months absolutely terrifies me. if your main income is adobe�what do you do???

so to feel safer i must diversify.

for istock i will be working again with people that are photo exclusive. which means my photos from the same shoot must be exclusive as well. but they are indie with video, so that will be my main focus.

i also do normal photos again that will go everywhere, including istock.

my overall rpi  for adobe is double that of istock on average, but they have reliable sales and sometimes larger sales.

the bigger hurdle is their horrible upload process. otherwise i would have sent them a lot more content by now.

istock also takes a much bigger diversity of content, including real editorial photos and these sell quite reliably.


so�i want to work again with my friends and i do hope i can build up istock to a reliable second income after adobe.

i think for editorial alone it will be worth it.

adobe also doesn�t like �ugly real world content� in the style of eyeem. istock takes it and sells it.

the ports will differ quite drastically between editiorial and ugly realism and high contrast ultra saturated photos/ai and ai illustrations.

I think it will be good to have both and the contents are for different markets.

these days i regret giving up the getty house contract. that would have allowed me to work more with my friends and get decent returns on the same photo shootings.

but focussing on video, with very little photos, will be a good compromise.

again, i am very, very sorry you lost your istock port. we had fantastic times there. i never found another community as vibrant (and dramatic) as istock.

i also miss the old ss, but the way producers are reporting a drastic drop in sales i am probably not missing out on much.

@injustice

very sorry to read this about istock. sadly they sometimes shoot first and ask questions later. i was deleted from ss without a warning. very painful experience. a reason to also keep supplying distribution partners, so if somebody hates what you say on the internet, they cannot hit an individual port delete.

i do still have hopes for istock, also because so many of my friendsd are still doing well there.

on topic - my ai illustrations are being accepted in hours. ai photos around 22 days.

I don�t think most customers have time for that. there are so many details and endless variations possible. why should a customer try them all instead of just browsing a huge collection and then maybe picking a few base files and then adapt these with ai? vhange hairstyle and skin on a base model or change their clothes?

ai is like a camera. everybody can take pictures with their mobile phones and save spending money on stock agencies.

but developping a concept, rgen shooting takes a lot of time.

same for making a design in photoshop.

same for ai, you can do it at your computer, but you must develop your ideas and refine them first.

customers can do it all, they don�t need stock agencies in principle.

they buy because they have no time.

personally i predict we will get more customers. because adapting an image or video with ai will become much easier and new people who don�t want to learn editing or photoshop will come new into the market.

i am sure adobe is working on a magic ai editing tool for the masses, that allows prompting as well as adapting with ai

I work with several, stable, midjourney, adobe and dalle. I try my prompts in several, but not always.

I only started with midjourney this year but it seems to be the best tool, especially for people. I also like dalle, but more for conceptual or flat images, cartoons, photorealism.

They all have their quirks and none of them is a real favorite. It is more a case of being less annoying than others.

The fastest is still just to use a camera.

Quote from: cobalt on March 12, 2024, 07:04

Adobe might have over 1 million registered producers. There is no way to offer individual personal service.

High end agencies offer that, but they just work with a few thousand people.

Just add it to the community channel, here are also Adobe admins reading there. If they find the problem interesting I am sure someone will look into it.

And you can also write to Mat, but I would try the community channel first.

I disagree with the personal service aspect, when you consider the massive revenue they generate. Of COURSE they can offer it, but they may choose not to because "investors" want more $$$ in their pockets.

You really want Adobe to hire 2000 people just to deal with all the complaints "why was my file declined"??
It will be by far the most abused system ever.

I'd rather they put that money into the sales team.

You can post your problems in the community chat and get quick and qualified feedback. And you can write to Mat if you believe it is very serious.

Adobe is a lo more responsive than other places.

I don't get why people expect the luxury treatment on a mass platform.

Sign up with a small exclusive agency and you will get all the direct communication you ever wanted.

There are always choices.

My batch was accepted after 22 days. But thanks for the conspiracy theories

I was worried it would take even longer and arrive after easter, because when I uploaded the files review times were arounds 10 days.

As for being favored in sales...I sure would appreciate whoever put me into a rank 250 kept me there and I would not have manually dropped down to 4300 in 14 days...

The system is very, very dynamic. And my port is still very small.

I wish I had 10000 people files. That seems to bring more balance than easter eggs.

You can share your rejected file in the adobe community discord channel and get feedback from the community. They helped me a lot when I was getting my illustrations rejected and I simply couldn't "see" the problem.

https://discord.com/channels/692119372793118831/927973134580219994

Quote from: yuriy on March 11, 2024, 11:26

Quote from: blvdone on March 11, 2024, 07:23

Slow start this week.  I'm just not good at this.  I should quit.
10,000 photos now.  0 video.  I deleted 7,000 videos one by one for hours last May when RPD kept going down to ridiculous cheap price.

agreed, you're not very good at this.  i've never seen anyone recommend deleting content to increase sales so i'm not surprised it's not working for you.

I think he makes up for it with exclusive Pond5 sales. How's your Pond5 sales blvdone? You must be earning at least 1,000 to 2,000 each month with your ports?

I sincerely hope that it is much, much more for him.

His port is huge and he sets high quality prices.

It should be a full time production income at least.

It is spring break in the US, if you have a lot of content for that market you will feel it.

You feel any public holiday and general vacation time.

Should pick back up next week and work will continue until the start of the summer holiday season.

During the day I even feel the German lunch break, from 12:30 - 2:30pm. Then the US starts getting in at around 3:30 my time, that drops off by around 10 pm my time.

etc�

We rely so much on individual bestsellers. It is fun to see them blow up fast, but depressing when it goes back down.

Trying to diversify my content for better balance.

A little better, but still slow for the season

currently 4060 files

pos 3760, 126dl so far, 92 usd