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Submission Guidelines PHOTOSHOT updated August 2010
Submission Guidelines PHOTOSHOT
updated August 2010
Photoshot is an international photo library, delivering some
of the most extensive and high-quality image collections
in the world. Headquartered in London with offices in
New York and Hamburg, professionalism and customer
service are characteristics you can always count on from
Photoshot. With an archive that goes back to the early
1900s, we represent over 2500 contributors worldwide,
capturing everything from travel, nature and wildlife, to news,
entertainment, music and sports, as well as creative and
lifestyle (rights-managed and royalty-free collections), and
microstock imagery. We are home to over 8 million images,
with approximately 6 million online, and growing on a daily
basis. Our comprehensive collections carry everything the
image buyer is looking for and our images can be seen in
newspapers, magazines, books and broadcast platforms
worldwide.
PHOTOSHOT
Who are we?
Please contact..
If you need to contact us for additional information, please get in touch with our Photographer Relations Manager.
contact: Lee Daltonemail: [email protected]: +44 [0]20 7421 6000address: Photoshot 29-31 Saffron Hill London EC1N 8SW
For any technical assistance or queries relating to submitted work please contact our production manager:
contact: Garry Dunnemail: [email protected]
What we have...
You may already be familiar with four of our collections:
NHPA (Natural History Photographic Agency), UPPA
(Universal Pictorial Press and Agency) Retna and Stay Still.
NHPA is regarded as one of the world’s best collections of
nature and wildlife imagery, built up over 40 years and with
contributions from over 150 photographers, including four
“Wildlife Photographer of the Year” winners. UPPA is the
oldest independent photo news agency in the UK, dating
back to the early 1900’s, and is the photo archive of record
for royalty, politicians and the judiciary. It also has a strong
reputation for business and financial stories in the UK, EU
and US. Retna, established in 1978, is a well-known source
of music and celebrity images. The music range features
many of the most iconic images of the last 50 years. Stay
Still is a highly respected picture library specialising in
celebrity and television publicity photography, representing
some of the best studio portraiture photographers in the
business.
www.photoshot.com
SUBMISSIONS
Our collections include...
UPPA - live international news pictures
NHPA - images of wildlife & nature
PictureNature - images of nature & the environment
Woodfall Wild Images - environment & conservation issues
Oceans Image - images of our marine world
World Pictures - comprehensive travel images
Photos Horticultural - plants & gardens in every season
Starstock - celebrity & entertainment events worldwide
Retna - music, portraiture & live events
Stay Still - exclusive celebrity portraiture
Talking Sport - live & archival sporting images
Archive - historical portraits & events
World Illustrated - images of art, culture & heritage
Bruce Coleman - classic travel & nature imagery
Creative - RM & RF images for the design market
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
New Photographer submissions
What happens after you submit?
• We require non-interpolated Hi-res JPEG files (saved at quality level 12) from a high end digital SLR camera of no less than
8 megapixels made from RAW files where major corrections to colour/contrast, etc have been done before the files are
processed.
• Adobe RGB 1998 colour space (embedded)
• 300 dpi
• Ensure images are the correct orientation
• No sharpening
• All dust and artefacts removed at 100%
• No interpolation (re-sizing)
• If working on JPEGs they should first be resaved as Tiffs. Do not resave JPEGs in JPEG format as this will result in degraded
image quality.
• All images should be submitted as Hi-res (JPEG 12), no Tiffs.
• Submissions should be a minimum of 20 images and maximum of 500 images for existing contributors.
• Captioned and keyworded - see Captioning & Keywording (p. 6-9)
Technical Guidelines (for non time-sensitive material, e.g. nature, travel, creative, garden, environment, archive images)
If your work is accepted, we will email you a photographer’s agreement and upon return of this, will provide you with a unique
contributor code (or B-number as we call it) and our ftp details for uploading submissions.
New photographers are welcome to submit digital submissions for review, providing the specifications outlined below are
met. Sharpness, correct exposure and good use of lighting and composition are essential, but we are looking for pictures with
interest and impact.
