Dreamstime allows up to 80 keywords per file, and almost nobody should use all 80. The field takes single words separated by spaces, splits any phrase you paste into it, and re-sorts the result alphabetically — which means there is no mechanism for telling the search engine which of your keywords matters most. Relevance has to come from restraint instead.
The 80-keyword ceiling is a ceiling, not a target
Dreamstime's own guidance is that 80 means 80 single words, separated by spaces, that describe your photo. The submission form enforces it. What the number invites, and what a lot of contributors do, is treat it as a quota to fill — and Dreamstime's contributor blog is unusually blunt about why that backfires. Overly general keywords and irrelevant filler dilute searches for everyone, and an image can be refused outright for excessive use of irrelevant keywords.
The logic is worth spelling out because it is not obvious. A buyer searching for something specific gets a results page. Every irrelevant keyword you attach puts your image into result sets it does not belong in, where it is scrolled past rather than clicked. Search engines that measure engagement read that as a signal about your file, not about your keywording. Padding a keyword list is one of the few optimisation moves in stock that actively costs you something.
There is no "main keyword" on Dreamstime
This is the single most common piece of misinformation about the platform, and it is worth being direct: Dreamstime does not offer a way to mark your most relevant keywords. Advice telling you to "put your seven main keywords first" is describing a different agency. On Dreamstime, entered keywords are re-ordered alphabetically and any multi-word phrase you paste in is split into its component words, so the order you typed them in has no life beyond the moment you hit save.
That has two practical consequences. First, if a phrase matters to your image — "golden hour", "home office", "small business owner" — the keyword field will destroy it, so the phrase belongs in the title or description where it survives intact. Second, since you cannot weight keywords, the only lever you have left is which words you include at all. Twenty precise words beat eighty padded ones because the set itself is the signal.
Dreamstime states that it cannot disclose the exact ranking formula, which is standard across the industry. What it does say is that filling out the information correctly has a big impact on how an image ranks, and that the search reads the title and description as well as the keyword field. Treat any claim about the algorithm more specific than that as guesswork.
Titles and descriptions are keyword fields too
Because Dreamstime's search reads the title and description, those two fields carry the phrases the keyword field cannot hold. Their published guidance on titles is specific in a useful way: keep it brief and to the point, but not so brief that it is only one or two words, and make sure the main subject is in it. Descriptions should expand on the title with concrete detail — location, time of day, what is actually happening in the composition.
Everything must be written in English, and Dreamstime asks that the information be objective, accurate and, where possible, unique to each image. That last requirement is the one that costs the most time on a large shoot. Naming a series Portrait 1, Portrait 2, Portrait 3 is explicitly called out as something not to do, and it is exactly what a tired contributor does at the end of a 400-frame edit.
What Dreamstime tells you not to keyword
Their contributor blog publishes a list of specific mistakes, and they are worth reading as rules rather than suggestions, since reviewers can flag and correct irrelevant keywords at review.
- Do not keyword every minor object in the background. A pen on a desk is not what the image is about.
- Do not keyword things that are not visible. You may know the model's nationality or that the shot was taken on a birthday; the buyer looking at the frame does not.
- Do not keyword what could be happening. A wine still-life is not "drunk", "alcoholism" or "party" unless the frame shows it.
- Do not add opposites in the hope of catching more searches. A photograph of a full glass is not also about emptiness.
- Do not itemise every facial feature or garment. Eyes, nose, lips, sleeve, collar and button are the classic way to burn thirty keyword slots for nothing.
- Do not guess at end use. Dreamstime specifically calls out terms like card, postcard and greeting — you are describing an image, not a product someone might make from it.
- Do not put the model's name in the title or keywords.
- Do not copy and paste a keyword set carelessly between similar images. Near-identical frames usually differ in exactly the detail a buyer is searching on.
Read as a group, these amount to a single instruction: describe only what is visible in the frame. That principle travels across agencies, and we have written about how to structure a keyword set that survives it in our guide to structuring tagged keywords properly.
AI-generated images have one hard requirement
If your image was generated with AI, the category is not optional. Dreamstime requires the Illustrations & Clipart > AI-generated category, and states that a submission which omits it will be refused outright. Mentioning AI in the title or description is described as helpful but not essential — the category is what carries the obligation.
Several content restrictions sit alongside it and are worth knowing before you generate rather than after you upload. Dreamstime does not accept realistic AI-generated human faces, whether front or side; rear views without visible facial features are accepted. Logos, branding and currency are out. So are misspelled or incoherent text, visible generation artifacts and watermarks — the failure modes that a fast generation pass tends to leave behind.
