Submitting to Fotolia- A tutorial

Heya guys,

One of the most important factors of a micro stock site, i have come to know, is the submission process. They have massive variation between agencies. Some take ages such as iStock and some are ridiculously quick such as shutterstock. Fotolia is exactly in the middle in my opinion. It is not particularly quick but it isn't too time consuming either, and it certainly is easy!

I Would like to give you a quick tutorial about how, to upload to fotolia. If you haven't yet signed up then this may just sway you as you will see it is easy. I will show you in a step-by-step manner:

Uploading to fotolia- step-by-step guide


You find the upload page by clicking on one of the upload options in fotolias main "files" page. See the screen-grab, it is circled in red. There are three upload options, FTP, HTML, and flash. I would go for flash as it is the most user friendly and is very quick.

Once you have clicked the "upload files with flash" link it will take you to a page where you can actually upload the files. To add files into the flash uploader you must click the "browse" button which is has a blue ring. This will then open a dialogue box which is just like the explorer on a PC. You can select as many pictures as you want.

Once done you must click upload which has a yellow ring in the screen grab below. This will then load the image into fotolia.

The next step is to ad meta data to the image. You can add it manually to the image or embed it into the image file itself. If done it will show up automatically. To get to edit this information you must click the blue arrow next to the pending image ringed in green below. The next screen-grab shows this- i will be submitting this image soon.

The data you have to fill in is:

1. Title
2. Keywords
3. Categories- one actual and one conceptual
4. Model releases
5. Contract/Price
6. Agree to terms

Then just click submit, and it will await a review from the all-knowing fotolia judges. The screen grab below shows this:

Thanks for looking. I will be continuing to do this periodically for other sites, giving reviews and informing you guys on my progress. So please check back.

Jonnya/Rasmusrok1--> Jonny!

Quick Note on Forums

Hi All

As I woke up this morning and checked my stock sites (as i do daily) i realised exactly how important forums are in this game. The forum on fotolia is particularly good. Here you can get advice, have rejected images critiqued, and just chat. People seem so friendly also.

I will give you an example. When i first signed up to fotolia i had no idea and i would still have no images accepted if it was not for the forum and the members continually helping me out. Members such as:

• Princess Zelda
• Michael Spring
• Warren Miller

Have helped me so much, as have many more (too many to name).

So i will advise you all; dont take the forums for granted, they are invaluable especially if you are just starting off.

Jonny