Microstock Photography Forum - General > Newbie Discussion

How much time?

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2checkingout:
Hi everybody, as a newbie in these parts I was wondering how long does it take you to title and keyword and then submit.

Let’s say 10 images across three options
1. 10 very different images, different subjects etc.
2. 10 photos of similar subjects but slightly different
3. 10 photos of the same subject just different angles

Then submit to the likes of SS, Adobe, iStock.

I feel it’s taking me far to long to do option a, maybe 2 hours once I’ve got the photos looking the way I want them which itself can take a couple of hours.

Thanks

Jo Ann Snover:
If you're new to this, you'll get better and faster at editing the photos and handling metadata over time.

10 similars is going to get you a lot of rejections - not all agencies are equally strict, but you want to make selections based on usefulness (which equates to salability) not on how fast you can process the files.

Good images will sell for years, so the time to get it online isn't really an issue except for those image spam portfolios on SS, and there is no reason to try and be like them :)

cascoly:
several hours to post process 10 images is too long - refine your workflow --  try to make your images better in camera; sometimes too  More likely you're over-thinking - this is stock, not fine art.  even when images need post, I first sort them by what is needed. so I have folders than need lighting adjustments, that need trademarks removed, etc.

I do metadata first, so my original images can be re-done later. then I sort - most tare available to upload, some need to be downsized for sharpness, other need post and get sent to separate folders based on what needs to be done.  It's much more efficient to process a series of images that need similar techniques, rather than having to decide on each image. , sometimes, too, you can use PS  batches - eg indoor images where you want to change white balance, autotone for images taken on a cloudy day, etc.

as far as metadata, I kerep a spreadsheet of my captions & tags - so, eg, when i'm working on a Mt Rainier shoot, I just copy a previous caption & tags then modify it, rather than re-typing everything; I average about 100 images/hr for metadata

mindstorm:
The workflow we use is this:

1) Import and organize all images in Lightroom.  Takes me maybe 5 min for 1000 photos.  LR takes longer, but I am off doing other stuff while it is importing.

2) My wife goes through that 1000 and chooses roughly the best 10%. She also crops those during the pass, and typically marks 30% of so as 'rejected.'  After having been through this cycle 100+ times, I now just accept her reject states and "delete all rejected photos, remove from disk" without reviewing.  Her time is usually an hour or two for those 1000 images.

3) I "delete all rejected" (noted above). I then go through all 100 selected images and edit them to be suitable for blog and stock use.  My time for 100 images is maybe 10 minutes.  (I have created LR presets of my own that fit the various types of photos I create -- many photos are single-click edits. Maybe 20% require slight tweaking for shadows, noise, whatever).

4) <not related to stock> I select the images for my blog, gather into "story blocks," write the text for the story, etc.

5) I title/desc all 100 images. 15 min.

6) I keyword all 100 images.  15-20 min (I use ImStocker, which makes it very fast).

7) I upload all 100 images using FTP program to MicroStock Plus.  My time about 1 min.  (takes longer to upload, but I am doing other things while it does so)

8) In MicroStock Plus, select all agencies and all images, and press "submit".  My time about 1 min.

So, I spend about an hour to edit / keyword / upload / submit 100 images.  Add another hour to get from 1000 initially shot images to the 100 that will be sent to stock.

Note that when we are traveling, this is done almost every single day.  We just returned last week from 6 months covering 8 countries. Shot roughly 75,000 photos. After deleting rejects, came back with 43,823 images and clips.  I still have a backlog of the sending to agencies, because I try to space things out (will probably not have any more for the rest of 2019), but all the work up through editing and titling is done on the photos.  Roughly 800 raw video clips still waiting to be processed (those I hold until home).

2checkingout:
Thanks for the replies ladies and gents

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