MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: bobkeenan on October 21, 2010, 11:28
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I am just whining here. 80% of my income comes from SS which is easy to submit keywords and categorize.
IS does have my highest RPI, primarily because they are so selective on the images they accept. I also appreciate them as my best critic to learn from.
But I hate their keyword system.... I hate it.....You have to go through each keyword and either accept what you submitted, use one of their alternates, or remove the keyword. When I prepare my images, in Aperture 3, I use Yuri Acurs site and try to get about 50 keywords. And that is what gets submitted.
I submit all of my good shots to the other sites, then select the best of the good for IS. I am lucky to get 20-50% accepted... but I have to go through each image and each keyword to submit. That's thinking 50 times... some with keystroke actions, for every image that MIGHT get accepted.
Anybody have any tricks.
For example...Could I just use about 5 keywords.....submit it.... and then if they get accepted try to add the other keywords?
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A thread was started on this same topic yesterday. You might find some helpful pointers there. :)
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job!/msg167464/?topicseen#new (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job!/msg167464/?topicseen#new)
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A thread was started on this same topic yesterday. You might find some helpful pointers there. :)
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job[/url]!/msg167464/?topicseen#new ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job[/url]!/msg167464/?topicseen#new)
I read through all of those posts and did not see any helpful pointers.
Here is what I do. I use aperture 3 with an istockphoto plug-in. I select a set of fotos then go to the plug in. It set up to do the individual category and keywords. Instead I batch the photos together and pick one random category for all the images. That gets it past the mandatory inputs. Then I up hit upload. For some reason its not as fast as my FTP uploads but I don't care because I can go and do other stuff while its loading.
Once loaded you have to go to the site and then do all the * category and keyword selection. Note that all my keywords are there but I had to go and review each single keyword for matches to the Istock process. I not only dislike the tediousness of it but, because my approval rating is not that great about 50-80% of that work is wasted. And it bugs me because I already keyworded the images.
Again.... I am just whining..... I will continue to submit stuff to iStock.... I still make money there.
But unless I am really dense, and that may be the case, I did not see any useful hints in the referenced posts from yesterday.
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A thread was started on this same topic yesterday. You might find some helpful pointers there. :)
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job[/url]!/msg167464/?topicseen#new ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/upload-to-is-a-time-consuming-job[/url]!/msg167464/?topicseen#new)
I read through all of those posts and did not see any helpful pointers.
Here is what I do. I use aperture 3 with an istockphoto plug-in. I select a set of fotos then go to the plug in. It set up to do the individual category and keywords. Instead I batch the photos together and pick one random category for all the images. That gets it past the mandatory inputs. Then I up hit upload. For some reason its not as fast as my FTP uploads but I don't care because I can go and do other stuff while its loading.
Once loaded you have to go to the site and then do all the category and keyword selection. Note that all my keywords are there but I had to go and review each single keyword for matches to the Istock process. I not only dislike the tediousness of it but, because my approval rating is not that great about 50-80% of that work is wasted. And it bugs me because I already keyworded the images.
Again.... I am just whining..... I will continue to submit stuff to iStock.... I still make money there.
But unless I am really dense, and that may be the case, I did not see any useful hints in the referenced posts from yesterday.
try using Deepmeta (http://www.deepmeta.com/). I think it will make your life a little easier when it comes to uploading at istock.
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Thanks for the suggestions. I tried DeepMeta. Neat little program. It does ease the burden of an iStockphoto upload. IS is still much more complicated than say SS and many of the others. But maybe now I will whine a little less :D
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Most of the sites standardized on plain FTP upload. There are two exceptions and both are coming from big guns: Getty and Corbis. IStock uses proprietary web service so you are forced to use special application that can handle it. Veer uses FTP but requires TLS/SSL explicitly so not every FTP client works with them. All others can be handled with simple FTP script to upload images :-)
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Getting images on IStock is so much of a hassle that I gave up. After a year I felt I was getting some idea of what would be accepted. But that keywording thing, with DeepMeta, is just too tedious. All the other sites just take my IPTC metadata.
The whole challenge with Microstock is to make enough money to justify the time spent on an image, and something like keywording through DeepMeta represents a fixed cost, in terms of your time, that you can never reduce.
For most of the sites, it really only works if you can produce images that will make a very large number of sales. There is really no place in microstock, today, for 'niche' images that might make just a few sales, but to buyers who would happily pay a higher price.
I'm pinning my future hopes on new sites like GraphicLeftovers.
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tend to be more objective on IS.. 20 keywords are more than enough in all agencies..