Author Topic: Istock Announcement (Read 44237 times)

maunger · « **Reply #75 on:** September 19, 2006, 09:21 »

Quote from: CJPhoto on September 19, 2006, 08:29

lisafx gave a very supporting post - maybe she is on the payroll??

Maybe they fixed all her keywords for her?

GWB · « **Reply #76 on:** September 19, 2006, 10:38 »

Yeah, for some time now I've been amazed at the rah-rah crowd and their "iStock can do no wrong" comments. The * up is an embarrassment. That you have to go through your images (for some folks in the hundreds) to fix a problem iStock created, and that somehow this is a fine thing...I don't get it.

It is cool that IS tries to inovate and upgrade things but this not the way to go about it. They do this a lot though. Come up with something new and then surprise it on you.

G~

amanda1863 · « **Reply #77 on:** September 19, 2006, 10:46 »

Ask and you shall recieve. I am thinking I have no time to go through my images right now and I just won't. I am betting there are a lot of people who will do the same. I am also thinking this is a huge leap forward and that the search engine needed the overhaul, but it has created a lot of work for the contributors. I have stated on the iStock forums (along with several others,) that I am disapointed in the lack of organization and information with this release.

While I think it will be a fantastic leap in the long run, it's going to be a bit of a cluster for a while. But I don't see it as catastrophic by any means. I do think iStock should offer more help to contributors with large portfolios and that has been suggested. So all that being said....

I am also thinking this will be the last time you get this exclusives opinion on this forum because reading the negativity here makes me feel ill. It's just not true that all iStock exclusives are jumping up and down over there, sure there are a few who are ever sunny and has it ever occured to you that they really might be happy?

There are actually some people who are so happy with iStock that they feel the need to be supportive. There are many that see this change as a good thing on different levels. So why is so much of this thread wasted on nastiness towards the happy people?

There is a reason that you won't find the positive view of iStock on this board, and that's because it's not a nice place to be if you actually *like* iStock or support their desicions and policies. (If you think I'm exagerating just wait for the replies to this post. I won't be reading them. )

So you all have fun. I am done here, you won't have to worry about any troll-like positive vibes in the iStock forum anymore. And I won't bother to go through this thread and post helpful links to the different areas they have set up to help report different types of bugs. (Hint: Posting them here isn't gonna get you far

)

PS Lisa isn't on the payroll. Nor is she exclusive. Quit picking on people, your immaturity is showing.

Quote from: fintastique on September 19, 2006, 06:56

I can't help but think maybe this is a cunning ploy to reduce the queue everyone is to busy trying to salvage their portfolio to upload anymore photos.

I wonder what the iStock exclusives are thinking.

Bateleur · « **Reply #78 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:17 »

Regarding Amanda's post ... (and I guess she won't read this now, but never mind). The reason people are upset is because of the high-handed way that iStock treat their contributors.

This change was introduced with virtually no warning to us contributors and, apparently, without testing it thoroughly. Have you tried to upload an image recently? It's a nightmare. I've just spent at least 15-20 minutes trying to upload my first image after the change. The system won't accept the EXIF information that most people use so, as far as I can see, you have to type in each keyword separately. I could find no way of cutting and pasting from my JPEG file.

Then you have to do the categories.

Then you have to go through a whole long rigmarole of saying exactly what you mean for a whole load of keywords that the system finds ambiguous.

And ... having done all that ... when I got to the end of it I was presented with a screen that said 'Uploads have been suspended'. So all that time was wasted. And that was just for one image.

On top of that, the keywords that I have carefully thought out for exisiting images have been mangled ... and I mean mangled. Have I got to go through the whole lot again and re-do them? Under the present byzantine system? It's going to take me ages.

Is this a good way of treating your suppliers? Remember, without photographers and graphics artists there would be no iStock. I'm beginning to wonder if we aren't selling ourselves too cheaply here, and being pathetically grateful for the chance.

Now, compare with Alamy. They are introducing a new way of uploading, online, without having to send in CDs (which, I must admit, is a pain). They have informed us photogs, they are testing it with selected users, they have run into problems and so have delayed the launch. Isn't that a better way of doing things?

iStock is a big and valuable agency. I can appreciate that they want to get the best keywording in many different languages. Admirable aims. But why can't they treat the photographers and artists who supply them - their lifeblood - with a teeny bit more consideration?

P.S I'm actually sorry for exclusives with iS. I thought about it hard when my chance came up, but decided against it. I still value the opportunity that iStock gives to sell my images, but I don't want to get right into bed with them, with all the restrictions that entails.

