Author Topic: IPTC Info - How much of it should I fill out? (Read 3045 times)

Lincoln · « **on:** September 08, 2007, 22:15 »

I've been filling out the Description and Keyword portions of IPTC, but I noticed there's about ohhh, a billion or more fields you can fill out as well.

Some of them even require knowledge of the proper codes to help define whether it's a scenic, portrait, etc type of photo.

I don't want to waste too much time on IPTC, so how much of it should I really bother to fill out?

pr2is · « **Reply #1 on:** September 08, 2007, 22:57 »

Fill out Title, description and keywords. If Description field has camera brand in it by default, make sure you erase it. The rest just leave as it is.

hatman12 · « **Reply #2 on:** September 08, 2007, 23:37 »

Have you been accepted yet Lincoln?

Lincoln · « **Reply #3 on:** September 09, 2007, 00:04 »

Quote from: hatman12 on September 08, 2007, 23:37

Have you been accepted yet Lincoln?

I currently have two images accepted to iStock, but I'm planning on doing a few more photo "expeditions" so I have a really GOOD third one I can use to upload for the third sample. The last few samples I tried kept getting rejected, so I want to be careful this time before I reach their quota of rejections and have to start all over again.

Shutterstock REALLY pissed me off though. They rejected EVERY single one of my photos, including the ones accepted by iStock, without giving ANY explanation as to why. I sent them an email about a week ago and they just blew me off. I just wanted to know what the problem was with the photos so I could learn from it and learn where I needed to make improvements for next time. It was suspicious because I uploaded the 10 photos on a Sunday evening, and I got a response barely two hours later indicating that all my photos were rejected. Really, that fast huh?

At least iStock gave me detailed explanations that made sense to me and were very helpful. Shutterstock just basically flipped me the bird. I don't think I'm going to reapply to them either, even if they are more traditionally lucrative than other microstock agencies.

I did get accepted to Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc, without any problems though.

Dreamstime was weird though, apparently I can only upload one photo at a time.

hatman12 · « **Reply #4 on:** September 09, 2007, 00:19 »

Shutterstock usually review images within a few hours, so that's normal.

Take a look at your rejection mail again. You have to get I think seven or eight accepted out of the ten. You might find several of the images don't have any rejection explanation - that's because they didn't bother looking at them once you'd had the maximum failures.

Shutterstock have 71,000 contributing photographers and the lowest acceptance rate down at 40% or so.

Lincoln · « **Reply #5 on:** September 09, 2007, 00:51 »

Quote from: hatman12 on September 09, 2007, 00:19

Shutterstock usually review images within a few hours, so that's normal.

Take a look at your rejection mail again. You have to get I think seven or eight accepted out of the ten. You might find several of the images don't have any rejection explanation - that's because they didn't bother looking at them once you'd had the maximum failures.

Shutterstock have 71,000 contributing photographers and the lowest acceptance rate down at 40% or so.

I read on their site that they review every photo regardless of whether it meets the quota or not. I also read though that they sometimes experience glitches where all photos are rejected without anyone reviewing them, but once support was notified you could immediately resubmit again. I don't think this was the case for me, or I would have heard something by now.

Here's my list of rejections:

Quote

ID Status
------------------------
5061175 Rejected:
5061178 Rejected:
5061181 Rejected:
5061184 Rejected:
5061187 Rejected:
5061190 Rejected:
5061193 Rejected:
5061196 Rejected:
5061199 Rejected:
5061202 Rejected:

Regards,
Shutterstock Support

Well I certainly learned a lot about where my photos were lacking.

pr2is · « **Reply #6 on:** September 09, 2007, 01:09 »

Lincoln,

providing it was not a glitch and your photos were rejected for a reason that somehow didn't get conveyed, I wanted to comment on the rest of your reaction.

SS didn't flip you a bird, they didn't blow you off and there is nothing to be pissed off about. There was nothing personal tyoward you in their rejection. They simply work as a well-oiled machine. You submit images, they review them and reject or acept them according to their standards (and, to certain degree, to particular reviewer take on some borderline photos - but that is true for all agencies). Noone looks at them and says "hey, this is that Lincoln guy, lets whack him on a head". 2 hours response is normal for them, too.

It's the best moneymaker for most submitters. Taking it personally and refusing to deal with them anymore is detrimental to you only, not in the least to them. They also do not consider themselves being in a business of educating photographers - there are enough resouirses for that including their forums where your images will be analyzed and mistakes explained should you post them asking for help.

