Our servers were full and that is what caused the immediate rejection of some files without a reason because there was no place to put the new uploads. We cleared out about 400 gigs of space and it’s now working again. Sorry for the inconvenience.
May 312010
David Riecks, at Controlled Vocabulary, has created a very important survey to test whether social media sites like Twitter or Facebook strip out your photo’s metadata when you upload a photo to their sites. Here is a description with links for the survey. Please share your experiences and participate in the survey for the benefit of the greater photography community. If you click on the first link below you will see a list of the preliminary results which are very interesting.
Overview
Do the social media websites or other image sharing services you use preserve your embedded photo metadata after upload? The answer to that question isn’t clear, so we are conducting a survey of various services to find out.
* View Preliminary Survey Results (opens in new window)
* Learn more about the Objective of this Survey
* Participate in survey/test your favorite social media site or photo sharing service
* Learn more about how to test if your images contain embedded metadata
Digital images, saved in the JPEG format support the embedding of photo metadata, and most social media sites support the uploading of JPEG images. However, many of these social media services do not preserve this information that you have taken the time to embed in your image files. In some instances this information is removed on upload; in other cases, it may preserved in the original uploaded file, but any images derived from the original may no longer retain that same information. In other instances the images may be stored in the Flash format, which makes it difficult to download files or view metadata, but also means that viewers will not be able to see those images if they are using mobile devices such as all iPods, iPhones, and iPads, as well as Blackberries, etc.
Great initiative and job by everyone who has participated in the survey and supplied answers.
Having the correct and most relevant keywords associated with your files will not only get them in front of the most interested visitors but will improve your ranking in our new search engine. Here are 10 suggestions you can think about when keywording your images.
1. You only need between ten to fifteen (5-15) keywords. Twenty-five (25) is the most. More descriptive keywords means better search results, bringing in more users, which means more sales for your images at higher prices then other sites. We would rather have fewer files that have better keywords than more files with plenty of irrelevant keywords.
2. Keywords need to be separated by a comma or semi colon when you submit them with your images. Compound phrases need to be separated by a space and then surround by commas. You can remove any quotation marks.
3. You can add ONE SET of location tags. Avoid using locations as tags unless there is something in the photo that makes its location recognizable. Don’t use Kennebunkport, Maine for an image of a seagull in the blue sky.
4. Remove all the keywords that are obviously not in the images. Make them as specific as possible to what is in the image. Remove keywords that could be tangentially related, but aren’t really illustrated well by the photo. i.e. picture of an airport runway and using the keyword “pilot.”
5. Take a few of the choice words and make them far better by turning them into a phrase. If it is a popular saying use the whole phrase.
6. Don’t “stretch” your tags into irrelevancy, in order to generate more hits for an image. This can be very frustrating for our users, who tend to search literally.
7. Figures of speech, nicknames, slang and metaphors can create a ton of problems in a search engine. Please don’t use them. The reviewers will add them in if necessary.
8. Catch Phrases and Proper Names — Don’t Break Them Up with a comma. If you have a keyword that is either a very common set of two words, or is a proper name, enter it without a comma. The search engine has the ability to recognize many phrases that operate as a common term but contain more than one word, such as “hard drive,” “hot dog,” or “White House.” Just enter the compound phrase like you see in the previous sentence and don’t use a comma to separate those two words. It also recognizes the names of many public and historical figures.
9. You do not need to type in ‘car, cars’ to cover the singular and plural versions of a noun. Type in only the one that is more accurate for your photo. If there is only one car, type in “car.” Your image will come up in a search for both car and cars, but it will be ranked higher if the plurality matches what the buyer searched for. If there are multiple cars in your image you can write car and cars.
10. Be as literal as possible. Describe just what is in the images.
Other decision factors:
* Does your image have people in it? If yes, then describe the people specifically. Use keywords to explain gender and age.
* Is there a color that is predominant? Only use colors if this is important to the image. An image of a red hat on top of a woman should not have the keyword “red” but could have “red hat”. If the image is a “pink flower” use the compound phrase “pink flower” with a space and no comma and NOT “pink, flower”.
* What objects are prominently included in the picture – ONLY use key subjects of the picture, not items in the background. Don’t list insignificant details. Think about if you did a keyword search for a keyword you have included in your keyword set, would you want to get that specific image in your results. If it is maybe then think real hard about adding it because it may turn off buyers who don’t want or weren’t expecting that results.
* Are you using a special angle or other technical points worth mentioning? Panoramic, low angle etc.
May 052010
It’s hard to know how to take that shot that will sell over and over again. We get a lot of similar images uploaded to us at Cutcaster. After reviewing one particularly large batch of similar images where it appeared as if the photographer just stepped back one foot for each shot while moving his camera slightly to the left, we almost had a photo reviewer jump out the window after she ran out of hair to pull out 
Then, I stumbled across a great post at Photoshelter titled, ”How to make a photo editor fall in love with you” and a few things really stood out for me. Nice work PS.
One in particular was from Roberto De Luna, a Photo Editor at Time Out New York, who said, “A photographer that understands that I need verticals, horizontals, and SILO options stands a great chance of winning me over.”
This is the thought process that will help every photographer get into the mindset of his end user/buyer and something that needs to be thought about before you submit photos to a photo editor who has hired you or send to Cutcaster.
Cutcaster has always stressed the importance of editing images before submitting them to us so that the quality of the selection you upload is the highest possible. For example, if you are going to submit a series of images from the same shoot, it is best to submit a portrait, a landscape, a SILO option if appropriate and an obscure/conceptual angle from each subject area/shoot to reduce redundancy and vastly improve the user experience and visual quality of results when a buyer performs a search. Supplying too many similar images will be off-putting to clients and result in less sales because buyers won’t use our site to buy your images.
So it is wise to choose the images you upload carefully and not submit too many similars. Think, as you are shooting, what a buyer will need and be able to use. Plan it out beforehand and improvise as you are shooting. Try to shoot exactly what you planned out or was asked of you by a photo editor, and then shoot it from every angle possible. Up, down, from above, view from below, wide, close, inside and out, horizontal and vertical. If you plan it out and can capture all that then your images will sell and show your buyers how hard you work.
A ‘comp’ (short for complimentary) is a free, low-resolution, watermarked version of Cutcasters’ images. Buyers will generally download comps to evaluate an image’s suitability in a particular creative project or to evaluate varying page designs.
‘Comps’ may also be used by photo researchers or photo buyers who are doing research or purchasing images for a third party and need to seek this party’s approval of the image(s) prior to purchasing. Comp images may not be incorporated into any finished products.
To download a comp, you must first login to Cutcaster and then the download will be moved to your desktop.
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