What photos does Photostock accept as a deposit? Depositphotos - general information about microstock. Photo requirements

According to open data, a large number of photo banks operate in the modern Russian stock photography market, about a dozen of which are microstocks. Each of them has its own history, audience and terms of cooperation. When choosing a future photography business partner from a variety of micropayment photo banks, it is important to find the most loyal option, especially if you are trying your hand at being a microstocker (supplier) for the first time. The largest players in the Russian microstock market are Depositphotos, ShutterStock and iStockPhoto. It is better to start your search with them, since they have already established themselves not only as experienced sellers of images, but also as reliable partners.

What else should you pay attention to when choosing a partner? Let's look at an example. First of all, let's analyze the history and get acquainted with general information in order to have a sufficient understanding of the bank. Depositphotos was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Florida, USA. Even to someone not initiated into stock photography, this name may seem familiar, which is not surprising thanks to its sister file hosting service Depositfiles.

According to company representatives, this rather large microstock (no pun intended!) is today the fastest growing photo bank in the world. There is no doubt - today Depositphotos operates in 192 countries and has an interface in 14 languages. Moreover, the bank's collection is now updated weekly with more than 150 thousand high-quality images, which has allowed the database to double in size over the past year. The bank's assortment is expanded and includes not only raster images (photos, illustrations and 3D graphics), but also vector graphics. So each partner of this microstock bank can be confident in the long-term relationship and the effectiveness of cooperation.

For all its scale, Depositphotos is loyal to photographers, providing the opportunity to try their hand at being a microstocker. And this is an important advantage for beginners. The only requirement for candidates is the need to pass an entrance exam, which, however, many call conditional. In addition, in order to enter into an agreement with Depositphotos, you will be required to provide any identification document.

Once you have confirmed your status as an official supplier, you will need to create high-quality images and provide them to microstock. What is important here, first of all, is the convenience and intuitive clarity of the interface, which will save you not only nerves, but also time. After all, every extra 2-3 seconds spent on inconvenient and illogical procedures while loading an image, with a massive flow, turns into hours wasted.

Online communication services with microstock specialists, such as LiveChat on Depositphotos, will allow you to quickly resolve current issues without being distracted from your main work with the bank’s website by email or phone.

The Russian market highly welcomes the presence of a Russian-language interface that is understandable not only to the supplier, but also to the buyer. By selecting keywords in Russian for your photographs, you will think like a buyer, express yourself like a buyer, and therefore have a much greater chance of selling your photo.

The situation would be much more difficult on an English-language site, when you can easily become a victim of incorrect translation and (or) poor knowledge of synonyms.

Incentive systems and bonuses are means for your professional growth and increasing your income. This means that the more sales you have, the higher the rank you will be assigned and the greater the commission you will receive on each sale. Such a system is not available everywhere, but it is actively practiced at Depositphotos.

There is also an affiliate program, familiar to many photographers through the referral link system: you, as a supplier, place your referral link on your site, soon other photographers and illustrators (your referrals) begin to follow this link and register as suppliers. For the activity of your referrals, you are awarded points in cash equivalent. Simple and profitable.

If you are reading this article, it means that you have decided to register with the Depositphotos microstock. And it is right. Depositphotos is good for beginner microstockers to figure out what’s what and what these microstocks are about in general (the convenient Russian-language interface and responsive support are great for this), and for seasoned stockers with a large portfolio to increase their income by 15-20 percent (for For me personally, in terms of income, this microstock has been in second place for several months now, albeit by a wide margin).

By the way, a foreign passport is not required to register on Depositphotos. As far as I know, for many it is the absence of this document that becomes an obstacle when working with microstocks. And here there are no barriers. So if you're not there yet, now is the time to sign up!

If you are new to this business, then it will be useful to go through it to quickly navigate the area, avoid standard mistakes, and learn many tricks and techniques in the work.

How to register on microstock Depositphotos.com

Registration on Depositphotos is quite simple, especially since everything is in Russian. Previously, some comrades inadvertently managed to register as buyers, and not as image suppliers, but in June 2014, microstock merged the accounts of suppliers and buyers, so everything became even simpler :)

During the existence of the stock, the interface has undergone some changes, but the essence remains the same. If you get lost somewhere and don’t find the item you need from the screenshots from the article, then ask in the comments.

First, we need to go to Depositphotos. To thank me for a good and useful article, you can use my referral link when registering. You will not face any financial loss. But you can be sure that I will answer all the questions you have about this microstock.

