Get iStockphoto Keywords Tool

Last week, a buyer posted on the iStockphoto forums about the trouble he was having easily getting a list of keywords for an iStock download.

How could I easily get (copy through clipboard) keywords for bought images?

When I go to image detail, there is for example “Vector, Men, Child, Little Girls, Family, Illustration and Painting, Human Hand, Love, Human Hair, Blue, Red …more”, so I cannot copy all keywords easily. When I click “more”, the table with keywords is much more unfriendly for getting keywords.

I need these keywords for cataloguing my images.

So, apparently, this buyer downloads an image, and wants a keyword list to insert into the image in some form so that he can search his hard drive later for that image.  Makes sense.  However, with a recent re-design of the image details page, the keyword list comes up in a fairly uncopyable format.  You first need to pop up the keyword layer by hitting “more” and then if you try and copy and paste that list, it will be full of white space and have to be edited.

I had some spare time this week, so I scripted a little tool on my iStockTool page to return a list of keywords when given a list of iStock image numbers.  For example, entering 10855173 here: http://digitalplanetdesign.com/index.php?page=istocktools gives you this back:

Description: Royalty Free Stock Photo, Over the Shoulder Christmas Smile, copyright Sean Locke, iStockphoto LP
Keywords: Adults Only, Young Adult, Only Women, female1, Female, Women, Adult, People, Long Hair, Beauty, Beautiful, 20s, 30s, Caucasian, Studio Shot, Holiday, Cheerful, Smiling, Happiness, Red, Red Background, Defocused, Selective Focus, Focus On Foreground, Head And Shoulders, Hope, Dress, Copy Space, Shiny, One Woman Only, Toothy Smile, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Palm, Hands Cupped, Human Hand, Holding, Waist Up, Portrait, Looking Down, Christmas Present, Gift, Wrapped, Horizontal, Looking Over Shoulder, Rear View, stock images, royalty free images, stock photography, stock photos, inexpensive, istockphoto

It’s basically a php grab of the meta data in the html page, but could be very useful in a situation like this.  Note, that this list of meta data is the disambiguated keyword list.  ie., I had entered “blur” as a keyword, but this list includes the official controlled vocabulary keyword “defocused”.

Also note, if you have “Grease Monkey” for Firefox installed, user theasis offered this up:

you could install this script: http://www.theasis.co.uk/iStock/show_keywords.user.js

Hope you find this useful.  Have a good week!

Portfolio Update

Trend studies are showing growing markets in the US for different ethnic groups, including the large and increasing Hispanic population.  Living in the Mid-west, it’s proved challenging to find non-Caucasian models in the past for my stock work.  However, I am attempting to increase the ethnic variety available in my images.  Including this new iStockphoto.com series, with a handsome Hispanic male in some casual and business poses on white.  This model is a singer/promo model and has some great expressions:

Lots more images of that model coming through in the next weeks, with a variety of poses.  If you have any ideas you’d like him to illustrate, let me know!

Also, recently, I’m trying to filter in some Christmas imagery.  Both photography and 3d renders:

Vimeo Rights Update

Way back in March of this year, it was noticed that the video sharing site Vimeo had what seemed to be veeery flexible language in their terms of service.  I still get a lot of blog hits on “vimeo terms” or “vimeo rights grab”, so I thought I’d go back again to see if they had tweaked their terms as promised.  Last time I checked, no luck, but today I found they’ve added some new bolded wording to their  page.  Here’s the old terms:

By submitting your Submission to VIMEO, you hereby grant VIMEO and its affiliates, successors and assigns a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license (with a right to create derivative works) to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, modify, incorporate into other works, publicly perform and display your Submission or any portion thereof, in or through any medium, whether now known or hereafter created. VIMEO shall be entitled to unrestricted use of any Submission for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the submitter.

Well, I’m happy report that they seem to have finally made some changes to their wording, restricting the usage (commercial or otherwise) of your videos to the Vimeo site:

By submitting your video(s), you hereby grant VIMEO and its affiliates, successors and assigns a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license (with a right to create derivative works to the extent necessary to make video content compatible with any Vimeo Services), revocable upon removing the video from Vimeo, to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, modify, incorporate into other works, publicly perform and display your videos or any portion thereof, in or through any medium, whether now known or hereafter created. VIMEO shall also be entitled to use clips of any video that has not been designated “private” for the purpose of promoting the Vimeo Site or Services, without compensation to the submitter; however, Vimeo will not use your videos for any other commercial purposes without obtaining your prior approval.

So, check it out.  They are including language that states the license is revocable by you upon removal of said video, and, more importantly, a statement that they will not use your videos for any commercial use (aside from promotion of their site) without checking with you first.  Any commercial purpose.   Nice.

I think they made a good attempt at the next part:

You also grant each user (or specified users, if a video is designated “private”) of the Vimeo Site or Services a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal and non-commercial license to access and view your video through the Vimeo Site or any other access point authorized by you and/or VIMEO. This right to access and view your video shall include, solely to the extent necessary, the right to copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, publicly perform, create derivative works of, and display your video.

This part is a bit confusing.  The first sentence makes sense.  You’re allowing the user to access and view the video.  The second sentence should say something like:

Included in Vimeo’s royalty free license of your work is the right to copy, transmit … etc… and display your video, solely to the extent necessary to allow the user to access and view your video.

I think we know what they meant, and just got tripped up a bit in the wording.  We don’t want to imply the user has the rights to make derivitive works or distribute the video, but that’s kind of how it reads.

So, I think they made an honest attempt to limit their terms of use a bit.  I wouldn’t have a problem uploading to Vimeo now.

October Portfolio Update

Sorry for the quietness recently.  My wife and I took a Royal Caribbean cruise last week to celebrate our 15 year wedding anniversary.  No internet for me for 7 days!  Ouch

Of course, while I was gone, lots of new imagery into my iStockphoto.com stock image portfolio to keep things fresh, so here’s an update on the new stuff.

Football Player

Fall means … football!  Got a great looking, athletic, new model for this series of an American Football Player.  Official and authentic football helmet, uniform and pads – cleats too!  There’s some great expressions in this series, along with some humor.  Oh, and some beer and wings – good for advertising bar parties or tailgate parties – whatever.  I cleaned out the local supermarket of 4 lbs of hot wings to put this set together.  There are also some more dramatic images in the series on a blue background.

Thanksgiving Turkey

Next on the plate, a great humor-based series for Thanksgiving (USA).    Two of my popular models, a golden, roasted turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, the fixings and … brussels sprouts.  Some funny expressions in here, and the series is isolated on white, making it easy to drop into a website, blog or newspaper article.  In addition, there are some more realistically lit and set images in the series.

3D Man

Lastly, this week, I have a new 3d rendered series.  It features a “stand out” orange colored 3d guy, in a variety of situations, holding a variety of props.  If you have ideas or needs for this series, please let me know!  I enjoy doing the modeling and texturing for these.  It’s a conceptual series, representing “everyman”, so it can be used for all kinds of things, and it is on a white background for easy dropping in to reports, brochures, magazines, etc.

That’s it for this week. Again, if you have any iStockphoto questions, as a buyer, feel free to get in touch with me, and I’ll see if I can blog to help you out.  Thanks!