Expolumi Shutterstock Publisher

Before you start

Shutterstock documents FTPS for contributor uploads, which Lightroom cannot use. Its upload server also accepts SFTP on port 22, and this plug-in uses that.

• Lightroom Classic (not cloud Lightroom).
• A Shutterstock contributor account, your email or username, and your password.
• Your original files available on your computer or an accessible drive.

Availability on Adobe Exchange is coming soon; the plug-in is distributed there and installed with the Creative Cloud desktop app. Try it with a test collection and one photo first.

Install

1. In the Creative Cloud desktop app, signed in with your Adobe ID, open Stock & Marketplace > Plugins, search for Expolumi, and choose Get for Expolumi Shutterstock Publisher.
2. Restart Lightroom Classic and confirm the plug-in is enabled in File > Plug-in Manager. Install only one copy.

Set up

1. In File > Plug-in Manager, choose About Expolumi > Review license terms... and accept the terms. The same review opens before the first connection if you have not.
2. Choose Library > Publish Services > Shutterstock Publisher > Set Up.
3. Choose Set credentials..., enter your Shutterstock Contributor email or username and password, and choose Save locally. They are stored with Lightroom's encrypted password storage.
4. Choose Test connection. It logs in and lists your upload folder; nothing is uploaded.
5. Save. The service gets a Shutterstock uploads collection.

In File > Plug-in Manager, the Automatically tag photos with "Uploaded" setting works as in the other Expolumi publishers and is on by default.

Publish

1. Finish the photo, including its title, caption, and keywords. They are embedded when Lightroom renders the JPEG, so there is no need to use Metadata > Save Metadata to File first.
2. Drag photos into Shutterstock uploads, or let Publishing Workflow queue them. They wait under New Photos to Publish.
3. Click Publish. Lightroom renders a full-size JPEG of each photo (sRGB, with your edits, at the highest quality that stays under Shutterstock's 50 MB limit), named after the original with a .jpg extension, and uploads it to your Shutterstock upload folder. Your original file is never changed.
4. After Shutterstock has processed the files, open your Contributor portfolio, check titles, keywords, and categories, add releases where required, and submit for review.

Published means uploaded. It is not a Shutterstock submission or acceptance. The catalog-only Shutterstock submission status field is set to Uploaded after a confirmed transfer.

Duplicate protection

• The plug-in checks the upload folder for the file name before sending and never overwrites it.
• It remembers every JPEG file name it uploaded, ignoring case. DSC_1.NEF and DSC_1.jpg both become DSC_1.jpg.
• A photo that was published before, or whose name was uploaded before, needs confirmation: one Upload again dialog covers the whole batch. Skip them reports those photos as not uploaded.
• To upload a published photo again, choose Mark to Republish in the publish service and click Publish. Upload again only photos you have not submitted yet: a submitted photo uploaded again becomes a duplicate.
• There are no automatic retries. A transfer failure stops the rest of the batch; check your Contributor portfolio before retrying.

Removing a photo from the collection only removes Lightroom's tracking. Nothing is deleted or withdrawn on Shutterstock.

With Expolumi Publishing Workflow

Set Shutterstock to Candidate in the Workflow palette and run Sync Publisher Status: Candidate photos are added to Shutterstock uploads, ready to publish. After publishing, Sync sets Shutterstock to Submitted with the date. Record Accepted or Rejected yourself after Shutterstock's review.

Limitations

• Raw, DNG, TIFF, PSD (saved with Maximize Compatibility), PNG, and JPEG originals can be published. Videos, virtual copies, and missing or offline originals are refused without uploading anything.
• Catalog metadata is embedded in the JPEG, including GPS if present. Expolumi Publishing Workflow fields stay in the catalog.
• The plug-in does not upload releases or CSV files and cannot check Shutterstock's technical requirements.
• Shutterstock decides what happens to an uploaded file. Manage submitted photos on Shutterstock.

See privacy and data handling.

Troubleshooting

• Login refused: check your email or username and password, and that SFTP access is allowed for your account. You can test the same login outside Lightroom with sftp your-email@ftps.shutterstock.com.
• Could not reach the server: check your internet connection, firewall, or proxy for outgoing connections to port 22.
• Not uploaded again: the photo was uploaded before and you chose Skip them. Publish again and choose Upload again if it has not been submitted.
• Nothing to publish: check New Photos to Publish and the selected collection.

The diagnostic log ShutterstockPublish.log contains stage names and counts, never account names, passwords, or file names. It is in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Adobe\Lightroom\Logs\LrClassicLogs on Windows and ~/Library/Logs/Adobe/Lightroom/LrClassicLogs on macOS.

Support & feature requests

Something not working as described here? Open a support case. Have an idea? Request a feature, or ask a question in Discussions.

These are public on GitHub and need a GitHub account. Leave out passwords, keys, account names, and private file paths. For your Shutterstock account or submissions, contact Shutterstock.