We ignore the blue “Register” button located in the upper right corner of the page and go down to the very bottom.

There we see an inconspicuous link on the left "Supplier registration".

Click on it and we will be taken to the registration page we need.

The registration form can be filled out in Cyrillic (Russian) or Latin (English). It all depends on what document you will upload to confirm your identity, and what letters your first and last name is written in this document. If you are uploading a Russian passport, fill it out in Russian.

In principle, it should be clear how to fill it out.

In chapter "User information" fill in the nickname and password that will be used to log into your account. Create a longer and more complex password. Ideally, it should be changed periodically afterwards. In the third field, confirm the password again. The last field contains your email address. As for email: it would be nice if it were a mailbox specifically set up for working with microstocks and not used for anything else.

In chapter "Contact Information" write your first and last name (exactly as in the document you will upload), fill in the address (in this line - only street, house and apartment), city, region, zip code, select the country in the drop-down list. We write the phone number.

Click "Register an account" and go to a page where we are asked to upload exam files and an identity document. If you are not ready for the exam yet, then now is the time to stop and prepare.

How to pass the exam

You will be required to submit five vector works or five photographs for the exam. Here it is in this form:

Don’t relax here: even if you comply with all these requirements, if there is an open path or some other technical flaw in your vector illustration (which, note, not a word is said on this page), the exam will be failed.

So take five of your best illustrations, prepare them as written in the article, pack them into zip archives and go to the very page where you are asked to upload samples of your files and an identity document:

Click on each square with the inscription in turn "Add or drag an image here" and add your zipped files there.

Below you add a document confirming your identity (passport or foreign passport).

Once everything has loaded, click "Send images to examiner".

If everything went well, the following system message will pop up:

A status will appear in your account "Exam". While you wait for your files to be verified, you can fill out your tax form. It will still have to be filled out sooner or later.

How to fill out a tax form

First, we find the following red inscription in our account:

How to submit images for sale

If you successfully pass the exam, your account status will change to "Active", and illustrations sent for the exam will be in the section "Unfinished".
By going there, you can fill in all the necessary data for the illustrations and send them for re-checking for sale.

If you have already filled in the keywords, title and description in the file's metadata before uploading (in Photoshop, for example), then now all you have to do is select categories and send the file for review:

On the right you set the first and second categories. Place checkboxes above the pictures. Press "Send selected files".

If you have not filled out anything yet, then write down the names, descriptions and keywords in English.

After a few days, your files from the folder "Pending" will be moved to a folder "On sale".

How to upload images for sale

You can then upload other images for sale. To do this, go to the tab in your account "For the supplier" and click on the inscription "File Downloader".

Here in this window we add zip archives with our new works (vector + jpg preview of it) either simply by dragging them or using the button "Add files".

A list of your archives ready for download will appear in the window. We put a tick. Click "Download files".

Then you can watch the green stripes or step away from the computer and take a “couple-minute” break, which is very useful to do sometimes. The length of the break will depend on the number of files being downloaded and the speed of the Internet connection.

When the files are downloaded, their status will change: the orange circle will change to green.

In a couple of minutes you can go to the section "Unfinished" for final preparation of files and sending them for verification. You already know how to do this.

That's all:)
I wish you good luck in conquering microstock Depositphotos!

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The modern way of life is completely based on the use of Internet information technologies. People travel a lot using online resources, do business using visuals, and diversify their inner world by reading electronic articles and magazines. Each such resource requires high-quality and memorable content. One of the ways to fill the site is to purchase the right to a photo or video in stock photo banks such as Depositphotos.

The service provides intermediary services, providing electronic storage of photo and video materials for authors and an automated search system for buyers. For the former, the service is provided free of charge. Downloading photos and videos is carried out by providing access to resources for a certain fee (tariffs, download packages, etc.).

Search in the photo bank is implemented through a convenient interface with key queries. To find a suitable photo or video, just enter a couple of tags or use filters.

An additional option of the site is the ability to download photos and videos for free, which are offered by the service weekly.

The advantage of Depositphotos is the quick purchase of necessary photographs from authors from all over the world. The service is open for registration in 192 countries. The platform supports 20 languages. The photo bank has been updated daily since 2009. The head office is located in the USA.

The site is ideal for amateur photographers and beginners in the field of making money from photographs. A clear interface and logical menu speed up the process of interacting with the system. Materials (photos, vector images, videos, editorial) are downloaded in the format of your choice.

