If one was interested in submitting photos to magazines or stock photo companies, what type of medium do they usually require/accept.
Slides????? I know this sounds like a dumb question but humor me.
For the 20+ years I have done it, I always submit slides, in the last year, I have started using a slide scanner and submitting CD with lower rez stuff on them, and if they are interested I will submite the slides, make sure you images look the best they can, the stock industry is really, and I mean really competitive now.
I send good representations of the image, then if they are interested, I will either do a high rez scan or send them the slide so they can scan, it all depends on the terms we have worked out, I also send a specific use agreement for them to sign, so I have stipulatate exactly what my terms are...
This is what I do.
I shoot stock for two agencies.... Getty Images which has become the main player and Wireimage which is also a main player but not as big as Getty. All of the work is shot on a digital camera. They don't mind taking some images that have been scanned in if they have to. (Think important shots like NASA space shots or the Berlin Wall coming down.)
Many of the large agency's are returning slides to photographers so the photographers can have them scanned at their expense and send along the scanned images. There might be some agency's still taking chromes but I don't know of any.
I have boxes (and I mean large shipping boxes not slide boxes) of returned slides that were in the file for years but now need to be scanned. Basically if your picture isn't digital it doesn't exist in the stock world.
Good luck with your search.... it's tough to find an agency that will accept images, and it's really tough to find an agency that will make you any money.
-Rob Skeoch
It is very difficult to make money in the stock industry now a days, some of the smaller stock agencies still accept slides, but as Rob said, most of the bigger ones don't, with the advent of the internet, often times buyers will look at websites instead of purchasing rights from a particular agency, again, it is a very tough business now a days, and your work better be the best it possibly can....
I have a slightly different question for the same subject. What is the usual scan resolution from a 35mm slide that stock agencies would accept? I believe too high and there is too much grain. Any idea?
A 4000 dpi scan from a 35mm slide will give you a file of a little over 100MB. It used to be that stock agencies required at least a 50MB file, but I am not sure if that is true any longer.
I submitting stock today to Getty. I usually make the long side of the image 10" with a resolution of 300. It's about a 25 MB file when it's done. Then I jpeg it at #10 and off it goes.
In my world at least, all the magazines I have worked with use an electronic work flow. They are happy to get scans, and I am happy to send them the scans, as it gives me the control over the scanning, and I don't worry about getting my originals back, risking them in shipping, or waiting a long time to get them back, when I need to submit them somewhere else.