How to Choose Stock Photography for Your Ebook Covers

Choosing the right images for your ebook is important to convey the message you want. Stock photography is an effective tool for your ebook covers.

Here are some tips to help you find and choose stock photos.

1. Photography agencies have many selections. Stock photography is more cost effective than custom photography and will work for most ebook covers.

2. Be flexible. Don't expect to find the exact image you want. For example, if you provide information about home schooling, you may want to find an image of a women with a child. The images you'll find may not be the size, color, or position you're looking for and the child may not be the right age for your topic. Determine what message you want to convey. Then search for an image that conveys that message. If you don't find the right image, you may want to take your own pictures with a digital camera or hire a photographer.

3. Use a free comp image to try out the image. Most stock agencies offer a free comp image for position only so that you can try it and see if it's going to work for your purpose.

4. Buy the size and resolution you need. Don't pay more than you need to. So don't pay for 300 dpi resolution when you only need 72 dpi resolution for an ebook cover image.

5. If you don't find what you need, contact the web site. They may have images that are not featured on the site.

6. Know how to search. Try different keywords. If you are looking for a women in the woods, try keywords like "women woods, women trees, women forest."

7. Consider combining two or more images. Sometimes you have to put two or more images on top of each other to create the image you want. You can use a graphic program to do this. In the example above, you may find a great image of a forest without a women. You may want to put a picture of a women on top of the forest image.

8. Check the "Terms of Use." Some sites only allow you to use their images for personal use, while others allow commercial use (which is what you will want for your ebook that you are selling). Other sites let each contributor of the images determine what kinds of usage will be allowed. If you're using the image for an extended period of time, you may have to pay every year.

Adding a quality ebook image representing your book or software topic is one of the easiest ways to instantly increase your credibility and sales.

Boost your ebook sales with quality 3D ebook covers! FREE 34+ clipart and photo resources. Quality custom design of web graphics http://www.QualityEbookCovers.com

How to Use and Select Stock Photography Services

There are two main types of photography to sell, that is assignment photography and Stock Photography. Assignment photography is taking photographs of a predetermined event, and stock Photography is taking photographs in the hope that you will be able to find a future buyer. Most professional photographers take both types, the weddings and portraits take care of immediate bills, as they command a higher price, because they are generally only of interest to a limited number of people. There are exceptions like being hired for a specific assignment to photograph an Olympic Event, and then being able to sell that photograph Internationally. In general, stock photographs command a lower price, but they are more saleable to a wider base.

Stock photographs’ are generally sold on the Internet through what is known as “Stock Libraries”. They generally all work on a very similar system, you take photographs and submit them to a stock library and they sell them to interested parties such as travel brochure companies, advertising agents, book publishers. This way of marketing photographs has distinct advantages, if you are a part time freelancer, or have just started your own business. Either way you are probably too busy making portfolios, and taking pictures to market them. Another factor, which makes this method of marketing advantageous, is that when you are starting you do not have the network of contacts to market your photographs. Added to that there are some people who won’t or can’t perfect their marketing skills.

A downside of this marketing method is that there is a little more to it than taking photographs and waiting for the Royalty cheques to come in. Most stock libraries, will want to re-caption your pictures to fit in with their image, this can be a time consuming process and it can take months to get them online. Like many aspects of selling it is a “numbers game”, the more photographs you have available to sell the more you are likely to sell. This is a fairly general aspect of marketing, but it is more specific in this instance, as prospective buyers may look at other images, if they like one particular one. Because of the time factor of getting your work to the buyers or the public, many stock libraries, have insisted on a minimum contract, which means that they typically ask to retain your work for a minimum of two years.

Some of the stock libraries are general and some are more specific. Marine Themes obviously specialise in underwater photography, and they scan and correct all their images before sale. They are then color corrected to ensure that any prints will be the best quality. All this takes time, to get the images actually for sale on the Internet. The benefit is that marine photography is highly specialised, and this process does increase your chances to merchandise your work.

In the past the market was limited to buyers who were sent colour brochures and made their selection from them, now the market is expanding, as many libraries have widened their sales base by allowing customer’s to make their purchases directly on line. This factor alone has increased the numbers game the more people who have access, the more who are likely to buy. Some stock libraries are general and some are highly specific such as South African images. Some cover specialist areas such as marine photography, or nature.

So how do you choose the stock library that will be the most beneficial to you? There are independent reports covering the various strengths and weaknesses. The annual Freelance Photographer's Market Handbook in the UK features a section on stock libraries and is an excellent reference guide. Some of the stock libraries have been established for ten years. They have hundreds of photographer’s and hundreds of thousands of images. As a result of this they may be reluctant to take on new clients. However if you have a large portfolio available immediately it may be worth trying one of the older companies. However you will be competing with established photographers who have built up a client base. Many of the new companies have less than a hundred photographers and you will start by being a bigger fish in a smaller pond.

At the end of the day, the choice has to be your personal decision, and there is nothing to stop you from registering with more than one library. Whilst the market is growing and will continue to grow to encompass on line sales, remember to consider that sales from a printed catalogue will be important for a while, and it may be advantageous for you to choose a library with a well referenced catalogue.

Every stock library has different terms and conditions. In general most give you a straight 50% of the earnings. However some do let the images go into the hands of “sub agents”, and they will expect an additional cut from any sales. Read your contract well before you sign and beware of copyright issues. Normally when the photograph is sold the buyer is issued with a license number, which only allows them to use the image the once. You minimise your royalties if you allow a buyer to pay once and then get multiple uses out of it.

All in all if you are prepared to look at your market strategy over a long period of time, stock libraries offer you an option. There are forums for professional photographers that do address the issue, and it may be worth you looking into othe peoples style and work. Here are some I recommend you look into and consider selling your stock through:- PhotoStockPlus and Photo.com

There are also available a huge number of royalty free sites. You may question why buyer’s would consider paying for an image whilst they can obtain other’s free? The answer here is that royalty free photographs don’t make them free, you do purchase them, but you have the rights to re-use the stock photos and CDs for as many different projects and clients as you wish without paying further licensing fees.

This article has been supplied courtesy of Roy Barker. Roy often writes and works closely with Profitable Photography Business. This site is dedicated to coaching you in starting your own photography business but places a strong emphasis on profitability issues & guidelines. You can also gain many photography resources (some free) from Digital Photography If you seek further guides, helpful hints, articles and news, you can go to http://www.photography-business-tips.com which also has a Photographers Forum for exchange of views with other photographers.

Why Stock Photography is a Great Resource for Web Business

A picture is worth a thousand words.

And it still is today. With the media changing everyday photography has changed along with it and as a result is still a valuable resource for web business.

1. Photos enhance the look of a website.
2. Communicate so much more than words, they communicate emotions.
3. Photos can be customized for borders and backgrounds.
4. Photos have more impact than clip art. (They tend to give a more professional look.)
5. Stock photography is a big business and affordable stock is out there.

As a web business you’re most likely a small business and have a limited budget and that’s where stock photography can be great resource for you. You can spend as little as $10.00 or as much as $200.00 plus on one image. (Consider that if you hired a professional commercial photographer to shoot a few rolls of film to your specifications it would cost you thousands and thousands of dollars.)

Things to remember when shopping for stock photography:

1. Know what you want, start with a generic idea and get specific as you shop (Remember you probably will not find the exact image that you have in your head, be open to good photos that you find along the way.)

