MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Newbie Discussion => Topic started by: corkie on September 11, 2008, 13:00
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Hi
This is my first post as a newby in microstock. Having read thro' loads of posts it's obvious that most submit to multiple libraries. My question is, how do you keep track of what images go where, especially as a lot of folks have a lot of images in lots of places! What sort of image management do you use. Sorry if the question seems obvious
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I use an Excel spreadsheet. I have columns for image number (example: DSC_1234), title of photo, keywords, "accepted at", "rejected at", notes, and the date.
For me, this keeps it all straight. I'd be curious to know what others do, as I just made up my own system when I started.
Karen
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I use the simple and cheap power of hard drives.
I have a folder for each agency I submit to. Within each folder are 'Model Releases', 'Next Upload', 'Uploaded', 'Rejected', 'Online' and 'Offline' folders. I name my images in subject-number fashion (e.g. 'teen122.jpg', 'mountains12.jpg', 'boat63.jpg', ...). When I began shooting stock I used a spreadsheet, then migrated to a database, but I eventually found it too cumbersome to maintain. Sure, keeping things in folders takes up a lot of hard drive space, but managing my portfolios is a cinch.
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I have all my 1400 images jpegs in one folder on my windows XP . And all raw in Lightroom.
Also I backup to 300GB external drive.
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I have all my 1400 images jpegs in one folder on my windows XP . And all raw in Lightroom.
Also I backup to 300GB external drive.
So how do you tell what's online and what isn't? Do you upload everything to everywhere as soon as you create it? I'm guessing you don't bother keeping track of rejections and/or resubmissions.
Thinking about this reminds me of a thread I started about image management and upload scheduling. The overwhelming opinion was that I was wasting my time on such things and would be better off creating new imagery.
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The hard drive system might be the way forward for me I'd thought about using 'file info' in Bridge to tag the images with the names of the libraries that they had been submitted to and read somewhere that it's possible to 'hide' personal info within the file, such as the library name. Anybody know how it's done?
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I have all my photos on my 500 GB external drive. When I transfer the photos to my computer, the Canon cameras automatically create folders with the month day and year and these are kept in the RAW folder. I have a folder for PSD files, a folder for artwork and graphics and a folder for the stock agencies by name. Mainly I get photos ready for IS and put them in a folder with the date for the week they are uploaded. These files also go to 6 other agencies. It is a good idea to have an extra backup drive handy. I use ProStockMaster to upload the files.
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I use an excellsheet in which I have a column for the filenumbers, the title of the image and the agencies I submit to. With letters and colors I keep track of what's pending, accepted, rejected and what can be resubmitted.
If I would I could also put the info in Prostockmaster. Now its easy to handel, but maybe if I have so many images like sharply it could be difficult.
I have my images seperated in folders of 100 pics and have different folders for jpegs, psd/tiff files and originals
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I'm using Aperture keywords and smart albums (I'm on a Mac). After a shoot, I transfer them to Aperture then review them and tag some as Potentials. I have a smart album that display all photos tagged as Potentials. I go there and post-process my photo then transfer them in a folder called keywording. I keyword them then export them to my hard drive for submission. I upload them via FTP to the different sites I'm contributing to then go back to Aperture and tagged them as Submit. I have a subcategory in the submit keyword for each site I submitted them and tagged them correspondingly. After they are reviewed, I removed the submit tag for the site that reviewed them and tagged them as either approved or rejected. When I sell them, I tagged them as Sold.
I keep stats in a Number spreadsheet (Excel competitor) with the sales per photo, per month, per site and many other thing.
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I have all my 1400 images jpegs in one folder on my windows XP . And all raw in Lightroom.
Also I backup to 300GB external drive.
So how do you tell what's online and what isn't? Do you upload everything to everywhere as soon as you create it? I'm guessing you don't bother keeping track of rejections and/or resubmissions.
Thinking about this reminds me of a thread I started about image management and upload scheduling. The overwhelming opinion was that I was wasting my time on such things and would be better off creating new imagery.
you are correct I do not keep track of rejections and I have already uploaded everything to every site. SS accepted 1125 of them for example. But you are much more successful, so my example may be of little use to you.
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I do the same thing as vphoto. Not enough time to track all of my submissions.
However, if the day ever comes when I can afford to hire an assistant, I will have that person develop a tracking tool...probably an Access database.
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I keep track of all my uploads and rejections in one single Excel table. One line per file, one column per microstock. Cell content shows in different colors whether the file is ready for upload, uploaded and waitng, accepted or rejected. Works fine for me so at the moment I have no desire to spend time learning any dedicated microstock management software.
The main advantages of that method is that is allows so see which files are rejected by multiple stocks (i.e. I made a bad job); and it allows to track submissions visually, for example mix uploads from different sessions to avoid sending several "similar" files to one stock at the same time. It also makes it easy to add a new stock to the list.
