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Author Topic: Shutterstock Milestones  (Read 48249 times)

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« Reply #25 on: August 04, 2018, 00:33 »
0
There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
Well everyone except me ;-). Halved? More than that I reckon 80% at least  of new content never sells.

Well everyone, stop uploading anything that I shoot would be my plan?  :)

As far as pk and half, I think if they limited ncv and dupes and similars the collection might be 25% or less of what it is now. Just start looking for ideas and areas where you can find something, no well covered or over covered, even if 90% are unmarketable crap. You should start to see how many images are nothing but numbers and have no hope of ever getting a download, if the buyer has minimal sense and any perception.

SS could stop accepting uploads and start culling out the junk, imagine that, just the good stuff. I know we'd disagree if ours were removed, but in the end, the entire collection might be a few million select images. Imagine that, buyers wouldn't have to wade through a cesspool to find what they want.  8)

Nope, not going to happen and 10 million new images every two months, looks like the level that can be input and processed. That could change. ANyone else wonder how many rejections go along with 10 million new images, or how bad they had to be to fail. LOL

3.5 million give or take a few hundred thousand if historical (up to two years ago) figures are anything to go by and they don't have to be bad to be rejected.  In fact it's highly likely that the rejected ones are better than most of the accepted ones.
A lot seem to be rejected for pedantic/nitpicking model release/editorial captioning reasons. The few rejections I get are for marginal images that seem to be seen by "old school" reviewers...ones I would never have considered for SS in the past.


« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2018, 05:56 »
+2
I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.

Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.

« Reply #27 on: August 04, 2018, 06:03 »
0
I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.

Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.

« Reply #28 on: August 04, 2018, 06:39 »
0
I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.

Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
I don't think it's contributors with a free pass (unless you are a top earner), but the file type that gets waved through.  JPEG illustrations for one if you look at what gets accepted.  Reviews are done by AI and humans, if AI is letting in hundreds of images of an object from every conceivable view or cannabis leaves in a myriad of colors, and there is a target for rejections, the humans will be throwing out a lot more than they would otherwise need to do.

« Reply #29 on: August 04, 2018, 07:06 »
+1
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.

As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through.  Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy.  There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).

SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept.  No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.

« Reply #30 on: August 04, 2018, 08:25 »
+2
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.

As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through.  Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy.  There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).

SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept.  No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.
When you look at the numbers submitted the time allowed per image must be tiny. So that wouldn't surprise me. Ironically I think its probably those new to Mstock who suffer the most...when I started a had to learn a lot very quickly to get my pictures up to a decent technical standard even though  my friends etc thought I was a "good" photographer. Now people are happily uploading stuff that has close to zero chance of selling as its technically deficient.

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #31 on: August 04, 2018, 10:14 »
+1
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.

As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through.  Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy.  There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).

SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept.  No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.

Yes, I don't see why some people can't understand the difference, we'll all get rejections for nit picking legal reasons, and some of the worst crap in snapshots will get passed. No one gets a free pass and there aren't bots reviewing captions.

There's a computer pre-check for requirements, then it goes to humans. That simple. They have special propitiatory software for reviews that shows all kinds of information about the image, plus the caption and keywords, license, also photo measures. I still say it's easy for them to look, say "I don't know" and hit reject and get paid. So the people fighting the system who don't understand, add information to the caption like "shot from public property" or "public location POV" are just making their own life more difficult. The reviewers may be stupid and the legal dept may be overboard, but that's their choice. I can play with their rules or keep banging my head against the wall, because I'm getting stupid legal rejections.

Play the game by their rules, it's their agency.

Nearly nothing is rejected for quality anymore. It would have to be horrid. OK beyond horrid, I've seen some of the files that pass. Does anyone get a LCV rejection anymore? Remember when some were advocates of the Alamy system? If it's good enough quality, the content doesn't matter. Now some want to flip on that and complain about junk photos. Which is it? I hate the photo spam, but we can't have it both ways? At least Alamy used to restrict too many similar images.

When you look at the numbers submitted the time allowed per image must be tiny. So that wouldn't surprise me. Ironically I think its probably those new to Mstock who suffer the most...when I started a had to learn a lot very quickly to get my pictures up to a decent technical standard even though  my friends etc thought I was a "good" photographer. Now people are happily uploading stuff that has close to zero chance of selling as its technically deficient.