CJPhoto · « **Reply #79 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:21 »

Amanda - there is negativity in this forum (and everyother one I look at) as they have done something without consultation (and it looks like insufficent testing) which has a direct effect on us as we now have to review our "tags". Should they have consulted and given warning to the competition?? (would a day have given the competition time to react - no).

You yourself have been negative as you said you dont have time to go though you images and that you wont - that means you potentially have incorrect key words which effect everyone at istock not just you (bad keywords drive buyers way).

In the long run it will be positive which is why I plan to update all my tags. So to move forward in a postive way, a tip and a question:

tip: if you are not reviewing you tags in one session - make sure they are sorted by a column that doesnt change (ie id number). If sorted by sales, they will move and you may miss one or do one twice.

question: this has been asked before but do these tags make the categories invalid. iStock have said to keep using them but there is no guarantee they wont get rid of them in 6 months time - so is it worth finding all relevant ones or just select one whcih is the minimum requirement.

Ps: I know lisa isn't on the payroll - it was a joke - as she has a lot of images to review, it is hard to see why she is so happy.

[Bateleur was a faster typer than me but I posted anyway as I didn't want to delete what I had said. i agree with all comments]

leaf · « **Reply #80 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:36 »

well i can't say that i think the people on this forum are particularily agressive or negative towards istock. I think people are just frustrated that their hard work that has been put into keywording is now all mixed up (some images more than others). I think if any other site did a similar thing they would get the exact same reaction. I remember quite a few complaints when lucky oliver didn't accept iptc info, or when the fotolio upload page was 3 pages long, or when people don't get any sales at canstock.

And well, i am not as smooth with my words as cjphoto or bateleur, so I think i will just have to conclude by saying ... 'what they said'

leaf · « **Reply #81 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:38 »

i just thought i would go and look at a few of my best sellers and see if i needed to change some of the keywords, and i got the message from istock

'
File Edit

File editing has been temporarily deactivated for all users. Please try again later.'

maybe they are trying to sort out a few of the problems. ... hope hope

maunger · « **Reply #82 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:59 »

The thing that really bothers me the most (and yes i'm being negative and yes, i'm trying to see the positive side of this) is that IS dumped a boat load of things on their providers without having proper information at the time - now, they're in scramble to recover mode... example: RogerMexico posting about how they've got projects going on to try to help with this issue and that... why didn't they have those things ready in the first place? Did they not see the impact of these changes?

They shouldn't release something like this without much more testing and documented solutions to most of the changes. They just cannot seem to grasp that - they think we're all just a bunch of complainers and they do not respect us it seems from this side. I've offered to be a beta tester before - but they don't seem to want to even take me up on that.

Oh, I forgot to add that now it seems like they're trying to tell us that the people doing the searches should use the right words in the first place... right - like they're gonna teach the buyers to do searches "right".

berryspun · « **Reply #83 on:** September 19, 2006, 12:03 »

Amanda, I didn't mean to be negative, and apologize if it may have been seen that way to you. I read the post that you wrote on the IS site, and I wish that you would have felt free to write this experience here from the very start without fearing to be judged as being negative towards IS. There is a difference between being negative and sharing our experiences. Expressing our point of views based on fact, knowledge and personal experience is very fruitful. Being supportive means to discover, share, show the strengths and try to remedy the weaknesses, but not be hopeful that one day these weaknesses will magigally disappear by ignoring them. Obviously it's in the interest of all photographers for every site to be succesful, isn't it ?

I find this site very useful, constructive and positive, with a group of very mature people, and I hope that is stays that way, along with your very rich contribution.

fintastique · « **Reply #84 on:** September 19, 2006, 13:05 »

I know the horse has bolted and is halfway to Kansas by now but....

Beta-testing setting up istockphoto.fr, istockphoto.es etc copying a few big portfolios over and then seeing how the new search/translate code worked and then tweaking it accordly if it looked a bit dodgy.

Give the photographers a bit of warning "we are going to revamp to the search engine so you will be requested to check your keywords".

Personally I don't like 'em for me personally its a lot of work for not much return and they won't accept by illustrations which are selling elsewhere, I returned to the UK last week with oddles of photos and have uploaded about 250 to every site with the exception of iStock where i could upload 20, I should be able to upload another 20 today but no

. and now I am off again on Wednesday

BigStock were in my bad books but now they are very fast reviewing and have a high acceptance rate

.

My comment regarding exclusives was referring to eggs in baskets you had them all neatly arranged in one basket then some (expletive deleted) tips the basket and expects you to put them all back in again if you want your sales to return to normal. How could anyone be happy with that?

my favourite keyword mutations

(tourist) attraction = love at first sight

la Rochelle (france) = Los Angeles county

Bateleur · « **Reply #85 on:** September 19, 2006, 16:05 »

I've just found a perfect example to support my earlier post about the way iStock treats its contributors (who make iStock what it it, let's not forget).

