Free Shutterstock Editorial Caption Generator

The "City, Country - MONTH DAY, YEAR:" dateline and a factual description under 150 characters, with a Shutterstock CSV. Free, no signup.

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Boosts accuracy

The AI can't see places, events, species or names. Add them once and they go into the title, description and keywords of every photo.

Used for every photo 0/500

Photos

Up to 5 photos at a time

Type

Commercial: no brand names, for Adobe Stock, Shutterstock and iStock.

Built-in stock prompt 0/6000
Results
Free · no signup

Stock metadata for your photos in seconds

Drop up to 5 photos, add what the AI can't see, and get a title, a description and up to 49 keywords for each that follow the agency rules. Then copy them into the upload form or download one CSV per agency for all of them.

Adobe Stock Shutterstock iStock & Getty Alamy
1. Add a noteThe place, event, species or date: facts the AI can't see.
2. ReviewEvery field is checked against Adobe Stock, Shutterstock and iStock rules.
3. Copy or downloadPaste into the upload form, or download one CSV per agency for all your photos.

Shutterstock editorial: what to know

DescriptionStarts with the dateline Shutterstock asks for: city, state or country, then the date ("CITY, STATE/COUNTRY - MONTH DAY, YEAR"), then a factual description of what is shown.
LengthAt least 5 words and under 150 characters, dateline included.
Two kindsShutterstock takes documentary editorial (real events) and illustrative editorial (products and brands shown to illustrate a story).
CSVThe Editorial column is Yes for every row.

Agencies update their rules, so confirm against their editorial guidelines before you submit. More on Shutterstock: Shutterstock keyword generator · Shutterstock metadata checker.

What the editorial generator writes

FieldWhat you get
TitleA neutral, factual title of 6 to 12 words and at most 70 characters: who or what is shown, and where.
DescriptionWith the place and date in your note: "City, Country - MONTH DAY, YEAR:" with the month in capitals, then one factual sentence, under 150 characters in all. Without them, only the factual sentence.
Keywords30 to 49 factual keywords, most important first: what is shown, the place, the event and the actions. Names of places, events and brands visible in the photo are allowed. No opinions.

The dateline: put the place and date in the note

The AI can see a crowd, a stage and a city square. It can't see that this is the Ljubljana Christmas market on 3 December 2026. Write the place and the date in the note and the description starts with them, in the format Shutterstock uses for documentary editorial.

Example

Without a note: Crowd of people walking between wooden stalls in a decorated city square

Note "Ljubljana, Slovenia, December 3, 2026, Christmas market": Ljubljana, Slovenia - DECEMBER 3, 2026: Visitors walk between wooden stalls at the Christmas market in the city centre.

How it works

  1. Drop up to 5 photos from the same event. JPEG, PNG or WebP; resized and sent to the AI, not stored.
  2. Write the note: place, date and event, plus any names you know. It is used for every photo.
  3. Review. Each description is checked for the dateline, 5 words and 150 characters.
  4. Download the CSV for your agency: Shutterstock (every row marked editorial), Adobe Stock (the dated description as the title), Alamy (the dated description as the caption), or iStock & Getty through ESP, qHero or DeepMeta (in DeepMeta's editorial format).

Editorial caption generators for other agencies

Adobe Stock editorial

That agency's editorial rules first, with its CSV.

iStock & Getty Images editorial

That agency's editorial rules first, with its CSV.

Alamy editorial

That agency's editorial rules first, with its CSV.

All agencies

The editorial caption generator with every CSV.

Editorial or commercial?

Commercial stock photos can be used in advertising, so they need model and property releases and no brand names. Editorial photos can show real events, people and brands without releases, but only for news, documentary and educational use. If your photo is commercial, use the stock photo description generator instead, and check it with the stock rejection checker before you submit.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Shutterstock editorial caption format?

City, state or country, then the date, then a colon and a factual description: for example "Ljubljana, Slovenia - DECEMBER 3, 2026: Visitors walk between the stalls of the Christmas market."

How do I mark photos as editorial in the Shutterstock CSV?

The CSV has an Editorial column; the editorial generator sets it to Yes for every photo.

What is an editorial caption?

Editorial photos record real people, places and events, and they are sold for news, documentary and educational use, not for advertising. Their metadata says plainly what happened, where and when. Shutterstock asks for documentary editorial descriptions to start with a dateline: "City, Country - MONTH DAY, YEAR:".

Where do the place and date come from?

From your note. The AI cannot see where or when a photo was taken, so write them in the note, for example "Ljubljana, Slovenia, December 3, 2026, Christmas market". Without both, the description is a factual sentence with no dateline, and the result says so.

Can editorial metadata name brands and people?

Names of places, events and brands that are part of the story are allowed in editorial metadata. Do not guess the names of people: only name someone if you know who they are and the agency accepts it.

Which agencies is it for?

Shutterstock, iStock & Getty Images and Alamy, which all sell editorial photos. You get a CSV for each, and the Shutterstock CSV marks every row as editorial. Adobe Stock only accepts illustrative editorial, not news.

Is it free?

Yes. Without an account you can do 5 photos every 24 hours, the same free photos as the stock description generator.

Captions for a whole event, not one photo at a time

In PhotoTager one note per folder goes into every caption of the shoot. Pay-as-you-go from $0.04 per image, credits never expire.

Start free with $2 of credits

More free tools: Description generator · Metadata checker · Shutterstock keywords · Alamy tags