It is a bit time consuming to track all acceptance/rejections, but it isn't a problem with my current upload rate. If I manage to produce significantly more pictures per month I would consider changing my tracking system...
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I use Lightroom catalogs to organize my files. I keep the original file names on all versions (raw, jpg and .psd) so there's never any question as to which files are processed versions of my raw file. When I upload from my card, I create a new folder with the camera model, date and major subject of the shoot. An example:
If I uploaded a card today the folder name would be: D200_08_09_12 (major subject)
I put the year first because they all then sort by date even though the file name is a string rather than a real date.
I do not keep track of which agencies except which images except for RM images. Of course, I don't really need to do that either anymore since PSC is closing. They're the only agency for RM I had to worry about rejections. Below my main folder, I have various subfolders - Micro Processed, Micro Submitted, RM Processed, RM Submitted, snapshots. The processed folders are for images I have post-processed but not yet submitted. Submitted folders are self-explanatory. Snapshots are for non-stock quality images, but images I want to keep for sentimental reasons.
I have 3 primary hard drives and two 500gb hard drives that are mirrored as backups. I also backup on DVD. I got some of the ideas I used from "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh. It's excellent and has been updated since I first bought it 2-3 years ago.
I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way for DAM. It's whatever works for you. My method has been evolving for the past two years and continues to evolve. I also started with an Excel spreadsheet like others here. I just found it too cumbersome over time and I also found I didn't really need to track acceptance and/or rejection for each image. Each site seems to do a fine job tracking sales so no need to duplicate that data. I just track overall monthly sales by agency in Excel. This way I can see how I'm doing YTD for each and overall.
Hope that helps!
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Probably best not to spend too much time managing images.
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I have all my raws in an internal slave drive in folders labeled with the date and subject. These are imported into Lightroom for sorting and raw processing. I sort all at once, then process the raws in small batches into photoshop where I make final tweaks and then upload to all sites the same day (except istock because of their restrictive limits)
Uploaded files are placed in an "awaiting approval" folder. Once approved they are archived by subject matter in two external hard drives where I keep complete sets of my portfolio images.
To me it doesn't really matter which ones are accepted where. The majority are accepted everywhere, and for the one here and there that is rejected at one site, it is still part of my portfolio because it is on the others.
I agree with the philosophy that it is a waste of time (and space) to keep up with which images are on which site. My portfolio is almost identical on all sites I submit to, with the exception that there is usually a backlog waiting to be uploaded to istock.
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I agree with the philosophy that it is a waste of time (and space) to keep up with which images are on which site. My portfolio is almost identical on all sites I submit to, with the exception that there is usually a backlog waiting to be uploaded to istock.
Same for me. I forgot to mention I typically have a "waiting for istock" folder too within each new directory I create.
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At the moment, i use an Excel-Sheet and hard drive folders.
If i´ve enough time, after working, shooting pics, image editing, uploading and last but not least having time for family, i should become acquainted with adobe lightroom. ;) :D :-[ :-\
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If you would use lightroom you probably would have more time for everything else :)
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i'm working right now on a blog covering this subject - briefly, it's similar to other replies here -- using a excel worksheet for simplicity and ease of use is much preferable to a database system [even though i'm a db consultant by training] in this case a db is overkill
Before jumping in take some time to analyze what you need to do
My needs:
Unique number for any image
Fast sorting by date, topic, etc
Ability to analyze images accepted – rating & sorts
Used to decide what to edit, submit to other sites, those w ltd upls
My excel sheet looks like this:
[set of col for each ms] [image id] [desc] [keywords]
this lets you get away from the need to store all images and move them among different folders. i caption & kw in this sheet, then add IPTC info from there - this means you can quickly paste info from similar images later.
this solution leaves out one big area - tracking sales. there's no simple way to automate this, as many MS sites dont make the info easily avaialble for download, and even those that do use their own numbering system and eliminate the name you used.
update 10/7: the blog mentioned above is at http://photoinfos.blogspot.com/2008/10/building-microstock-submission-tracking.html (http://photoinfos.blogspot.com/2008/10/building-microstock-submission-tracking.html)
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Hi Corkie,
I manage my images with Extensis Portfolio. The information about the agencies are kept in 3 custom Database Fields: "Agency Name", "Agency Status" and "Agency Code".
The image database is simply made of folders organized by categories and sub-categories:
01 - China
01 - Beijing
01 - Temple of Heaven
02 Tibet
03 Xinjiang
04 Yunnan
02 - Thailand
03 - Japan
04 - Concepts
01 - Environment
02 - Business
05 - Industry
01 - Agriculture
So each file is named by the number of the category. This means that all pictures of Temple of Heaven in Beijing are named 01.01.01.0001.tif, 01.01.01.0002.tif, etc
Raw are kept on a mirror Folders structure with same naming.
