Sell your Photos - Quick Start Guide

First of all this page is addressed to anyone amateur or professional, passionate with photography or vector illustration, who wants to sell his/her work and make good money out of it.

*Please read the entire guide before you start applying for acceptance.

Let's get started.

Step 1

First of all any new photographer/vector artist must pass the acceptance barrier of micro stock agencies. Any agency is strict, they do not want bad pictures on their website so in order to become a member you will have to pass an "exam". You will have to answer some easy but mandatory questions and submit 10 of your best photos/illustration to be reviewed by the agency staff. Don’t be scarred already, i will give you some quick tips to improve your photos:

- be patient, the acceptance process can take a while.

- do not extrapolate your photos

- try not to use framed or cropped images

- remove the noise from your photos, with professional software like Dfine® 2.0

- do not use photos with fringing (chromatic aberration) in them.

- do not compress or over-sharpen. Save your images at the highest quality possible.

- do not submit blurred or unsharp pictures

- no trademarks or logos must be present in your picture.

- if you have people in your photos, YOU MUST HAVE A MODEL RELEASE attached to it.

The rest of the acceptance tips will be discussed later in more detail.



Step 2

Another important thing in this business is producing content. You need to have creative ideas that will sell. You just have to go out and shoot, try to find good locations and good subjects, try to shoot as much as possible. If you ask yourself "What's sells best?", the answer is ALMOST EVERYTHING.

The buyers usually search for pictures related to the major industries, like medical, travel, heavy industry, business area... etc., so try to target your shooting in some of this directions.

Again this is a big topic to cover so in future articles i will discuss them in more detail.



Step 3

Every agency offers you various options to upload your file. There are some things I suggest you do before uploading your file, in order to make the upload process on various agencies websites more easy.

All agencies have standards and here are some of them:

- uploaded photos must be save at maximum quality (no extrapolation)

- photos with identifiable humans must a model release attached

- all photos must be uploaded with maximum 50 keywords

- the title of the photo must have a maximum of 50 characters

- description of the photo must be at least 5 words and different from the title. Ex: Vector illustration. All element are editable.

In order to get your photo ready for upload here is what you have to do:

- open your picture in Photoshop (or any other IPCT software) and open the “File Info Menu”

- type a tittle, your name and a description at your choice

- for keyword-ing I suggest a very useful tool that u can find here: http://www.arcurs.com/keywording/

- after you are finished save your photo, and you are ready for upload.

The agency websites automatically recognize your IPCT information from your photo and you don’t have to write the title, description and keywords again, and again an all the sites where you apply. In this way your upload time is least than half, and you save a lot of time.



Step 4

After you have uploaded your photos, it will be a good idea to keep track of your photos. All agency websites have statistics tool that help you to see what sells and what not. This is useful to see for yourself witch is the good direction to follow and start to focus on what really sells. As an advice, do not spent too much time on this, spend more time in shooting photos and post-processing them if they need that.



Step 5

We have arrived at the most important part of this quick guide: The Agencies.

First advice it would be to tell you NOT to submit with only one or two agencies. Even if some agencies work better than others, once you have submitted your photos to several agencies you will earn from all of them (various profits, but profits). These are the most important agencies to submit to:



1. Istockphoto

The most popular agency, and by far the best it is Istockphoto. Click here to register

The good thing about this agency is that it is a good income generator. The bad thing is that is very strict, the upload process is time-cunsuming and have an upload limitof 15-30 files per week.



2. Shutterstock

Shutterstock is second big stock photo agency.Click here to register.
It is a subscription based stock agency. This agency is very good for beginners because you will get sales constantly and the uploading system is simple and intuitive.



3. Fotolia

Another popular agency is Fotolia. Click here to register.

The upload process is medium as time-consuming regards, there are no upload limits and u do not have any limits regarding upload. The approval time it is short, 1-2 days.
4. Dreamstime

Dreamstime rank as number four. Click here to register.
Provides stable sales, the upload process is easy, and the commission for the photographer is high. The approval time is a little bit longer, 3-5 days.



5. 123RF

123RF is another good option for beginners. Click here to register.

has an easy upload system, the photographer commission is good and make it worthwhile. It is relative low income website but good for long run.



6. BigStock

Click here to register.
The photo inspections and acceptance on this site are ok, and the photographer commission also. There are no upload limits. This is also a low income website but good for long run.



7. Crestock

Click here to register.

This site is worth uploading because has a very easy upload system. Good photo management and intuitive process. photo approval takes a little longer.



8. Can Stock PHOTO

Click here to register.

It has a extremely easy upload process, very good approval rate and can give you relatively good income because good commissions.



9. Cutcaster

Click here to register.

It is a very organized website, with an easy upload process, very intuitive for beginners. The earnings from this website are not that good but it compensates with the little time u have to spend to upload a photo on their website.



10. Deposit Photos

Click here to register.

It is a nice website, good content, good photo management, quick approval rate and easy upload system.



Follow all the steps and you will start to earn some money, and in a 1-2 years this will be your main income source, or maybe faster, it all depends on how good you are.



This was a quick start guide. For more and detailed information on each section, please check the rest of the articles.

For more reviews please check http://www.canoncameramodels.com/ and http://www.extrafine.ro/