Sounds right also. Getting accepted is only the first step.  ;D There's no use in my mind, to waste time uploading images that have no chance of selling, much less, hundreds of the same subject. Personal choice, but I still make the best set and move on. Many are one, some are three shots. I have done bigger groups, but not often. Portfolio size doesn't matter if it's mostly Crapstock!


msg2018

« Reply #32 on: August 05, 2018, 11:36 »
0
They have special propitiatory software for reviews

I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 11:40 by msg2018 »

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2018, 12:23 »
0
They have special propitiatory software for reviews

I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.

 ;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...

Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.

But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.

How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.

I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal




memakephoto

« Reply #34 on: August 10, 2018, 08:06 »
+1
They have special propitiatory software for reviews

I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.

 ;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...

Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.

But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.

How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.

I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal

In your own post earlier you stated the SS collection has increased by 10 million images in 53 days. You also say they still reject images, in batches even, so what is the ratio? 1 to 1? For every image accepted there's one rejected? That would mean they receive around 20 million images in 53 days. That works out to a review pace of 15723 images per hour, 24 hours per day non stop. That would be 262 images per minute. If they had a review staff of 300 working in 8 hour shifts they would need to review about 27 images per minute each. About 1 image every 2 seconds. There's not much point even looking if you have to review an image in 2 seconds.

That pace will only increase and doesn't include video as you stated. I doubt most images are even seen by human eyes anymore.

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #35 on: August 10, 2018, 09:26 »
0
They have special propitiatory software for reviews

I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.

 ;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...

Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.

But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.

How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.

I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal

In your own post earlier you stated the SS collection has increased by 10 million images in 53 days. You also say they still reject images, in batches even, so what is the ratio? 1 to 1? For every image accepted there's one rejected? That would mean they receive around 20 million images in 53 days. That works out to a review pace of 15723 images per hour, 24 hours per day non stop. That would be 262 images per minute. If they had a review staff of 300 working in 8 hour shifts they would need to review about 27 images per minute each. About 1 image every 2 seconds. There's not much point even looking if you have to review an image in 2 seconds.

That pace will only increase and doesn't include video as you stated. I doubt most images are even seen by human eyes anymore.

I wish I knew the numbers, but I can see from complaints from people who are honest and that I trust, that the nit picking Editorial rejections are real. Rejections for other reasons are also wrong sometimes.

Hypothetical math logic doesn't prove the reviews are done by bots, but nice try.  :)

Images are checked by the system for size and color space, missing parts, corrupted files. (and maybe other physical attributes) How would a bot know if an image needs a release or not, or if the release was correct? How would a bot know a case number? How does a bot see a license number, house number, and reject or any other minor SS rules, a violation, like location or protected buildings or sites.

Yes, software could read for keywords and flag the image, so a reviewer (human) can reject. I think we need to be careful about keywords or risk rejections. How does a bot see a foreign word, when there are none? Hmm, must be a stupid human.

Bots would be consistent, right or wrong, but not upload one day, rejected, upload three days later = identical, and they are accepted. Humans are subjective, bots aren't. Rejection reasons change for the same image, how's that? A batch of images, taken on the same day, same site, get clusters of varied rejections, three for focus, next three for shadows, next three for who knows what. I think some reviewer is just making assorted rejections, so it doesn't look like they are just making quick money.

Good questions, how does SS or any other place, review 1 million images in a week? How many are actually rejected to get to that one million? And if I just accept your numbers, at 2 seconds an image, yes that's why we have such inconsistent reviews. Also right, video someone has to watch the whole thing, or maybe not. All a bot could do was see if it was whole or continuous, a human can see if someone slipped in a nude, suddenly out of context material, or a protected site?

Essentially there are many, many, reviewers, and many are probably barely trained while some are going to be incompetent. Lets assume the cheats or incompetent get replaced, that means more, new, inexperienced reviewers, who don't understand all the possibilities and err on the side of caution. We get rejected, they take their money, the system gets over burdened with second and third uploads of the same. And we as contributors are waiting our time re-submitting something that should have passed the first time!  >:( There are possibly also good, experienced, smart reviewers who zip through images at a fast pace, making good smart decisions.

Nope I'm still not buying into bots do the reviews just because there are so many files reviewed.

« Reply #36 on: August 10, 2018, 15:05 »
0
Certainly possible for bots to review editorial captions, check model releases have all the correct bits actually filled in and so on.

You CAN use AI fairly well to detect image noise, burnt out highlights and out of focus these days. Whether they do or not i don't know.  Adobe does - it gives you a warning of a possibly suspect image in your queue before submission.

I just don't see any actual person-looking-at-an-image going on in RF at all now.  Everything is accepted.  I can quite happily accept its less than 5 seconds for someone to "check" my image.

