Complete Guide to Describing and Keywording Editorial Images
- 123RF Content Acquisitions Team
- Jun 29, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 8
Now you’ve figured out how to go about describing and keywording royalty-free images and illustrations. (If this is your first time checking out our keywording guide, you might want to check this out first). Here’s where we start guiding you towards tackling the task for your editorial images or content.
Wait a minute, what’s editorial content?
The term ‘editorial’ refers to newsworthy publication or articles of newspapers, magazines, and books that capture the concerns of the public. Editorial for newsworthy publication would also be stories that explain timeliness, urgency, up-to-date, and reports of the events, be it a happy incident or a tragedy that is valid and true. It’s vital for you to know that Editorial images are strictly NOT allowed for commercial or advertisement purposes.
You need to describe and keyword your editorial images to complete the submission process. Another key point should know is that all submitted editorial images must include:
the venue of where the image was taken
the date of when the image or event took place
a clear description of the image (who and what)
Describing and Keywording Editorial Images
Before we launch into the details, here’s a quick outline of the basics of describing and keywording your Editorial content:
Describe the image as accurately as possible.
Enter a minimum of 7 keywords for each editorial image.
Keywords should be separated by commas, everything between commas is treated as a keyword or a key phrase.
Kindly provide description and keywords in English.
Refrain from adding unrelated keywords (spamming).
Do NOT put in dates of the event in the keyword list. It is allowed in the description only.
Copyrighted keywords of famous brands and names like Audi, McDonald’s, Michael Jackson and Teflon are allowed to be included in the keyword list.
Be a little more meticulous when filling in the keywords to avoid any errors (spelling, typo, sentence grammar) as it’s not possible for you to edit once the images have been accepted.
Strategy to Describe Your Editorial Content
To illustrate this, we’re providing some helpful examples below:
Event-Related Editorial Content:
Format : Location, Date: Description of Event
Example: New York City, USA – September 13, 2009 – The crowd at the Video Music Awards (VMA 2009)
Event-Related Editorial Content with a Celebrity(ies):
Format : Location, Date – Description of Celebrity / Action of a Celebrity at an Event
Example: Los Angeles, USA – October 1, 2018 – Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcel at the premiere of ‘Venom’ held at the Regency Village Theater, Westwood Village.
Venue Related Editorial Content:
Format : Location, Date: Description of Image
Example: Paris, France, October 13, 2017 – Crowd shopping at Lafayette department store in Paris.
Object Related Editorial Content:
Format : Location, Date – Description of Object
Example: Detroit, Michigan – January 12, 2009: Red colored Ford Mustang cruising on the road.
Object Related Editorial Content with an event:
Format : Location, Date: Description of Item at Event Title
Example: Detroit, Michigan – January 12, 2009: Red colored Ford Mustang on display at the North American International Auto Show Detroit, Michigan.
Natural Disasters Related Editorial Content:
Format : Location, Date – Description
Example: Houston, Texas – October 6, 2017: Pickup truck submerged in water after a heavy downpour.
Natural Disasters Related Editorial Content with Venue:
Format : Location, Date – Description of Event
Example: Ventura, California, July 6, 2009: Bushfire consumed 25 acres and was quickly controlled by more than 100 firefighters from various parts of California.
Strategy to Keyword Your Editorial Content
So you’ve just gone through the steps to describing your Editorial content. Here are our strategies to help you achieve the best possible outcome in keywording your content. These are a few fields in which you may want to ensure is available in your keyword list:
People (VIP names)
Add people’s names when they’re visible in the image. You should also include the title or role if he/she is a political figure, such as the President of a country. Another example would be if the person is a celebrity or known figure.
It’s crucial NOT to touch on sensitive issues and keyword them such as infidelity, anorexia, drug use, dieting especially when the image is related to famous people.
Examples of people keywords are: |
Barack Obama, US President, Robert Downey Jr., Beyonce, and etc. |
Events
Include the name of the event, show, or natural disaster.
Examples of event keywords are: |
Summit, United Nations Conference, Emmy Awards, Fashion Week, Formula 1 Race, and etc. |
Object Names
You should also add the accurate object featured in your Editorial content. If you know the specific model or series, please do not hesitate to include it into your keyword list.
Examples of object name keywords are: |
Boeing 777, iPhone, Samsung, Canon, Nikon, Starbucks, and etc. |
Location
For Editorial images, it’s vital to include the location for which the event was held. It is recommended to include the city, state, province, and country. Some city locations have similar names therefore if the state/country is mentioned, it will help searchability on our site.
Examples of location keywords are: |
New York Fashion Week, Grand Prix Sepang Kuala Lumpur, and etc. |
Be specific in highlighting the fields above. Keyword appropriately and as accurately as possible to enhance searchability on the site.
Using 123RF’s Web Interface to Describe and Keyword Your Editorial Images
For your convenience, once you have uploaded your Editorial images to 123RF, here’s how you can keyword them quickly and painlessly.
Access the Contributor’s Dashboard.
Click on ‘Manage Content’. You’ll find a tabulated area of your uploaded content which shows:
The number of ‘Draft’ content
The number of ‘Pending’ content
The number of ‘Rejected’ content
The number of ‘Accepted’ content
123RF’s review policy dictates that if an Editorial image is NOT keyworded or described adequately and accurately, our reviewers will not review them.
If you have just uploaded a new image, it will be shown in the ‘Draft’ tab. The number shown next to the word ‘Draft’ indicates the number of images that has not yet been attributed yet.
You should see the image as below at the ‘Draft’ tab. As we are attributing for editorial license images, do make sure ‘Editorial’ is selected for the ‘License Type’. If your editorial images have not been keyworded or described, you will see text in the relevant box fields instructing you on what you should do.
In our example, an apt description should be:
Los Angeles, USA – October 1, 2018 – Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcel at the premiere of ‘Venom’ held at the Regency Village Theater, Westwood Village.
In this example, appropriate keywords could be:
actor, actress, artist, awards, box office, california, celebrities, celebrity, cinema, director, dress, elegant, entertainment, event, fame and etc.
If you have other pending Editorial images that are missing descriptions and keywords, work right through them as well.
When you’re done, click on the ‘Save Draft‘ button.
If your images have been keyworded or described, you will see a green document icon on the bottom left of the thumbnail. Once you are sure you have nothing else to amend, you should click ‘Submit For Review’ to send your files for our Review Team to evaluate.
Let’s look at the editorial image’s complete set of description and keywords below:
Editorial Image courtesy of buzzfuss, 123RF.
Description |
Los Angeles, USA – October 1, 2018 – Tom Hardy and Kelly Marcel at the premiere of ‘Venom’ held at the Regency Village Theater, Westwood Village. |
Keywords |
actor, premiere, talent, director, fashion, event, film, tom hardy, California, artist, popular, awards, elegant, fame, movie, Westwood village, star, cinema, hit, dress, celebrities, red carpet, gala, venom, actress, box office, handsome, entertainment, Los Angeles, celebrity, model |
And that’s the end of our guide to keywording editorial images on 123RF’s platform. Have fun keywording!