    

2. Shop around, try the larger agencies try the independents too. (Larger agencies offer more to chose from independent photographers offer more personalized service.)

    

3. Know what you’re going to use it for, stock photography belongs to the photographer who created it, or the agency, so know what you need it for there can and will be limitations of use.

    

4. Know what format you need, you only need 72 dpi for the web, be careful that you don’t pay for a higher quality when you don’t need it. (300 dpi for printing purposes)

    

5. Know your terms for the industry, Make sure that you know what the difference is between royalty free and rights managed, and any other terms the business may use. If something is not clear on their site contact them and ask for clarification.

So remember you can add a little more impact and emotion to your site by making use of the stock photography out there today.

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

Should You Let Your Stock Photo Business Customers Pay By Credit Card?

To accept credit card payments you need to set up a “Merchant Account.” This is a credit card processing account that you establish, that makes it possible for you (your photography business) to accept all major credit cards for payment. This account is not the same as your checking account or savings account, but it allows you to accept credit card payments from your customers, and for the money to get deposited into your existing bank account.

TWO TYPES

There are two types of accounts a merchant can use. Unless you are a brick-and-mortar studio or stock photo agency, you probably won’t be interested in the first type, which is the over-the-counter type of account, where the credit card is physically swiped through a machine at the time of purchase.

The account that likely would fit you best is the Mail-Order/Telephone Order merchant account. Your client, photobuyer or print order customer, enters their credit card information onto a form on a website, or by email, or by phone. You then process the merchant account transaction, which goes to a verification provider. Once the card is verified and approved (done electronically), your client’s payment is deposited into your bank account.

Can you afford to accept credit card payments? Some banks may charge you an annual fee in addition to a ‘per transaction fee’ -- but there are many other providers that charge only a small percentage of the sale amount at each transaction, when you process a credit card (you pay an average of 2-3% per transaction to such a merchant account provider). These merchant account providers are ideal for small business owners and online businesses that may need to process only a handful of sales each week.

There are several credit card processing providers to choose from, each offering different features and fees. Figuring which one of these would work best for you, to process your customer's credit card payments, can be a daunting task.

A local bank, because they are not familiar with the stock photo industry, may deny your business application for a merchant account because they don't want to take the risk. Most small businesses end up going through third party providers who are willing to take the risk, and actually get the merchant account on your behalf; then apply their own rate structure to your transactions.

To move ahead with your merchant account, you'll need a shopping cart program of some kind, which must work with the system you use to process credit cards online. Unfortunately, if you go with a third party shopping cart rather than a custom written one, it may not work with all credit card processing gateways. Be sure that whatever shopping cart program you use on your website, works with the merchant account you ultimately end up using to process customer payments.

What’s the charge to get involved? You pay fees to the third party merchant account provider (or the bank if you are able to secure your own account directly with a bank that provides it) in exchange for the ability to accept credit card payments. The fees and rates you pay will vary depending on many factors, including how long you've been in business, the type of business you operate, your credit score, how much of your sales are processed by phone versus online, and the amount of credit card sales you process each month.

As mentioned, some providers charge an annual fee in addition to a fee per transaction, while other providers charge only a percentage of each transaction processed. Typical rates for small businesses accepting phone and mail order payments are $0.10 to $0.30 per transaction, plus 2 to 3% of the transaction amount. If the merchant account provider you are considering wants to charge more than this percentage, be sure to check out a few others to see if you can get a lower rate. Sometimes, your credit rating will result in your having to pay higher fees -- but it's worth shopping around a little to see if you can get a lower percentage rate per transaction.

When you're shopping companies, looking for the best merchant account provider, make sure to compare all of the fees to see how much you're going to end up spending per each sale. You should also take into consideration what the application fee is (if any), how much you pay annually, how much you must spend on equipment needed to set up your account (in case you need a swiping machine), and whether or not you must maintain a monthly minimum of sales volume.

YOUR LOCAL BANK

If you sign up for a merchant account with your local bank, you’ll be able to make direct deposits into your business account at the bank. If you outsource, study the terms for cancellation and under what conditions the provider can cancel your account, as well. Compare how each merchant account provider allows you to withdraw your money -- can you do it whenever you want or do you have to do it at specific times of the month or year? How long will it take to receive your funds once you've requested a withdrawal or transfer of the money? How does the provider handle charge-backs? Read all of the forms and contracts associated with the merchant account before you sign anything.

The process for applying for a merchant account varies depending on the company. For example, some providers ask you to provide a photo of your driver’s license, and even of your home office or studio to verify you are in the location you say that you are. Some companies will want to send a representative to photograph your place of business. Occasionally, you'll be asked to provide a DBA (“Doing Business As”) or business license, your tax returns, and profit and loss statements.

In our own case, here at PhotoSource International, about five years ago we did our homework and contacted a half a dozen providers. We determined that Total Merchant Services would be best for us. They have been consistent and quick, and I can highly recommend them. If you’re interested in checking them out:

http://www.photosourceprocessing.com/

Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of “Sell & ReSell Your Photos” and “sellphotos.com,” has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: “8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer,” visit http://www.sellphotos.com

Kinds Of Stock Images

Images enhance and complement content. However, it's not possible for people to have images ready for any content at any given time. This is where the stock images come in handy. The stock image for publishing here can be simply defined as an image which is commercially available.

There are several kinds of stock images available for use. These include the royalty free images as well as the rights managed stock images.

Royalty free stock images:

You are only required to pay a single one time fee for use of the chosen image multiple times and for multiple purposes. There is no time limit for how long a buyer can use the image. You cannot have exclusive rights to a royalty free image. The photographer would be well within his rights to sell the image as many times as he wants. There is a limitation for the number reproductions per image with royalty free images.

The amount of copies made is called the print run. This amount is usually defined before the purchase of the image. Any reproduction of the image beyond this stipulated number will mean that the buyer will have to pay a fee per brochure. This fee is usually about 1-3 cents. Magazines which have large print runs cannot use royalty free images. They instead have to purchase the images with a rights managed license or hire in house photographers.

Rights managed stock image or licensed images: The buyer has to pay each time the image is used. There is usually a time limit to how long a buyer has exclusive rights to an image. This time period is usually for about a year. This ensures that the photographer can sell the exclusive rights to the image again after the first buyer's time limit is over. The buyer has to choose a rights managed license if he/she wants exclusive rights to the image.

The photographer is, therefore, barred from selling the image to anyone else, if the exclusivity clause is a part of the license contract. But, not all rights managed licenses are exclusive. Exclusivity typically has to be stipulated in the agreement. The fees of these stock images depend on many factors such as exclusivity, time period for which it is used, distribution, and also geographic location of usage. A rights managed license usually allows for a more extensive print run per image than stock images with royalty free licenses.

The editorial is considered to be a form of rights managed license if there are no releases for the subjects. Without releases, the images cannot be used in advertising, or for depiction of controversial subjects. They can only be used for news and educational purposes.

Hence, stock photographs are very significant indeed, whichever way they are used. Their informative as well as complimenting powers simply cannot be underestimated. A good content if often defined by the stock images used, and the visual information they deliver.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.imagebankguide.com

Stock Images and Prints - The New Wave of Photography

The field of photography has opened up in unprecedented ways due to digital photography. Today, a photographer no longer has to have access to or be a wizard in the darkroom. Instead, he or she needs to master the realm of digital imagery and computer photo manipulation. Because today's images are already in a digital format, it makes it that much easier to upload and transmit them. This has led to an increasing number of stock photography sites and has allowed those who need the services of a photographer - either as publishers or consumers - to have more choices than ever before.