Also if they're using machine learning/AI it wont always necessarily be consistent between days or images.

nobody

« Reply #37 on: August 10, 2018, 15:38 »
+7
Milestones for SS:

1. Pay us less
2. Pay us even less than less
3. Pay us nothing (100% pure profit for SS and its shareholders)

 :(


rinderart

« Reply #38 on: August 12, 2018, 00:49 »
+8
many Im sure Know that I reviewed for 3 years 2004/2007 I did it because I was curious and because I wanted get a feel for what It was Like because originally it was research For our First book... . When I Started reviewing SS had About 350,000 Images. I reviewed for a competitor  and I did on average  1000 Images a day which took about 6 Hours and In those days ...sometimes we ran Out of Images with 12 reviewers working. And Had to wait... To be Honest it was quite a Interesting thing to do.It became extremely easy after a short time and you could see Issues in seconds and back then we could and did write Notes to submitters trying to help them which is probably where I got into the habit Of helping others. And you better believe Back then I saw things that would curl your Hair and other things that gave you Nightmares. Honestly.
Things that I could never/Ever discuss even today 10/11 years later.

My goal was about 10,000 Images a week and I was the top guy all the time. It took No Longer than 3/5 seconds to approve or reject.We were Paid quite well then considering. But More than anything Back in the day I got to learn A LOT!!!! Im shooting 60 Years But it taught me what to look for and i was grateful for that education and many things I knew But forgot.

Wanna know something Interesting??. Im seeing the exact same Images and subjects today. LOL

Phadrea

    This user is banned.
« Reply #39 on: August 13, 2018, 16:02 »
+3
Thanks SS, you succeeded in putting my earnings back to 2010 in 2 easy months.   Corporate clowns. >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #40 on: August 14, 2018, 02:23 »
0
What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.

Correct! supply way outstripping the demand!  been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money!  OUR assets!
They are only assets if someone wants to buy them.....I wonder when stockholders are going to look under the hood and wonder about these 100s of million "quality" assets that SS have. I'm guessing that 80% minimum have never sold.

It dont seem to work that way because when they went public they proclaimed they had so and so many milion assets and at that time it was the total amount of files at SS!!....majority of large buyers investors are not stock-photography orientated they simply invest and to these people the fact that its the photographers assets dont even come to mind!  they just see a number thats all!

« Reply #41 on: August 14, 2018, 02:41 »
0
What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.

Correct! supply way outstripping the demand!  been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money!  OUR assets!
They are only assets if someone wants to buy them.....I wonder when stockholders are going to look under the hood and wonder about these 100s of million "quality" assets that SS have. I'm guessing that 80% minimum have never sold.

It dont seem to work that way because when they went public they proclaimed they had so and so many milion assets and at that time it was the total amount of files at SS!!....majority of large buyers investors are not stock-photography orientated they simply invest and to these people the fact that its the photographers assets dont even come to mind!  they just see a number thats all!
It will only be when/if  the investors spot that profits are declining and wonder why they will start looking more closely or they might just walk. As you say SS or any other stock company don't really have any saleable  assets of their own...


« Reply #42 on: August 14, 2018, 06:41 »
0
Milestones for SS:

1. Pay us less
2. Pay us even less than less
3. Pay us nothing (100% pure profit for SS and its shareholders)

 :(

4. Charge contributors a nominal account maintenance fee for the privilege of accessing their marketplace.

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #43 on: September 26, 2018, 09:30 »
0
Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018

« Reply #44 on: September 26, 2018, 09:56 »
0
Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #45 on: September 26, 2018, 10:21 »
+2
Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).

Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!

September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)

February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)

Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that?  ::)



dpimborough

« Reply #46 on: September 26, 2018, 10:33 »
+1
Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).

Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!

September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)

February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)

Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that?  ::)



Ah so thats how trains make little trains :D

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #47 on: September 27, 2018, 12:00 »
0
Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).

Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!

September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)

February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)

Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that?  ::)



Ah so thats how trains make little trains :D

Very good, I always wondered where they came from.  ;D



« Reply #48 on: October 17, 2018, 05:13 »
0
For those interested in video content growth on Shutterstock, these are the (advertised) total video files, in October, from the last five years:

10/2014   -   2,081,208
10/2015   -   3,326,309  (63% increase)
10/2016   -   5,416,462  (61% increase)
10/2017   -   8,306,500  (65% increase)
10/2018   -   "over 12,000,000" (>69% increase)

(using "https://www.shutterstock.com/video" via https://web.archive.org)

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #49 on: November 16, 2018, 10:10 »
0
Hey, tried to sneak one past me, didn't they?

Nov. 12th 2018 231 Million images on Shutterstock.


 

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