With no easily available FTP or multiple file submission facility, IS has always been one of the most awkward sites to upload to. I think even the most ardent fan would recognise that.

Now, because they no longer accept EXIF information on keywords embedded with a file, it appears that all keywords have to be entered manually. Then, all the ambiguous ones have to be sorted out by hand. This has made IS doubly troublesome and time-consuming as an upload site.

A thread was started in the forum, pointing out the lack of EXIF facility (which is used by the majority of professional photographers) and asking for a re-think. The original poster begged, "... please, please answer the question before locking this thread and referring me to support. thanks.

After 7 posts the thread was locked by an administrator, with a single curt and rather rude comment 'Report it.

Boylet · « **Reply #86 on:** September 19, 2006, 20:24 »

Quote from: leaf on September 19, 2006, 11:36

well i can't say that i think the people on this forum are particularily agressive or negative towards istock. I think people are just frustrated that their hard work that has been put into keywording is now all mixed up (some images more than others). I think if any other site did a similar thing they would get the exact same reaction. I remember quite a few complaints when lucky oliver didn't accept iptc info, or when the fotolio upload page was 3 pages long, or when people don't get any sales at canstock.

And well, i am not as smooth with my words as cjphoto or bateleur, so I think i will just have to conclude by saying ... 'what they said'

I dont know if I should/could/am entitled to say this but nevertheless, I shall.

I think I read somewhere before that this forum is a site that was an unbiased and uncensored one. Basically, that's why I joined this forum. In my opinion, there are many negative/agressive comments on Istock here simply because these same comments cannot be posted within the IStock forum itself due to censorship. It is quite natural that everybody which has something to say/share to his fellow photographers to find a venue to say the exact words the wants to say it. It is a good thing Leaf provided us with that venue. (ra ra ra Microstock Group!!!)

Reversing the table, this forum DOES NOT BAN those who would patronize/praise IStock. I think the only reason for me to say that this site/forum is a biased to IStock is when this site starts censoring all POSITIVE POSTS for IStock and locking them, which I doubt will happen. It is only unfortunate that most of the members here have issues with Istock on some matters and that they happen to post it here because they cant post it there (lucky I have so few images at IStock otherwise I'll be ranting too. And yes, I know a little about software development and there could have been steps taken to avoid the IStock fiasco. I think IS is the very first microstock agency who actually gave photographers that have small portfolio a reason to be happy). As a matter of fact, I even think this forum encourages exclusives to post their comments here so that this forum will not anymore be seen as one sided or biased. So everybody can see the big picture even from the shoes of an exclusive. I think this forum got it's first attempt to have a full blown crew (exclusive and non) when amanda1863 joined. In my opinion, this site has welcomed her warmly since none (based on what I have read so far...there might be some stray bullets ) of the posts was directed to attack her personally bur remained targetted to Istock issues. To me this showed that the members of this forum, be it negative to istock or not, treated amanda1863 with respect as a fellow phtographer and member.

I feel it's a waste to see her leave. Only in this forum can you see an uncensored exchange of ideas and conversation between an exclusive and a non exclusive.

ptlee · « **Reply #87 on:** September 19, 2006, 21:06 »

With the changes in IS. Does anyone know how that would affect those who submit by using the IMage manager Software?

I'm still lost. Haven't tried it since the change, 'cause I reach my upload limit.

<Updated by ptlee>
skip it... I'll just check the iStock forums for Image Manager.

thanks.

ptlee · « **Reply #88 on:** September 19, 2006, 23:18 »

The official update thread from IS.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=39923&page=1

Some reassurances, and updates on what's going on behind the scenes. It will take a while for things to sort out, but at least IS says we don't have to go to edit the tags for all our images.

Still waiting for the dust to settle.

cheers.

fintastique · « **Reply #89 on:** September 20, 2006, 08:58 »

Just to show you how other sides deal with changes from the Alamy Sept/Oct newsletter

Quote

Online uploads
We'd like to update you on the progress we're making with the development of AlamyUpload, Alamy's new Online Uploads facility.

At present we're carrying out extensive internal testing. Following this we'll be carrying out some testing with a small group of Alamy Contributors at our offices as well as another small group of Contributors based at their homes or offices. This will allow us to test AlamyUpload in a real environment with a sample of our future users. Our final testing stage will be to trial the facility with a group of 150 contributors, chosen based on worldwide location in order to represent Alamy's contributor base.

Once we're happy that AlamyUpload meets with our Contributors' requirements, we will begin rolling it out gradually. We will not release the facility to all contributors at once, in order that we can be confident that the system continues to operate smoothly with a large number of users. We'll be letting you know the timescales for the roll-out as soon as we can.