What is Stock Photography?

Imagine, for a moment, that you publish a travel magazine, newsletter, or website. You're running a story on travel in Europe, and you need photography to accompany the story. One way of obtaining those images is to send a staff photographer to Europe to get the Europe shots you need. Another way is to hire a freelance photographer based in Europe to go out and take the Europe shots you want. Each of those options is incredibly expensive. The third approach is to purchase stock photography. These are images that a photographer already has, and that are available for you to reprint.

The Advantages of Stock Photography

The primary advantage of stock photography is that you can get the Europe shots you need at a fraction of the cost of using your own photographer or hiring a freelance photographer. There are two types of stock photography: royalty-free and rights-managed, or RM. Most stock photography websites offer both royalty-free and RM images. Royalty-free images are usually less expensive than rights-managed images, but those images are also more widely used. In other words, the royalty-free photos you publish will also be published by hundreds or thousands of other publishers.

Rights-managed stock images, on the other hand, are not as widely circulated. The fee for using the image is typically based on whether or not you want exclusive use of the photo (if so, the cost is higher), how large the photo will be when it's published, and the circulation of publication. For example, a 1/4-page Europe shot on an inside page of your travel magazine will cost less than if you were to use the image on the cover of your magazine. Likewise, if your magazine has a circulation of 25,000, the image will cost less than if your magazine has a circulation of 1,000,000.

The ability to view and immediately download stock photography is another enormous advantage of stock images. There's no need to wait for negatives, positives, slides, or prints; you can simply view all of the available images and download those that you want at whatever resolution you need. Because the images are digital, there is no degradation of quality, as is often the case with duplicated transparencies, for example.

Consumers Benefit from Stock Images, Too

Photography has long been recognized as an art form, and people are increasingly choosing to display photography as art in their homes. If, for example, you treasure your travel adventure to Europe, you can easily find photos for sale from photographers who sell stock images. You can obtain high-quality pigment prints that will remind you of that special trip for years to come.

Stock images are ideal for both publishers and consumers, and the availability of such images is made possible by the digital revolution.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Stock Images and Prints or Majon's Arts directory.

Stock Images- The Indispensable Tool For Designers And Webmasters

When the already obtainable photographs are accredited for definite usage, then they are called Stock photography. These are also known as 'stock photos', 'photo archive' or 'image banks' in USA. Outside the United States, the term 'picture library' is generally used to refer to these stock photos. Stock photographs generally consist of still images, illustrations and videos. Stock photographs are useful to a large section of people that includes book publishers, business resourceful groups, specialty publishers, interior decoration firms, magazines, graphic designers, advertising agencies, web designers and filmmakers. In the Internet there are outstanding collection of stock photography images from all the leading brand names. Instead of going for on-location shooting, using stock photography will help the customers to save adequate amount of time and money. Suppose, submitting a photo on a certain topic is required immediately and there is no time at all for shooting the photo in a conventional time-consuming process. So, stock photos can come to the rescue now. Researchers can easily come across their well-desired images from the broad assortment of online images. With the advent of digital delivery techniques, people can buy, download or e-mail images easily.

In the stock photography industry, the new micro-stock models of images get filed at the agencies. The photographers are paid a certain amount of percentage. There are various factors on which the cost of the images depends on. These are the audience, the frequency and duration of using these images and the associated countries or regions. The licensed price varies from $1 to $200. You can find any type of image that will fit the budget of your project. For big budget projects, you can afford high-cost images; otherwise just go for the images that come at a cheaper price rate. Some professional stock photographers submit their images to more than one agency. The photographers can sell the same image several times. So, the availability of these images increases. In case of 'rights managed' stock photography, the agencies go for a separate licensing contract for each use whereas in 'royalty free' stock photography, the purchasers can use the image again and again with a single license fee. There is no restriction of time. But there is a limit in the number of usage. In this way, other customers are debarred from using a certain image for a specific time period. From stock photography, both low-resolution and high-resolution images are accessible. You can use the 'rights managed' images in 2 mediums separately. But for each use, you have to pay the agency separately. The size of the audience is important here. The non-payment licensing period for most of the stock agencies is 6 months to 1 year. Other options are on hand too. There are also certain provisions to apply for 'exclusive' rights in 'rights-managed' images. Thus scope of overusing the image by the challenger market lessens. The 'released images' are classified into 2 sections. These are 'model released' and 'property released' stock images. These images are accessible for authorization through stock photography agencies. Usage charge is not required in case of 'Royalty-Free Images'. So, for unrestricted, worldwide usage, royalty free license is the best resort.

H. Armstrong Roberts founded the 1st prominent stock photography agency way back in 1920. The current name of the agency is RobertStock. In the 1980s, the industry of stock photography got a significant facelift. The Image Bank, Masterfile, Index Stock Imagery, FPG, SuperStock and Comstock Images were the leading agencies of this period. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Getty Images, Corbis and JupiterMedia Corporation emerged as some of the major players in this business. All the photographs are distributed only through Internet. Both professional and amateur photographers are employed in this business. In 2004, fotoLibra started the system of open access model by which everybody became capable of uploading and marketing the images. Throughout Europe and North America, there are several stock photography agencies that supply good quality images to various media publishers and advertising agencies. The demand for lifestyle images is on the rise nowadays.

If we search through Goggle, we can come across innumerable stock photo agencies. You can use smaller or larger agencies as per your requirement. The number of images of your preferred topic varies considerably according to the agency strength. There are certain guidelines you can follow while searching for stock photography images. You should always opt for the advanced search techniques. The position of these advanced search buttons vary according to the agencies. Let us suppose that you are going to search for images on 'chocolates'. You should insert that very key phrase 'chocolate' and click the advanced search button. Soon, you will be flooded with desired results. In some agencies, you have to register as per the agency's terms and conditions. Not much information is required to register in Index Stock. But FotoSearch, Getty Images and Corbis want extensive information. Your image buying process will get facilitated if you set up an account at the agency's website. Setting up an account and registering don't have much of a difference in the websites of some companies. Some agencies proffer special services also. You can search for high quality images such as images without any watermark. In some stock photography agencies, you can get the assistance of professional searchers also. These professional searchers have proven to be immensely beneficial for certain customers. For further queries, calling the customer care associates of the agencies will definitely be a wise option. The amicable customer care services of various stock photography image agencies have got global appreciation.

If you are looking forward to the perfect stock photo for your marketing project, you can at once search through the online agencies. Inserting the keywords, image type, image size and color will be helpful. Searching by orientation like portrait, panoramic and layout is available in agencies like Index Stock Imagery. The more you be specific in terms of keywords, the results will be more precise. Let us suppose that you want photographs on 'children playing on the beach'. Here, all the key words 'children', 'play' and 'beach' must be included in your search. Re-sorting the images from the search results is possible too. Searching by the name of the artist who has generated the image is another popular option. To make your search more refined, you can insert your desired adjectives in the keyword. If you are satisfied with the images you obtain, you can place them in the 'light box' where other people connected to the project can take a look at them. Using the 'light box' is acceptable in Index Stock. Some prefer e-mailing the images to the co-workers. The name of the light box appears as the subject line in the mails of the recipients. In the mail, a clickable URL exists that refers to the light box. All the stock photography agencies have almost identical features. After the selection of the stock images, filling up the online ordering form is mandatory. You have to spell out the actual forms of usage of the images. After the completion of the ordering process, you get necessary information from the agencies on the downloading of images. Next comes the step for saving and using the images. The whole process of purchasing a license for online stock photography is trouble-free, speedy and reasonably priced.

