Oops,just popped over to Istock to check sales and i get an editorial sale  .That's the thing though i doubt that image will take off in best match and start to give me a regular income.The only images the company are crowing about are products shots on white.

Their review process for editorial is ridiculously slow and ridiculously picky (e.g., punctuation in captions that nobody cares about).   The result is that the selection of editorial photos they offer will always be second or third rate, and buyers looking for editorial will look elsewhere.  Hence, you get a vicious circle of poor sales that discourages uploading, and makes sales even worse.   

Considering the hoops you have to go to at iStock for a stingy 15% or 17% commission, it's a wonder that anybody bothers to upload there at all.   

It used to be my top site a couple of years ago, but now it has slipped into third place.   Their one strength used to be their better search engine, but in the past year even their IT has deteriorated.   

The caption rejection is simply a waste of time for all.

I've only submitted around 20 editorial shots just as a tester to begin with and all have been accepted and the majority have sold - though not in vast numbers - nevertheless, I see Editorial as an opportunity to make money over time. Also, I can't see why people have an issue with the captions - it seems straight forward to me.

I put a tester out....submitted an editorial image to DT.  Accepted no problem.  Submitted the same editorial image to Shutterstock - it was rejected twice for the caption until I finally got it straight.  I submitted that same image to iStock - the first time it was rejected for the caption so I re-submitted it with the caption I used at Shutterstock that got accepted.  It was rejected again for the caption.

I'm not going to re-caption every darn image for each individual microstock agency for the return they give.  My editorial stuff (of the right size) is all going to RM agencies where I can get a return for the time I spend captioning, keywording, and shooting.  If the images don't make the RM size requirements, then I'll submit them to DT where they will get accepted.  I haven't tried 123 RF yet.

I've just had a perfectly good editorial image rejected because I had the city and country in capitals (as Shutterstock requires) when iStock don't want capital letters...

You would have thought is would be easier for the reviewer to change them - it is only about 20 letters...

Steve

Quote from: steheap on July 25, 2011, 20:50

I've just had a perfectly good editorial image rejected because I had the city and country in capitals (as Shutterstock requires) when iStock don't want capital letters...

You would have thought is would be easier for the reviewer to change them - it is only about 20 letters...

Steve

got the same last week but I have sent like 10 pictures I guess we should read before uploading

Yes, but it would also have helped if all the inspectors had read before inspecting. I had well over 30 rejections using the same caption format as all the rest, which were either overturned or accepted on resubmission with the same caption. Hopefully that inspector has been educated.

I've just had a caption rejection for the caption:
"Bray, Republic of Ireland - 12th July, 2011: People on a Chairoplane decorated with traditional artwork."
"The caption information for this submission is either too brief and does not describe the scene successfully, or it is unclear, or both.
* The caption is where you supply the 4 W's:
* Where was the image made?
* When was the image made?
* Who or what is in the image?
* What is happening in the image?
Please provide adequate information, clearly, and entirely in English."
That's a where, when, what, who, surely? There isn't much else to be said: it's against the sky.
Bah!  

Well, to start with you aren't allowed to put the year in the dateline so it should have been rejected for that. Then they want you to repeat all the dateline info PLUS THE YEAR in the caption. Try this and see if it works:

Bray, Republic of Ireland - 12th July: People on a Chairoplane decorated with traditional artwork in Bray, Republic of Ireland, 12th July, 2011.

Of course, this contains absolutely no additional info and uses up a lot more of the 212 characters, but as you can see the 4 Ws are now in the caption (apparently they aren't interested in "why").

I can't give any assurance that my version will be accepted but I reckon it's got a much better chance.

Well, to start with you aren't allowed to put the year in the dateline so it should have been rejected for that. Then they want you to repeat all the dateline info PLUS THE YEAR in the caption. Try this and see if it works:

Bray, Republic of Ireland - 12th July: People on a Chairoplane decorated with traditional artwork in Bray, Republic of Ireland, 12th July, 2011.

Of course, this contains absolutely no additional info and uses up a lot more of the 212 characters, but as you can see the 4 Ws are now in the caption (apparently they aren't interested in "why").

I can't give any assurance that my version will be accepted but I reckon it's got a much better chance.

except SS will reject if you use 12th Jul or 12 JUL or Jul 12 - apparently, they think buyers are so dumb they can only understand if the date is written JUL 12, ignoring of course the fact that much of the world handles these variations just fine

Maybe you two are talking at cross purposes Sue. For iStockphoto I think your version of the format is right. Perhaps Baldrick is thinking of the format for a different agency ? I am guessing you meant iStockphoto, right ?

So possibly the bit you need to focus on is the "too brief and does not describe the scene successfully". I think you maybe need to take the opportunity to use the caption to tell a little bit more of the story. Maybe try for two sentences - the what it is and then something brief about that. With as many memes as possible. Good luck.

Ha, yes, for iStock (as this is the iStock forum).
Often I put loads of info (probably too much)  in the caption, but some are as short as this. I could say, "On the beach" (but you can't see the beach). There are adults and children in a group, but I can't put that they're a family as I don't know that for sure, and we've been told not to assume things, which is fair enough. The most relevant thing would be details of the traditional artwork on the chairoplane, about which I haven't yet found any relevant information (the operator didn't have a clue: he just hires it, apparently).
That said, I've still got probems with that photo in the editorial article, where there's a fairly close crop of a bloke looking out of a bus window (cropped right into the bus, no surroundings), with the caption, "Istanbul Turkey - November, 2009: A man and woman ride a tram on İstiklal Caddesi, a busy pedestrian shopping street leading to Taksim Square in Istanbul." - there is absolutely nothing in the photo which makes such a detailed location detail relevant.
I wonder if just 'on a bright summer day' would be enough of an addition.
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=996

OK, we'll give it a whirl:

Oooh, I've never heard the name waveswinger. Wonder if that's an American term? Maybe that's the name the inspector knows for that ride and hadn't heard of the term 'chairoplane'. The CV maps 'chairoplanes' to 'carousel swings' (?!) and waveswinger isn't in the CV, but I'll try adding that as an alternative in the caption and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thats. definitely the sort of thing I was thinking of although I obviously have no idea whether it will pass muster.

I think I would have said "Victorian style" TBH. And included "swing ride", "fairground" and "carousel". Partly because now or later captions might affect search or 3rd party search engines (who knows ?). Good luck. Great image.

Yeah, sorry, I was thinking Shutterstock, where the submission procedure is even more demented than at iStock.

No problem, though you had me totally confused for a while!

Oh, and I remember ages ago, no doubt not long after I joined iStock, so probably 2007, reading a thread in the critique forum, that fairground rides and sideshows could not be accepted because of their traditional artwork. So only now with editorial have I even thought of submitting them. But it turns out there are gazillions of photos up there in the main collection, even fairly recently accepted. H*ck, I have loads of these - absolute camera club fodder, but I'd never even thought of submitting them because of that thread.
In fact, in checking out things I'm only now submitting as editorial, I'm astonished how many of the subjects are in the main collection, bearing in mind what I've read on that critique forum. Huh.