Progress of Phase I Again

So, I've got some notes. I've been submitting some existing photographs to my current stock photo place: iStockphoto. Along with that, I've submitted photos to 2 other microstock agencies: Shutterstock and Dreamstime. Each one has an associated approval process. That's what I'm getting through now.

iStockphoto
I like this place. It's the first one I've ever done. To get approved, you need to upload 3 samples of work. Then, you wait for them to be approved. These must be your best work. Often, they will give you a reason for their refusal, but not always. Often, you can correct whatever problems may exist and re-upload. There is one thing I dislike about iStock: you can only upload 15 images per week. When you already have a library to select from, this can be frustrating. Regardless, don't expect your approval rating to go sky-high right away. I'm doing okay there and I have an approval rating less than 50%. Would like them to read EXIF data from Photoshop, too.

Shutterstock
This seems to be be everyone's favorite and may well be the one to be on. You need to submit 10 images for approval and they have to approve at least 7. For safety's sake, I uploaded 8 images I have already had approved with iStock and 2 that are pending. Still waiting to hear. One nice thing is that they have an FTP area where you can use an FTP client to upload your images several at a time. Would like them to read EXIF data from Photoshop, too. Regardless, they have an easy-to-use interface for keywording and such.

Dreamstime
New one for me. Uploaded the same 10 images from Shutterstock. I'll have to wait about 48-72 hours to find out where I'm at. They read EXIF data from Photoshop! This makes things sooooo much easier.

Keywords
Each site allows you to add keywords. Keywords are now a natural part of my image generation process. After the image is made, I save as a high-quality JPEG, then Command-Option-Shift-I and voila, I can fill in all the information I need about my images. I can make tons of subsequent copy-and-paste additions to other sites this way, but it would be nice if the data were already read and implemented immediately.

Keywords are more art than science. That's the idea, anyway. You can put in basics like specific colors, general categories like "nature" or "landscape," or general topics like "business," but the hard part is the way an image feels. These are the more esoteric aspects like "depressing" or "happy." The rest is gravy, I guess.

More later!