Learn how to sell photos online.
Category: Sell Photos Online | Jul 20, 2009 |
Photography is truly an enjoyable art because of the great freedom it offers. You can take many different types of photos you don’t have to be stuck taking the same type of photos everyone else does. You can be as creative as you want. While it’s an awesome hobby, it can also be something that makes you money. This article is for all the photographers who have ever wondered how to sell photos online. You’ll learn exactly how to sell photos online for a profit.
Step 1: Look Online
There are certain types of images which are in demand, and there are those which aren’t so popular. Before even trying to make money by selling photos online, you should take some time to do a little research. Go online to a stock photography web site and take a look at their selection of images. Next to an image, you might find something that says it is popular or in demand. These are the types of images that you want to take as they the most profitable photos to sell online.
Step 2: Good Equipment
Stock photography sites and their customers demand photos of a certain quality. They usually don’t want amateur looking shots, but rather those that look very good. You should invest in a very good digital camera to take the photos with. Now which camera you choose will depend on the types of images you’re hoping to take. For instance, if you’re looking to take action shots (that is, photos of things or people in action) you might want a digital camera that is especially good. You can get camera recommendations at any digital camera forum. Don’t ignore this step as it is one of the most important to sell photos online.
Step 3: Take the Photos
Now that you know what type of photo to take, and you have the right equipment, it’s time to actually take the photo or photos. When doing this, if you are using a model, make sure they sign a waiver giving you all the rights to sell the image(s)–failure to do so can result in potential legal trouble. If possible, take a lot of photos so that you’ll have a good amount to select from. This allows you to truly find the best images, which will make it that much easier when you sell photos online.
Step 4: Find Places to Sell Them
You have the photos. Now what? Well, it’s now time for you to find places to sell photos online. To this end, there are many sites which are popular and will allow you to successfully sell photos online. The key is to find these sites and not get caught up in the few that are actually rip-off sites. For this part of the selling process, you may want to enlist Google and look for terms like places to sell photos online, stock photography web sites etc. You may also want to join some photography forums and ask experienced photographers which sites are reliable to sell photos online and which are not.
Step 5: Select a Place
It’s unwise to just find a site and automatically choose to use it for when you sell photos online. That’s why like some of the other steps of the photo selling process, you need to take time to research. Research each site you’ve found to see if they’re reliable, fair to customers and those who submit the photos (i.e. you), are well-known and organized. You absolutely don’t want to choose a site that has a poor reputation or else you’ll end up not selling very many photos online. Google is your best friend in this part of the process as you should be able to thoroughly research any web site to see if they’re good for you and your photos or not. Again, you might also want to ask fellow freelance photographers for recommendations, just so that you get enough information to make the best decision.
Step 6: Submit the Photos
After you’ve picked the site you wish to use to sell photos online, it’s time to actually submit the photos. When doing this, you need to be sure to follow all the rules the site has for submission. You’ll want to fill out the form as accurately as possible, and if they ask you what category your photo belongs in, take the time to research and find out what is the best fit as far as a category is concerned. If you have questions about the form, ask the site. We can’t stress this fact enough: you absolutely NEED to follow all the directions for submission as if you don’t, no matter how good your photos are, they won’t be accepted. Do not neglect this important part of the process to sell photos online or it could cost you big time.
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Help answer the question about sell photo online
where can i sell photos online without using creditcards etc?i want to sell photos online but i want to sell the photos without using creditcards
Yes i can. The websites that you upload photos to want good high quality photos and / or photos that are exciting that many people will want.
wow, this thing is great! i earned 15$ in two days by selling 10 photos
thanks drazosrbija
some photos are rejected.. can you tell me why?
Hmm. You can become an eBay seller and only accept check or money order as payment. You would wait until the check clears the bank before shipping, as is the common practice. I'm not sure if you can register to be a seller without a credit card, though. Maybe.
You probably don't want to mess with PayPal, either, although this would enhance your sales as so many people use it. Even if you don't want to process credit card payments, buyers can use them via PayPal and you still get paid without being an actual credit card merchant.
A pro photographer I know uses a site called SmugMug. It allows people to select different sized prints of the photo. Maybe this would work for you?
http://www.smugmug.com/
I think the EASIEST way is through microstockphoto sites.
Here's a good list of sites with some tips to earn some good extra cash and on going discussion that you might want to visit..
http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/
Hope that helps..
Smugmug is not for major income. The solution is stock photography. If you have good photos you can sell them easily here. Just sign up and upload your photos. Once accepted your photos will be downloaded for a price. You get your money every time the photo is downloaded, so every good photo is a win-money to you. Here are the links for you: (by the way, it's free):
http://www.dreamstime.com/res309669
http://istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=artaniss
http://www.fotolia.com/partner/326052
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=DOZ4jxMEo7
You can try http://www.web-legal.com – They wont actually buy them, but they will sell them for you. Infact they will sell them to several websites for you. You will make more money that way. Or you can make your own website . . . If you are just looking to make a quick buck, send me a sample, let me know how much you want and I might buy them, amateur_designs@yahoo.com
1) Create a sample portfolio of your work so potential clients know the quality and variety of your skills. It's easy to create a web-based portfolio with free online tools.
2) Click new photographs on a regular basis and display them in your portfolio. Make sure they're arranged by a common theme.
3) Experiment with visual styles and ideas — lighting, color, subject — and upload them to stock photography sites like Shutterstock. Don't be afraid to take chances.
4) Make your skills known on freelance photography sites. Create a profile with your resume and portfolio so interested clients can contact you for projects.
5) Know more about successful photographers who sell photographs online and get paid for them. Learn from their methods so you can replicate and improvise on their success.
I don't know about any programs thatll do that for you, but as a seasoned picture stealer (haha) I know that
1. If you are going to put a watermark on a picture, make the watermark take up the entire picture. That might discourage any potential picture stealers from stealing it, because any small watermark can easily be photoshopped out, and a giant watermark can be a real pain to get rid of. So, your preview picture can have the watermark, and the picture the buyer downloads can be nice and pretty and watermark free.
2. Disabling the right click won't do anything. Theres a nifty little button on the keyboard that takes screen shots of everything showing on the screen. Capture it, go into a paint program, click paste, crop everything but the picture and BAM. All done
Again, the watermark will solve this.
Or what I'm about to tell you might too.
3. Make the preview picture small. Not thumbnail sized, but just a nice smaller version of the original sized picture. This way it might be too small for the would-be stealer to use, and even a good photoshop program cant enlarge it to a nice pretty replica, itll just enlarge it to a still unusable blurred and stretched no-so-pretty-anymore replica.
So if you cant find any programs, just use these tips.
Though two programs I will mention are Photoshop and the MUCH cheaper Paint Shop Pro, which you can use to add watermarks and resize pictures and stuff.