Beginner Question (might be dumb!)

cherie76 · #1 (**permalink**) 05-30-2007, 03:42 PM

Hi guys
I have never submitted a photo to any of these stock sites but am very interested in doing so. Now my question which may be a dumb begginer question is, if I have a photo am I able to submit the same photo to different sites?
Thanks for you help, sorry if u have answered that question a million times before!

dbvirago · #2 (**permalink**) 05-30-2007, 03:46 PM

Yes you can as long as you haven't done exclusive.

1,398,387

cherie76 · #3 (**permalink**) 05-30-2007, 03:56 PM

Great thanks for that!:-D

Kerioak · #4 (**permalink**) 05-30-2007, 04:42 PM

Hi, you might find that some sites will accept it and others decline it as they all have different criteria and customers

pichunter · #5 (**permalink**) 05-30-2007, 04:52 PM

I know when you first start it seems crazy that you can upload the same photo to every site.

The other exception is when you get into Rights Managed licencees, the micro sites are all Royalty Free, a few like Featurepics offer a rights managed options.
When you put an image in Rights Managed, you can't sell it royalty free.

Also when you have posted a photo as Royalty Free, this image or the group of images if it is a studio shoot with the same clothes, setup etc, cannot be then put up as Rights Managed.

Best of luck with your portfolio.

RTimages · #6 (**permalink**) 05-31-2007, 12:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pichunter

Also when you have posted a photo as Royalty Free, this image or the group of images if it is a studio shoot with the same clothes, setup etc, cannot be then put up as Rights Managed.

Can I ask where you got this info from?

Karimala · #7 (**permalink**) 05-31-2007, 01:26 AM

Welcome, Cherie! You'll find a lot of great information here that will help you get started.

eendicott · #8 (**permalink**) 05-31-2007, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTimages

Can I ask where you got this info from?

He's referring to "similars". Most RM agencies don't want you to upload similar images as RF and RM. Microstock agencies are the same way - if you have an exclusive image at DT, or submit an image that gets accepted to their contests that require exclusivity, then you aren't allowed to upload "similar" images elsewhere.

The term "similar" can have various subjective meanings. I've had a Getty photographer tell me that she can only upload 3 images from a shoot at a time to Getty. Not sure how true that is, but if you follow the RM forums, you'll hear a lot of the old school photographers bashing "amateurs" for submitting too many similar images. That's also one of the reasons behind AlamyRank at Alamy.

Funny thing is, you've got folks like Ron Chapple who have been doing this for most of their lives, and have even started their own agencies, encouraging new photographers to shoot similar images so the buyer has a choice.

I know what I'm doing...you can decide what's best for your business

cherie76 · #9 (**permalink**) 06-01-2007, 01:20 AM

Thanks for all your help guys and your welcomes
But... I have another question. I was just looking in shutterstock and some of the pics are so good! How do people get them looking like this? Photoshop maybe?

RTimages · #10 (**permalink**) 06-01-2007, 07:34 AM

The Pro in me would say, try and get your photo's looking as good as you can in camera, however you are right Photoshop is how the majority of people get them to look so good.

Your photo will need to look good at 100% but more importantly it has to look great at thumbnail size, imagine you are a buyer searching for an image trawling through all the results returned by your search, and that could literally be thousands. The one's that are going to sell are the ones that 'pop' out of the page.