iStock: titles, keywords and the ESP CSV

iStock takes your photos through ESP, Getty Images' contributor app. Titles and descriptions are in English, keywords come from Getty's controlled vocabulary, and every photo needs a country and a creation date. This guide collects what ESP asks for, how its CSV template works, and walks through one real photo from title to CSV row.

At a glance

Title and description

• Write both in English; ESP asks for it.
• ESP's title field takes up to 255 characters. Keep the title a plain description of the photo.
• The description adds what the title leaves out. There is no separate caption field, so for editorial photos the place, the date and the facts of the event go into the description.

A simple approach: the title names the subject, the action and the setting in a few words; the description says the same in one or two full sentences, with the details a buyer might search for: who is in the photo, what they are doing, what is around them.

Keywords and Getty's vocabulary

• ESP accepts 5 to 50 keywords per photo.
• Getty and iStock search runs on a controlled vocabulary: each keyword you add is linked to a term in Getty's vocabulary only when it matches that term exactly.
• A keyword with no exact match in the vocabulary is shown in red as "not found", with suggestions. Replace it with a suggested term or remove it before you submit. In a test upload in September 2026, the CSV applied cleanly; any keyword without an exact term still has to be replaced or removed in ESP.
• Getty's help says that once a file is accepted, you can no longer edit its keywords yourself. Get them right before submitting.

Plain, common words (the subject, the action, the setting, the objects in view) are more likely to have an exact term in the vocabulary than long or unusual phrases.

Country and date

ESP requires a country and a creation date for every file. Set them per file, or once for the whole batch when all files come from the same shoot.

AiMedia fills the created date column with the date the photo or clip was taken, read from the file when you upload it; if the file has none, the column stays empty. The country column is filled when the file has a country, as editorial files usually do; otherwise set the country once for the batch in ESP.

One photo, from title to CSV row

This is the row AiMedia's iStock CSV gives for this photo:

file name,created date,description,country,brief code,title,keywords
DSC03048.jpg,2023-05-02,"Two construction professionals, a man in a suit and a woman in overalls, walk on a paved path while discussing plans. They are engaged in conversation at a construction site under a clear blue sky.",,,Construction Professionals Walking and Discussing Plans Outdoors,"construction, professionals, walking, discussion, architect, builder, site, planning, document, toolbox, tools, hard hat, safety, outdoors, daytime, paved, fence, modern, collaboration, teamwork, male, female, two people, conversation, progress, work, industry, supervision, development, real estate, blue sky"

• The columns follow ESP's template, so description comes before title.
• created date is the day the photo was taken, as YYYY-MM-DD.
• country and brief code are empty here: the country is set for the batch in ESP, and brief code is only for Getty's custom briefs.
• The photo has 31 keywords, within ESP's 5 to 50. Any that do not match the vocabulary show in red after the CSV is applied.

Categories

The iStock creative photo form has no category field.

The CSV template in ESP

1. Create a submission batch and upload the photos into it.
2. Open Templates → Apply from CSV in that batch; the dialog links to the official template ("Need a template? Download one here").
3. Apply the CSV. ESP shows any row it cannot apply in a dialog.
4. Check each photo: title, description, keywords, date. Remove or replace red keywords, set the country, then submit.

• The template's header is exactly file name,created date,description,country,brief code,title,keywords. Keep it as it is.
• brief code is only for Getty's custom content briefs; leave it empty otherwise.
• In the September 2026 test, a UTF-8 file with an accented place name ("Málaga") was applied correctly.

Similar content

Getty asks you not to submit files that are too similar to others in the same series: they can be flagged as duplicates and rejected.

Video clips

ESP takes clips in their own batch type, iStock creative video, and Apply from CSV works there as it does for photos. ESP builds the CSV template for each batch, so download the template from your video batch; we have not checked whether it differs from the photo one.

• Metadata. An English title (up to 255 characters) and description, 5 to 50 keywords, a country and a creation date. The video form has no category field either.
• Creation date. AiMedia fills created date with the recording date read from the clip; for iPhone clips it is the local date of the shoot.
• Files. MOV, MP4 or MXF, at least 5 seconds, up to 6 GB. iStock suggests keeping clips to 30 seconds and allows longer ones "if the content justifies it". M4V is not on the list: re-save such a clip as MP4 first.
• No editorial video. iStock's editorial type is for images only. Send clips from an editorial batch to Shutterstock or Pond5.

Common mistakes

• Texts not in English. ESP asks for English titles and descriptions.
• Red keywords left in place. Keywords without an exact vocabulary term show as "not found"; replace or remove them before you submit.
• Keywords you plan to fix later. Once a file is accepted, you cannot edit its keywords yourself.
• A missing country or date. Both are required for every file; the batch-wide setting saves typing them one by one.
• A changed template header. Keep ESP's header exactly as the template gives it.
• A CSV applied before the photos are uploaded. Apply from CSV works inside a submission batch, on photos already uploaded.
• Near-duplicate frames from one series, which can be flagged as duplicates.

Before you submit

• Title and description in English; the title a plain description within 255 characters.
• Between 5 and 50 keywords, with no red "not found" terms left.
• A country and a creation date on every file.
• For editorial photos, the place, the date and the facts in the description.
• The CSV applied in the same batch as its photos, with ESP's header unchanged.
• For a series, only the frames that are clearly different.

Sources

• Preparing your content (Getty Images Contributor Community) (opens in a new tab)
• Can I update the keywords for existing content? (opens in a new tab)
• Getty Images ESP (opens in a new tab) — the title limit, keyword range, required country and date, the CSV template and the iStock video batch, as shown in ESP, September 2026
• Work with us (iStock) (opens in a new tab)