Stock photography, nowadays, is an extensively used application of digital media. Digital audio, digital video and other digital 'content' are the prime categories of digital media. The digital information processing machines play an important role in this regard. The digital media is technologically far more advanced than the analog media. From the conventional stock photography, a branch known as Micro Stock Photography has emerged. These images are obtainable only from the Internet. The agencies of micro stock photography buy images from a broad assortment of photographers that incorporates recreational photographers also. The cost of royalty free images is quite less. The range of the price is between $10 and $20. Here, quantity of the images is the major concern of the photographers. Bruce Livingstone initiated the microstock photography industry. You can download thousands of microstock photographs from agencies like ShutterStock, Dreamstime, BigStockPhoto, Stock Photo and Fotolia. Gradually, the whole Stock Photography industry is going through a steady growth rate and in the coming years, it will surely undergo further revolution.

Albert Mills is a freelance photo researcher based in Barcelona, Spain currently contracting for an international publishing group based in london and leading advertising agencies in Europe. http://www.epictura.com alisonyoung@epictura.com

Are Stock Images Ever Useful

In general, I advise clients not to use stock images when they can avoid it. As a designer and as a web surfer, I would much rather see images of your actual customers and employees than people who are obviously models or posing for a stock image. And people who surf the web a lot can tell the difference. So is there ever a time when stock images are appropriate for a website?

First, if you have enough pictures already taken to use on your website, there's no need to use stock images. Do make sure that the pictures are of high enough quality to give a good impressions, though. If the pictures are grainy or of otherwise poor quality, you might be better off not using them.

Second, even if you had pictures that are unusable, there's still the option to get new pictures taken. Hiring a professional photographer, even if only for an hour or two, can result in many high-quality pictures to choose from for your site. At the very least, get someone you know who takes good amateur pictures to take the pictures. Even an amateur with experience is better than having pictures that are not of your company.

It may be that you work out of your home in an environment that it would not be appropriate or professional to display on your website. You could also work on-site for other companies, possibly with security concerns. A good example of both of those would be someone who runs an IT consulting company out of their home. In such a case, it would be completely appropriate to use stock images.

It could be that your website is for something more general, where stock images are easier to obtain than getting custom photography. Say, for example, that your website is an informative site with information about whales. It would be a lot less trouble and less expense to use stock photos of whales than it would be to obtain them yourself.

As in many things, there is no clear-cut rule for determining when to use stock images. However, if the cost is less and the level of professionalism of your website would not be negatively affected, stock images can be a viable solution. I would encourage you, however, if it is at all possible, to use pictures of your actual product, location and/or customers.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

Stock Photograhy Lesson - Quality Requirements for Online Stock Photograph Sales

Most online stock agencies require that your images be submitted in TIFF or JPEG format at resolutions high enough to be printed at A3 or bigger. In order to do this you will have to have shoot the image on a camera with at least 6 megapixel this will give a file size of at least 17MB at 8 bit. You are then required to Interpolate (upsize) your image to at least 48MB before submission. Use Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2 camera raw to open your RAW files. This allows maximum control over the editing process. Camera RAW is a photoshop plugin for CS/CS2.

The difference between RAW, JPEG and TIFF.

RAW files are the camera?s data from the three sensors RGB (Red, Green, Blue) recorded as independently editable data. As the three colour chanels are not combined you have much easier editing capabilities over exposure, contrast, saturation and white balance, than if you had shot in JPEG. Shooting in RAW will also allow you to interpolate your images in Camera RAW allowing you to escape the tedious process of having to upsize using Genuine Fractals. (See appendix: Genuine Fractals). All professional photographers shooting with digital cameras shoot in RAW.

JPEG is a file format used by most point and shoot cameras that combines the three colour chanels and compresses the image using a mathematical algorithim. Most point and shoot camera only allow JPEG files. There is a certain loss of image quality with JPEG compression and it becomes more noticeable the higher the compression ratio. Loss of image quality is a bad thing, which is why we always shoot in RAW.

TIFF files are the same as JPEG except that they do not compress the image and therefore have much larger file sizes. There is no loss of image quality with TIFF files. Images are usually sent into the agency in TIFF format.

Dust, Scratches and Noise

Beware of getting dust in your camera. Today's DSLR cameras have one problem that the manufacturers are working to eliminate. Dust getting onto the sensor. When this happens you get blemishes or spots on your photos that show up especially in the areas of same colour like the sky or someones face. They are very unsightly and must be removed in an image editing program like Photoshop, before you submit to the Stock agency. If you are still shooting film and want to scan your negatives, make sure you scan them at double the resolution you want to save them as. If you want a 50MB file you will have to scan the slide at 100MB to achieve a desirable resolution. Drum scans from a professional output lab are best, but some fine desktop scanners are also available. The Nikon DS4000 is a good choice, the Minolta Dimage 5400 is a better one. These scanners come quipped with DIGITAL ICE a software program that uses the data from the sensors to see where the dust and scratches are and to then correct the image, or in other words, it does all the photoshopping for you.

When scanning slides make sure you have DIGITAL ICE or you will have to spend hours touching up. Digital noise is the effect of colour patterns and texture that show up in images that are underexposed or shot on a high ISO (film speed). Basically these unsightly patterns and textures, that show up in the darker areas of images not badly affected or in all areas of more severe images, are caused by the over sensitivity of the sensor. On long exposures the light enters the camera, hits the sensor then small amounts of it are bounced back onto the back end of the lens to then be reflected back onto the sensor, creating colour and noise patterns and textures. With high ISO settings the same principle applies except it is magnified into a shorter time by the high sensitivity of the sensor. On a slow ISO of 100 with a proper exposure the sensor only picks up the direct light from the subject. Underexposed images can be brought up to the proper exposure but with very severe noise effect.

Each agency will have its own specific requirements, as you may chose to submit your images to more than one agency you will want to have the highest possible image quality as some agencies demand higher quality than others. Always aim to achieve the highest image quality with your digital camera or scans, file sizes of 50-70mb are standard for most agencies.

What kind of camera will I need?

Selling stock photography on-line requires that you have a high resolution camera that has at least 6 megapixels. Cameras with lower resolution create images that when blown up to a large size turn to Jaggies (INSERT JAGGIES IMAGE). DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras are very popular with photography enthusiasts as they allow you to control the many camera functions such as shutter speed and lens aperture as well as the use of different lenses and accessories. They also allow you to shoot in RAW a very important feature for the serious amateur.

Two popular manufacturers of DSLR cameras are Canon and Nikon (chose one or the other, stay away from anything else). One of the best places to buy a DSLR is at Amazon.com. The Canon 400D is a very popular camera having won the prestigious TIPA award for 2005. Retailing at Amazon for $828 this camera is a steal compared to what was available just a few years ago. The 400D uses Canon's acclaimed CMOS technology, for outstanding image quality and 10 Megapixels resolution. This camera has all the image capture power you will need for any stock agency online. It is light weight, easy to use and is full of all the features you will need to take great photographs. It can shoot in RAW or JPEG mode, we always recommend shooting in RAW. More on RAW later.