Not sure why it's taking so long but glad they are not just throwing out some shoddy code and expecting people to deal with it

Quevaal · « **Reply #90 on:** September 20, 2006, 10:59 »

Quote from: ptlee on September 19, 2006, 23:18

The official update thread from IS.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=39923&page=1

Some reassurances, and updates on what's going on behind the scenes. It will take a while for things to sort out, but at least IS says we don't have to go to edit the tags for all our images.

Still waiting for the dust to settle.

cheers.

Well, if I don't have to edit all my 600 images, that's good. It's pain stakingly slow too.

StockManiac · « **Reply #91 on:** September 20, 2006, 11:19 »

Quote from: Quevaal on September 20, 2006, 10:59

Quote from: ptlee on September 19, 2006, 23:18
The official update thread from IS.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=39923&page=1

Some reassurances, and updates on what's going on behind the scenes. It will take a while for things to sort out, but at least IS says we don't have to go to edit the tags for all our images.

Still waiting for the dust to settle.

cheers.

Well, if I don't have to edit all my 600 images, that's good. It's pain stakingly slow too.

There is no way that they can guarantee that you won't have to edit your images, because there is no way that a computer can know what you meant by "orange" (fruit, color, or both), or "doc" (document or doctor), or "in" (Indiana, within) or a myriad of other words in the English language. So Bitter's words are just that, words (and not tags)...

CJPhoto · « **Reply #92 on:** September 20, 2006, 11:53 »

Stockmaniac - I agree - I dont think it needs to be done now as a search will pick up keywords or tags but at some stage, it will need to be done as it will only pick up tags (this is what multi language works of) so it iwll need to be done. I plan to do mine next week ni the hope that most of the common erros will have been corrected.

ptlee · « **Reply #93 on:** September 20, 2006, 20:42 »

Quote from: StockManiac on September 20, 2006, 11:19

There is no way that they can guarantee that you won't have to edit your images, because there is no way that a computer can know what you meant by "orange" (fruit, color, or both), or "doc" (document or doctor), or "in" (Indiana, within) or a myriad of other words in the English language. So Bitter's words are just that, words (and not tags)...

Well, I haven't been in this long enough to know if those are just empty promises, thought I'd just relay the message here. As a programmer myself, I can see the glaring mistakes be solved through coding, the rest, probably needs manual intervention to a certain extent.

In any case, I can understand the despair of those whose significant income comes from IS, and esp the exclusives.

Like most, I'm cannot comprehend the sudden system migration, without prior warning. Can't say if there wasn't some beta test being done, maybe there was, perhaps, not thorough enough, and not involving the contributors (speculating here) in the beta-test (if there was any) was probably also not a good idea.

Hope everything works out right for everyone, eventually.

-ptlee-

Quevaal · « **Reply #94 on:** September 21, 2006, 10:35 »

Quote from: StockManiac on September 20, 2006, 11:19

because there is no way that a computer can know what you meant by "orange" (fruit, color, or both), or "doc" (document or doctor),

Meanwhile, I take advantage of the extra keywords.

Enjoylife · « **Reply #95 on:** September 21, 2006, 13:29 »

My sales went down from the moment the keyword issue started.
And stockexpert nearly doubled
has anyone experienced the same thing?

ptlee · « **Reply #96 on:** September 21, 2006, 13:56 »

Nope. IS looks about the same to me. I wish my sales at StockXpert would double though ;-)

Quote from: Enjoylife on September 21, 2006, 13:29

My sales went down from the moment the keyword issue started.
And stockexpert nearly doubled
has anyone experienced the same thing?

Allsa · « **Reply #97 on:** September 21, 2006, 17:20 »

Quote from: Enjoylife on September 21, 2006, 13:29

My sales went down from the moment the keyword issue started.
And stockexpert nearly doubled
has anyone experienced the same thing?

Same for me - I also had a couple of record breaking days at Dreamstime, too.

Quevaal · « **Reply #98 on:** September 23, 2006, 07:38 »

Quote from: Enjoylife on September 21, 2006, 13:29

My sales went down from the moment the keyword issue started.
And stockexpert nearly doubled
has anyone experienced the same thing?

Sales went down at Istock yes, and I saw a rise at Shutterstock. No change at StockXpert.

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Author Topic: Istock Announcement (Read 44237 times)

maunger

GWB

amanda1863

Bateleur

CJPhoto

leaf

leaf

maunger

berryspun

fintastique

Bateleur

Boylet

ptlee

ptlee

fintastique

Quevaal

StockManiac

CJPhoto

ptlee

Quevaal

Enjoylife

ptlee

Allsa

Quevaal

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