For long-term cooperation with the photo bank, programs of exclusive cooperation and incentives for authors are provided. There is also a referral system with a percentage of deductions.

Among well-known platforms, Depositphotos imposes less strict terms of cooperation. But I managed to pass the test task on the fifth try, well, the inspectors didn’t like my photos. Moreover, the break between passing the exam is ten days. So it’s better to upload the best photos right away. However, you will not be able to create multiple accounts on the service.

Registration on the service as an author (supplier)

1. 1. We go to the main page of the site depositphotos.com (clicking on the picture below will take you to the service website)

Important. The downloaded files have system requirements described in the registration form. All modern cameras take high-quality pictures, so you don’t have to worry about their parameters.

Stock Photo Exam and Requirements for Uploaded Photos, Vectors and Videos

The author chooses the direction and subject matter of examination photographs at his own discretion. To fully display creative abilities, photographs taken under different shooting conditions are selected. The test portfolio should be varied and give a certain idea of ​​the author.

The exam passes without any particular difficulties due to the lack of strict requirements for the storyline. Most often, if the work meets the technical regulations, the candidate immediately begins filling out his own portfolio.

Photo requirements:

• JPEG/JPG format with RGB color space
• resolution 3.8 - 50 MP
• size up to 50 MB

Requirements for vector images:

• AI and EPS format
• upload in ZIP archive with JPEG/JPG preview minimum 3.8 MP (2400 x 1600 pixels)
• ZIP archive size up to 50 MB.

Video requirements:

• format ASF, AVI, DV, FLV, MOV, MPEG/MPG, WMV, MP4
• video codecs: Photo JPEG, Motion JPEG-A/B; DV, HDV, DVCPro; H.264/AVC, DivX, Xvid, SVQ1, MP42, MP43, MPG4, MP4V, M4S2, MPEG-1, MPEG-2; WMV2, WMV3; FLV;
• FPS must match the video format
• duration 3-60 sec.
• size up to 2048 MB

Important. Depositphotos explains frequent refusals of trial works with the note “have no commercial value.” When submitting work, you should take into account those factors that may interest the customer in a particular area.

What levels of file providers are there in the system?

The system assumes the presence of 5 levels depending on the number of purchased (downloaded) works.

• Level 1 - beginner (0-499)
• Level 2 - bronze (499-4999)
• Level 3 - silver (5000-24999)
• Level 4 - gold (25000-149999)
• Level 5 - platinum (from 150,000)

The photo stock system works on the “further-more” principle. The greater the number of works purchased, the higher the level of the author. The higher his rank, the greater the percentage of sales he receives. More than half of the fee is taken away from newcomers, the profitability is 44%. The maximum accrual percentage is 52%.

Purchases of downloads are carried out individually and in bulk according to 3 schemes:

• via standard license
• via extended license
• by subscription (except videos)

Each license involves an increase in the percentage of royalties from the work sold. The total income depends not only on the number of downloaded images, but also on the type of license of the buyer. Therefore, the output profit varies greatly from supplier to supplier.

Under standard license:

• photo and vector – 0.24 – 5.20 $
• video – 5.28 – 6.24 $

Under extended license:

• photo and vector – 35.2-41.6 $
• video — 35.2-41.6 $

By subscription:

• photo and vector – 0.30 – 0.35 $

In the initial stages, you should not expect large profits. Most beginners don’t earn even $15 a month because they don’t pay attention to the needs and demand for specific stories. Shooting a frame and putting it into the common bank is half the battle. It is important to consider the audience of customers and for what purposes they purchase materials. In some places you will need a high-quality macro shot or a panoramic screensaver, and in others you will need a portrait or an unusual angle of the frame. Popular queries and subjects of photographs are presented in a special section of the service.

Rewards for purchases via subscription and download packages

Photostock offers 2 types of licenses: simple “royalty-free” (with limited use rights) and extended (rights are specified in the contract).

You can use your account (sell, buy) both under a basic license and using tariff plans or subscriptions.

Subscriptions are most beneficial for regular customers. Offered with a basic license only. They have a limited number of downloads per month/year (75, 150, 750 units). Income from the sale of photographs depends on the level of the supplier itself and varies from $0.3 to $0.35.

The flexible plan gives you the right to download images and videos without restrictions. The first 30 downloads are provided for a subscription fee, each subsequent download costs $1. If there is a need for the bank to be used by different people (for example, within a large company on different computers), depositphotos offers multi-user plans. Income from tariff plans depends on the level of the author and the buyer's license (dual pricing).