We aim to create consistency across all our digital files, whether they are files from digital cameras, scans from
transparencies submitted from photographers or files from our own transparency scanning programme. We believe in
setting high standards in both transparency and digital submissions, in order to offer the highest quality imagery to our clients.
As a first digital submission, please submit 50 Hi-res image files of examples of your work, according to the guidelines below
and include some information about yourself. Please note that we are not able to return any CD or DVD media, so ensure you
send copies only. We will review the initial submission within 2 weeks of receipt and get in contact via e-mail.
• Scans should be made on a high end film-dedicated scanner.
• Ideally file size should be 50-60 MB for 35mm film, or larger when scanning from a medium/large format transparency.
• Pictures should be scanned at the optical resolution and the highest possible bit depth of the scanner. Do not interpolate
(re- size) images to achieve the required file size, even at the scanning stage.
• Images should not be sharpened either at the scanning stage or in processing/post production.
Scans from transparencies
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Panoramic
If you are intending to submit panoramic images please can you make sure that the original file is at least 80 MB.
PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
Technical Guidelines (for time-sensitive material, e.g. news, sport, music, entertainment)
For time-sensitive news images, the speed of sending and receiving images is more important than supplying the highest
quality file type, so we ask that images are saved at a smaller file size.
• Hi-res JPEGs taken with a digital SLR camera of no less than 8 megapixels saved at JPEG quality 8.
• RGB colour space (embedded)
• Ensure images are the correct orientation
• No sharpening
• Dust and artefacts removed at 100% magnification
• No interpolation (re-sizing)
• Captioned and keyworded - see Captioning & Keywording (p. 6-9)
How do I get my images to you?
Once your initial submission has been accepted and you have been given a unique contributor number, we will provide you with
instructions on how to upload directly to our editing desk. If you do not know (or wish to check) your photographer code, please
email our Photographer Relations Manager Paul Lubbock ([email protected]).
There are several ways in which you can send us your images:
1. DVD/CDs & Hard drives:
Please send them marked clearly to -
Lee Dalton
New Submissions
Photoshot
29-31 Saffron Hill
London
EC1N 8SW
UK
If you are sending a hard drive or memory stick please ensure it is formatted for use on PCs and is clearly marked with your
name and return address.
2. FTP - stock (non time-sensitive):
Please upload to the FTP address we provide to you on registration. Create a folder of the images you wish to upload and label
it with:
Your name
Your unique contributor number (provided to you on acceptance as a Photoshot contributer)
The category of picture, e.g. Nature, Travel, Creative, Underwater, Garden, Culture, General Stock
e.g. John_Doe_B1290_Nature
We will confirm receipt of your submission by email and also contact you once we have edited and uploaded it. Please note
we edit all submissions for reasons of duplication, subject matter or technical criteria. The editor of your submission may also
contact you during the editing process with questions or requests for more information.
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
3. FTP - Live News (time-sensitive):
PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT MATERIAL UNLESS YOU HAVE CONTACTED THE NEWS DESK FIRST OR ARE A REGULAR SUPPLIER
When uploading news imagery please make sure that each image file name includes your B number, the event/subject
covered and the total number of images you will be uploading. For example:
B312_16_Trooping_the_colour_01
B312 (B number/contributor code) _16 (total in set) _Trooping_the_colour (subject/event) _01 (first image of sixteen)
Please upload these images to one of the following News Desk FTP addresses:
News desk (live)
address: ftp.uppa.co.uk
username: desk
password: uppa01 (zero)
News desk (features)
address: ftp.uppa.co.uk
username: news
password: features1
Once you have uploaded your images please email one of our news desk editors to confirm:
Graeme Atkinson (UK)
email: [email protected]
telephone: +44 (0)207 421 6000
Marvin Woodyatt (USA)
email: [email protected]
telephone: +1 (0)646 429 9188
If you have any further questions or problems getting your material to us please do not hesitate to contact our Photographer
Relations Manager, Lee Dalton to assist:
email: [email protected]
telephone: +44 (0)207 421 6000
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
Captioning & Keywording your images:
Images should be captioned and keyworded using the IPTC caption information plug-in in Photoshop (File>File Info) or similar
software. The two fields that must be completed are the Caption field (Description field in Photoshop) and Keyword field.
