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Easier way to upload editorials to iStock

Started by PhotoDude, February 18, 2016, 00:09

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PhotoDude

Is there any easier way to upload editorials to Istock other than DeepMeta? I am using DM at the moment, but for each editorial it requires manually choose country, year, date and day, despite that I already have that information in title place and date stamp (in the format accepted by SS and other agencies: City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title). Why is it so complicated at Istock? Other agencies pretty much only require to pick editorial Yes/No check box if title already has editorial information. I know you can copy the information between files in DM, but it is no help, because lots of my editorials have different locations/dates. How do you do it for bulks? I can hardly believe it is the only way.   

ShadySue

Upload directly as I do, or via DM as most seem to.
I have no idea whether any of the various multi-upload apps make it any easier, but I don't imagine it is, or we'd have heard.

sgoodwin4813

Quote from: PhotoDude on February 18, 2016, 00:09
Is there any easier way to upload editorials to Istock other than DeepMeta?

No, I don't think so

FrankyDM

Quote from: PhotoDude on February 18, 2016, 00:09
Is there any easier way to upload editorials to Istock other than DeepMeta? I am using DM at the moment, but for each editorial it requires manually choose country, year, date and day, despite that I already have that information in title place and date stamp (in the format accepted by SS and other agencies: City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title). Why is it so complicated at Istock? Other agencies pretty much only require to pick editorial Yes/No check box if title already has editorial information. I know you can copy the information between files in DM, but it is no help, because lots of my editorials have different locations/dates. How do you do it for bulks? I can hardly believe it is the only way.   

I assume you have this info in the IPTC of your JPG? I'd be interested to know which IPTC field(s) you put this info in. Is it the title or caption field?

If possible, I'd appreciate it if you could send me an example JPG file with such IPTC info. Email to "fdm at eazign dot be". (I'm the author of DeepMeta, by the way).

I agree it would be a big productivity boost if DeepMeta could automatically process this information.

Thanks.

Kasper Ravlo

Hi Photodude,

We recently launched qHero.com which is a faster alternative to Deepmeta with bulk-uploading, multifile editing, and even auto-disambiguitation. We also support editorials and would be very happy to get you onboard. Feel free to give us feedback through the feedback tab on the site. Find us on qhero.com where you can also view our new "how to use qhero" youtube feature highlighting the main features.

We hope to get you on board!

All the best,

Kasper Ravlo, CEO at qHero.
Kasper Ravlo
CEO, Qhero.com - Chairman, Arcurs Creative

Karen

Quote from: FrankyDM on February 19, 2016, 11:19
Quote from: PhotoDude on February 18, 2016, 00:09
Is there any easier way to upload editorials to Istock other than DeepMeta? I am using DM at the moment, but for each editorial it requires manually choose country, year, date and day, despite that I already have that information in title place and date stamp (in the format accepted by SS and other agencies: City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title). Why is it so complicated at Istock? Other agencies pretty much only require to pick editorial Yes/No check box if title already has editorial information. I know you can copy the information between files in DM, but it is no help, because lots of my editorials have different locations/dates. How do you do it for bulks? I can hardly believe it is the only way.   

I assume you have this info in the IPTC of your JPG? I'd be interested to know which IPTC field(s) you put this info in. Is it the title or caption field?

If possible, I'd appreciate it if you could send me an example JPG file with such IPTC info. Email to "fdm at eazign dot be". (I'm the author of DeepMeta, by the way).

I agree it would be a big productivity boost if DeepMeta could automatically process this information.

Thanks.
What about iStock's categories?
How to store this info in IPTC of the JPG file?

ShadySue

Quote from: Kasper Ravlo on February 19, 2016, 14:12
Hi Photodude,

We recently launched qHero.com which is a faster alternative to Deepmeta with bulk-uploading, multifile editing, and even auto-disambiguitation. We also support editorials and would be very happy to get you onboard. Feel free to give us feedback through  tab on the site. Find us on qhero.com where you can also view our new "how to use qhero" youtube feature highlighting the main features.

We hope to get you on board!

All the best,

Kasper Ravlo, CEO at qHero.

You should allow people to look around and play with the app without having to sign in.

Kasper Ravlo

Quote from: ShadySue on February 19, 2016, 15:00
Quote from: Kasper Ravlo on February 19, 2016, 14:12
Hi Photodude,

We recently launched qHero.com which is a faster alternative to Deepmeta with bulk-uploading, multifile editing, and even auto-disambiguitation. We also support editorials and would be very happy to get you onboard. Feel free to give us feedback through  tab on the site. Find us on qhero.com where you can also view our new "how to use qhero" youtube feature highlighting the main features.

