Getty Images publishes plenty of advice for contributors, but only a small number of its metadata rules carry real consequences — file rejection, account suspension, or account closure. Those are the ones worth memorising: where your keywords are allowed to come from, what you may claim about a location you edited, and the fact that you cannot correct any of it once a file has been accepted.
How Getty actually reads your keywords
Getty Images and iStock do not treat the keyword field the way a plain IPTC editor does. The terms you enter are matched against Getty's own vocabulary, and Getty's contributor help explains that each keyword in that vocabulary carries synonyms which stay invisible on the site but are linked to the keyword you added. Two practical consequences follow from that one design decision.
The first is that padding a file with synonyms is wasted effort. If you have already applied the right term, its synonym set is attached for you, so entering sunset, sundown and dusk separately does not multiply your reach. The second consequence is harsher: a term that is not in Getty's vocabulary contributes nothing at all. This is not a small ranking penalty — the word simply has nowhere to map to.
That is why raw keyword count is a poor target on Getty. On an agency running free-text search, a longer list works as a hedge. Against a matched vocabulary, a longer list of the wrong terms is just a longer list. If your habits were formed on Shutterstock or Adobe Stock they transfer badly here, and the same file usually needs a tighter, more deliberate set of terms. The general principles of writing metadata for stock photos still apply, but the tolerance for approximation is much lower.
The location rule that catches modified images
This is the most specific keywording rule Getty publishes, and it is easy to break by accident. Under Getty's Creative Content Retouching and Modification Requirements, if you modify a recognisable, named or famous location, you must not add location keywords, titles or descriptions more specific than Region, State or County.
The reasoning is about customer trust rather than taste. A buyer searching for a particular landmark expects the file to represent that place as it is. If you replaced the sky, composited in new elements or removed a building, the frame no longer documents the location — so Getty caps how precisely you are permitted to name it.
In practice that means a heavily composited skyline can be keyworded to the state or the county, but not to the specific bridge, square or building in the shot. And if a precise location term is where the entire commercial value of the image sits, that is usually a signal the image should not have been modified that far to begin with.
Do not strip the metadata your editor writes
Getty's requirements include a line contributors routinely overlook: do not remove or change metadata which content editing tools may embed in the file. Modern editors record what was done to an image, and Getty treats that record as part of the submission rather than as clutter to be cleaned away.
Export presets are the usual culprit. A tidy export that strips everything except your own IPTC fields will also strip the editing history, and that is a rule break rather than good housekeeping. Check what your preset actually removes before you push a batch through it — the difference between the fields you write and the fields your software embeds is covered in more depth in this guide to IPTC, XMP and embedded keywords.
Generative AI is an eligibility rule before it is a keywording rule
Getty does not accept submissions created using generative AI models, and names Stable Diffusion, DALL-E and MidJourney directly. 3D renders remain acceptable, and ordinary digital editing tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator are unaffected. Photo-realistic AI-generated depictions of people are not accepted in any form — every person in your content must be real and model-released.
There is one narrow allowance. If you change no more than 10% of the pixels in an image or frame, add no new elements, and do not retouch your models, you may use AI-powered or traditional tools under Getty's Retouching Requirements. Anything past that line — more than 10% of the pixels, added elements, composites, sky replacement, or more extensive work on a model — has to be done with traditional, non-generative tools under the Modification Requirements instead.
So there is no honest way to keyword a generative AI file into Getty. The question is never how to describe it, only whether the file belongs there at all. Agencies that do accept generative work handle it through their own disclosure fields, which is a separate discipline covered in metadata for generative AI images.
Your keywords are locked once the file is accepted
On most agencies, weak metadata is a problem you can revisit next quarter. On Getty it largely is not. Getty's help centre states that once a file has been accepted, creators can no longer add or edit keywords themselves.
That single fact should reshape how you work. The review queue is your last chance rather than a first draft, and a careless term entered at midnight stays attached to that file for the life of the agreement. It also means the bulk keyword clean-up that is routine on other platforms is not a tool you have here. Contributors who move a lot of volume should treat Getty batches as a separate, slower pass rather than folding them into the same run as everything else.
Similar files, releases and trademarks
Three further rules interact with metadata often enough to belong on the same checklist.