Quality Lens the most important part of your kit.

The most important part of your camera is the lens. It is the lens that gathers and focuses the light from the subject on to the sensor (film). The quality of the material the lens is made out of determines the quality of the image captured. Expensive lenses refract the light in a cleaner manner, rendering the detail in an image with the highest possible clarity. Cheep lenses tend to make images look blurred or flat. If you are starting out and want to get a great kit, buy a cheeper body such as the 400D and spend more on a decent lens. Today you can find great lenses from third party vendors such as Sigma and Vivitar that cost a fraction of what the Canon lenses cost.

As you may have gathered by now we favour Canon, not saying that Nikon is a poor choice, just that we have been using Canon forever and love them. It used to be said that Nikon was the choice of the top professional, but when they failed to switch to a digital lens mount backing the 80?s they fell behind when the advent of digital hit the market. Nikon make great cameras, Canon make slightly better ones. For entry level the 400D kicks the D40.

And as this is not an expose on what camera to use. Our final words, no matter what camera as long as it meets the minimum pixels count requirements and it not noisy you images will have a good chance of passing the agencies editing processes.

Hong Kong Photographer Sean David Baylis is a full time commercial and event photographer in Hong Kong. Coming soon lesson 3 in our series.

Hong Kong Photographer Stock Photography Royatly Free vs. Licensed

Traditional License means that a license is sold that allows an image to be used in a specific way. The license will stipulate the media of reproduction (book cover, magazine, newspaper or web), the number of copies, the geographical area and the time limit for usage. The license is for a one time usage and any additional usage of the image must be negotiated under a new license. Traditional license allows the photographer to control how their images are used and gives the buyer the added knowledge of knowing where an image they may wish to buy has been used previously. A buyer may wish to obtain complete control of an image and this is known as a buy-out. With a buy-out contract the photographer sells complete copyright of an image.

The second type of license is called Royalty Free and as its name suggests gives the buyer freedom to do with an image as they please. Once a buyer pays for an image they may then reuse it as many times and in as many places as they see fit. The photographer or agency get a one time fee and have no control over repeat use of the image. The only limitation are that the buyer may not resell the image or make reproductions solely for the purpose of selling, like putting it on coffee mugs or Tee shirts.

If a photo buyer knows they can find an image in Royalty Free, either in a CD ?clip art? disc or from a subscription stock website, why would they want to pay a higher fee or hire a photographer to shoot what they need. If everyone keeps selling Royalty Free there will come a time in the not too distant future when stock photography will cease to be a viable business. Traditional License is under threat. With a great number of RF images available buyers will start to think that all images are RF and will expect RF rights with all purchases. A photographer who indiscriminately sells RF is selling himself and all his colleagues short. Unfortunately many photographers do sell RF and some even make some money from it. However it is short term one shot money. RF is killing the goose to get to the golden egg.

If you want to sell RF and many photographers do, it is custom practice to submit your seconds or outtakes to RF. Do not give your best material to RF. One of the reasons RF exists is that for every good photo created the photographer had to shoot at least 30 others that were not so good. It is these ?not so good? photos that end up in RF. Again RF is not good for the photography business. Also if your selling RF don't put travel images in, the volume of sales will never make them work and you will only hurt the next guy.

MICRO SITES AND SUBSCRIPTION SITES ? these are sites that sell their images at way below the market value of a photograph. Sites that charge $1 per download and give the photographer $.20 of that. Ask yourself, is my photograph, all my hard work, worth only $.20 Photographers who submit to these sites have no idea of the true value of their work and are selling themselves and the entire industry short.

The average sale at a legitimate online stock photography website is US$100-US$150. How many .20? does it take to add up to that. The highest Stock Sale in recent memory was US$42,000...

That is my word on Micro-sites. As a professional photographer with an eye on the future, one can see that Micro sites have only a limited future before the novelty wears off. People will soon realize that pennies a photo ain't the way, when they can have ?...

Up next which agencies to work with, which to avoid...

Hong Kong Photography Sean David Baylis is a full time commercial and event photographer in Hong Kong. Coming soon lesson 4 in our series.

Digital Stock Photography

Digital photography is often a lot easier to submit to stock photography agencies online. Digital stock photography offers you the ability to share your stock photography work with the world faster than regular photography. Many magazines and newspapers nowadays will only take stock photography submissions in .jpeg or .gif formats. The days of negatives, proof sheets, and slides in stock photography are over. Some photographers still choose to offer 35 mm prints or other specialty photo services, but digital stock photography is where the money is in the stock photography industry.

Digital photographs take less than a minute to upload to your web host. It is much easier to showcase the different styles of stock photography at which you excel in this way. You can even start your own photography site that stock photography companies can look at, and maybe book some jobs on the side. Be sure to include the following on your digital stock photography site:

Offer a subscription service for your digital stock photography. Many people need stock photography for their websites, brochures, flyers, etc. on a regular basis. Offering one time downloads and a subscription service with a wide range of types of stock photography may be one way to increase your sales revenue while shooting whatever you like and increasing your stock photography portfolio.

Set up a shopping cart on your site and allow those who may have just stopped by to check you out to purchase a print for download instantly. For customized orders or packages or to set up special shoots, you can design an order form for your stock photography site that will allow them to be as specific as they like about what exactly it is that they're looking for.

You can also offer photographic services. List and define your services in detail. Some may not even realize that they are looking for the exact photographic service that only you can provide. List your hours, services and prices. If you are only available to work at night and on weekends, list this on your site. List different services that you provide such as wedding photography, baby and pregnancy pictures, family portraits, student photos, pet photography and more. Listing prices is not a requirement, but something that is highly recommended. Offering a variety of packages with the option to customize will help potential customers know right away whether or not they can afford your services.

Last but not least, list your contact info. Include everything that a potential customer may need: email address, land line, cell phone, studio address, etc.

If you want to find out more about Images or about Stock photography or even about Concept cars please follow these links.

Stock Images and Prints: The New Wave of Photography

The field of photography has opened up in unprecedented ways due to digital photography. Today, a photographer no longer has to have access to or be a wizard in the darkroom. Instead, he or she needs to master the realm of digital imagery and computer photo manipulation. Because today's images are already in a digital format, it makes it that much easier to upload and transmit them. This has led to an increasing number of stock photography sites and has allowed those who need the services of a photographer - either as publishers or consumers - to have more choices than ever before.

What is Stock Photography?

Imagine, for a moment, that you publish a travel magazine, newsletter, or website. You're running a story on travel in Europe, and you need photography to accompany the story. One way of obtaining those images is to send a staff photographer to Europe to get the Europe shots you need. Another way is to hire a freelance photographer based in Europe to go out and take the Europe shots you want. Each of those options is incredibly expensive. The third approach is to purchase stock photography. These are images that a photographer already has, and that are available for you to reprint.

The Advantages of Stock Photography

The primary advantage of stock photography is that you can get the Europe shots you need at a fraction of the cost of using your own photographer or hiring a freelance photographer. There are two types of stock photography: royalty-free and rights-managed, or RM. Most stock photography websites offer both royalty-free and RM images. Royalty-free images are usually less expensive than rights-managed images, but those images are also more widely used. In other words, the royalty-free photos you publish will also be published by hundreds or thousands of other publishers.