Dreamstime also offers AI-assisted metadata on upload, and its own guidance is that you must check the result and remove irrelevant categories and keywords before submitting. That is a reasonable instruction and it applies to any automated keywording, ours included. Our broader notes on metadata rules for generative AI images cover how the major agencies differ here, and we have separate notes on Dreamstime approval rates for AI work.
Keywording at volume: FTP and the CSV route
Typing metadata into a web form is fine for ten files and unsustainable for a thousand. Dreamstime enables FTP by default on all contributor accounts. Their FTP instructions give the host as upload.dreamstime.com with your numeric account ID as the username, your account password, and passive transfer mode. Two subfolders are reserved: "additional" and "modelrelease". Files that land there move automatically into the Unfinished section, waiting for metadata.
That metadata can arrive as a spreadsheet. Dreamstime publishes CSV templates for images, model releases, video and audio, and the image sheet populates title, description, keywords, categories, extended licence flags and release links in one pass. The ordering rules are strict and unforgiving: upload the images first and let them process, send the model-release CSV before the image CSV, and make sure every filename matches exactly, because only the filenames listed in the sheet get populated.
Dreamstime recommends the CSV route only for large volumes, which is fair — for twenty files the setup costs more than it saves. The threshold where it pays off is roughly where hand-typing starts producing the copy-paste keyword sets the guidelines warn against, which in practice is somewhere around a hundred files in one sitting.
A method that holds up
Put the phrase work in the title and description, where phrases survive. Write a title that names the main subject in more than two words, then a description that adds the concrete details a buyer would search on — setting, time of day, action, mood — in plain sentences rather than a keyword dump.
Then build the keyword set from the frame outward: the subject, what the subject is doing, where it is, the visible attributes (colour, light, texture, mood), and the genre. Stop when you run out of things you can actually point to in the image. If that leaves you at twenty-five words, you are done — the remaining fifty-five slots are not unused capacity, they are a trap.
Finally, embed the metadata in the file rather than keeping it in a spreadsheet alone. Embedded IPTC and XMP travel with the image to every destination, which means the work you did for Dreamstime is not wasted when the same shoot goes elsewhere — our primer on IPTC, XMP and embedded keywords covers how that works in practice.
Rastock writes that metadata once, against each agency's own field rules, embeds it as IPTC and delivers over FTP to 10+ agencies including Dreamstime. The 14-day free trial runs the full path — generation, embedding, CSV export and a real delivery — and asks for no card.
Frequently asked questions
How many keywords does Dreamstime allow?
Dreamstime's stated maximum is 80 keywords per file, and it means 80 single words separated by spaces. The submission form enforces the limit. It is a ceiling rather than a target: Dreamstime warns that overly general or irrelevant keywords dilute search results, and an image can be refused for excessive use of irrelevant keywords.
Can I mark my most important keywords on Dreamstime?
No. Dreamstime has no mechanism for marking the most relevant keywords, and advice telling you to put your main keywords first is describing a different agency. Entered keywords are re-ordered alphabetically, so typing order carries no weight. The only lever you control is which words you include at all.
Why did my multi-word keyword phrase get split up?
That is expected behaviour. Dreamstime's keyword field takes single words separated by spaces and splits any phrase pasted into it into component words. If a phrase matters to your image, put it in the title or the description instead, where it survives intact and is still read by the search.
Do I have to label AI-generated images on Dreamstime?
Yes, and it is a hard requirement rather than a courtesy. AI-generated work must carry the Illustrations & Clipart > AI-generated category, and Dreamstime states that a submission without it will be refused outright. Mentioning AI in the title or description is described as helpful but not essential; the category is the obligation.
Does Dreamstime support FTP and bulk metadata upload?
Yes to both. FTP is enabled by default for contributor accounts at upload.dreamstime.com, using your numeric account ID as the username and passive transfer mode. Metadata can then be applied in bulk from a spreadsheet using Dreamstime's own templates, with a strict order: images first, then the model-release sheet, then the image sheet, with filenames matching exactly.
Should I use Dreamstime's AI-suggested keywords?
You can, but Dreamstime's own guidance is that you must review the output and remove irrelevant categories and keywords before submitting. That is sound advice for any automated keywording. Treat generated metadata as a first draft that saves typing, not as a finished submission you can wave through unread.