With years of experience in the creative industry, Shutterstock takes great care to ensure that our marketplace offers a variety of licensing options and content that meets all the compliance requirements and quality standards our customers expect. Our marketplace includes traditional stock content intended for creative commercial or editorial use, as well as content intended for data licensing by customers seeking to train computer vision models. You can learn more about data licensing here.

All content submissions are evaluated through a mix of automated and human reviews against a number of compliance and quality standards to determine which type of licensing is appropriate for that content.

Vector and illustration submissions must pass a series of checks to be acceptable for either creative or data licensing, or both:

All submissions to Shutterstock are inspected for quality issues that are commonly found in vectors and illustrations. To qualify for the Creative Marketplace ensure submissions meet all the quality requirements outlined below.

Rasterization issues occur when a vector is converted into a pixel-based image or when a raster-based image is not created at a high enough resolution. Blurred or rough edges as well as compression artifacts are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Find out more about rasterization.

Design composition issues relate to misaligned objects, misplaced objects, cropping errors, or issues with text legibility. Elements configured in a way that detracts from the usability of an illustration or vector are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Read up on design composition.

While we understand that artistic styles range, vectors and their raster versions should be constructed in a clean, organized, and easy-to-understand manner to ensure ease of use for our customers. Paths that appear unintentionally messy or disordered are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Many tools in design programs let the user apply a gradient to an object and control the placement, direction, and transition of said effect. Rough or jagged gradient transition effects, often referred to as “banding” are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Learn about gradient/blend.

A seamless design refers to an asset that is meant to be duplicated and placed together to create a large, smooth, and transitionless pattern. When creating a design that is meant to be seamless, designers must make sure that when the image is tiled side by side there is no visible boundary on all edges and you cannot tell where one image ends and the copy of the image begins. Images with visible edges that are meant to be patterned seamlessly are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Vectors must be saved down to an EPS 8 or EPS 10 format to be submitted to Shutterstock. Bitmapping occurs when files that contain pixel-based effects and certain transparency techniques are saved to an earlier version of Illustrator. These kinds of effects and techniques may not be compatible with EPS 8 or 10 formats and will result in vector file components and effects that a customer will not be able to edit. Vectors containing undeniable components are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Learn more about bitmaps.

Depending on the intended usage of the vector, designers must take care to apply the correct color space when creating content. Since CMYK color modes are used primarily for print designs and RGB color modes are used for digital purposes, the same design may appear different in each color space. Assets that demonstrate a significant color shift between the EPS file and the JPEG that is auto-generated at submission are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Find out more about color mismatch.

Depending on the intended end use of a vector, such as production in print or digital publishing, a designer would require an illustration to be in CMYK or RGB color space. EPS files or elements within them that come from different color profiles are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Read up on color profiles.

The preview of a vector on site must match the contents of the EPS file. Any objects outside of the artboard or hidden layers should be removed from the file before submitted. Vectors that contain extraneous objects that are not part of the artwork are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Learn more about extra vector objects.

​​Vectors must be saved down to an EPS 8 or EPS 10 format to be submitted to Shutterstock in order to be compatible with many different types of vector editing software. Vector files in any other formats other than EPS 8 or EPS 10 are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Find out more about EPS format requirements.

All objects in your vector file must be expanded to ensure every element of a vector file is fully and readily accessible to a customer. Every element of a vector file must be easily accessible when a customer first opens a file, eliminating the need for the customer to do additional work to expand objects to edit them. EPS files that contain unexpanded brushes or effects are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Read up on inaccessible vector objects.

Live fonts consist of any text not converted into outlined shapes. In order to display the font correctly, the original font must be loaded onto the user’s computer. Live fonts can result in mismatched image previews and customer frustration. Vectors that contain unconverted live fonts are unsuitable for the Creative Marketplace.

Learn about font requirements.

If you don’t understand the reason for the rejection of your content or if you need additional clarification, you can always contact contributor support.