Digital Images Platforms for Self-publishing: A Comparative study

The image is of great importance as a source of information, and the self-publishing of images is an extension of the self-publishing of books and other sources of information. Therefore, the study aims to limit the self-publishing platforms for digital images, comparing four of the most important and most famous platforms for self-publishing digital images, which are: Shutterstock platform , Adobe stock platform, iStock platform and Alamy platform in terms of the numerical size of the images and photographers contributing to each platform and the geographical spread of the platform, ease of registration on the platform and its conditions, technical support provided to photographers contributing by the platform, the platform’s policy in accepting and rejecting uploaded images and the time that the platform takes to review them, The technical conditions of the uploaded images, and finally the financial transactions between the contributing photographers and the platform in terms of the percentage of Earns and payments that the contributing photographer obtains, the method of receiving them, and the minimum to receive the payments, The researcher used the descriptive analytical approach, The study found that the percentage of payments received by the photographer varies from one platform to another, where the highest percentage of payments received by the photographer was recorded in the Alamy platform, where the platform allocates 50% of the price of selling exclusive photos, 40% of the price of selling non-exclusive photos