Rejection, and multiple rejection before getting in is rather norm for SS. many went through that, me included. Eventual acceptance was totally worth the effort in two aspects. First, I learned a lot while trying to improve my photos to match their standards. Second, in two month they made me more moneythan any of other agencies in five.

You are allowing your ego to govern your reaction in a situation that doesn't warrant ego intrusion. So, it's up to you now to go ahead and improve what you do or remain pissed off and with skills that are not up to par.

Lincoln · « **Reply #7 on:** September 09, 2007, 01:14 »

Quote from: pr2is on September 09, 2007, 01:09

It's the best moneymaker for most submitters. Taking it personally and refusing to deal with them anymore is detrimental to you only, not in the least to them. They also do not consider themselves being in a business of educating photographers - there are enough resouirses for that including their forums where your images will be analyzed and mistakes explained should you post them asking for help.

There's still a stark contrast between my abrupt experience with them and with iStock. iStock was very thorough in the review process, so I had expected that Shutterstock would be the same way. Obviously not.

I guess I was spoiled by iStock's hand-holding.

leaf · « **Reply #8 on:** September 09, 2007, 03:41 »

Quote from: pr2is on September 09, 2007, 01:09

Lincoln,
They also do not consider themselves being in a business of educating photographers - there are enough resouirses for that including their forums where your images will be analyzed and mistakes explained should you post them asking for help.

... Or the forums here. Post three of your images (preferably with some 100% crops) and we can give you some feedback.

sharply_done · « **Reply #9 on:** September 09, 2007, 04:00 »

Quote from: hatman12 on September 09, 2007, 00:19

Shutterstock have 71,000 contributing photographers and the lowest acceptance rate down at 40% or so.

I'm surprised by this figure - I find SS the easiest-going stock agency. At times I feel that I can submit almost anything to them without fear of rejection.

That being said, I've heard plenty of stories similar to this. I think they've raised the entry bar higher than the one for those already "in the club".

sharply_done · « **Reply #10 on:** September 09, 2007, 04:06 »

Quote from: leaf on September 09, 2007, 03:41

Quote from: pr2is on September 09, 2007, 01:09
Lincoln,
They also do not consider themselves being in a business of educating photographers - there are enough resouirses for that including their forums where your images will be analyzed and mistakes explained should you post them asking for help.
... Or the forums here. Post three of your images (preferably with some 100% crops) and we can give you some feedback.

I know it's easy to say, but you shouldn't take the rejection personally, Lincoln - they merely evaluated the commercial value of the images you supplied as it pertains to their clientele; they weren't making any sort of judgement on your photographic abilities at all.

This place has a very good wealth of knowledge in all areas of stock photography - you should strongly consider leaf's advice.

hatman12 · « **Reply #11 on:** September 09, 2007, 06:06 »

The 40% number was given to Lee Torrens when he did his recent 'acceptance rate survey'. I'm simply quoting his figure. The 40% does actually relate to all submissions, which just goes to show how many tens of thousands of images they reject each week.

If you consider that last week they increased their library by 30,000, at the same time they would have rejected 45,000. Seems like an incredible waste of time and money to me; perhaps one day they'll start to cancel accounts for those who regularly get very high rejection rates.

I think it was over on the Dreamstime forums a few weeks ago when I read a post by Achilles who said someone had submitted 1504 images in a batch and got them ALL rejected.....

leaf · « **Reply #12 on:** September 09, 2007, 10:23 »

yeah i wouldn't be surprised if agencies started doing this. Rejections cost the company money as well - to make a more efficient system they should have the best submitting photographers possible.

- i guess this is what some companies have sort of started doing, by limiting your upload amount by your acceptance level.

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #13 on:** September 09, 2007, 11:11 »

The 40% figure came from this interview. Shutterstock, along with 123rf, are the only ones that won't talk to me directly

Most agencies pay around the 5c figure per review, regardless of the outcome. So that person who uploaded 1504 cost Dreamstime $75 to reject, not to mention the bandwidth and storage costs. That's an extreme example, but if you apply the same rate to the 45,000 hatman12 estimated Shutterstock rejected in a week, that's $2,000 a week for rejections. Relatively speaking, that figure isn't a major issue for the established and successful agencies.

But I also agree with Leaf. Agencies are starting to throttle back on the weaker contributors, both by limiting their upload quantity and penalizing their images' position in the search results.

