Upload Requirements for Vectors from Shutterstock
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The news that has stirred the stock vector community this month was published on the official Shutterstock forum on Wednesday, 4/3/2019, and then sent to all stock authors via email. Starting from April 8, 2019, Shutterstock is changing the upload requirements for all vectors.
Now, according to the new requirements, the size of the vector illustration must be at least 4 MP. Based on this requirement, the uploaded work must be no less than 2000px*2000px, or 4000px*1000px, or 2667px*1500px, and so on. The size considered is not that of the artboard, but of the illustration itself.
Another piece of news – starting from April 10, 2019, Shutterstock will automatically generate JPGs for vectors, so there is no longer a need to upload raster versions to the stock. The downside of this innovation is that from now on, you will have to enter metadata manually, and it is still unknown what quality the JPGs generated automatically on the stock will be.
If you save EPS in RGB with CMYK PostScript, the preview JPG will be automatically converted to CMYK, which may lead to color changes as a result. Therefore, the stock administration recommends not including CMYK PostScript in your RGB files.
There has been a heated discussion on the Shutterstock forum in the last few days, where authors are actively voicing their opposition to these innovations. You can join the discussion at forums.submit.shutterstock.com.
An electronic petition against the innovations has also been created on change.org. As of today, over 1000 people have signed this petition. You can read the petition on the website change.org.
Don’t stay silent; join the community of authors and feel free to express your opinion in the comments.
UPD #1. At the moment, a message has appeared on the Shutterstock forum stating that the management, listening to the authors’ opinions, has decided to temporarily postpone the innovations for several days. Let’s stock up on popcorn, hope, and patience, and wait for further developments!
UPD #2. On April 10, Shutterstock sent a notification letter stating that the start of the innovations has been postponed by a week, i.e., to April 15. And starting from April 17, the Shutterstock system will automatically generate JPGs for uploaded vectors.
UPD #3. On May 13, Shutterstock sent a notification about changes that will take effect from this day regarding the upload process, namely:
- upload only vectors without a JPEG file. JPEG will be automatically generated by the microstock after the vector is uploaded.
- keywords and descriptions will be imported from the uploaded EPS vector.
- the maximum vector file size has been increased to 100 MB.
- the requirement for a minimum resolution of 4 MP remains in effect.
please write what is the maximum artboard size on the stocks. on Adobe it seems 100 MP, on Shutterstock 64
The maximum size of the artboard is limited only by the capabilities of your software. On stock platforms, there are restrictions only on file size (in MB). There are also minimum required image sizes (not artboard!).
It’s not true, I had issues too; you just don’t know because you don’t need such a large size, for example, for huge sets. 26 MP on SS for an artboard max.
– Keywords and descriptions will be imported from the uploaded EPS vector
And how do you insert them there?
Shutter admins say that you can include in EPS, but as practice shows, it’s better not to do this, since other stock agencies may not accept a file with written keys + sometimes the upload fails specifically because of this. I recommend, as before, to generate JPG, write the metadata into it, and then copy-paste when uploading to Shutter.