I am interested in knowing if my experience trying to upload to these guys is typical, or if I am doing something wrong/inefficiently. I managed to get one single image up a few months ago, and it actually sold the other day. So I decided to try to upload more images. I don't have FTP yet, I noticed you have to apply for an ftp account whatever that entails.
Anyway, I upload another single photo to this agency. When it is uploaded, it apparently doesn't read the IPTC data or whatever they call that where you put your keywords into the document though Photoshop. This means that I have to open the image separately in PS to copy and paste the keywords. They also have a system similar to Alamy where you have to put your main keywords and then the rest of the keywords so it takes more than one copy/paste to put them there.
As I was going down filling in all the info they wanted I realized I had to also upload a property release for this particular image. So I click on their link to upload a property release and proceed to put it in their database. No problem. However, when I go back to the upload section everything is apparently erased, as if I never uploaded the image. I cannot seem to find where the image I uploaded is at on their upload system so I upload the image again and start from scratch filling in the keywords and blanks. At least this time I have the property release in there.
Finally I think I am finished and I click submit, only to come back with an error message saying I need to separate my words by commas. You see, if you fill out your keywords in Photoshop CSII they are all separated by semicolons, not commas. Perhaps there is a way to change that in CS2 but I don't know what it is and in any case I already have some 2000 images with keywords separated by semicolons and not commas. Since I already got this far with the image, I just go back and erase the semicolons and put commas after every keyword. I didn't watch the clock but I think the time it took me to do this was between 15-20 minutes for one single image. This if worse than IStock's uploading system. Is this what you guys go through when you upload there or are there shortcuts/I am doing something wrong/being an idiot? Just curious.