JPEGs are deleted soon after the submission to the agencies.
The good think about Extensis Portfolio is that I manage the whole portfolio AND information about agencies in one single software! Metadata from new added pictures are pulled automatically into Portfolio database.
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Hi Everyone
Thanks for all of your useful advice and comments. It seems that most people have developed their own system of tracking and management, and it's a case of whatever works for you etc...
I have come across a book on D.A.M. by Peter Krogh that offers a lot of useful info. I'd be interested in anyone's comments on it. IviewPro seems to be a decent prog. so i'm going to try that for a while. I'm looking a a firewire Drobo for storage and backup. Has anyone got one? Is it any good?
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Drobo, Yes seems very good (I where almost at the point to buy one) but if you are just starting I doubt you need that huge storage space...
All my data are kept in E-Sata 3GB/S Hard Drive (one 1TB for Portfolio + one 1TB for RAW) and backup are done using standard 3,5" HD plugged temporalily with Sharkon HD Docking Station (http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/externe_gehaeuse/sata_quickport_pro/index_en.html).
After the double backup, one copy is kept in the studio in a safe location and second copy is kept outside studio in safe location. So in case studio get burned I still have one backup copy somewhere else.
Copies are done every Friday night or during the weekend (when not traveling).
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iView Media Pro was purchased by Microsoft several years ago and is now called Expression Media and is now at version 2. I really like it.
To track stock I create a catalog set for each agency with subsets of submitted, accepted and rejected. With some of the sorting I can readily find out if s file has been sent out and where it has been sent out.
I think this is a great approach.
Scott
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I'm a paranoid old bat and lost everything once to a hard drive failure so all my images are backed up toa second hd and for keeping track of things I'm uploading etc, good old single cash books as I like to keep an idea of what sells in case I'm every visited by the tax man. I really ought to write a piece of software that would keep track of everything, but alas, time...
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Being the absolute geek that I am I have a SAN (Storage Area Network) in my basement with around 500 GB and then it has a tape backup which runs every night. Like others I keep all my photos organized with a file structure
Agency
Online Processing Rejected Waiting
This seems to work for me however the mention of a spreadsheet is almost making me think about a database so that I can actually pull statistics down the road.
Either way this is my fist post so ... hello everyone.
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I'm running 3 sata drives (internal) and I store my JPEGS in one folder, my RAW in another. I use Lightroom to keep my RAW files in check and JPEGs are subdivided into folders by subject.
Lightroom however is really stinky performance-wise right now. I'm not sure why the sliders are so sticky and painful to work with. I'm waiting for Adobe to release 2.1 with better performance for nVidia systems because i'm not the only one. (sorry for hi-jacking, i'm just upset)
Back to the storage, I have Vista run a file back up every Friday to make sure my backups are up-to-date and I also burn everything to DVD, number them and use the DVD number as a keyword. Not fancy, but it does the trick. And with Lightroom being the database program that it is, I'm more interested in my RAWs over my JPEGs now.
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I agree with the philosophy that it is a waste of time (and space) to keep up with which images are on which site.
I agree. I work in batches of 10, and every batch has a number. Rows in XLS are batch numbers, columns are agencies and cell entries are upload dates. I don't see the point of tracking rejections really. KISS - keep it simple.
(http://cjoint.com/data/kws5zJycxy_xlsexample.jpg)
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... and for keeping track of things I'm uploading etc, good old single cash books as I like to keep an idea of what sells in case I'm every visited by the tax man. I really ought to write a piece of software that would keep track of everything, but alas, time...
why not just use a spreadsheet [or even Word or other text doc]? then just print out day by day for your paper trail
s
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Being the absolute geek that I am I have a SAN (Storage Area Network) ...er the mention of a spreadsheet is almost making me think about a database so that I can actually pull statistics down the road.
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probably no real need for a db -- a spreadsheet can do most of the tracking and analyzing you'd need [except for individual sales, which most agree isnt worth the time]
with a spreadsheet i monitor total upl & dl, $ per month by agency, $ per image by agency, and running averages of these for trends. once set up, the charts update automatically.
http://photoinfos.blogspot.com/2008/10/building-microstock-submission-tracking.html
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what I do is have all my images seperated in different folders in categories such as electronics, backgrounds, food, and so on. In my people file, I have all them seperated as I do alot of model shoots. I keep all my raws on DVDs and occassionally have to transfer my people files which are so many to DVD's and know all of them have been uploaded to my main Stock sites before transfering them. I have tried the external drive before and it froze and I lost everything. Always have a backup or you are screwed.
I never keep track of my rejects. I upload everything and whatever sites except it is just that. I never usually re-upload anything unless I felt they were at wrong for rejecting it and I always review it at 100% before I do to make sure there is nothing wrong with it. I think it is a waste of time to keep track because all the stock sites except different pics. No rhyme or reason sometimes.