Rights-managed stock images, on the other hand, are not as widely circulated. The fee for using the image is typically based on whether or not you want exclusive use of the photo (if so, the cost is higher), how large the photo will be when it's published, and the circulation of publication. For example, a 1/4-page Europe shot on an inside page of your travel magazine will cost less than if you were to use the image on the cover of your magazine. Likewise, if your magazine has a circulation of 25,000, the image will cost less than if your magazine has a circulation of 1,000,000.

The ability to view and immediately download stock photography is another enormous advantage of stock images. There's no need to wait for negatives, positives, slides, or prints; you can simply view all of the available images and download those that you want at whatever resolution you need. Because the images are digital, there is no degradation of quality, as is often the case with duplicated transparencies, for example.

Consumers Benefit from Stock Images, Too

Photography has long been recognized as an art form, and people are increasingly choosing to display photography as art in their homes. If, for example, you treasure your travel adventure to Europe, you can easily find photos for sale from photographers who sell stock images. You can obtain high-quality pigment prints that will remind you of that special trip for years to come.

Stock images are ideal for both publishers and consumers, and the availability of such images is made possible by the digital revolution.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Stock Images and Prints or Majon's Arts directory.

How To Earn Money From Your Photos - A Brief Guide To Online Stock Photography Business

Got a digital camera? Now you can earn money selling your pictures on the Internet! If you have a good eye and if you are a creative person you can generate very nice monthly income by selling your pictures on stock photography web sites. Personally, I am receiving checks and PayPal transfers for few hundreds bucks every month. You can do it too. At least, it pays you back for all that nice and expensive photographic gear you have purchased last year J.

I truly love online stock photography Internet phenomenon, since it is the first in the world and probably the only business model which allows amateur photographers like you and me to earn some money from they lovely hobby. In fact, if you are a talented photographer and you shoot hundreds of pictures every month you can earn a very significant part of your living shooting high quality pictures for stock photography agencies.

There are many stock photography sites that will be happy to sell your photos and share with you the received revenues. iStockPhoto, ShutterStock, Fotolia, BigStockPhoto and CanStockPhoto are just few stock sites to name. All stock sites allow you to register for free as their submitting photographer and start upload your work to their banks. However, be aware that many sites will ask you to provide detailed personal information such as a scan of you picture ID / passport and will ask you to sign and fax them a signed copy of their ?submitter agreement?. I completely understand them in their effort to limit the image fraud on the Internet and to protect both their buyers and their submitters image copyright owners from the fraudulent behavior.

In addition to proper submitters authentication, many stock photo sites will ask you to pass a professional online test, which should verify that you have all the required photographic skills and that you understand rules of the game on stock photography market. Do not be afraid of that test. If you know the difference between shutter speed and the aperture and can explain what is DOF you will pass it for sure. And the basic stock photography rules are quite simple:

1) Do not submit images that include any copyrighted material Avoid company logos, trademarks, third-party images and brands.

2) Provide a model release for any recognizable person in your image Each site has its own standard model release form that you have to fill in and send along with each image containing a recognizable person. I suggest you to download and print model releases for all the sites you have selected to submit your images and always keep these releases handle. When you shoot a person, do not forget signing her on one or more model releases! Note, that most sites will also ask you for the copy of model?s ID and for the witness signature. Some sites will request to send them a copy witness ID too. Keep all this in your mind when you prepare a stock shooting session

3) Editorial content Some stock photo agencies, e.g. ShutterStock has a separate section / category for editorial images. Different rules set apply for editorial content. Editorial content can be used only in news and therefore these images do not require model releases and can include any copyrighted material. So, if you have shoot carnival in Brazil do not throw out all your pictures because you do not have model releases for all these people. You still can submit your images as editorial content at some stock photography sites. However, be aware that there are not too much buyers for this type of content and the submitters? competition is tight.

4) Use appropriate lighting and composition This is common sense, but I will mention it anyway. Your images compete for the buyers attention with images created by highly qualified talented professional photographers which shoot for years, own nice equipment and definitely know how and when use it. You must think creatively in terms of lighting and composition, otherwise your images will never sell.

For instance, if until now you have relied on your built-in flash as a proper source for indoor lighting it is a time to change your mind. Go to the stock sites and take a look how other photographers use light in their work. You will probably need to switch to some more professional sources of lighting for your indoor photography. Again ? be creative and you will win the war for the buyers? attention!

5) Images format must be JPG, typically from 2 megapixels and with max file size of 8-10 MB

6) Properly prepare your images before uploading them to stock photo sites First of all it means digital editing. There are many software applications that can help you to edit your image, starting from the industry leading Adobe Photoshop tool, the newest and much cheaper than Photoshop Adobe Lightroom and ending up with Google?s Picassa, which is available free of charge. However, making your image look gorgeous is yet not the final destination for a properly prepared stock photograph.

Think about buyers. Buyers still have to find your image among all the similar pictures in the web image database provided by a stock agency. It means you have to user proper descriptive keywords to index your imagery before uploading it to a stock photo site. All the stock photo agencies allow you to upload images and add keywords through their web sites. However, imagine yourself adding the same keyword to each one of your images at every stock site you have decided to work with. It easily multiples the amount of time you are going to spend preparing your images to be sold. Such multiplication of image preparation steps makes all the preparations process completely ineffective.

Fortunately, there is a nice alternative to re-inserting the keywords at each stock photo site ? put them directly into your JPG file. Modern JPG implementations support so called IPTC protocol. This protocol is used by multiple applications to insert and edit image metadata, including keywords, captures (titles) and descriptions. Some heavy-duty expensive graphical applications, like Photoshop, support this format, allowing you to add keywords and titles to your images. However, since IPTC editing is not a core business for such graphical editing software, typically its IPTC modifications interface is quite limited and ugly.

Editing of IPTC data and selection of proper descriptive keywords can take significant amount of time, especially if English is not exactly your mother tongue or if you just prefer to shoot images rather than index them. Obviously, it would be nice to automate this process. I looked for some help on the Internet but did not find too much choice here. At the moment I can point out only one dedicated stock photography management tool that provides significant aid for a stock photographer, helping her with semi-automated images keywording, proper image preparation and simultaneous images upload to multiple leading stock photography agencies. The tool is called ProStockMaster and it is available for free download from the product web site: http://www.prostockmaster.com. The free version is limited to 5 image uploads daily which certainly could be enough for many beginning stock photo submitters. I am using this tool for a while and I found it to be a very useful stock photography workflow management application saving me many hours of dirty work on my computer.

7) Prices and payments ? what income you can expect Most stock photography agencies implement pay-per-download business model, giving their submitters some payment each time their image is downloaded (purchased) by a buyer. This is a micro-payment model and the prices you get paid start as low as $0.20. However, if you were successful to create a highly demanded image you can easy hit few hundreds downloads a month, so your earning arithmetic can be $0.2 x 300 = $60 monthly, just for a single image.

Of course, the rule of the thumb says the more images you have online in each and every stock photography agency, the more images you sell monthly and the higher income you will get. Typically, stock agencies send you a check or a PayPal transfer at the end of every month. However, this is true only if you have earned more than a certain amount of cash, typically $50 - $100. If your earnings still did not reach this pre-defined amount you will be paid at the end of the month when your income reaches that payment barrier.

