The Importance of Keywording!
Keywording is the real “key” to successful stock sales. A photographer can make great images, but without the right keywords, no buyer can find your images. Keywording is an art and a science- and good keywords add value to your images.
How Do Clients Search?
Recently, Dreamstime started sharing the keywords that the buyer used to find and license your image. While sometimes the keywords make no sense as to why the image was licensed, in most cases, we get to peer inside the thought process of the buyer.
When I shot the image above, I really wasn’t thinking about Bulimia, the eating disorder that affects many young women (especially in the fashion world). I just thought the scene was a cool concept. Actually, I probably don’t think that much when I’m shooting other than exposure, composition, etc. Fortunately, one of our very astute keyworders recognized the social issues surrounding the image and attached the appropriate words.
Look closely at the image above- the word “Bulimia” is how this buyer found this image, and the reason for the sale.
Finding the Right Keywords
The owner of a very successful stock agency once told me that their business was not in selling pictures, but in selling words! From that moment on, I understood how valuable keywords really are.
Good keywording uses both descriptive words and phrases to describe the image- the main subjects, the colors, compositional elements, etc. But the real art is thinking through the concepts and how the image might be used. Is the concept freedom, or winning, or teamwork, or in this case, Bulimia? I find the best keywords are immersed in life, current news and the art world. They have an immense curiosity for everything around them and the ability to connect images and words.
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Hi Ron - excellent point in this post.
I wonder if you could share some of your post-proessing workflow procedures? Obviously, you must have it down to a fine art. I’m finding it very time consuming and tedious and preparing different size files for different agencies (Alamy require quite large files and I send a lower res to subscription MS sites). As you have pointed out, Stock is a production line and I don’t have time to tweak shots the way I would like in ACR, I just batch convert them all into TIFF’s and edit and tweak in Photoshop.
For assignment work I treat every select as “gold” and give it the full treatment starting with ACR developing and then Photoshop adjustments. Can’t afford that type of time with Stock though, but I don’t like submitting less than my best efforts. I’m using batching and Photoshop Actions to speed things up, but I’m not very happy with the results. Each shoot takes me too much time to process, but each selected shot isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
If you could comment on your procedures, I’d be very grateful. Thanks.
nice post ron. i hate keywording!! i like taking pictures!! but i need to license those images t=so here i am keywording!;-)
Yes, you are so right… we can’t stress enough the importance of keywords… but I never find enough time to do so… I usually add the minimum required and once the image is approved I go back and add some more (when I have time…) Thanks Ron, for this reminder… ;O))