AI selling experience?

[spiegel]

With AI slowly becoming a serious add-on option to image creation, does anyone here have any experience selling AI content on Alamy?

[Robert M Estall]

Nobody seems to be replying. Your Ai offerings are more akin to illustration than photography so avoid the Alamy advice on over manipulation. There are quite a few portfolios featuring illustrations but I don't think I have ever seen examples on the "images sold" threads so no idea how this works out on Alamy. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Robert M Estall

[Steve F]

Not many of us do it (yet). A better question - have you seen any published uses of AI imagery? Is there more published than previously?

[Martin L]

Can't see why anyone would buy AI generated imagery when the whole point is that they can generate it themselves using easily available software 

[Marianne]

6 hours ago, Martin L said:

Can't see why anyone would buy AI generated imagery when the whole point is that they can generate it themselves using easily available software 

 

It takes a lot of tweaking to make a decent image. The images are also extremely small, so you need decent software to increase the resolution. Besides, stock imagery is generally so inexpensive that it's probably not worth a business owner's time and effort.  You also get a very limited amount of tries for free, then you pay for more.

 

On the other hand, if you're an art director with a strong conceptual sense, I suppose using AI yourself might be intriguing. 

 

I played with both Dall-E & midjourney a little, with mixed results. I mostly played around with some fantasy concepts that I thought my grandson would enjoy but I did upload a few New Years Eve illustrations to an agency actively sourcing AI imagery. Sales of such a time-limited concept aren't really representative, but the new illustrations I made myself this year were licensed, the AI weren't, FWIW. 

 

In looking at that site's most popular images today, there was an AI Easter Bunny on page one. It was really scary looking and not the kind of illustration that would give you that warm fuzzy feeling bunnies usually engender. 

 

8 hours ago, Steve F said:

Not many of us do it (yet). A better question - have you seen any published uses of AI imagery? Is there more published than previously?

 

Only thing I've seen published was that prize-winning image from some state fair photo contest, generated by midjourney, which I believe was shared in another post here. 

[Jill Morgan]

I use MIdjourney.  I pay.  It does take a lot to get a decent image.  Especially if you are looking for something a little different.  I use it to put on my products that I make.  The images usually end up in Photoshop for lots of tweaking before I'm happy.

 

Haven't thought of uploading any to Alamy.  Not sure if I would bother, but then, you never know.

 

This is one I worked on today to put on a tote bag.  I'm off to a dog show tomorrow morning, so making up new stock.

 

 

[spiegel]

12 hours ago, Martin L said:

Can't see why anyone would buy AI generated imagery when the whole point is that they can generate it themselves using easily available software 

 

That's right, I have to agree with you.
However, this sentence is also true:

"Can't see why anyone would buy camera generated imagery when the whole point is that they can generate it themselves using a modern camera" 

Pick up the camera and press the button. Very easy and fast.

 

I actually made my first AIs in just in a few minutes when I was new to the software. In the meantime I've come a little further and sometimes it takes hours to go from an idea for a picture to an acceptable result. Sometimes I don't get the result at all.
In fact, it takes a lot of effort to create an AI image that suits your imagination. The process is similar to trying to describe a photo very precisely to a blind former professional photographer, with all the details, including lighting, exposure, DOF, etc..

 

The keyword "generative AI" returns almost 230,000 hits on Alamy. That's why I was interested in how sales are developing.

[Harry Harrison]

2 hours ago, spiegel said:

The keyword "generative AI" returns almost 230,000 hits on Alamy

Interesting, I'd never heard of the phrase 'generative AI' until you mentioned it, but you're right of course.

 

Right now there are 232,374 results of that search on Alamy of which 7 are in Ultimate, 23,992 in Vital, 57,899 in Foundation and 149,661 left over in Uncut. Rather surprisingly there are also 807 in Editorial. All the ones that I spot-checked have 'Digitally altered' as 'Unknown', presumably because in recent years there has been no way of entering that parameter in AIM.

 

There must be a lot more where the word 'generative' hasn't been used as well.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Harry Harrison

[Allan Bell]

6 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

I use MIdjourney.  I pay.  It does take a lot to get a decent image.  Especially if you are looking for something a little different.  I use it to put on my products that I make.  The images usually end up in Photoshop for lots of tweaking before I'm happy.

 

Haven't thought of uploading any to Alamy.  Not sure if I would bother, but then, you never know.

 

This is one I worked on today to put on a tote bag.  I'm off to a dog show tomorrow morning, so making up new stock.

 

 

 

Midjourny has been mentioned in a new topic.

 

 

Allan

 

[StokeCreative]

 

Before becoming an educator I was an Industrial Designer, so have thrown some product design prompts into MidJourney.