Well, that?s all folks! Just take your digital camera and go for a shooting session. Oh, - wait, wait a second. First, open your web browser and look what other people submit to stock photography agencies. Note the most popular images and read related web articles where agencies suggest their submitters on what they would accept and what is highly demanded by their buyers. Let me also give you a few personal tips, my $0.02 for your stock photography success. Please no close-up flowers, no landscapes, no buildings and snapshots. It is hard to get this stuff accepted by a stock photography agency. Shoot for business, trying to materialize business terms, e.g. ?success?, ?failure?, ?funding? and ?partnership? and be always creative in your work. Good luck and happy shooting!

Useful URLs:

Online stock agencies:

http://www.shutterstock.com
http://www.istockphoto.com
http://www.bigstockphoto.com

Free stock photography management tool: http://www.prostockmaster.com

I am 41 y.o. civil engineer and an amateur photographer from age 15. During the last few years I have discovered online stock photography market. Today I submit my images to multiple online stock photography agencies and it is probably my first time when my love to photography pays me back in cash. Since I have a full-time day work, I enjoy taking pictures at my free time, mostly at weekends and on travel / vacations. During the last year my income from selling stock photography items online has reached 50% of my monthly earnings, becoming to be a stable second source complimentary to my salary.

Keeping Up With The Times...Is It Still Called Stock Photography

The stock photo industry has finally come around to recognizing a previously largely neglected major marketing principle (one that we actually have been espousing here at PhotoSource International since our beginning). To wit: there's a vast market of photobuyers who are not interested in high-fee, RP ("rights-protected") photos. They simply want an image they can temporarily use, one-time, in one of their low-circulation, limited-readership, publications.

Let me backtrack.

In the 1950's, there were few stock photo agencies. When I returned from a trip through Africa in 1958, I sought out an agency from the few listed in the Manhattan telephone directory. My photos landed at Photo Researchers, then a two-person, New York City hole-in-the-wall on 42nd Street. Photo Researchers is still there today.

The dozen or so "managed-rights" photo agencies of the '60's have increased to several hundred agencies today. In the late 80's this "managed-rights" stock industry was at its peak. Today it's still thriving, with a major impetus being the emergence of the massive corporate digital agency (Corbis, Getty, Jupiter Media, Index Stock Imagery, etc.). The smaller stock photo agencies are folding or being absorbed in mergers, or have resorted to specializing.

THE TRANSFORMATION

The Digital Era has transformed other major industries: communications, transportation, banking, plus the military and government. It was bound to transform our stock photo industry, and it has.

In the past, traditional "managed rights" stock agencies demanded very high fees for their images, and why not? They had the market all to themselves. There was no "Kmart" counter in the stock photo industry.

The formation of micro digital stock agencies has changed all this. These new companies are able to reach out to markets that couldn't afford the traditional high stock fees of the past. Using "volume" as their guide, rather than "managed exclusivity," these digital agencies have proved that there was a sleeping market for their inexpensive on-line offerings.

This movement has opened a whole new market area for individual photographers whose files are filled with generic photos that, up to this point, have been going nowhere. Today, by using the power of automation, digital photo corporations are selling "Royalty-free generic images for very low fees: $35, $15, and $1.

Do these lower fees deflate the market? We have seen in other industries that they do not. The textbook progression is that after a leveling out period, thanks to lower fees, the market actually expands. If you have an automated volume product at a lower fee, the bottom line usually improves. The consumer benefits, and so does the corporation. It's called free enterprise.

This marketing approach, of course, is what we have been espousing here at PhotoSource International since 1976 when we introduced our first marketletter, The PHOTOLETTER--still in existence today. Back then we observed there were thousands of small graphic houses, regional publishers, denominational houses, and small book publishers, whose budgets would not allow the use of $200, $300, or $3,000 images.

Many of our subscriber members, by concentrating on only a few specialized markets among these lower-budget buyers, found they could earn healthy incomes by selling to these markets in volume. Back in the 70's, these photographers in effect automated their selling methods and reduced administrative costs, much the way corporate digital stock houses have learned to do today.

The theme of my first book, Sell & ReSell Your Photos, emphasizes this approach. If the picture is good, more than one photobuyer is going to want to use it, when there's no cross-readership conflict and the price is within their budget. The early stock photography pioneers found it was a lot less stressful selling a photo 10 times at $75 to these lower budget editorial markets, than selling one picture at $750 in the high-pressure commercial arena.

WHAT IS EDITORIAL STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY?

You know what photography is, and you know what stock photography is -- yes?

Take another look. During the past couple of decades, an aspect of photography has been growing to where it is now planted firmly on the scene as a photographic division in its own right: editorial stock photography.

These are the photos of everyday slices-of-life, the insights into the human condition, the events and vignettes and moments you spot -- and then dive for your camera. Editorial stock photos show people involved, doing things; they feature specific geographical locations; they give a "real" look at every aspect of human activity and the world of nature. As legendary Magnum photographer Elliot Erwitt has said, "[Photos] have got to tell you something that you haven't seen, or touch you in some way emotionally..."

As to his personal preference, he says, "With regard to photography that I respect, my view is fairly narrow. I like things that have to do with what is real, elegant, well-presented and without excessive style. In other words, just fine observation."

Editorial stock photos are in contrast to commercial stock photos, the latter being the slick scenic and product shots, the gorgeous sunset, the healthy senior citizen couple bike-riding through autumn leaves, that we see in advertisements and commercial promotions.

Commercial stock photos have to conform to "what sells." The commercial photographer must engineer the photos to fit into commercial clients' needs, trends in the industry, and to appeal to a wide, general audience. The resulting photos are often called generic images because they can fit a variety of uses.

Editorial stock photos are produced by a different approach. Rather than appeal to the commercial needs of a client, the editorial stock photographer follows his or her own interest areas, and targets certain segments of life and culture that they enjoy photographing. Examples: medicine and health, sports, social issues, travel, etc. The photographer then sells these photos to markets that use images in those specific subject areas.

Buyers in the commercial field include designers at graphic houses, corporate art directors, and ad agency creative directors. There's much turnover in these positions, so developing consistent working relationships with these markets is frustrating and difficult.

In the editorial field, the buyers range from photo editors at books and magazines, to photo researchers -- the people who are hired by publishers and art directors to seek out highly specific pictures. There's less turnover and more longevity with editorial buyers, and editorial stock photographers can enjoy strong long-term working relationships with their buyers, which translates to more consistent sales.

Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of ?Sell & ReSell Your Photos? and ?sellphotos.com,? has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: ?8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer,? visit http://www.sellphotos.com

The Largest Stock Photo Agency in the World...Who is the Biggest?

Did you know you are a member of the largest stock photo agency in the world? Photobuyers have quickly learned to check this ?agency? out first ? before turning to any other stock photo agency.

When buyers seek a specific-content, hard-to-find image, they know not to turn to Getty, Corbis, Jupiter, et al. These agencies do a great job serving up generic and standard pictures, but for real-life specific action and location images, buyers know to go to this other ?agency.?

While the familiar large stock agencies have been laboring to keyword their images for access to Internet searches, they?re woefully behind the precision and extensive nature of the keywording being done by many independent photographers.

Getty, Corbis, Jupiter, et al have not been keeping up. And none of them is the largest stock agency in the world. They represent only a small fraction of the number of stock photos that reside in the files of the Internet?s worldwide database of photographers.

The largest stock agency is the Internet + Search Engines + You. Increasing numbers of photobuyers are finding out they can easily locate the source of the exact photo they need by simply using a search engine such as Google, and typing in several specific words describing the photo they need. *

THE GOOGLE EXPERIENCE

You?ve no doubt experienced it: ?the Google Experience.? You needed to know the name of the village where Michaelangelo was born, or the name of his father. You typed your question into the Google search bar and your answer was available to you in seconds.

