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Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: lagereek on February 07, 2011, 11:16

Title: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: lagereek on February 07, 2011, 11:16
How can a reviewer wate his own and the contributors time by sending back files, asking to remove 2 keywords???  is that a joke or what? keywords such as concepts and ideas.
I mean *!  havent they got anything better to do and under present circumbstances. Especially when the 2 images in question are put together in the studio, as CONCEPTS!
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Elenathewise on February 07, 2011, 12:13
The answer is: "easily"  ;)
I had images rejected for keywords that were entirely relevant to the image, I mean, directly descriptive. And a lot more with the concepts that reviewer didn't feel was applicable.
You have 2 choices: 1. Sigh and shrug, or 2. Go istock exclusive...

And I don't believe they are wasting their time - aren't reviewers get paid per reviewed image? The wasted time is all yours  ;)
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: lagereek on February 07, 2011, 12:32
The answer is: "easily"  ;)
I had images rejected for keywords that were entirely relevant to the image, I mean, directly descriptive. And a lot more with the concepts that reviewer didn't feel was applicable.
You have 2 choices: 1. Sigh and shrug, or 2. Go istock exclusive...

And I don't believe they are wasting their time - aren't reviewers get paid per reviewed image? The wasted time is all yours  ;)

My time is expensive!  3K, day rate.  I think you are a secret reviewer or you might be a secret contributor-reviewer. ;D
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Elenathewise on February 07, 2011, 12:42
My time is expensive!  3K, day rate.  I think you are a secret reviewer or you might be a secret contributor-reviewer. ;D

Nope, just a fellow sufferer... who gave up on trying to make sense out of review process. It all seems like a crap shot to me. Or a coin flip. Used to be upset about it, but that's in the past :)
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: luissantos84 on February 07, 2011, 12:45
I had a few of those also but had a few that like 5 or 6 keywords were removed and picture got in.. we actually never know
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: tundraphoto on February 07, 2011, 15:23
What do you mean?  I just had a bunch of editorial images rejected for not having the country in the caption title - though it was in the caption.  So, I guess the buyers wouldn't know that "Tupelo, Mississippi" was in the U.S and not India.  Of course, if I just put "Tupelo, USA", that would be OK.  How dumb is that?
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: ShadySue on February 07, 2011, 16:12
How can a reviewer wate his own and the contributors time by sending back files, asking to remove 2 keywords???  is that a joke or what? keywords such as concepts and ideas.
I mean *!  havent they got anything better to do and under present circumbstances. Especially when the 2 images in question are put together in the studio, as CONCEPTS!
'concepts' and 'ideas' aren't particularly useful keywords, they're 'umbrella terms' to group keywords in the CV, like 'descriptive colour' as an umbrella term under which to group e.g. red, blue, green etc etc. But although 'descriptive colour' is a parent term of the colours, it's not a particularly useful keyword.
But, as these also are not spammy as such, if they were the only ones, it seems nitpicking to reject a file, considering the huge number of totally spammed files I'm seeing day and daily.
However, I'm just keeping editorial images in the queue from when I didn't realise that the hyphen and colon were compulsory, and I've put commas and full stops, so we'll see if they get rejected. Anecdotal reports say they'll be rejected.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: ayzek on February 08, 2011, 02:58
You have 2 choices: 1. Sigh and shrug, or 2. Go istock exclusive...
i am exclusive so i have to choice first one :)
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Zerkalo on February 08, 2011, 07:27
I had a similar problem last year and found a solution. I upload the images with minimum keywords which is 5 I think. These are Photography, Nobody/People, Horizontal/Vertical, Color Image/Black and White, Outdoors/Indoors. I don't bother with other "risky" keyword during the upload. Once they are accepted I fill in all the blanks. Worked always uintil now.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Suljo on February 08, 2011, 07:52
How can a reviewer wate his own and the contributors time by sending back files, asking to remove 2 keywords???  is that a joke or what? keywords such as concepts and ideas.!

Best PITA is when you edit this 2 keywords and after second upload they reject photo/illustration at all with LCV explanation:
We're sorry, but we found the overall composition of this file lacking visual impact and therefore not suitable as stock. With the rapid growth of the iStock collection, we give valuable consideration to each file but unfortunately cannot accept all submissions. Please don't take it personally. This isn't necessarily a reflection of your skill, rather a decision by iStock to determine commercial applications for your illustration as royalty-free stock.
 >:(
What a RTRTD BSTRDS
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: lagereek on February 08, 2011, 08:07
Nah, jokes apart, but any studio shot with an arrangement by the photographer himself ( exept product),  is ofcourse a bona-fide concept, idea. I would have thought thats bloody obvious?
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on February 08, 2011, 08:09
I think a concept shot represents something that needs to be interpreted from an image, something not instantly obvious, or something that represents something else.

