In this video, I walk you through how to automate adding or embedding metadata (title, description, keywords, copyright) into stock photo images using the free Exiftool program on Apple’s MacOS operating system. If you are a Windows PC user, I will have another video to be linked here shortly.

If you prefer reading, we made a tutorial article on this topic that covers both MacOS and Windows at: [ Ссылка ]

While you can embed metadata into stock video files, unfortunately, Shutterstock does not recognize such data and you need to use a workaround method using Upload CSV Metadata function that I will have a video on later.

To do add keywords, title, description and other important metadata into image files, you do not need any advanced knowledge of programming. Here are the steps:

►Step 1: Download and install Exiftool available at [ Ссылка ] for free
►Step 2: Check that Exiftool works by typing "exiftool" into your terminal. Terminal can be accessed through Finder-Applications-Utilities folder.
►Step 3: Change metadata in the comma separated values (CSV) file as shown in the video. You can download the referenced CSV template at: [ Ссылка ]
Note: each keyword can consist of multiple words (e.g. new york, new, york) separated by comma. Also, keep columns names intact.
►Step 4: Copy JPEG files full path with file name into your CSV file. To do so, open TextEdit and in its Format menu choose "Make Plain Text" option. Then, select your JPEG files in Finder and drag them into TextEdit, which will populate the complete paths along with file names.
►Step 5: execute the following command in your terminal:
exiftool -overwrite_original -sep ", " -csv="/folder1/folder2/metadata.csv" "/folder1/folder2/"
Replace paths and CSV file name as necessary to point to the right folders/file.

And that is it. In principle, there are many other metadata fields that you can write/read/edit in your stock photo images using Exiftool. You can take a look and learn about them through Exiftool documentation at [ Ссылка ].

Hopefully this tutorial will help you automate your workflow and substantially reduce unnecessary manual copy-pasting in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Bridge. You would still need to maintain a spreadsheet with records for your JPEG's metadata though. In our future videos, we will share our entire keywording workflow from start to finish.

We personally use Python programming language to fully automate metadata embedding, sorting through and copying files in preparation for submitting or even resubmitting them to stock photography websites. With a little bit of upfront investment (learning to code, maintaining file records in a proper format), this removes a lot of unnecessary manual work later.

We have been doing stock photography as a full-time business since 2015 and will be sharing our experience and tips in our future videos. Stay tuned and subscribe to our channel @BlokhinFilms to hear more tips about stock photography and how to earn passive income by selling your photos and videos.

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► Check out our Stock Photography playlist for more strategies and tips on how to succeed as a stock photographer: [ Ссылка ]

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► Learn more about our top 10 strategies we personally use to save on camera gear: [ Ссылка ]

► Check out a video we made about data backup options for content creators: [ Ссылка ]

► Learn why you should not use Adobe Lightroom to add keywords, titles, description (use Adobe Bridge instead): [ Ссылка ]
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Table of Contents:
00:00 - Intro
00:35 - What is Exiftool?
01:19 - Install Exiftool on Apple's MacOS
01:42 - Check Exiftool
02:02 - CSV File for Metadata
03:43 - Exiftool Command To Write Metadata
04:50 - Example of Writing Metadata Into JPEG Files

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Our stock footage and photography portfolio can be found at:
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