Caption (Description field in Photoshop):
• Always include a basic caption written in the sequence: Subject (including Latin name if nature), Place/Country, e.g. Eiffel
Tower, Paris, France.
• Be as precise as possible in the caption - for instance we need to know the exact name of the subject/site.
• Please do not use abbreviations in the caption, for example please caption as ‘Yosemite National Park, California, USA’ rather
than ‘Yosemite NP, CA, USA’.
• For images of wildlife taken in a captive or controlled environment please label as such in the caption.
• Digitally manipulated images (i.e. those that have been significantly altered from the original image) should be labelled in the
caption.
• For those images that have a Model Release, please caption as ‘Model Released’ and supply the Model Release in digital
format with the submission.
Keywords:
• All images should be comprehensively keyworded – the more accurate your keywording the more likely your image will show
up in relevant searches.
• We generally expect an image to have between 20-40 keywords.
• Please separate your keywords by (preferably) commas, or semi colons.
• Please include the caption in the keywords, as well as the category that the image is to be uploaded to, i.e. nature, travel,
garden, underwater, creative, etc.
• Please include plurals, American spellings and alternative spellings, for example ‘Minorca’ and ‘Menorca’, ‘Canary Islands’ and
‘The Canaries’. Please also note that if a hyphen is used in the subject name it is also useful to have the subject name in the
keywords without the hyphen, for example ‘great-crested’, ‘greatcrested’, ‘great crested’.
• Don’t separate names like ‘Lincoln Monument’ into separate keywords.
• Don’t keyword insignificant objects in the image.
• For all wildlife images, please include the generic keywords ‘animal, animals, wildlife, nature’.
• For all travel images, please include the generic keywords ‘holiday, holidays, travel, vacation, vacations’.
• For landscape images, please include the keywords ‘landscape, landscapes, scene, scenes, scenic, scenics’.
How to add this information to your images:
Using Photoshop (CS+):
1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. Go to ‘File’, then ‘File Info’ and input the information as shown in the screenshots (p. 7-8).
3. Input the caption into the Description field, and keywords into the Keyword field separated by commas (preferably) or semi
colons as shown in the examples (p. 7-8).
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
Example 1
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
Example 2
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PHOTOSHOTSUBMISSIONS
If you are using alternative software to caption and keyword your images feel free to send us a sample image so that we can
check the information is being entered into the correct fields.
Keywording Tips:
When keywording your images it is worth taking a methodical approach and describing your images with the following criteria:
• Literal - e.g. “mammal, girl, beach, market, desert”.
• Attributes - e.g. “eating, walking, cycling, old, young”.
• Location - be specific, e.g. “Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London, UK”; or generic, e.g. “hospital, shop, home”.
• Interaction - e.g. “hunting, playing, calling, flying”.
• Perspective - e.g. “underwater, aerial, closeup”.
• Concepts - e.g. “power, happiness, strength, humour, tranquillity”.
Using alternative software:
Keywording Resources:
www.cradocfotosoftware.com/fotoKeyword-Harvester/keywording-tips.html
www.controlledvocabulary.com/metalogging/ck_guidelines.html
Recommended image editing and keywording software:
Photoshop CS: www.adobe.com/photoshopcs (imaging & captioning/keywording)
Image Keyworder: www.imagekeyworder.com (captioning/keywording)
Fotostation: www.fotostation.co.uk (captioning/keywording)
Adobe Lightroom: www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshoplightroom (RAW conversion)
Capture NX: www.capturenx.com (RAW conversion)
Any Questions?
Please contact our Photographer Relations Manager Lee Dalton with any queries:
email: [email protected]
telephone: +44 (0)207 421 6000
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