MicrostockGroup

I read somewhere that the stocksites want "IPTC" keywording... But my favorite software right now is Windows Live Photo Gallery, which I understand uses "XMP" for keywording instead of "IPTC".

Is that a problem? Do I have to dump WLPG and go ahead and get some "real software" now?

This is not as clear-cut as some may think... the specifications ofr IPTC and XMP are inter-related... e.g. from iptc.org: "The IPTC Core standard defines the same set of photo metadata fields as used from IIM but its technical implementation is builds on Adobe's XMP technology."

The other question I have is... How do you organize your photos if you're not allowed to have extraneous tags? For instance, if I submit a photo to shutterstock I'd like to tag it "submitted-shutterstock". I assume they would reject this. How do you manage your collection if you cannot use tags for that purpose?

Thanks

I organize my photos in folders.

If I create 10 stock images, I put copies of each file in a folder for each site.  So if I have 5 sites I upload to, I'll put those 10 images in each of the 5 folders.  When I upload the image to site X I delete it from the site X folder.  to save space, instead of putting actual copies of each image in the site folders I just put shortcuts to the image.