iStock – what’s the point?
Sunday, March 29th, 2009That’s a pretty depressing-sounding title. What’s the deal?
Over the past month and a half or so – after finally getting accepted – I’ve been uploading photos to iStock. It’s been an arduous process. I retouch each image within what I think are “reasonable” bounds: cropping, boost the contrast a little, lightweight sharpening. Then I generate a batch of keywords using Yuri Arcurs’ clever and helpful keywording service. The result is usually good but requires a bit more editing before being ready to upload. Then upload the image. Paste in the keywords and “disambiguate” – the keywords have to match words in iStock’s lexicon, and usually that means selecting something similar or related from their auto-generated suggestons. Then try to choose 2-3 categories from the extremely limited list. Then wait.