How to attribute AI images for stock sites

Every major agency accepts AI content — with its own rules. Here's how to attribute Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Flux generations so they pass review and sell.

The mandatory Generative AI flag

Adobe Stock, Freepik and Shutterstock require the “Created with generative AI” tick (or equivalent) in the dashboard. It can't be set from metadata — but everything else (title, description, keywords) is embedded into the file and pre-fills automatically.

What to put in the title and description

The title should describe the image, not the prompt. “A solemn medieval knight in a gothic cathedral” — good. “Midjourney v7 masterpiece, ultra detailed, 8k” — bad: prompt jargon doesn't belong in a title and hurts search.

Keywords, on the other hand, should include “ai generated” and “generative ai” — buyers deliberately search for AI content.

Technical file requirements

• JPG, at least 4 MP (Adobe Stock, Shutterstock);
• Freepik — sides 2000–10000 px, title up to 100 characters;
• No watermarks or upscaling artifacts;
• XMP metadata with a proper JFIF marker (or Adobe Stock won't read the fields).

A workflow for hundreds of images

Generate in Midjourney → upload a batch to Stock Metadata Tagger → AI writes the metadata → edit in the table → a ZIP for Freepik (100/40 profile) and SFTP delivery to Adobe Stock (full 200/47). Manual attribution takes 3–5 minutes per file; here it's seconds.