We hope to get you on board!

All the best,

Kasper Ravlo, CEO at qHero.

You should allow people to look around and play with the app without having to sign in.

Well, for now you can at least view the promotional video showing the main features :)
Kasper Ravlo
CEO, Qhero.com - Chairman, Arcurs Creative

FrankyDM

Quote from: Karen on February 19, 2016, 14:36
What about iStock's categories?
How to store this info in IPTC of the JPG file?
Currently, DeepMeta only uses the "title", "description" and "keywords" fields from the JPG IPTC info.

It's not difficult to expand this to other info and fields, so I'm looking around to see which other IPTC fields are used by users, such as the editorial caption info mentioned by the OP.

I'm open to extracting categories from IPTC as well, but I'm not sure which IPTC field would be appropriate.

I've attached a screenshot from Adobe Bridge with all IPTC fields for a typical JPG, just as example. Feedback welcome.

PhotoDude

Quote from: FrankyDM on February 19, 2016, 11:19
Quote from: PhotoDude on February 18, 2016, 00:09
Is there any easier way to upload editorials to Istock other than DeepMeta? I am using DM at the moment, but for each editorial it requires manually choose country, year, date and day, despite that I already have that information in title place and date stamp (in the format accepted by SS and other agencies: City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title). Why is it so complicated at Istock? Other agencies pretty much only require to pick editorial Yes/No check box if title already has editorial information. I know you can copy the information between files in DM, but it is no help, because lots of my editorials have different locations/dates. How do you do it for bulks? I can hardly believe it is the only way.   

I assume you have this info in the IPTC of your JPG? I'd be interested to know which IPTC field(s) you put this info in. Is it the title or caption field?

If possible, I'd appreciate it if you could send me an example JPG file with such IPTC info. Email to "fdm at eazign dot be". (I'm the author of DeepMeta, by the way).

I agree it would be a big productivity boost if DeepMeta could automatically process this information.

Thanks.
Franky, I actually meant just Title field from IPTC. When it is formatted like "City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture" it is accepted as editorial to SS and all other major agencies without much additional clicking/editing required (you would usually have to set Editorial check box/option to "Yes" though and sometimes select special category like at Dreamstime's system for example). However, DeepMeta required to manually specify that information again in picture description dialog and provide separate editorial description. I am not sure, it might actually be iStock requirement and DeepMeta is simply just following the  rules of the agency. My point was that it is redundant, time consuming and simply antique and I was wondering if there is any way to make it more streamlined. Manually picking all these dates and places again just makes it really time consuming to submit editorials to IS.   

PhotoDude

Quote from: Kasper Ravlo on February 19, 2016, 14:12
Hi Photodude,

We recently launched qHero.com which is a faster alternative to Deepmeta with bulk-uploading, multifile editing, and even auto-disambiguitation. We also support editorials and would be very happy to get you onboard. Feel free to give us feedback through  tab on the site. Find us on qhero.com where you can also view our new "how to use qhero" youtube feature highlighting the main features.

We hope to get you on board!

All the best,

Kasper Ravlo, CEO at qHero.
Thanks Kasper, posted response in your thread.

authenticcreations

This what you mention is of course a Istock requirement. I can not made easier. If you wish you have to fight with Istock for that.

Mirco

Lana

Am I right that there is stil no option to process/submit several images in the same time in DeepMeta (i mean similar images to be keyworded and categorized in the same time)? Is it ever going to happen?

If FrankyDM could address this i would really appreciate :)

Pauws99

THe trouble for me is the way that S Stock like it (and everyone else) seems to be often rejected by I stock and its not worth my time to fathom it out.............

FrankyDM

Quote from: PhotoDude on February 20, 2016, 10:45
Franky, I actually meant just Title field from IPTC. When it is formatted like "City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture" it is accepted as editorial to SS and all other major agencies without much additional clicking/editing required (you would usually have to set Editorial check box/option to "Yes" though and sometimes select special category like at Dreamstime's system for example). However, DeepMeta required to manually specify that information again in picture description dialog and provide separate editorial description. I am not sure, it might actually be iStock requirement and DeepMeta is simply just following the  rules of the agency. My point was that it is redundant, time consuming and simply antique and I was wondering if there is any way to make it more streamlined. Manually picking all these dates and places again just makes it really time consuming to submit editorials to IS.   
While it's true that iStock uploads demand all those additional selections being made (country, date), it's also true that DeepMeta could auto-convert info imported from the IPTC title or description and auto-complete these selections for you.

In order to do that, I need to find out what the exact practice is. Details matter.

