Here's a nice example of the insanity of the CV. Say you have an image of half of something - lets say half an apple. You enter "half" as a keyword and what does it default to? "Half full". But half-full can only refer to a container/quantity, so entering "half" will get a keyword rejection. How do you get round this? Well, it turns out that "halved" defaults to "portion (food state), "cut in half" defaults to "bisected", "split" means "separation", "divided" changes into a verb "dividing (changing form)", "sliced" apparently means "chopped", but at least "cross-section" means "cross-section", "cut in two" gives "cut in two(!)".

So someone wanting a picture of half an apple should not be able to find it searching on "half" and "apple", since any correct returns are examples of keyword spamming. The buyer should know to search on the very obvious  "bisected apple" which is the closest approximation, although cut-in-half apple will get there, too.

The CV is absolutely awash with stuff like this which is why I can never understand why people say it is wonderful.

BTW, searching for half an apple produces over 1700 images, lots of them a really good match for someone searching for that because loads of people apparently have half-full apples; bisected apple produces 23 results (the second "best" of which has an apple that is chopped, not bisected ... *sigh*)..

e.g., I don't usually put my money - the generous 17% they give me anyway - on the riverside, yet financial institution seems to be the only meaning of the word "bank" for them

controlled vocabulary makes no sense - they should at least consider suggestions for new words to improve vocabulary, but they don't

On the contrary, new terms do keep popping up quite unexpectedly. I think a large number were added a short while ago. Of course, that leaves older files high and dry as they can't have new, more accurate keywords.

"Venetian" is one that seems to have had an update. As recently as last year it offered only "Venice" or "Inhabitant of Venus" (I'm not kidding you). Now the Venusian has gone (apparently in a little red, yellow and blue playdough rocket, if you search for that term) and been replaced with Venus - goodness knows why they think the two words are connected.

Here's another problem example - for curry you get the choice of: "curry powder" "curry spices" or "curry spices" (yes, that's right, the same thing twice) but there is no "curry (meal)". I wonder what happens if you have curry spices and only click one box. Does the file not appear of a buyer clicks the other box?

Then we have "french fries" that I could swear for a short time defaulted to "chips (Belgian cuisine)" and is now "french fries (Belgian cuisine)" but if you put in "chips" it defaults to potato chips (meaning what Brits call crisps) with no Belgian cuisine option.

It's a waste of time moaning about it, though.

lately I had a curry picture and have done it with eyes closed (ok almost)

approved keywords:
Yellow, Curry Powder, Turmeric, Spice, Ground, Isolated, Ingredient, Food, Dried Food, Seasoning, Organic, Studio Shot, Gourmet, Heap, Scented, Bright, Paprika, Condiment, Heat

Errr - but that's a curry powder picture, isn't it? Not a curry picture? And you're missing cloves, cinnamon, ginger, chilli, allspice, coriander, cumin, pepper, salt. Unless it's just a mix of turmeric and paprika which certainly isn't any curry powder that I know of.

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-15737196-curry-spice.php

Hmm. Well, looks to me like it isn't curry powder at all.

IMO the CV is the best thing about iStock except when contributors abuse it, or when sometimes it takes a while for words to be added. ('riverbank' has been in the UK English version at least since early 2007, but maybe it wasn't in the US English version).
Unfortunately, they seem to be downplaying it now, so that like Alamy (dreadful search) they are picking up any words and combining them. The other day I did a search for Purple Martin and though I'd found a misidentification, in fact the pic was labelled as 'Martin' (dodgy family assignment and wrong CV mapping, but that's irrelevant to my point) and had a 'purple' background, so the search had thrown up both words and put them together.
This is a slippery slope: why devalue your best feature?