Questions about Stock Photo Keywording and Captioning

I received a couple of questions today from a potential picWorkflow photo keywording customer, and I figured since I’ve been seeing similar questions coming in from search engines, that I’d post the question and my response here for anyone else who may be interested in the keywording or photo captioning service to see too.

Question

Hi Bob,

Have spent the evening researching keywording services and came across yours. Here are my thoughts:

I have [a lot of] images on [agency]… mostly poorly keyworded. [a lot] more awaiting keywords.

1. Question… “if he uses just anyone to do this what about the quality?”
2. Question… “If they use pre designated lists how wrong can they be? Maybe a lot”
3. I’m not in a hurry, and don’t need your upload service … just the keywords on a spreadsheet.
4. You advertise 15 cents somewhere, can we make it $100 per 1000?

My response

On #1, I don’t use ‘just anyone’, all keyworders on picWorkflow are experienced either in keywording their own microstock images (min 1000 images), or keywording the big microstocker’s images. They are quality-checked before acceptance, given specific quality guidelines to follow, and subject to ongoing QA both by me (as admin) and every keywording task can be rated by the keyword purchaser (admin rated after about 2 weeks if purchaser doesn’t rate). About 80% of all keywording tasks are completed by my top 3 keyworders, and all 3 are fluent english speakers. Quality is built into the system as the best keyworders see tasks sooner, so they have the opportunity to work on the best paid tasks.
On captioning, only the best keyworders are eligible to caption and like with keywording are subject to ongoing review.
I have (as yet) received not a single complaint about the service, the only negative feedback I’ve had is that keyworders did not find the scientific name of a plant on a few images (though they usually do pretty well with animals).

On #2, they don’t use predesignated lists, they keyword (and caption) directly from their own minds On top of text-input they are offered related suggestions, which are drawn from a good quality relational database of approx 45,000 keywords or short phrases, and about 350 million relationships.

On #3, You will need to upload the images to picWorkflow so we can generate the appropriate previews for the keyworders to use (anything already partly keyworded will be subject to a lower cost as a keyword audit will only be charged where addition/removal action is needed, the rest is refunded on completion).
Once keywording is complete you can export that via CSV or TSV.
If you’re particularly technically minded, you could also use the photo keywording api which has some extra features (and makes it easier to manage a large portfolio), though you’d need to code your own app/site to consume it and apply the returned data to your images.

On #4, The flexibility on price is entirely your own choice, though you cannot pay less than 0.5c per keyword, to pay $100 per 1000 images, you could choose 20 keywords per image at 0.5c each (ie. 10c per image). Most people choose 30-40 keywords for microstock, though again your average may differ if your images are already partly keyworded (as mentioned above).

Kind Regards
Bob

Very pleased by how well the keywording and captioning people perform

I have been delighted by how good the picWorkflow keyworders are doing for image keyword quality and captions, so I want to thank them again for doing such a great job!

I know a lot of people who read this blog have already given picWorkflow a go (I’ve heard back from a lot of you already, thanks), but if you’ve not tried it yet, why not have a few photos captioned and/or keyworded, it’s inexpensive, it’s excellent quality, relevant metadata, and it saves LOADS of your time

Still have questions? Please comment below or drop me an email