For one-time downloads (photos + videos), download packages are the most suitable. They are valid for 1 year, but are the most expensive because... do not require a monthly subscription. The author's fee is calculated as a percentage of the cost of the photo or video (34-42%).

Filling out a tax form on Depositphotos

Before the modernization of the project, it was required to fill out an American tax form using the Latin alphabet. This requirement was set to prevent double taxation (USA, Russia).

As of 2018, users are required to enter an individual's Taxpayer Identification Number (12 digits) in the "Taxpayer Identification Number" line in their personal profile.

Important. The tax is deducted for the purchase of files in the United States and is 30% until the form is completed. After filling out and reviewing the application, the rate is set in accordance with the agreement between Russia and the United States (0%).

How to withdraw earned money

Withdrawal of funds is carried out upon personal request through various payment systems:

• PayPal
• Skrill (MoneyBookers)
• Payoneer

Withdrawal is available after accumulating $50 in your account; the transfer takes from 3 to 15 days.

Depositphotos is an excellent opportunity to start your own business in the field of amateur photography. Registration takes 5 minutes. In terms of rating, the service is slightly inferior to its competitors, but it is also used as an alternate airfield. This site uses copyright resources from all over the world, and this is a beneficial advantage for both authors and buyers. Also pay attention to other photo stocks where thousands of photographers and designers earn money - and.

Published by author

Depositphotos is a relatively young, but actively developing microstock. It is one of the best options for beginners who want to gain experience before collaborating with larger photo stocks. Stock has a wide customer base and stable sales, although not at the highest level. A well-designed and user-friendly interface in Russian will allow you to quickly get used to the site.

Features of Depositphotos:

— great for beginners, as there are no high requirements for the quality of work;

— availability of exam: 5 papers;

— when registering, you must provide documents: a scanned image of a passport or other identity document;

— there is the possibility of exclusive cooperation;

— convenient Russified interface;

— possibility of selling photos, vector illustrations, video footage.

Depositphotos file requirements:

Depositphotos image specifications:

• Format - JPEG/JPG, color space - RGB;
• Image resolution – at least 3.8 MP (2400×1600 pixels);
• File size – no more than 50 megabytes.

Depositphotos technical requirements for vectors:

• Supported formats: AI and EPS;
• Vectors are downloaded in a ZIP archive, to which you need to add a JPEG/JPG preview. Preview resolution – minimum 3.8 MP;
• The size of the ZIP archive is no more than 50 megabytes.

Depositphotos technical requirements for video clips:

• Formats: ASF, AVI, DV, FLV, MOV, MPEG/MPG, WMV;
• Video codecs of common formats (FLV; MP42, MP43, MPG4, MP4V, M4S2, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, etc.);
• Number of frames per second (FPS) - 24, 25, 29.97 or 30 frames/sec;
• Resolution from 0.07 MP (320×240 pixels) to 2.0 MP (1920×1080 pixels);
• Video length: from 3 to 60 seconds.
• The soundtrack must be part of the scene (voices, ambient sounds) or be the property of the author.
• File size is maximum 1000 MB.

How much can you earn by selling images on Depositphotos?

Earnings on Depositphotos depend on the level of the author, which in turn depends on the number of works sold. It's simple: more sales - higher level of the supplier, higher level - more royalties to the author.

Royalties when purchasing images on Depositphotos, as in the case of other stocks, depend on the type of license under which the file is purchased. Read .

Amount of deductions for selling photos and vectors under standard license:

Amount of deductions for selling photos and vectors under extended license:

And, of course, the most common type of purchase is subscription purchase. In this case, the author’s remuneration is the following amounts:

How much can you earn from video footage on Depositphotos?

When selling videos on Depositphotos, the same system works as with images. Attention! Videos are not sold by subscription.

Amount of deductions for selling video:

Methods for withdrawing earned money from Depositphotos

You can withdraw your earned money through WebMoney, PayPal and MoneyBookers. Payouts are made upon request, with a minimum payout of $50.

The stock has a Russian-language interface.

Registration is simple - find the item “Register as a contributor now!” at the bottom of the main page. (or in Russian “Supplier Registration”) and register:

• after filling out the form with personal data,
• marks indicating that you accept the user agreement
• and mark what notifications you want to receive,
• you need to click on the “Next” button and go to the initial photo upload page, where you need to upload a scan of your passport and 5 exam photos using the “drag and drop” method.

