mangiaphoto

Adding description and keywords is almost the science. How many keywords, in which order, what synonyms etc… This is the most popular questions on microstock forums. Next article will help you to learn basic things about description and keywords.

Description

Good description is very important. If you enter a wrong description, reviewer will probably reject your image. Good idea is to provide a verbal description of the image, subject, location and any interesting or valuable information. It should be short, but long enough to describe all you need to say to potential buyer. If you have clipping path included, you can add, “Clipping path included” in your description field. It will help you to make better results and improve you sales.

Keywords:

Potential customers find your image out of all the others by searching via keywords. They are the most important information you can provide. You can enter single words, terms, and phrases that accurately describe your image. Use as many keywords as possible but each one must be a word or phrase that describes the image. People often know the specific subject they are looking for and including concept keywords may help to inspire the buyer to choose your images. If you enter only few words, sales will suffer. In addition, adding to much keywords regards to SPAM and will not be tolerated during inspection process. Spelling is critical and using spell checker tools is recommended. You can use any word processing software with spell check (MS Word, Open Office Writer, etc.), or special Photoshop plug-in - KeywordsEditor. It is similar to File info tool but it have spell check, erase duplicate, synonyms suggestion, keywords sorting and counting etc.

Before you start adding your keywords do not try to steal keywords from other user. It is strictly forbidden and can lead to you account suspension, especially on iStockphoto. On certain sites, you can pay other people to enter your keywords. Number of keywords is usually limited on 50 per image. Fotolia allows more that 50 but you probably do not need more than 50. If you cannot describe your image in 50 words or synonyms, you have a big problem If you have problems with adding your keywords you can use http://thesaurus.reference.com/ or you can use KeywordsEditor. You can find it on www.deepperspective.com (site is unavailable right now ) or try to search on downloads.com.
Adding keywords is a learnable skill, just like photography.

On picture above you can see File info tool in Photoshop. You can open it with File -> File info or with Alt+Ctrl+I. Mandatory fields are marked with orange arrow.

Picture above is Photoshop plug-in that helps photographers to add metadata keywords to their images efficiently and easily. Main tools: spell checker, correction suggestions, synonyms suggestions, sorting, deleting duplicate, and counting. Saving groups of words and complete Templates of Meta-data.

You can download it HERE.

Useful links:

• K is for…. TAGS on iStockphoto
• Meet the keymasters on Dreamstime