E.g. you've mentioned:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture"
as well as:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title"

A few questions:
- It is the IPTC "title" field you are referring to, and not the "description" field?
- About "Month Day Year": is this "2 21 2016", "Februari 21 2016" or something else?
- If you put this info in the "title" field, then what goes in the "description" field?
- iStock has a separate "caption" field for editorial, where should that be taken from?

Just gathering some info here. I see some possibilities for better automation.
Thanks!

FrankyDM

Quote from: lanabyko on February 20, 2016, 13:52
Am I right that there is stil no option to process/submit several images in the same time in DeepMeta (i mean similar images to be keyworded and categorized in the same time)? Is it ever going to happen?

If FrankyDM could address this i would really appreciate :)
Most DeepMeta users work as follows:
- Add your batch of similar images to DeepMeta
- Keyword the first one, along with categories and model releases (if any)
- Use the DeepMeta copy feature to copy all this info to the other images
- Move all to upload queue, click "upload" and go out for your next photoshoot.

Here's some info on the copy feature: http://www.deepmeta.com/GettingStarted/CopyAndPaste/

Let me know if I misunderstood something.

authenticcreations

Franky.

The only thing i can think of to get automatically is the country. Like the date is automatically added to the editorial caption the country could be also automatically taken from the country selection scrolling button. Then we only need to fill the city :).

Mirco

authenticcreations

Quote from: authenticcreations on February 21, 2016, 19:32
Franky.

The only thing i can think of to get automatically is the country. Like the date is automatically added to the editorial caption the country could be also automatically taken from the country selection scrolling button. Then we only need to fill the city :).

Mirco

Also the error of having a different country on the scroll button and the caption field will be eliminated.

Mirco

PhotoDude

Quote from: FrankyDM on February 21, 2016, 19:23
Quote from: PhotoDude on February 20, 2016, 10:45
Franky, I actually meant just Title field from IPTC. When it is formatted like "City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture" it is accepted as editorial to SS and all other major agencies without much additional clicking/editing required (you would usually have to set Editorial check box/option to "Yes" though and sometimes select special category like at Dreamstime's system for example). However, DeepMeta required to manually specify that information again in picture description dialog and provide separate editorial description. I am not sure, it might actually be iStock requirement and DeepMeta is simply just following the  rules of the agency. My point was that it is redundant, time consuming and simply antique and I was wondering if there is any way to make it more streamlined. Manually picking all these dates and places again just makes it really time consuming to submit editorials to IS.   
While it's true that iStock uploads demand all those additional selections being made (country, date), it's also true that DeepMeta could auto-convert info imported from the IPTC title or description and auto-complete these selections for you.

In order to do that, I need to find out what the exact practice is. Details matter.

E.g. you've mentioned:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture"
as well as:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title"

A few questions:
- It is the IPTC "title" field you are referring to, and not the "description" field?
- About "Month Day Year": is this "2 21 2016", "Februari 21 2016" or something else?
- If you put this info in the "title" field, then what goes in the "description" field?
- iStock has a separate "caption" field for editorial, where should that be taken from?

Just gathering some info here. I see some possibilities for better automation.
Thanks!
Franky, if you can do it, that would be so awesome! I do not have time today, but let me get back to you tomorrow hopefully and I will compile a detailed explanation for you. I believe we can really automate it if you are willing to implement it!

PhotoDude

Quote from: FrankyDM on February 21, 2016, 19:23
Quote from: PhotoDude on February 20, 2016, 10:45
Franky, I actually meant just Title field from IPTC. When it is formatted like "City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture" it is accepted as editorial to SS and all other major agencies without much additional clicking/editing required (you would usually have to set Editorial check box/option to "Yes" though and sometimes select special category like at Dreamstime's system for example). However, DeepMeta required to manually specify that information again in picture description dialog and provide separate editorial description. I am not sure, it might actually be iStock requirement and DeepMeta is simply just following the  rules of the agency. My point was that it is redundant, time consuming and simply antique and I was wondering if there is any way to make it more streamlined. Manually picking all these dates and places again just makes it really time consuming to submit editorials to IS.   
While it's true that iStock uploads demand all those additional selections being made (country, date), it's also true that DeepMeta could auto-convert info imported from the IPTC title or description and auto-complete these selections for you.

In order to do that, I need to find out what the exact practice is. Details matter.

E.g. you've mentioned:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Description of what is going on in the picture"
as well as:
"City, State/Country - Month Day Year: Title"

A few questions:
- It is the IPTC "title" field you are referring to, and not the "description" field?
- About "Month Day Year": is this "2 21 2016", "Februari 21 2016" or something else?
- If you put this info in the "title" field, then what goes in the "description" field?
- iStock has a separate "caption" field for editorial, where should that be taken from?