After a short wait, if everything is in order, you will receive a notification that the exam papers have been accepted, and then “Your Depositphotos account has been activated.” After this, all microstock functionality is available to you. Take a closer look at your settings - alerts, etc. - and you can start working.

Preparing and uploading images to Depositphotos

So, after successful acceptance, you are on your main working page (or) . Here, together with the user menu, almost all the functionality of the “Supplier” (Seller) is present.

It should not be surprising that there is nothing in the portfolio - exam photos will have to be uploaded again, because They are not included in the list of approved products for sale.
Here you will also see a warning "Please go to the TAX Center to fill out the tax form." This is a mandatory procedure on most drains, and there is no point in delaying it. How to do this is well described in the Tax form in depositphotos (tax form W-8BEN)

(Click on pictures to enlarge)

When attributing photos, you can select "Editorial use only" - for those photos that, for example, contain images of people for whom you do not have releases. Unlike Shatter, Deposit does not set strict requirements for the description of this type of photograph. In addition, I should note that I tried to upload photos with people in masks to the Deposit without specifying an Editorial license - and they were accepted (see the "People" folder).

Additional work - each photo will have to be assigned two categories from the proposed list. However, for our convenience, for photographs of the same type, we can select a group of photographs and assign them all the same categories at once (the bottom of the two pictures is the entire list of categories). Be careful with multilingual interfaces! If your categories are in English, then when you switch the interface language to Russian and enter photo editing mode, you will see in the editing area that categories are not assigned to the photo. Support! Guard, categories have disappeared in my entire portfolio! No, switch to English and make sure they are there.

And further important note: By assigning categories to one or more images of the same type, don't forget to deselect them because chances are you'll then select other images, assign them other categories, then do the same for the next group of images - and the result will be that all processed images will receive the categories of the last group. It will be a shame when photos of people end up in the Nature category or vice versa! :-)

At first glance, it is not very clear how to edit keywords here. By selecting a specific photo and clicking “Edit”, on the left you will see an editing area in which you can adjust categories, etc. But to proceed to editing keywords, you need to click on the “Edit in Selected Files” button and then the corresponding form will open (in the picture on the right ). And by the way, do not forget to remove prepositions and articles there (“in”, “the”, etc.), since this stock does not support phrases as keywords, breaking compound keywords into separate lexemes.

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Structured and promoted portfolio on Depositphotos

Like most other stocks, Deposit provides a variety of tools to increase the findability of your material on the Internet and, accordingly, increase sales. One of these tools is the creation of folders, which were previously called lightboxes. This tool is located in the "Favorites" tab. If you have many folders, you can use the drag-n-drop method to assign three “most favorite” :-): Favorite folder 1, Favorite folder 2 (in the picture these are “Religion” and “Mountains”, respectively) and Favorite folder 3.

When working with a specific photo, you select the desired folder and click on the “star” under the photo, having previously selected the desired folder below :-) If the photo is already present in this folder, then the “star” will allow you to delete it from there.

With the transition from lightboxes to folders, the corresponding functionality was also improved - when you click the inconspicuous circle with a cross at the bottom left in the “Favorites” area, a menu appears in icons with functions for manipulating images in folders. The area itself may not be noticed at first, since it is in a “collapsed” state. Find this bookmark at the very bottom of the page and click on it to expand it.

Once upon a time, the seller here did not have the right to create lightboxes himself, and therefore, in order to still do this, we additionally needed to register as a buyer. This can be done now, at the same time having practiced searching for your own photos - create a new one on behalf of the buyer with the attributes you are interested in - box name, client name (put your seller name here), the main keywords for the search. Next, you need to enter the lightbox, and above in the main search line, perform an advanced search by entering your seller name in the field "Search by contributor", after searching, you will find yourself in your portfolio, where under the desired photos you can select “Add to Favorites” - that’s it. Once upon a time, it was impossible to place one photo in several folders (lightboxes), for example, a photo of a mountain lake in the “Mountains” and “Lakes” folders, but now this restriction has been lifted.

Depositphoto. Typical errors (reasons for failures) and work on errors

Surprisingly, I haven’t had ANY unaccepted photos yet! This indicates that the deposit is omnivorous and undemanding, but I would not say that this is good for beginners. Try to work at least with Shutterstock at the same time, so as not to turn up your nose ahead of time

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My other publications about stock photos:
(please keep in mind that messages will be updated by me if new and useful information appears)