Photo requirement checklist
For your photos to be accepted into our library they need to meet certain technical and asthetical requirements, if your photos do not meet these requirements they will be declined.
The team here have been submitting photos to various agencies for a number of years and understand rejection of images that you have worked hard to create can feel very personal, so we have put together the checklist below and hopefully we can all keep rejections to a minimum.
- Commercial value
- Focus
- Exposure and lighting
- Noise
- Filtering
- Isolation
- Composition
- Color
- Similar images
We will now go through each one in a bit more detail with some examples.
Please note: some cameras are simply not capable of capturing images of sufficient quality, this is more likely to be the case with older or low cost point and shoots, if you are using one of these cameras it will be very difficult to get an image accepted.
Commercial value
Probably the most important item on the checklist is "will it sell?", please ask yourself what can this photo be used for, advertising, websites, magazines etc.
Focus
Your focus should be sharp where appropriate, if you photo contains a very shallow focus for creative effect your Image description should reflect this.
Exposure and lighting and color
Images should be 'correctly' exposed and should be lit in a way that enhances / flatters the subject. Snow should be white, oranges should be orange and grass green. It's very easy to end up with images that don't look quite right especially if your camera and monitor are not set up quite right.
Noise
Noise is the scourge of many digital cameras, it manifests itself as pixelation in areas of photographs that should be smooth or solid, areas of flat blue sky and dark shadows can show signs of noise. Correct exposure at the time of shooting can minimise or eliminate the problem, but careful and selective filtering using software may be required. Images should be always inspected at 100%.
Filtering
Heavy use of filtering either in camera or in post production can degrade the image beyond use, if in doubt leave the major photoshopping to the buyers and stick to minor contrast / color adjustments.
Isolation
If you are isolating objects onto a solid background please take care to isolated correctly. Many articles can be found for the best ways to achieve this either in camera or post production.
Similar images
Please do not upload batches of images that are very similar, i.e. subjects with slight changes in composition, color etc.