We’re here to answer all of your questions. From file sized to top trends.
Information and details are updated regularly.
Before you make a sale
Here are some of the more common questions and answers for contributors. If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, please feel free to contact us.
To contribute to ChiStockImages, you can sign up as a contributor with the “Apply” link on the contributor page, then upload your imagery for sale on the platform. We then offer your stock photos to people searching for Chicago photography, and each time one of your images is sold you’ll earn a comission.
Once you have gathered at least 50 dollars worth of sales revenue, you can withdraw your money from ChiStockImages. A ‘request transfer’ button will appear on your seller dashboard when you have at least this minimum amount, and you can enter instructions for your transfer.
The fastest way to get your money is if you have a PayPal account – we will typically issue your transfer within a few hours after you request a withdrawal.
ChiStockImages makes payments via PayPal only at this time. Sorry.
Any images and photos that have a person or people in it requires that person to have given you permission to sell on the photo. This can be done by completing our Model Release Form, which is a legal form where a person in a photo (whether they are a professional model or not) formally accepts that the photographer or image user can use the image for profit.
When you are signed in to ChiStockImages you can download a template model release form from the dashboard, which you can print and use for your model releases.
Simply upload the images as usual through your contributor dashboard, then send your signed model release forms to ‘forms@chistockimages.com’.
If we review your uploads and see images that require release we’ll mark them as such and you will get an email with the instructions above
In addition to restricted subject matter, there are a few other issues that can result in your image being rejected. If you do not have signed model release forms, we will first issue a request for you to upload these, but may eventually reject the image if no model release form is submitted.
Any imagery with watermarks on it such as your photographer/agency logo, or a camera timestamp will be rejected. Images that do not meet our quality standards in terms of subject matter or image resolution may be rejected
Finally, we may occasionally reject images if multiple uploads are very similar, e.g. when you have multiple shots of the same subject with little variation between them. Don’t take this as a negative! Feel free to upload a variety of angles and framing, and in most cases, we’ll approve them all but will occasionally turn down one or two if they don’t add much variety.
When a user pays for a photo on ChiStockImages, they are not purchasing the ownership of the image, but are instead paying for a license to use the image. This means that you continue to own the photo, and multiple users might end up buying a license to the same image. The user who bought the image can use it for private or commercial purposes but is forbidden from selling the image as though they owned it themselves
You remain the exclusive rights owner of any image you upload to ChiStockImages. This means you can license it out elsewhere, and if you wish to remove it from our site you retain the right to do so.
No, we require that contributors to ChiStockImages are the outright rights owners of the image, or are acting in an official capacity as their representative.
The services we provide including hosting, paid online advertisement, content marketing and an online sales & payment portal, all of which make it possible for your images to be discovered and paid for by people on the internet. We take a commission of between 30% and 50% for each sale that happens in order to cover these costs. There are no further costs on your side as a photographer, we cover all expenses including any transfer costs when you withdraw your money after making sales.
If your images have not yet been reviewed by an admin, there will be an option to delete available in your seller dashboard. Log into your account and click on the image you wish to delete from your image list on the contributor home page. You will see a ‘delete this image’ button, which lets you remove the image before it is reviewed.
If the image has already been reviewed and is live on the site, please contact us through the contributor dashboard to have the image removed. If the image was rejected, you do not need to take any action, it will automatically be cleared from our servers after a while.
