Hi Everyone,

What do all you think of the website changes at Pond?  I really don't like them!  It seems like they are making it more difficult for people to submit their work:

The things that annoy me when uploading pictures at Pond are:

1. Camera Model/Software Used is a required field. 
2. Date Created is a required field.

Anyone else find these to be a royal pain in the butt?

Also... does anyone have trouble with Pond reading the IPTC info of your photos?  For some reason Pond reads the keywords and descriptions just fine.. but it doesn't read the titles. This problem was in the old version too.

Cricket

Old or new, I find their site a pain. I cant get any model releases attached in batches, not can I batch edit some fields that I want to change. So no go unless they get their act together.

Trying to get a model release attached period, is enough for anyone to look elsewhere to upload photos.

Here's a positive review posted today by Lee Torrens:

http://www.microstockdiaries.com/pond5.html

The date is usually filled in automatically with my photos now.  If it isn't, they only need the year and if I can't remember, I guess it.  The camera is also there a lot of the time and if it's not, I just type "Canon" once and now all I have to do is press C and click on the word Canon.

It's a bit clunky compared to other sites but how many accept everything, let you choose prices, pay a 50% commission and have some buyers?  We can't have it all.

I was trying out this POD site in Germany, called Artflakes, when I uploaded my images all fields were empty. I had to fill it out myself. I emailed them if they read IPTC and if not, would they have plans for the future. Answer was no and no, I deleted my account.

Also... does anyone have trouble with Pond reading the IPTC info of your photos?  For some reason Pond reads the keywords and descriptions just fine.. but it doesn't read the titles. This problem was in the old version too.

Cricket

 
as far as the iptc -- sites vary in what they read - when i changed editors, for about 6 months, i had several sites that couldnt read my title info - using exiftoolGUI i now add title info in iptc and xmp and havent had a problem since.  so it may depend on which fields your meta-editor is using for 'title'

the 4 possible title fields are
iptc: objectname or headline
xmp: title or headline

some agencies do not use the iptc objectname as the title

I just uploaded 25 files as a test - I never used the old site, so I can't compare, but I have used a ton of stock web sites and I think Pond5's interface is just awful.

It's very, very hard to find things - and you often have that sensation that you saw what you wanted somewhere but can't remember how to get back to that screen. Attaching model releases is not intuitive and there is no feedback after you complete that step of how many releases (or their names) you attached when you look at the list of images. I filled out their survey - even though it's mainly asking about old versus new - saying that compared to competing sites, their upload and contributor process is not good.

It did read my camera data, copyright and creation date from the EXIF, but for composites or other items, I don't want to waste time telling them what software I used (not even sure it's any concern of theirs anyway). I just put PS in for one composite that didn't have camera data.

Even when I thought the files had all the necessary information, the "Needs Edit" button still showed. So I just did a bulk "Send to Curator" anyway and they become pending. No feedback in the interface I could see what it was that needed editing (all the required fields were filled in).

We'll see how this test goes, but compare Pond5 uploading to GL Stock or even PhotoDune, let alone Shutterstock, and it's pretty poor.