Hi!

I have been a stock photographer for several years on other stock sites, and am trying iStock for the first time. I have uploaded a test image to ESP just to see how the system works etc.  I am reading through their user guides too, but would really appreciate some clarification from others on a couple of points.

1. I have the message 'Keywords in red not found. Click for suggestions, remove, or recommend a new keyword' and a lot of keywords in red.  These are keywords I've used successfully on Adobe, Shutterstock, Alamy etc.  They are fairly normal words.  Do I need to make sure that I only use iStock specific keywords? If so, how do people manage this practically?  Do you learn the keyword system over time and keyword your iStock submission differently to those going to other agencies?  Or do you just upload and edit once you see which are red?

2. The 'title' field hasn't come across from Lightroom, although the description field and keywords have.  Is this named as a different field in Lightroom? I am aware you can select different metadata fields to show and normally have it set to 'EXIF and IPTC'. I also see from their guidelines that they prefer short titles, although they allow 255 characters. Do people generally shorten their titles for iStock?

3. This is a more generic than just iStock - but I hadn't noticed such a big deal made of it in other site guidelines.  Do you complete a fresh model release every single day you shoot?  For example, I regularly shoot my daughters in images, and previously had used a single model release for a range of dates, and then just updated every so often.  This seemed to be acceptable to other sites, or at least it was never queried.  I will have to do a new model release form here anyway as the previous ones are on Adobe papers - but do people re-sign a form for every single photo? Obviously I would do that anyway for external models.

I do appreciate any answers and time. Please do feel free to point out anything else you'd suggest I know with adding on iStock!
Take care

Forget ESP it is a clunky way to go. Use Deepmeta, it is great and streamlined once you put a bit of effort into using it.

Hi all

Thanks for your time.
I wasn't aware of Deepmeta, so will look into that. If it's better, then I'd rather just learn one system, and use that for my first submissions.  I hadn't known iStock had CV and had just assumed you could create your own, like with the others I'm with. I'll get there!

I'll ask about the model release for family only.

Thanks for saying Headline is the field - I can see that in Lightroom separate to title, so will see if that works.

Kind regards

Thanks!

I'm experimenting with DeepMeta and QHero. They seem to read the title sent from Lightroom - so maybe it's just ESP that didn't.

Just trying to get this disambiguated keywords stuff!

I wonder how people is still uploading content to Istock, I didn't continue uploading my images there, because I got $ 0,002 in some sales, worst than Shutterstock.
Look.





First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out�
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out�
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out�
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me�and there was no one left to speak for me.

I wonder how people is still uploading content to Istock, I didn't continue uploading my images there, because I got $ 0,002 in some sales, worst than Shutterstock.
Look.

I am concerned about this to be honest. When I asked about income from iStock I heard about some of these low numbers, but others also said they got some bigger amounts too.  I'm going to try iStock with a selection and see what happens. Especially now that Shutterstock has just reduced my income I need to consider new options.

Word of advice...

Upload a few test dummy images to Deepmeta and play around for hours and learn the program and keywords before you submit. Repeat, upload to experiment but do not submit until you understand the system to maximize the benefit especially in keywords.

Once it's uploaded you can't go back and add keywords.

thanks for this. I am still experimenting at the moment!  I had not realised it would be such a different system to the others - both in terms of the controlled vocab, the being unable to edit easily later, and it sounds like also the reporting of sales is different too.  I see that you like it more than others, so it may be just a case of expectations and getting started.