CalevPhoto

Introduction to Microstock Photography – different types of licenses

Today I will continue this series on microstock photography.  I will begin by discussing the different types of ways you can sell pictures.  There are multiple types of licenses that are available, with differing rates of payment.  Not all types are supported by all sites.  Actually, no site supports all license types.  The following are the main ways that it is possible to sell.

Limited use – This is a very limited license that allows images to be used only by non-profit organizations.  As far as I know, only Alamy supports this model.  While Alamy is generally a traditional stock house, they currently support a limited microstock model where non-profit organizations can purchase licenses for far less money.

Editorial – These are basically newsworthy pictures.  Editorial pictures do not require model and property releases, but also cannot be used for advertising campaigns.  Good examples of editorial pictures are those found in newspapers of various politicians.  These politicians did not consent to their pictures being released, but because they are newsworthy no release is necessary.  Various news web sites may use these pictures.  However, editorial photos sell much less often than standard licenses.  Today only Shutterstock and Dreamstime support editorial pictures.

Standard license – This is the license for the vast majority of pictures.  This allows most uses for pictures except for large commercial runs.  The license contains limits to how many times the image can be used and the resale of items containing the picture, but these limits are acceptable for most uses. 

Enhanced licenses – These licenses have far fewer limits and are much more expensive.  They are much less frequent than standard licenses but over time you will see them.  Enhanced licenses are prominent on both IStockPhoto and Shutterstock.  Typically the payouts are much higher than for standard licenses.  While standard licenses pay anywhere from 25 cents to several dollars, enhanced licenses pay from twenty to fifty dollars.

Note that the licensing terms for standard and enhanced photos vary from site to site.

Submission process

I will now discuss the general submission process that is common to all sites.  The following are the general steps for submitting a picture to a microstock site.  In later posts, I will give more details per site.

1) The first step is to obviously take and post process the pictures.

2) Send the pictures to the site.  Various sites support HTTP, flash, and FTP upload.  FTP upload is generally the quickest, though I have found flash upload to be easier to use sometimes.  HTTP upload – where you select each file – is generally the slowest way to upload.

3) Select keywords for each image.  Actually you should have done that as part of step 1 by adding the keywords directly to the image.  Still, most sites require you to click a button to use the keywords from the image or to correlate their keywords with yours.

4) Select categories for each image.  All sites have categories and all except for StockXPert require you to enter them.  Categories vary from site to site.  Some sites have quick ways to categorize, but this is still generally a manual process.

5) Many sites have one or more standard checkboxes you must check.  These basically signal that you understand the agreement and the photo was indeed taken by you.

6) After some time, the site will review the image and accept or reject it.  If the image is accepted, it is added to their collection where it may sell.

In the next post, I will begin to discuss the different microstock sites and my opinions of them.