Knowledge Base > Stock Photo Tips and Tutorials

Uploading Stock Photos

Photographer’s Manual

Photographers must read the following rules on Copyright laws, image quality, titles, and keywords before you can begin uploading Images. Please read these carefully so you don’t waste your time uploading photos that will not be approved - thank you.

StockRiot welcomes all experience levels of photographers and illustrators, but please note: StockRiot is targeted at designers and ad agencies, who require high quality imagery. Therefore, we can only accept professional quality photos & Illustrations. We reserve the right to decline files at our discretion, including reasons based on the following criteria:

• Does NOT meet legal/copyright requirements
• Poor Focus
• Excessive Noise, Grain & Color Distortion
• Poor Lighting
• Compressed JPEG artifacts
• Excessive Filtering
• Dust & Debris in Scans
• Up-sampling or Enlarging Photos
• Poor Cropping
• Poor Composition
• Adult Content unsuitable for StockRiot
• Profane or Violent Images
• Inappropriate Title, Description or Keywords
• Copyright / Trademark Infringement or Risk

Uploading any of the following is strictly prohibited and may result in a lifetime ban or legal action.

• A photograph of someone else’s photograph
• A photograph that you did not take
• An image you found (on the web, a stock photo or clip art CD, from a book or magazine or other printed object or digital storage media)
• Desktop patterns that you did not create
• Stock photographs purchased from other stock agencies (Even if it has been heavily modified in PhotoShop)
• Tracing of a photograph that you did not take, or someone else’s illustration

Model Releases

Download: sr_model_release.pdf
Every photo with a recognizable face must have a signed Model Release. If you are taking a series of photos of one model, only one model release per photo session is needed, but you must submit that same release with each photo that you upload.

If the person is a minor (under the age of 18) or mentally handicapped or incompetent, a legal guardian must sign the model release.

Contrary to popular belief, just because a person is in a public place does not allow them to be photographed for use in commercial purposes without a signed model release.

Property Releases

Download: download coming soon

Photos of private identifiable property or businesses showing the interior or taken from on the owners property must have an accompanying Property Release signed by the owner. Taking photos of buildings or homes from outside in a public place such as the sidewalk or the street is generally OK, as long as they don’t show anything private.

Model & property releases can be scanned & emailed to or faxed to 1 (866) 623-5128. They may also be scnned or photographed & uploaded along with the photo.

License Plates

Images of vehicles need registration plates or license plate numbers tastefully painted out or altered for privacy reasons.

Logos & Trademarks

Logos, trademarks, company names, product names, product brands or trademarked and patented designs are not acceptable. If they are in your photographs they must be retouched out.

Artwork & Documents

Paintings, sculptures, any object in a museum or art gallery, some architecture, advertisements, other photography (a photo of a photo), modern maps, documents where names are mentioned, computer screens showing interfaces or icons are not acceptable.

Illustrations

Tracings of stock photography or any other image found in newspapers, magazines, or on the Internet are not acceptable.

Government & Military Property<

Agency insignia, military decorations, golden eagles, Presidential seals, flat scans of paper currency can not be accepted.

No full nudity

No images containing fully exposed genitals, fully exposed female breasts. Partial nudity is usually allowed.

Image Quality

Photos should be saved as RGB JPEGs. If saved from photoshop they should have a quality level of 11 or higher.

Photos must be at least 1600 pixels high or wide - the larger the photo the more diverse the uses for it. Upload your largest file available, our system will automatically resize the smaller versions for sale.

Photos must be clear, well lit, well composed. Poorly lit photos or photos with lackluster colour will not be approved. Think about the commercial uses for your photos. Can you see it being used in an ad, website, poster, etc? If you can’t think of a reason why people would need your photo you should re-think uploading it.

Avoid “Snap Shot” Type Photos. Using your flash as a primary light source leaves hard edge and unnatural shadows, making the photo largely unusable. Avoid the use of your camera’s single flash as a primary light source.

Color photos should have rich accurate color. Usually photos can benefit from a little level adjustment, color tweak, cloning out of blemishes, etc. in a graphics program like Photoshop. We’re not suggesting major re-work - just level and color adjustment mainly.

Do not over sharpen. Sharpen filters improperly set, or improperly set and ran more than once leave harsh edges and unwanted artifacts.

Please do not add boarders or frames. Frames are great for presentation & display, but do not serve any use for images that are being sold.

Avoid the use of photoshop “art” filters. Applying a mosaic filter or any other sort of art filter in a graphics program greatly reduces the uses for the image and it’s chance of being sold.

Your subject should be evident. Good composition is key.

Titles and Keywords & Descriptions

Titles

Stockriot uses Search Engine Friendly URLs and uses your photo title as the page title tag. What this means is the photo title becomes a main search phrase for search engines such as Google. So please avoid the use of unclear and obscure names for your Titles. The best way to name a photo is to think, “If I were looking for this image on Google, what search phrase would I use?”.

Keywords

1. Keywords are the most important information you can provide to help users find your images. While people often know the specific subject they are looking for, concept keywords may help to inspire the end-user to represent an idea. Make sure your keywords really describe your photo. Separate each keyword by a comma as such:

   guitar, acoustic, music, instrument, fretboard, string, sound hole, wooden

2. Do NOT enter keywords that do not describe the photo well. Do not enter location names (city or country names) unless the photo is really describing that location. For instance, if you have a photo of a clown in a park, there is no need to mention the name of the park or the city it is in, unless there are recognizable landmarks in the photo. If there are recognizable landmarks, by all means add the park, name, the city the country, etc.
   
3. Who, what, where, why, when & how work well to help in creating keywords.

   WHO is the photo of?
   WHO would use the object in the photo?
   WHAT is in the photo?
   WHAT is the subject doing?
   WHAT colours are the main images of the photo
   WHAT do you do with the subject of the photo?
   WHERE is it?
   WHY is it this way?
   WHEN is the photo taken?
   HOW does it feel?

   Remember to put common variations of important words into your keyword selection (for example: smile, smiling, happy)

Descriptions

Please provide us with a good description of the image. Include relevant details: the subject, location and any interesting or valuable information. This information can provide important details to the person who is considering your file for download.

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