As the quality of images at microstock agencies increases it'll be interesting to see if the open model of microstock starts to close off and evolve back toward the exclusive domain of the elite like the former macrostock market.

leaf · « **Reply #14 on:** September 09, 2007, 11:32 »

Quote from: Lee Torrens on September 09, 2007, 11:11

But I also agree with Leaf. Agencies are starting to throttle back on the weaker contributors, both by limiting their upload quantity and penalizing their images' position in the search results.

do you think they are penalizing poor photographers in the search - for their whole portfolio, or just on a per image basis??? If they penalize the whole portfolio I should have two accounts. One for images that i know are great and another account for mediocre images.

Lincoln · « **Reply #15 on:** September 09, 2007, 12:40 »

Quote from: sharply_done on September 09, 2007, 04:06

I know it's easy to say, but you shouldn't take the rejection personally, Lincoln - they merely evaluated the commercial value of the images you supplied as it pertains to their clientele; they weren't making any sort of judgement on your photographic abilities at all.

Well that''s the thing, were they all rejected because SS thought they won't sell, or for technical reasons? I thought SS would simply review the technical quality of my photo samples. If it's commercial value they're concerned about, then I could try taking the kind of photos they're looking for and use those for samples instead. For technical quality I'll just have to rely on iStock and this board's input. It'll probably take me about a month to come up with ten new photos that SS will like.... just in time to apply again.

There seems to be a lot of good people here so I think I will upload the samples here first to get everyone's input before I apply to SS again.

hospitalera · « **Reply #16 on:** September 09, 2007, 13:04 »

As there is no reason at all given I am pretty sure that it is a glitch! The most effective is writing friendly and without any capital letters a message in the forum>Bug/Glitches asking if that might have been a glitch/ mistake.

A "normal" rejection email gives always reasons for at least 3 of the 10 images. And, contrary to public opinion, all 10 get looked at. That has been stated over and over by ShutterStock admins in their forum. Hope that helps, SY

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #17 on:** September 09, 2007, 13:15 »

Quote from: leaf on September 09, 2007, 11:32

do you think they are penalizing poor photographers in the search - for their whole portfolio, or just on a per image basis??? If they penalize the whole portfolio I should have two accounts. One for images that i know are great and another account for mediocre images.

Yeah, Dreamstime have done so since implementing their search engine 2.0. Details.

hatman12 · « **Reply #18 on:** September 09, 2007, 13:28 »

No, Lincoln, every agency will reject pictures on the grounds of not 'being commercial'. After all, they are in the business of selling pictures......

leaf · « **Reply #19 on:** September 09, 2007, 14:00 »

Quote from: Lee Torrens on September 09, 2007, 13:15

Quote from: leaf on September 09, 2007, 11:32

do you think they are penalizing poor photographers in the search - for their whole portfolio, or just on a per image basis??? If they penalize the whole portfolio I should have two accounts. One for images that i know are great and another account for mediocre images.

Yeah, Dreamstime have done so since implementing their search engine 2.0. Details.

I disagree hospitalera. I read your news article, then went over to the dreamstime thread you linked to and found this

Quote

The search takes into account the quality of the image, performance of the contributor, exclusivity, buyers experience, editors opinion and many others. Because editors or contributors may be subjective, we let the customers' experience play the most important role and improve the ranking. We believe it to be 100% objective in regards to the stock value of an image.

I can tell you that each image is unique, we don't do any favors photographer-based. The relevance of the results is image-based and according to the community's

In the first post by Achilles - THREAD LINK

which to me seems like the search is based on a per image bases and not on an approval rating

hospitalera · « **Reply #20 on:** September 09, 2007, 14:16 »

Quote from: Lee Torrens on September 09, 2007, 11:11

The 40% figure came from this interview.

Several things in this interview seem strange to me:

"Shutterstock now has 60,000 members who are all amateur photographers. " I seriously doubt that Jon would call Yuri, Andresr, Lev Dolgachov, Kirsty Pargeter etc etc etc "amateurs"

"I don't really have to do a lot of marketing because we are a subscription service." Huch???

There is a lot more stuff in this interview that doesn't sound right to me and I simply don't believe that Jon ever gave and/ or authorized it.

I am certainly not familiar with zero.newassignment but had a look around the site and it doesn't strike me as a source of information that I would trust, just my 2cents. SY