A model on white posing is not really a concept shot, though it may be shot in studio.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: lagereek on February 08, 2011, 08:26
I think a concept shot represents something that needs to be interpreted from an image, something not instantly obvious, or something that represents something else.

A model on white posing is not really a concept shot, though it may be shot in studio.

Hi there! how goes?

Yup!  fair enough, thats a model shot, plain background BUT if you were to cut out the model, lets say and put her/him in a surrounding arranged by yourself, might be machinery, Lego-land, whatever. Now that would surely be a concept/idea?

Also, at Getty we are allowed 5 conceptual keywords, why not here?
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: ShadySue on February 08, 2011, 08:27
Nah, jokes apart, but any studio shot with an arrangement by the photographer himself ( exept product),  is ofcourse a bona-fide concept, idea. I would have thought thats bloody obvious?
you'd have to say what the concept was. Just 'concept' isn't very useful as a keyword. You could say in the description that you were aiming at a concept of ...  Is a buyer really going to search on the word 'concept'?
As above, I don't think 'concept' and 'idea' should have been deleted far less the image rejected, but as we can't see either the image or the full list of rejected words, I'm not going to comment any further.
However, it's just another area of iStock inspector inconsistency. I've never quite got over having 'growth' removed from a photo of plants growing in a plantation, but every day I can wiki recently accepted images with over ten totally unrelated keywords. I never wiki subjective terms (your 'adorable', 'cute', 'gorgeous' child or girlfriend might be my 'unfortunate ugly mug', but only really wrong keywords of the apple/orange variety.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: ShadySue on February 08, 2011, 08:32
Also, at Getty we are allowed 5 conceptual keywords, why not here?

Keywording at Getty is often totally appalling.
Do we really want to deteriorate into this sort of Getty titling, captioning and keywording crap morass?
Allegedly, according to the title, drug-induced caption and keywords, this studio shot is supposed to be dancing lemurs in Madagascar.
http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg (http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg)
I've got a description for the caption: fetid dingoes kidneys.
And note that the animated film Madagascar is a Dreamworks film not Disney.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: lagereek on February 08, 2011, 08:35
Also, at Getty we are allowed 5 conceptual keywords, why not here?

Keywording at Getty is often totally appalling.
Do we really want to deteriorate into this sort of Getty titling, captioning and keywording crap morass?
Allegedly, according to the title, drug-induced caption and keywords, this studio shot is supposed to be dancing lemurs in Madagascar.
[url]http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg[/url] ([url]http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg[/url])
I've got a description for the caption: fetid dingoes kidneys.
And note that the animated film Madagascar is a Dreamworks film not Disney.


Yeah I agree, their keywording is no good but conceptual keywords are VERY effective and is used by 50% of buyers.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Mantis on February 08, 2011, 08:35
The fact that you are non exclusive means most inspectors punish you by kicking images back to you if they aren't "PERFECT" in every way, including keywords.  They could easily remove them for you and increase inspector productivity because there would be far fewer images re-populating the queue.  The DO remove keywords for exclusives and don't kick the file back (reject it) unless it has problems with the image itself.  Seems caddywhompus but it's their way to offer a slight incentive to being exclusive.
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: ShadySue on February 08, 2011, 08:39
Also, at Getty we are allowed 5 conceptual keywords, why not here?

Keywording at Getty is often totally appalling.
Do we really want to deteriorate into this sort of Getty titling, captioning and keywording crap morass?
Allegedly, according to the title, drug-induced caption and keywords, this studio shot is supposed to be dancing lemurs in Madagascar.
[url]http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg[/url] ([url]http://www.lizworld.com/ExhibitA.jpg[/url])
I've got a description for the caption: fetid dingoes kidneys.
And note that the animated film Madagascar is a Dreamworks film not Disney.


Yeah I agree, their keywording is no good but conceptual keywords are VERY effective and is used by 50% of buyers.

The actual word 'concept'?
Title: Re: Amazing waste of reviewing time!
Post by: Noctiluxx on February 08, 2011, 10:00
I noticed the same, very silly to receive a rejection for a keyword, really.
I can understand how they feel if people use wrong keywords. However sometimes it is quite obvious a wrong keyword was chosen and we should be made aware of it for the future.
But rejecting a few images because of one poor keyw is silly.
Maybe they should optimize this like they did with releases, instead of a rejection just mark it as "needs keyword review" and once you corrected it it is accepted.