Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

stockperformer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 230 posts

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#101

Post by whywhywhywhy »

two_in_one wrote: post #15

Like it or not, it's here like CGI in movies bestsellers. I don't envy artists, most of them will have to rethink their plans and switch to graphics or web designers, or something similar. Not sure who will be next. Probably GPT will take over virtual bookshelves on Amazon. Mandatory "AI generated" mark may help a bit. I will not waste my time reading it. I think we should expect a flood of "masterpieces" in differen…

> Mandatory "AI generated" mark may help a bit

This will never happen, promise you that a major CGI sequence will ship completely AI generated in a Marvel movie within 3 years. This tech will be so integrated into workflows of Disney and the like that the idea of an "AI Generated" watermark will be as ridiculous to them as a "3D Rendered" watermark and if any legislation comes about they'll be against it.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#102

Post by hentrep »

jonplackett wrote: post #18

The increase in income during a recession is because people are choosing stock instead of going and doing a photo shoot themselves. Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. So I don’t think that means it’s future proof in any way. On the contrary it means that the same cost-saving decision will be made again and there’ll be a move to AI images when they are slightly more mature - ie wh…

>Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "safest" vs shooting your own?

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#103

Post by mym1990 »

wnkrshm wrote: post #28
harry8 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The photographers who took those stock photos also trained on stock photos.

The difference is that now only the owner of a machine profits where before lots of individuals profited. More power to the owners, I guess.

What? Do photographers not need a camera, at times costing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars when including lenses…to make that stock photography?

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#105

Post by donkeyd »

hentrep wrote: post #102
jonplackett wrote: post #18

The increase in income during a recession is because people are choosing stock instead of going and doing a photo shoot themselves. Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. So I don’t think that means it’s future proof in any way. On the contrary it means that the same cost-saving decision will be made again and there’ll be a move to AI images when they are slightly more mature - ie wh…

>Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "safest" vs shooting your own?

No risk of investing money in studio time and equipment with the result being sub-par. You see what you pay for before you actually pay.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#106

Post by TheRealPomax »

hentrep wrote: post #102
jonplackett wrote: post #18

The increase in income during a recession is because people are choosing stock instead of going and doing a photo shoot themselves. Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. So I don’t think that means it’s future proof in any way. On the contrary it means that the same cost-saving decision will be made again and there’ll be a move to AI images when they are slightly more mature - ie wh…

>Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "safest" vs shooting your own?

You already know what you get with stock images. When you do a shoot, it's not a sure bet that you're even going to get the images you wanted or needed.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#108

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

If you haven't tried to purchase a stock photo recently, it is incredibly difficult. I can order same day delivery of physical goods from Amazon much faster than trying to buy a single stock photo. All of the services are subscriptions now and they have dark UX patterns to convince you the only way to get the images is to sign up for an annual plan that will auto-renew.

In comparison, typing a prompt into a generative AI is a superior user experience. I'm willing to pay a photographer, they just don't make it easy.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#109

Post by shagie »

buildbot wrote: post #4
ksaj wrote: post #2

I had to put together a presentation that was somewhat graphic-heavy. I used Dall-e 2, and the ability to get things so tailored to what I needed, so quickly, was absolutely worth it. I don't know if AI will replace stock photography, but I wouldn't bet against it. The ability to charge a high price for stock photography is over though.

Has been for a long time from what I have gathered. Stock photography has been a very hard way to make money as a photographer for awhile based on the forums I read.

When I looked at stock photography as a possible side income, licensing my photographs (those that Getty wanted - they didn't care for most of them because they were more artistic than stock) would have gotten pennies for each photograph.

I can certainly appreciate those who take stock photography (and I've seen some of them in my travels - taking 100s photos of slightly different poses of a model at a location because the stock buyer could say "I like this one but the arm is in the wrong spot for the page layout" and go with someone else's photograph).

Being a stock photographer has never been easy. In the days before digital it represented countless rolls of film shot (and processed at the photographer's expense) and now its even more digital images to ensure that you've got just the right one for some client a few years from now.

It's not an easy job and no one has gotten rich off of it.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#110

Post by ghaff »

ksaj wrote: post #2

I had to put together a presentation that was somewhat graphic-heavy. I used Dall-e 2, and the ability to get things so tailored to what I needed, so quickly, was absolutely worth it. I don't know if AI will replace stock photography, but I wouldn't bet against it. The ability to charge a high price for stock photography is over though.

I haven't had to put together a new graphics-heavy presentation recently but in the future I could absolutely see using AI to augment Creative Commons and various graphs etc. from the Web. (I don't really use stock photos because I don't have a budget.)

As things stand, I would still probably use stock for "official" company marketing materials although I understand that some companies, especially smaller ones, are probably less risk adverse.

Post reply on HN