Some Background

IPTC

Back in the 70's when ties and collars were wide and suits were brown, images were wired across the world on a machine that printed a single row of pixels and a time and could take 30 minutes to send a photo. To help newspapers organise images which were being telephoned in from around the world the International Press Telecommunications Council defined a series of attributes that could be assigned to images.

Leap forward to 1994 and apple worked out a clever way of embedding that information into jpeg and tiff files (to be specific jpeg files with embedded exif data)... back in the day tiff files were 'THE' format for exchanging images on different computers.

How to Title your Photos, Writing Descriptions that Sell!

Microstock by its very 'public' nature a highly competitive place to be. While great images are most important, choosing the right site and keywording vital, having the right title and description should also be high on your list of priorities.

Images should be titled and described with catchy but not too cheesy descriptions and titles. Do keep in mind that the title tag is not a place for 'over zealous marketing speak' or clever puns. Titles in many cases should be literal. The description can be a little more conceptual, and is the place where you can be somewhat more 'artistic' about the image content and its potential uses.