 

Results are superficially impressive, great for initial ideation (when you are stuck for inspiration) but lacking in real detail, and fidelity of the image and the design. Upscaling works (I use Gigapixel) but it also magnifies the errors so would need a lot of Photoshopping. It will get better, and one day it might create people that dont have 6 mangled fingers!

 

I'm encouraging my students to embrace it in the ideation process (students in ID, Graphics, Illustration, textiles etc ) but to use it as a tool, and don't submit any AI as a finished design. Hard to police, but they will use it anyway.

 

Ultimately pretty pictures dont make somebody a designer!

 

HUGH

 

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[Jill Morgan]

I don't know how many photo editors are going to try to generate their images via AI.  At least for the near future.  Real ones are so cheap, why waste time and resources on generating your own when click a download and you have what you are looking for?  Still more of a resource for the suppliers than the buyers.

 

I may upload some.  More realistic than the one I posted, but not photographic, more on the illustration side. 

 

It can actually be quite addicting.  You can truly let your imagination run away with you.

 

Jill

[Martin L]

Still disagree. At the moment you may have to tweak but the software will get better.

Looking for images you still have to enter a search term and then filter through possibly hundreds looking for the exact thing you want.

Soon all you will have to do is enter that same search term, with a bit of expansion, in some AI software and it will be created for you.

Time spent spooling through hundreds of irrelevant badly keyworded images or time spent tweaking a command to get exactly what you want.

6 hours ago, spiegel said:

 

"Can't see why anyone would buy camera generated imagery when the whole point is that they can generate it themselves using a modern camera" 

Pick up the camera and press the button. Very easy and fast.

Seriously???!! If you can't see the difference.....

[Jill Morgan]

32 minutes ago, Martin L said:

Still disagree. At the moment you may have to tweak but the software will get better.

Looking for images you still have to enter a search term and then filter through possibly hundreds looking for the exact thing you want.

Soon all you will have to do is enter that same search term, with a bit of expansion, in some AI software and it will be created for you.

Time spent spooling through hundreds of irrelevant badly keyworded images or time spent tweaking a command to get exactly what you want.

Seriously???!! If you can't see the difference.....

 

I don't know if you have used Midjourney. There are others, but Midjourney is the best.  There are even some free ones.

 

I buy images and rarely have to spend more than 10-15 minutes finding the one I want. Usually a lot quicker.

 

Generating an AI image (at least for now) requires a lot of exact parameters to get what you are looking for.  It takes time (depending on how busy the servers are).  The more parameters you have, the longer it takes for the images to appear.  You may have to redo a number of times to get what you are looking for. And then some work in photoshop. At least for now. 

 

Took me about half an hour to get the lab under water image.  I have some that have never come up with what I want after a number of tries.  And you are paying for server time.  The better quality you want, the more you pay.

 

Who knows what is coming down the pike.  Only time will tell.

 

Jill

[Martin L]

But that is the point.

You got EXACTLY what you wanted.

Your 15 mins of searching didn't satisfy what you wanted so you generated what you wanted with a bit of extra effort.

The OP wanted to know if AI images sold.

Would somebody else's AI generated image have satisfied your 'lab underwater' idea?

Probably not as that came from your imagination, your idea and AI allowed you to create it the 'exact' way you wanted rather than compromise on somebody else's image.

 

 

[Jill Morgan]

2 minutes ago, Martin L said:

But that is the point.

You got EXACTLY what you wanted.

Your 15 mins of searching didn't satisfy what you wanted so you generated what you wanted with a bit of extra effort.

The OP wanted to know if AI images sold.

Would somebody else's AI generated image have satisfied your 'lab underwater' idea?

Probably not as that came from your imagination, your idea and AI allowed you to create it the 'exact' way you wanted rather than compromise on somebody else's image.

 

 

 

Searching wouldn't find what I wanted in this respect as it is arty, not photographic.  When I am looking for photos, it is much faster just buying those,  

 

Jill

[spiegel]

14 minutes ago, Martin L said:

..

The OP wanted to know if AI images sold.

...

That is not entirely true. I am interested in whether there is already relevant experience for sales via Alamy. Since the number of sales at Alamy is relatively small, it is difficult to draw conclusions only from one's own experience.
That AI images sell quite well, I know from another agency where my images are. In relation to the share of AI images in my overall portfolio, the number of sales there is comparatively high.
 

[Martin L]

10 minutes ago, spiegel said:

That is not entirely true. I am interested in whether there is already relevant experience for sales via Alamy. Since the number of sales at Alamy is relatively small, it is difficult to draw conclusions only from one's own experience.
That AI images sell quite well, I know from another agency where my images are. In relation to the share of AI images in my overall portfolio, the number of sales there is comparatively high.
 

I only refer to Alamy when posting on the Alamy forum so it was entirely true