How to submit photos to Freerangestock.com:
Thank you for your interest in submitting your photos to Freerangstock.com! With our revenue sharing system, you can make money when ad revenue is generated within pages of your content. Click here to learn more about our revenue sharing program. Don't be scared off by the steps outlined here - it's very simple to do!
As with most stock photo agencies, we are a service that attempts to uphold fairly high standards - not all photos will be approved for posting to the main site. We strongly feel that just because the stock photos are free doesn't mean they can't be good. That would defeat the whole purpose of posting useful images! The better you photos are, the more users will find them. If you are participating in our revenue-sharing system, that can mean more ad revenue for you. We look for photos that document something useful or are artistically interesting; as such, they should be well composed and well exposed.
First, make sure that you understand that the photos you upload will be given away and can be downloaded for commercial or non-commercial use. You still maintain all copyrights and the images cannot be redistributed by the users who download them. Your rights as an author are the same as if you had sold the image. Freerange terms of use are outlined here.
Photos that contain recognizable people must be model released. You are not currently required to upload the model release form, but you must have it on file and be able to provide it on request.
Images cannot contain copyrighted materials, such at works of art, corporate logos, or other copyrighted designs (unless you own the copyright.) So no logos or brand names - these should be Photoshopped out prior to upload.
Image Submissions
Overview:
Two things are very important: resolution and compression. We post photos with dimensions of at least 2400 x 1600 (or 1600 x 2400). We save this size image out of Photoshop as a .jpg file at Medium (5 - 7) quality to get a file sized between 250kb and 2mb. (So try to keep it under two megs or so.) Years of using and producing photos has led us to this compromise of size and compression. It will be more than adequate for most users. Make sure you keep a larger, unresized, uncompressed version of your image in addition to the version you create for upload!
If your images are much smaller than 2400x1600, DON"T SCALE THEM UP! They won't look good. These images may not be good candidates for posting.
Uploading Images:
You can upload images a few at a time with keywords, titles and descriptions through the administration areas of your photographer's account. This is simple and easy to do.
If you work with Photoshop or similar programs, you may find it easier and better (we do) to embed IPTC metadata directly in your images - this mean keywords, title, description, copyright and other information will become part of the image file. When you upload the file, the Freerange site will extract it - you don't need to enter anything in the upload fields.
Below is a little tutorial that will help you get started with how to embed this information, as well as some tips on other things like keywording. It's very simple, really.
Note: We will assume you have Photoshop for this example, but if you don't, there are other ways to achieve the same results.
Here's how you do it - embedding IPTC data
Step one: Open your image in Photoshop and do what you want to change it. We often sharpen a little, balance the colors, fiddle with the exposure, crop out what we don't want - it's all up to you. Maybe the photo was perfect out of the camera! Once it's how you want it, it's time to add keywords and/or descriptions.
Step two: Okay, here's where it gets interesting, keywords. In order for anyone to find your images, they need keywords. The Freerange site has a space for keywords and titles and descriptions, but it's MUCH better if you make this information part of the image. This is called IPTC metadata, and once it is saved with the image (every image has the capacity...), then it will travel with the image. Once uploaded, the Freerange site will extract this information and put it all in the database - if anything ever happens or gets changed, you just upload the image again and all that other information is still there!
So, in Photoshop, under the "File" menu, there's an option called "File Info." Open this, and you will see a place where you can enter any copyright information and your name as the author. There's also a drop down menu with an option for "Keywords" - this is where you put your keyword data. Try to use the plural forms of words - "balls" not just "ball" - so the search will find both. Keywords should reflect what's physically in the photo as well as colors, moods and other emotive qualities users may search. Geographic location is good too, and season of the year, if obvious. Once you have all the information you want as part of the file, close the file info box. Now all that information is part of the image itself and will travel with it.
Step three: Save the file somewhere safe - this is the full size version that will be your archive. Then resize the image to 2400 x 1600 or 1600 x 2400 (or so) depending on whether it's a vertical or horizontal image. Then "Save as..." or even "Save for web..." and select jpg as the file type, and quality about 5 (Medium) and look to see that your file is 250kb - 1500kb. (The server will be unhappy about large images.) Put the file somewhere you can file it for uploading to the site. (DON"T OVERWRITE THE VERSION YOU FIRST SAVED! KEEP THE BIG ONE FOR YOUR ARCHIVES!)
That's pretty much it! Go to your Freerange photographer account and upload images - make sure you leave blank the "Title," "Description," and "Keywords," fields - you put all that in the image metadata, so it will be automatically extracted! You can specify a category for each image after the upload.
Your images will be queued up for approval and, if approved, should be live in the site within 24 - 72 hours! (Maybe longer, but maybe shorter...)
Thanks, and if you have any problems or questions, please contact support!
