4 ms·

I've noticed recently almost all broad searches on image search return watermarked stock photos. It's terrible. The entire stock photo industry is so bad at cr

I've noticed recently almost all broad searches on image search return watermarked stock photos. It's terrible. The entire stock photo industry is so bad at creativity you can basically instantly tell if a photo is a stock photo, making anyone using them look like a complete fool. Anyway, they either have some serious legal issues with image search or they are becoming precautionary, but it's becoming almost impossible to find decent images.

Spooky23 4y ago
After they were sued a few years ago, Google seems to have neglected this product. Bing is way better.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  It's a common pattern... No good engineer wants to work on a product with their feet stuck in legal quicksand. So all the good engineers leave, and the product stagnates with no direction. Even if the lawsuit is won, the product is still doomed.
CamelCaseName 4y ago
With any luck DALL-E will undo this. What if one day every Google search has an "auto-generated" panel of images as well?
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  IMO, DALL-E suffers from the same problem because it's been trained on the very same boring stock photos.
Kye 4y ago
>> "The entire stock photo industry is so bad at creativity you can basically instantly tell if a photo is a stock photo, making anyone using them look like a complete fool." Only the bad, outdated stock photos. There is still a whole market for the "obviously corporate corporate website" corporate website, but that's falling out of fashion. What you're thinking of are the bland, white backgrounded photos and photos shot in stale, generic office settings so they could be worked into any design. That's not really how it's done anymore. Modern stuff doesn't look posed and staged, and often isn't.
- dylan604 4y ago
  In stock photography, if there are people in it, they can only make money on that image if there are signed model releases. If you have signed model releases, it is staged and posed. Sure, someone could take a candid image and then after the fact attempt to gain releases. However, that's not workflow with a high margin of success. At that point, the "model" has all of the power. Also, crowd shots in public streets blah blah.
  - hansvm 4y ago
    W8 Y? At least in the US I'm generally free to photograph and video anyone I'd like, own the rights to said media, and and do whatever I'd like with it outside of a few explicitly carved out scenarios like fraud or using images of somebody whose career is also their image. Are stock photos one of those carveouts?
bityard 4y ago
> you can basically instantly tell if a photo is a stock photo, making anyone using them look like a complete fool I find this to be a highly interesting take... The whole point of stock photography is that you can buy images to use various projects, quite often one-off or short-term ones. Because for the project, taking your own photos or paying a photographer to take them would be too expensive or time-consuming relative to the estimated value and return of the project. I feel like once someone has made the decision to buy or use a stock photo, they have already decided where they want to stand on the scale of authenticity and originality. Deliberately seeking out "stock photos that don't look like stock photos" just sounds too much like trying to be something you're not.
fomine3 4y ago
They were lawsuited https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google-removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

Spooky23 4y ago

After they were sued a few years ago, Google seems to have neglected this product. Bing is way better.

londons_explore 4y ago
It's a common pattern... No good engineer wants to work on a product with their feet stuck in legal quicksand. So all the good engineers leave, and the product stagnates with no direction. Even if the lawsuit is won, the product is still doomed.

CamelCaseName 4y ago

With any luck DALL-E will undo this. What if one day every Google search has an "auto-generated" panel of images as well?

sdflhasjd 4y ago
IMO, DALL-E suffers from the same problem because it's been trained on the very same boring stock photos.

Kye 4y ago

>> "The entire stock photo industry is so bad at creativity you can basically instantly tell if a photo is a stock photo, making anyone using them look like a complete fool." Only the bad, outdated stock photos. There is still a whole market for the "obviously corporate corporate website" corporate website, but that's falling out of fashion. What you're thinking of are the bland, white backgrounded photos and photos shot in stale, generic office settings so they could be worked into any design. That's not really how it's done anymore. Modern stuff doesn't look posed and staged, and often isn't.

dylan604 4y ago
In stock photography, if there are people in it, they can only make money on that image if there are signed model releases. If you have signed model releases, it is staged and posed. Sure, someone could take a candid image and then after the fact attempt to gain releases. However, that's not workflow with a high margin of success. At that point, the "model" has all of the power. Also, crowd shots in public streets blah blah.
- hansvm 4y ago
  W8 Y? At least in the US I'm generally free to photograph and video anyone I'd like, own the rights to said media, and and do whatever I'd like with it outside of a few explicitly carved out scenarios like fraud or using images of somebody whose career is also their image. Are stock photos one of those carveouts?

bityard 4y ago

> you can basically instantly tell if a photo is a stock photo, making anyone using them look like a complete fool I find this to be a highly interesting take... The whole point of stock photography is that you can buy images to use various projects, quite often one-off or short-term ones. Because for the project, taking your own photos or paying a photographer to take them would be too expensive or time-consuming relative to the estimated value and return of the project. I feel like once someone has made the decision to buy or use a stock photo, they have already decided where they want to stand on the scale of authenticity and originality. Deliberately seeking out "stock photos that don't look like stock photos" just sounds too much like trying to be something you're not.

fomine3 4y ago

They were lawsuited https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google-removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...