Microstock is all about selling lots of images, so it's essential to have an efficient workflow when submitting photos for approval, especially if you're submitting to multiple agencies. Below is a brief guide to the tools/steps I use, but it would be great to hear of other recommendations, as I'd love to keep my uploading time down to a minimum!
- Take great photos (the really hard bit!), ideally with perfect composition, commericial content and great light. Definitely take in RAW format and with as low an ISO as possible.
- Download photos to a computer and get ready to do the RAW conversion and then any editing. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0, but for those with more generous budgets, Adobe have other products available:
- Do any necessary editing, which may include:
- Cropping, straightening horizons and adjusting perspective
- Removing any copyright/trademarks
- Adding layers to adjust levels, saturation, etc.
- Zooming in, then using the healing tools to remove spot marks
- Sharpening
- [adding keywords and captions, if possible - it isn't in Photoshop Elements 6.0 -grrr!]
- Saving as a .jpg at the highest image quality
- To help think about suitable keywords (essential otherwise buyers wont find your great photos), there are a couple of tools out there which can help. I use the excellent tool developed by Yuri Arcurs, the legendary microstocker.
- Rather than add keywords at each site individually, it saves a load of time to do this before submission. I use Geosetter for this, if you can't do it in your editing software
- Now for uploading... I use two approaches:
- For iStockphoto, I use Deepmeta
- For all the other sites (Shutterstock, Dreamstime, DepositPhotos, etc.), I upload by ftp, using Filezilla; then, on each site, find the files, add categories, submit and cross your fingers
Hi Rich - Have you tried the Beta version of Adobe Lightroom 3? It is fantastic and it allows you to do bulk editing on keywords. It is all I use to edit my submissions now. I will check out DeepMeta though as uploading to istock is a pretty poor experience.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article, looks like you have a pretty decent workflow.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you know about picNiche but I have a toolbar out for tracking your earnings, and have just released to public beta a new tool/app called the "picNiche Image Deck" which aims to vastly improve submission workflow for microstock. You can see more at http://www.picNiche.com/toolbar/imagedeck/ or read the blog post at: http://picniche.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/introducing-the-picniche-image-deck-open-beta/
I hope that can help speed up your workflow even more :)
Andrew - thanks for taking the time to respond. Yes, I'd love to try out Lightroom, but my computer is creaking a little bit, so not sure if it'll cope (I might treat myself to an upgrade soon though, so I'll add it to the shopping list!).
ReplyDeleteBob - thanks too for your comments. I've checked out your website and the tool sounds really useful. When I get a chance, I'll look to grab the beta version and give it a try.