Hi all,

I've just signed up and been accepted at Istock (despite the recent controversy I thought I'd give it a go.)

Firstly, thanks to all those who offer advice etc. on these and other forums, 3 months ago I wouldn't have stood a prayer of passing their initial QC.

I am experiencing a few snags uploading, when i go to upload via the website i get redirected to

http://www.istockphoto.com/announcement_revised_asa.php

I can't find a way to resolve the issue.

I have been able to upload using prostockmaster but they are sitting "pending" for about 5 days, is this normal?

No problem if it is just not sure my uploads are OK.

I have emailed support but, as yet no reply.


TIA

Sponner

As you've no doubt been reading, IS has been in some degree of internal chaos for weeks. This might be a bad time to be starting out and uploading your best stuff.

Update:
I'm assuming the editorial pics are being fast tracked over the 'normal' queue. I've got all my rejections in (for having date and title reversed) from the 2nd, but my 'main collection' files from the 1st are still pending.

Thanks for the replies.

Quote from: Newsfocus1 on February 05, 2011, 15:00

Quote from: ShadySue on February 05, 2011, 13:19

Update:
I'm assuming the editorial pics are being fast tracked over the 'normal' queue. I've got all my rejections in (for having date and title reversed) from the 2nd, but my 'main collection' files from the 1st are still pending.

Likewise, Sue, all mine from Feb 2nd reviewed today but older non-editorial files still waiting. Oh, and yes mine were all rejected! Somehow I had managed to miss that the caption info had to be in an exact format (as with SS and 123). The format is on their Editorial use forum BTW for anyone else who hasn't seen it. No problem now I know that -and all the images were invited for re-submission once the caption is sorted. Regards, David.

I am curious.  Is it simply a matter of fixing the Caption and then hitting a resubmit button - or do you have to re-upload the image and go through the whole process again?
I just noticed I left the colon out of some of mine, although the format is otherwise as required.  If I have to resubmit 20 files for a missed colon, I am going to be quite peeved!
I personally think that locking the caption field prior to the file being accepted is just dumb!  If they want to lock it after acceptance, that's fine.  But why lock before that?

You have to resubmit the image again from your hard disc. Your main info will still be there: title, caption etc. You can fix the caption, and leave the rest if it's OK, but you'll have to retick for ELs, if you want to, DA your keywords and rechoose categories.
I'm sure there's a way you can do it via DeepMeta.
I put the point to an admin this morning that we should be allowed to change the caption while it was in the queue. Like you, I'm fine about it being locked upon acceptance. He gave me the same answer he put on the forum.
"You must get your caption correct at the time of upload. Your caption is as important as the image. Just as you have to get your image right before upload and can't edit it once it's uploaded, you can't edit your caption after upload.
Captions will not be editable by members after approval either to prevent possible legal risk of captions being changed after an inspector has OK'd them."
Which completely missed the point about editing captions prior to acceptance, while they are still in the queue.
Oh h*ll, I haven't got a colon, I guess they'll all come bouncing back again. My acceptance rate will be shot to pieces, and doubling up on submissions means I'll be out of upload spots. Sh*t and h*ll.
I also suggested:

"Why not redesign the editorial page so that it has:

1. a field for Date

2. A field for Town

3 a field for e.g. state, county, province, as there are many occurrences where there are several towns with the same name in the same country)

4. A field for country
(fields 1-4 or at least 2-4 could be optional in the cases of isolated studio shots)

5. Caption field.

6. Description field (optional, unless you can give me a really good reason why it's compulsory, when for many images - not all - the relevant information can easily be covered in a sentence or two in the caption.

I noticed that someone later made an almost identical suggestion in the forum.

and added:
In future, why not do tests of new 'features' on people not involved in their development, not only a section of exisiting contributors and buyers, but total newbies to the site. This is standard web design practice. If you're already doing it, you clearly need a larger sample."

I think it's really, really ridiculous that the 'hint' at the caption field says:
"The caption is where you need to supply the 4 W's. Who is in the photo (if a person is present), What is happening in the photo, When was the image taken and Where was the image taken?", but that's not the order they want you to write the caption in.
Again, poor writing and poor quality control.
Nothing new here.
And, again, we get punished (by having to re-upload, by losing upload spaces, by our acceptance rate going down) because of their ineptitude.

Quote from: luissantos84 on February 04, 2011, 17:49

1 week is the usual, you can use also deepmeta to upload (google it)

Yes aweek is usual when things are working over there, but two weeks should be expected now and then.  Also I stopped using Deep Meta because they all get upped at the same time and most go to the same inspector.  If they have a hard on about your images you get LOTS of rejections.  As soon as I went back to the single upload process (a royal pain, I'll admit) I went back to the normal 80 percent acceptance rate, wheras 50-60 % was typical with Deep Meta.

Just my experience, of course.  Others may vary.

Maxwell Smart

never had more than a week, always using deepmeta, I tend to pick very different subjects into the weekly batch, my approval is right on the 60% (increasing a lot lately)