Author Topic: Different agencies, different standards (Read 3409 times)

hairybiker777 · « **on:** March 11, 2014, 06:49 »

G'day folks,

I've been with BigStock for a couple of months, and I got accepted at iStock at the weekend, so I've made my first submission to them today. I've found two major differences so far:

1) iStock has a controlled vocabulary where various words and phrases all resolve to the same thing, therefore similar tags are unnecessary and in fact it takes more time to go through the submission process, as you have to confirm what each word means. BigStock doesn't have CV, therefore the more words you enter, the better.

2) iStock and BigStock do not agree on editorial caption format. One example would be that BS want the city and country in capital letters, while IS will reject an image if it contains words in the caption that are all uppercase.

For those of you who submit to multiple agencies with conflicting standards, how on earth do you go about it?!

TIA
Nick

Ron · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2014, 06:55 »

Just dont submit to Istock and there are no issues. I dont have to change keywording and/or captions for any agency I submit to. Only IS has different standards, so I got rid of them and its all good now. The little money from IS was not even close to compensating the work. Its just not justifiable, business wise, to submit to IS.

stockphotoeurope · « **Reply #2 on:** March 11, 2014, 07:28 »

For iStock, use Deepmeta

For all other sites, caption for Shutterstock and all other sites will accept it as well (or who cares in case they don't)

MichaelJayFoto · « **Reply #3 on:** March 11, 2014, 08:07 »

I was iStock exclusive for a long time, so their system is a no-brainer for me. Takes quite some time to get used to it. DeepMeta is a big help.

In general, I found editorial images not worth my time, especially because they need these specific captioning in addition to the keywording. And sales are disappointing to non-existent for too many files.

vilainecrevette · « **Reply #4 on:** March 11, 2014, 08:46 »

There are still people that want to join Istock?
And don't forget to sign on Depositphotos!

Ariene · « **Reply #5 on:** March 11, 2014, 09:18 »

@ hairybiker777,
I must say you seem to be to late about 5 years for this train... It's gone, long time ago...

@ vilainecrevette, good point!

Red Dove · « **Reply #6 on:** March 11, 2014, 09:19 »

Quote from: hairybiker777 on March 11, 2014, 06:49

G'day folks,

I've been with BigStock for a couple of months, and I got accepted at iStock at the weekend, so I've made my first submission to them today. I've found two major differences so far:

1) iStock has a controlled vocabulary where various words and phrases all resolve to the same thing, therefore similar tags are unnecessary and in fact it takes more time to go through the submission process, as you have to confirm what each word means. BigStock doesn't have CV, therefore the more words you enter, the better.

2) iStock and BigStock do not agree on editorial caption format. One example would be that BS want the city and country in capital letters, while IS will reject an image if it contains words in the caption that are all uppercase.

For those of you who submit to multiple agencies with conflicting standards, how on earth do you go about it?!

TIA
Nick

I'm not sure about BS requiring city/country in caps? This hasn't been the case with my recent submits.

Everything else is spadework that comes with the business unfortunately - but the advice above is sound re deepmeta for IS and basing all other submissions on your SS keywords for convenience.

As for submitting to IS - economically speaking I look at this way; despite being toerags and stinkers of the first order, most months they pay my car insurance, water rates and council tax as well as keeping Flash Harry the cat filled with tuna.

Niakris · « **Reply #7 on:** March 11, 2014, 12:27 »

As I remember, BS does not require city and country names in caps.
Never heard of such requirement.

However, some agencies have somewhat conflicting standards on model releases, image sizes and so on.
Easiest way to handle this is to use some tools to keep different agencies requirements satisfied automatically and to reduce the amount of extra actions needed to submit images.

Other option is to select a subset of agencies to work with based on similarity in their standards and amount of expected earnings.
As Pareto principle says, roughly 80% of one's profits come from 20% of the efforts. So some contributors can just choose to skip these little-efficient 80% of the efforts.