- Similar content. The Getty contributor agreement is content-exclusive, and similar is defined by whether an industry professional — especially a customer — would consider two files substantially the same. Submitting several near-identical frames from one series invites duplicate and serial rejections, and near-identical keyword sets are exactly what makes that similarity legible to a reviewer.
- Releases. Content that requires a model or property release will not be accepted without one supplied during submission. No description, disclaimer or keyword substitutes for the document.
- Trademarks and logos. Visible trademarks and logos have to be removed for commercial licensing. A brand name sitting in the keyword field of a creative file is a flag for the reviewer, not a search advantage.
- Unreleased creative. Files in the creative unreleased, editorial-use-only category must not be retouched or modified with any tools at all. They follow their own separate rules, and describing one as though it were a clean commercial file is a straightforward way to get rejected.
What enforcement actually costs you
Getty states the consequences plainly: file rejections, account suspension, or account closure. The first of those is survivable and common enough that most contributors work through a list of Getty rejection reasons at some point. The other two are different in kind, and the exclusivity terms are why.
Under the contributor agreement, once Getty accepts your content you may not license that file — or anything similar to it — anywhere else while the agreement stands, and you terminate with 90 days' notice. A metadata habit that gets an account closed therefore does not only cost you the account; it costs you access to the portfolio locked inside it. If you are still deciding whether to apply, the contributor requirements and the agreement fact sheet are both worth reading before your first upload rather than after your first rejection.
A pre-submission pass that matches the rules
- Decide eligibility first: no generative AI origin, real and released people, and copyright you own — including for any reference material you worked from.
- Classify your edit honestly as either retouching, meaning under 10% of pixels with no new elements, or modification with traditional tools only.
- If the file was modified and shows a recognisable location, cap every location term in the keywords, title and description at region, state or county.
- Confirm your export preset is not stripping the editing metadata your software embedded.
- Write for the vocabulary rather than for volume: accurate terms, no synonym padding, no brand names, no aspirational concepts the frame does not actually show.
- Read the batch once more before it enters review, because on Getty that really is your last edit.
Getting it right in a single pass
Getty's rules reward contributors who get metadata right the first time, which is an uncomfortable demand if you are moving thousands of files a month across several agencies at once. Tooling only helps here if it enforces constraints rather than generating more words — per-agency term rules, banned and mandatory keywords, and a review step before anything is delivered. That is the part of the workflow Rastock AI is built around: metadata generation that respects each destination's rules, IPTC embedding, and FTP or SFTP delivery to 10+ agencies, with a 14-day free trial that does not ask for a card. Your files stay yours, there is no revenue share, and IPTC and CSV export are always available if you would rather submit by hand.
Frequently asked questions
How many keywords should I add to a Getty Images submission?
Getty does not publish a magic number, and chasing one misses how the system works. Because terms are matched against Getty's vocabulary and each matched keyword already carries invisible synonyms, a shorter list of accurate terms outperforms a padded list. Add every term that genuinely describes the file, then stop — anything outside the vocabulary contributes nothing.
Can I edit keywords after Getty Images accepts my file?
No. Getty's help centre states that once a file has been accepted, creators can no longer add or edit keywords themselves. This is the single biggest difference from most other agencies, where metadata can be revised at any time. Treat the submission batch as final and review it carefully before it enters the queue.
Does Getty Images accept AI-generated images?
No. Getty does not accept submissions created using generative AI models, and names Stable Diffusion, DALL-E and MidJourney specifically. 3D renders are still accepted and normal digital editing tools are unaffected. AI tools may be used only for minimal retouching — under 10% of pixels, no new elements, and no retouching of models.
Why can't I use a specific landmark name in my keywords?
You can, as long as the image was not modified. Getty's Modification Requirements prohibit location keywords, titles or descriptions more specific than Region, State or County when you have modified a recognisable, named or famous location. The rule protects buyers who expect the file to represent the place accurately rather than a composite of it.
Do Getty Images and iStock follow the same keywording rules?
Largely yes. Both collections are submitted through the same contributor platform and Getty's preparation guidance addresses Getty Images and iStock together, so the vocabulary matching, retouching limits and release requirements apply to both. Royalty rates, collection placement and customer expectations differ, but the metadata discipline you need is the same.