MicrostockGroup

Hi All –
This past weekend we pushed a release live on Veer that includes enhancements on both the customer and contributor sides of the site.

For customers:

-   New contextual FAQs to aid customers across the site
-   Search enhancements to improve performance
-   New search sort option: “Price: Highest to Lowest”
-   A new “Free” landing page aggregating our free content like images and illustrations of the week, wallpapers, screensavers and more

For contributors:

-   New footer on contributor pages with shortcuts to key areas of the site
-   Updated vector upload workflow:

We’ve altered the vector upload workflow so that we can support offering customers a full-slate of rasterized JPEGs in addition to your .EPS vector. This was something many of you, and many of our customers, have been waiting for.
This means that your original .EPS vector file and a full suite of JPEG sizes from XS to XXL will be presented together to the customer on a single product detail page.
This is important - customers will now have the option to pick the file format and size that works best for them.

To support this, the new vector upload requirements are as follows:

We have moved away from the automated preview generation tool that caused wonky previews for some of you.
As the best quality vector previews come straight from the source - you - we are now requiring you to supply a high-res JPEG for each .EPS vector. We know this requires a workflow change, but this is needed to ensure very high quality customer facing previews and JPEG derivatives.

  - The JPEG version must have the same file name as the .EPS vector (eg: mycoolvector.jpg, mycoolvector.eps)
  - The longest side of the JPEG version must be at least 4900pixels. We recommend 5400pixels or more to ensure very high quality previews and JPEG derivatives.  
  - IPTC metadata continues to be read from the JPEG file (if embedded)
  - Our team will regenerate new previews and JPEG derivatives from all existing vector content currently on the site. We’re midway through that process now.

Our own Shawn Haskell has prepared a screencast walking through the best way to output a JPEG from Illustrator, and how to upload it onto our site – take a look:  http://ideas.veer.com/post/11306



  - Brian

Hey Brian,

I'm glad to hear this news about the jpg sizes being imminent. Can I hopefully assume that my existing previews that have been regenerated before, but not entirely successfully, will appear correctly after this new regeneration is complete?

Off-topic - but, as you're around at the moment Brian.  I'm not complaining, but just wondered if it was possible to get some idea of review queue turnaround just now?  Is the average six weeks, three months etc.? 

Hi rubyroo -

No worries - we're making a big push now to get as caught up as we can before the end of the year. Right now it's been averaging ~30-40 days, though we are working through some of those oldest batches now. We aim to get this down to 7-10 days as soon as we can. You should see good progress being made on your pending files over the next few weeks.

- Brian

Hi Brian,
I uploaded two vectors today (.eps + .jpg same filename), but the processing of the images has problems and do not terminate...

Hi Ryan, thanks for your message. I did the upload several hours ago. I did another test several minutes ago, it still fails. I'm sending an email.

I have nearly 2000, so I wasn't sure when I'd get around to converting them if ever. This whole thing just put up a giant barrier to actually uploading. I guess it is a good way to throttle uploads.

That said, I was thinking about a work flow to convert them though. I did one this morning and it wasn't too bad. I'll need to create a few Photoshop action scripts. Still, it's a shame that this happened. I'll probably wait awhile to see if Veer comes up with a better solution.

Is there an update on this? I haven't heard anything more about it or seen it implemented either.

Thanks. That answers my question. I was mostly curious about the old files, since I wanted to see the new system in action with my own files before I made any decision to undertake the long arduous task of preparing my back catalog files for upload or changing my work flow.