MicrostockGroup

Hello, I currently submit images to 6 websites and it has becomes quite the process. Here's what I do:

1. After I save my image, I enter it into my spreadsheet along with the keywords. That way I can copy/paste the keywords to the sites after uploading.
2.  I open 6 tabs in Firefox, open all of the websites and upload to all the sites at the time.
3. Whatever website uploads first, I will enter all of the information and submit. Repeat for the rest.

It takes me a little time to figure out the perfect categories. Luckily some of my sites don't require them.

When I think about each step that I take, it doesn't seem like it takes a long time, but when I take into account the entire process, it can take 45 minutes+ just to upload a handful of pics.

Are you all using FTP?
-OR - Are some of you skipping the categories?

I don't mind putting the time in if that's how it is, but I just have a feeling that everyone else has a much simpler process.

Thank you!

You know, that's what I thought re: categories. I bought stock photography back when I was in the marketing business and I knew what I was looking for most of the time and keywords were a lot better for me than going through the categories.

Besides - I thought about all the photographers that upload 100+ images at a time and could not imagine them going in and selecting multiple categories for them all. Especially on multiple sites.

Thank you for the advice. I think I'll try and FTP a bunch. Also, Photoshop allows IPTC so I will try that as well.  Thanks again!

This sounds like traveling from Paris to London by Vladivostok. Why don't you put your title, description and keywords in the IPTC? It's all imported then at the sites, you don't have to copypaste, and you don't need to maintain a spreadsheet. Irfanview (free, make sure you install the plugins too) is fine for that and it can treat images in batches too.
Upload: FTP. Filezilla (free) allows to upload/queue to several sites at the same time if you use the Site Manager.
iStock: Deepmeta.

I'll look into that. Thanks!

Yep it is a complicated process sometimes!

I've recently added a whole lot more channels to my distribution, am focusing more on Alamy, and now also sell images directly through my website, so have had to change my whole workflow.

A summary can be found here:

http://www.veoelmundo.com/photography/camera/E30_microstock_workflow_pt3_raw_post_processing

Basically with my new system I have a workflow that suits my needs - it uses mainly lightweight applications, means that all my JPGs are backed up in 3 different online locations and am really only uploading each image once, which is critical for me because bandwidth is usually slow - and I'm going to be in Africa next year, which will be even slower from what I'm told...

holgs - I love your website! Thank you for sharing your workflow.

I'm on a PC and I couldn't find anything on the add-on page about Mac. Perhaps someone else would know about the Mac capabilities?

if you use lightroom, you can enter the keywords, title and description already there, and then when uploaded they will appear.