Just gathering some info here. I see some possibilities for better automation.
Thanks!

Hi Franky,

Sorry for the delay, it took me some time to get back to this. Okay, let me explain in more details and hopefully we can do something about it. Here is the editorial caption format (taken from IPTC Caption field) which is accepted in SS, BS, DT, DP, 123RF and possibly many others:

CITY, STATE/COUNTRY – MONTH DAY, YEAR or CIRCA MONTH YEAR: [Factual description of the image content, including what the image portrays].

(Here is link if you are interested: http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/submitting-editorial-content-part-2-documentary-editorial).

Examples:

San Francisco, CA/USA - 01 20 2016: Excited tourist eats a hamburger with mayonnaise and admires Golden Gate bridge

Paris, France - circa September 2015: Excited tourist eats a baguette with butter and admires Notre Dame cathedral


Basically, for most of the world, location would be CITY, COUNTRY whereas for USA (and likely Canada) the location would be CITY, STATE/COUNTRY.

As for the date, it can be either US date format MM DD YYYY (as variant - MM/DD/YYYY) or SS also allows to use CIRCA MONTH YEAR (example: circa September 2015) when the exact date is not known, which is quite convenient.

Is it possible to implement following algorithm in DeepMeta?

1. When the image is imported to DeepMeta, program reads its IPTC Caption field and checks if it has a format corresponding to one of the variants above. If this is true, DeepMeta sets "Editorial use only" checkbox in Image detail dialog to checked.

2. The data from IPTC Caption is parsed and day, month, year and location of the photo fields in Image detail dialog are automatically populated. If the date is in "circa MONTH YEAR" format, I guess we can set the day to "1" as I assume iStockPhoto does not allow "circa".

3. Editorial Caption field from the Image detail dialog (aka iStock's Caption field) is automatically populated based on photo's date, location and description from previously imported and parsed IPTC Caption field. However, iStock has a bit different format, so it has to be altered a little. They seem to favor this format:

CITY, STATE/COUNTRY - MONTH(Word) DAY(Number), YEAR: [Factual description of the image content, including what the image portrays].

Example:

Istanbul, Turkey - May 7, 2010: Street car makes its way alongside shoppers crowding Istiklal Avenue.

4. "Title" and "Description" fields in DeepMeta's Image detail dialog can be populated with the [Factual description of the image content, including what the image portrays] part from IPTC Caption field. I guess they can be identical.

That would really make it much easier and faster to submit editorials to iStockPhoto by simply converting images already prepared and accepted on SS and other sites.

Thanks and I hope that sounds reasonable.

Hongover

There should be an easy way to upload anything to istock. Their upload system hasn't been updated in a decade. I can help them update it in a week or two if I have a few developers to work with.

FrankyDM

Quote from: PhotoDude on February 29, 2016, 10:43
Hi Franky,

Sorry for the delay, it took me some time to get back to this. Okay, let me explain in more details and hopefully we can do something about it. Here is the editorial caption format (taken from IPTC Caption field) which is accepted in SS, BS, DT, DP, 123RF and possibly many others:

CITY, STATE/COUNTRY – MONTH DAY, YEAR or CIRCA MONTH YEAR: [Factual description of the image content, including what the image portrays].

... (shortened)
Thanks so much for the detailed summary. It's much appreciated!

I can work with that. I'll let you know if I need any more info.
You're all still welcome to send me some example JPGs that I can test with. I'm particularly interested to see which IPTC fields you're using, as well as variations in the formatting. (email: fdm at eazign dot be).

Thanks!

Pauws99

Quote from: Minscer on February 29, 2016, 10:55
There should be an easy way to upload anything to istock. Their upload system hasn't been updated in a decade. I can help them update it in a week or two if I have a few developers to work with.
It does make you wonder if they are serious about staying in this market in the long run they haven't done anything.......

skyfish

I don't give them my photos already long time, but i tryed with DM, and date format was always not correct.
When uploaded finally, they demanded name of author and exact creation date for a medieval vitrage in a small village church, plus detailed description of the scene. IStock was not satisfied by century precision. There even the priest told that for name and date he have to do a research in archives, and he was not sure that it is known. And this file went to other libraries.

PhotoDude

Quote from: FrankyDM on March 01, 2016, 06:47
Thanks so much for the detailed summary. It's much appreciated!

I can work with that. I'll let you know if I need any more info.
You're all still welcome to send me some example JPGs that I can test with. I'm particularly interested to see which IPTC fields you're using, as well as variations in the formatting. (email: fdm at eazign dot be).

Thanks!
No problem Franky, glad to help :) It will be nice if you can implement that conversion!