Photographers Frequently Asked Questions

What do I have to do to submit photos to your site?
Please create a user account as a seller and then upload five photos. If the photos are suitable for our Web site we will notify you and you will be on your way!

What type of photos are you looking for?
Anything about New York City-its people, places, and things. We are an editorial stock agency so we don't require model releases. Feel free to snap away at people in public places. Of course, you should always respect their wishes and not take their picture if they do not wish to be photographed.

Your photos should be suitable for stock. They need to have a strong focus or theme. Cluttered, busy, and weirdly cropped photos will be declined.

Here is what will be declined

1. Weird crops (crop to the original aspect, please.)
2. Images greater than 1024 pixels.
3. Images greater than 72 dpi.
4. Images smaller than 1024 pixels.
5. Images less than 72 dpi.
6. Snapshots. If you want to shoot stock, please look at some stock sites and learn how to do it. Busy, cluttered photos will be declined.
7. Overly sharpened photos.
8. Photos that have not been equalized will be declined. Use the full dynamic range given to you. Don\\\'t clip blacks or whites.
9. Photos not relevant to New York City events, culture of lifestyle will be declined.
10. Photos without a caption or keywords will be declined. We make it easy to do both. You can do it in Photoshop or through our interface. If customers can't find your photos they are no good to us (or you).

What are the three levels of membership all about?
They are really just ways of incentivizing members to upload more photos. While we start with a 50-50 split (very generous by industry standards-just ask Getty) and a Bronze membership, after you upload 999 photos you become a Silver member and will receive Press Credentials and a letter stating you work on assignment for NYC Photo News. We change your split to 65-45 in your favor. After you upload 1999 images you become a Gold member and we split 60-40 in your favor. The more you upload the more you make.

How often do you pay?
We pay whenever your account reaches $50. We can pay you by check or via PayPal.

How does this credit business work?
On the other side of the coin we want to incentivize our user to buy more photos so credits are a way of doing that. All photos are 5 credits. Each credit cost a dollar, however the more credits you buy the cheaper they are.10 credits are $45 instead of $50. We still pay you based on the $5.00 per photo model. The discount for credits comes out of our side of the equation so if you sell 10 photos (as a Bronze member) you make $25.00. If our users buys your photos with 10 credits that cost them $45.00 you still get $25.00.

Is there a limit to the number of photos per day I can upload?
Yes, in order to spare the bandwidth and give other users a chance we limit your daily upload to 10 photos.

What size should my photos be?
All our photos are 1024 pixels on the long side at 72dpi. Please do not upload larger sizes as they will be rejected. Please do not upload smaller sizes as they will be rejected. We have determined the 1024 pixel size offers all our users the best size/value ratio. For a tutorial on creating and submitting photos for this site (including the best keywording practices) visit The Assignment Desk.

How do I prepare my images?

1. Use a professional level DSLR camera. You will have more control over your final image.
2. Shoot in RAW file format for maximum control in post-production. If shooting in JPEG, be sure to use the ‘fine’ quality setting, as this provides the least amount of compression.
3. Capture your images at the lowest possible ISO setting.
4. Turn of all in-camera sharpening.
5. Files should be checked for correct exposure and colour cast. Any adjustments you wish to make to the image should be made at this stage. Note: when converting from RAW to JPEG, be sure to turn off all sharpening.
6. You can crop your images but make sure the longest side of your image is at least 1024 pixels at 72 dpi. Don\\\'t  worry about the other dimension, Photoshop will take care of that.
7. Open your image at 100% and check for dust contamination. This shows up as dark, circular marks and is particularly noticeable in large areas such as sky.
8. Check the image at 100% and make any adjustments using the Clone Tool, Healing Tool or History Brush where necessary.
9. Resize to 1024 pixels on the longest size (at 72 dpi) and convert to sRGB color space.
10. Sharpen lightly as a last step. We use Unsharp Mask with the following settings: Amount 30, Radius 0.3, Threshold 0.
11. Use Save for Web in Photoshop with a quality setting of 90%. This makes a smaller file size by removing EXIF information.
12. You can add keywords, captions, etc. when you upload to our site.

Can I send a photo from my cellphone?
No. We have found the quality of cell phone photos to be sub par. We suggest you buy a small point-and-shoot (Canon G11 is an excellent choice) to carry around for those unexpected moments or if you want to start shooting stock.