Video do's and don'ts

You’ve shot some great footage and now it’s time to make your selections and edit your videos to submit to Adobe Stock. The following tips were put together to help you submit videos we can license to customers. There are no hard-fast rules, but these do’s and don’ts provide some good guidelines at each stage.

Do: Make clean cuts so that your video doesn’t start on a separate clip.  

Do: Create short clips separating out each take. We accept footage ranging from 5 to 60 seconds in duration and recommend 10-20 seconds. 

Do: Leave edit handles at the beginning and end of video clips—we recommend 1-5 seconds. 

Do: Cut out camera adjustments like focusing and zooming.

Do: Process your video subtly: clean color footage that is in focus sells well.

Don’t: Over sharpen—too much sharpening can bring out noise and unwanted texture.

Don’t: Increase the contrast drastically—this can introduce noise and you may lose detail.

Do: Be aware that your video's preview image will be automatically selected from a frame 5 seconds into the video.

Do: Adjust levels, curves, or brightness/contrast to ensure the best tonal range.

Don’t: Oversaturate—if you want to push colors hard for a specific aesthetic, use a secondary color corrector or the Vibrance control in Premiere Pro’s Lumetri color grading panel.

Don’t: Submit uncorrected logarithmic gamma (log) footage. Footage shot in log should have a simple color grading applied—a basic Rec 709 LUT is recommended.

Don’t: Add vignettes or other effects unless they really add to the shot.

Don’t: Create a video from still images. Timelapse or stop motion videos are the exception.

Do: Preserve ambient sound if the quality is acceptable.

Do: Obtain model releases from all identifiable speakers, or remove the audio.

Do: Remove audio that is unusable, such as over-modulated audio or sound that could be trademarked. It is perfectly acceptable to submit clips without audio.

Don’t: Add music or sound effects.

Don’t: Submit shots that are only marginally different or different due to post-production effects. Make sure each submission offers something unique to the customer.

Don’t: Up-res footage (for example, from HD to 4k). Submit footage as shot or smaller, if necessary.