A text search on the Internet for photos is no different. If you were a photobuyer researching the making of violins in Italy, you would have found that Cremona is famous for its violins. But you need an aerial view. Your search request on Google or Yahoo would read like this: Cremona Italy violin aerial. Presto, the name of a photographer (or photographers) who has this photo comes up. Try it.

How large is this Internet directory of photographs? You be the judge. Estimate how many individual photographers now have digitized and labeled their collections and presently make them available to photobuyers via the Internet. If your calculations are similar to mine, you?ll figure there are presently at least 450 million images search-available on the Internet. By the year 2010 there will be three times that number. Getty, Corbis, and Jupiter can never catch up.

*Do photobuyers use Google Images as a source for images? No, they don?t. The Google Images system directs them only to sub par images, that also often present complicated copyright issues. More and more buyers know instead to use the ?text? option of the Google search bar, and type in their photo-need description, to locate quality stock photos that offer ease of transaction.

Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of ?Sell & ReSell Your Photos? and ?sellphotos.com,? has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: ?8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer,? visit http://www.sellphotos.com

7 Tips for Successful Stock Photos

I was recently commissioned to find some photos for a some new websites and I turned to one of the large commercial online stock agencies. After trawling through tens of thousands of their images, here are my tips on what works and what doesn't when submitting stock photos.

1) Don't cut bits off

Too many of the photos I saw had just a little bit of the subject missing, either through poor composition or poor cropping. Some examples of images I wanted to use but couldn't:

• a picture of a person with the top of the head cut off
• a compass on a map with one edge of the compass missing
• a girl reaching out with her hands with the ends of her thumbs chopped off

Zoom out a little, or take a step backwards, but please include all of the subject and let me decide on where to crop the image.

2) Fake water reflections

Too many pictures have a fake water reflection, courtesy of Flaming Pear's Flood filter. Whilst the filter can do a reasonable job, it usually ends up look fake and clich?d. On the off chance that I need to use it, I have this filter insatlled on my computer.

3) Don't submit only monochrome images

Much as I love them, monochrome images, either straight black and white or toned, are of no use to me. Give me the color version and I'll convert it to black and white if I need to and I'll have complete control over the conversion process.

4) Isolate images on a white background

If you're going to isolate your image from the background, please put it on a white background. Don't use a graduated color, especially if your photo is of something glass. If you object is predominantly white, another color can work, but an image isolated on black never seems to look good to me.

5) Don't rotate images

Rotating the image can make it seem more dynamic, but, if I have to straighten the image and then crop it, I'll usually loose too much of the image in the process. Just give me a nice level image please.

6) Don't overly manipulate the image

My vision of the final image may be different to yours and this just limits what I can do to the image myself. Don't darken the sky and clouds, don't sharpen it, don't radically adjust the brightness or contrast. What ever you do, don't blow out the highlights or block up the shadows.

7) Multiple angles and poses are good

If you're taking a shot of a person, please include different poses and expressions. For a still life, different angles give me more choice.

If you want to get creative, then by all means do so and upload additional versions of your image. But please remember that me, the customer, needs to be able to use the image in the way I want.

Paul Markham writes on technology, internet and photographic topics. His free online digital photo optimizer can be found at http://www.webresizer.com

The Benefits of Digital Stock Photography

Digital photography has opened up the field of photography into a more accessible and fun medium. Gone are the days of lengthy spells in the dark room trying to perfect your images and in place computer manipulation now rules. Because digital images are already in a digital format, uploading them and sending them has become infinitely easy. Stock photography sites are on the rise and consumers and publishers alike have greater access to photos than ever before.

What is Stock Photography?

Lets say you publish a magazine, newsletter, or website and you're writing a story about city life in barcelona, and you need photography to liven up the text. One way of getting the images is to send a photographer all the way to barcelona to get the pictures you need, but this isnt exactly the most sensible option. Another way is to find a freelance photographer over there to get the pictures you need, but this would probably be expensive. The third, and best option, is to purchase stock photography. Stock photos are images that a photographer has already shot and are available for you to reprint.

Stock Photography Advantages

The biggest advantage of stock photography is that you can get images at a fraction of the cost of using your own photographer or a freelance photographer. Stock photography is comprised of two types of images: royalty-free and rights-managed, or RM. A lot of stock photography websites offer royalty-free and RM images. Royalty free images are often less expensive than rights managed images, but you will find that Royalty Free images will also be published by hundreds of other publishers because of this and the reduced restrictions of use.

Rights managed stock photographs are not as widely published. The price for using the image is usually based on whether or not you want exclusive use of the photo, what size the photo will be when it's published, and the number of publications it will appear in. For example, a 1/5-page shot on an inside page of your magazine will be cheaper than if you were to use the photo on the cover. Also, if your magazine has a circulation of 50,000, the photo will cost less than if you had a magazine circulation of 1,000,000.

Another big advantage of stock photography is the ability to view and instantly download stock images. You dont have to wait for prints or negatives to be sent to you. You can easily view all of the available photographic images and download the ones that you want, usually at whatever resolution you need. The images are digital so there will be no reduction in quality.

Dave Brooks is the founder of http://www.DigitalStockPhotoMarket, the internets premier place for buying and selling digital photos. Digital photos are available for download and photographers can upload their images to sell their work online.

Stock Photography

Stock Photography is as a popular way of taking photographs of anything from nature to portraits and can be either sold over the Internet or displayed in photo albums. The reality is that there are more stock photographers around the world than in any other photography discipline. Stock Photography follows the same basic principles required for any other photography dealing with backgrounds, lighting, camera, lens, films, subjects etc. The remarkable thing is that there are many amateurs involved. For example, you can go for a mountaineering expedition and use your SLR or digital camera to take pictures of the base camp. If the picture comes out as an excellent composition then you can always display it on your website.

The standard format for stock photographs is 6x7cm and the smallest format is 6x4.5cm. Initially, the 6x4.5cm appealed more to most photographers because the image proportions of this format matched those from the 35mm. The camera and lens used for the 6x4.5cm is compact and small and can be carried around with ease. You will get around 15 shots with a roll of 120 speed film. It was not long back when the 6x4.5cm was rejected as the image size was no different from 35mm. This led to the introduction of the 6x6cm, which is a traditional size for medium-format photographs. The 6x6cm is ideal for fashion and portrait photography and even for social photography. But if you are specializing in nature or landscape photography then the square format of the 6x6cm will limit certain elements used in the composition of the photo. There will be more cropping, which will defeat the entire purpose of taking a stock photograph.

This leaves you with three options, which are 6x7cm, 6x8cm and 6x9cm. If you are in love with the 3:2 proportions of a 35mm, then the 6x9cm will seem like the ideal solution because it will offer the same ratio. The only camera available in this format is the Fuji GSW690III. The limitation of this format is that it will be difficult to use it with a polarizer and neutral density graduates. The next option is the 6x8cm but it is not good enough for stock photography. The only model available for this is the Fuji GX680. So this will leave you with only one option, which is the 6x7cm.

So now you know why the 6x7cm is considered as the ideal format for stock photography. Due to the rectangular image of the 6x7cm, it is easier and possible to create a dynamic composition, which can be horizontal as well as upright. The image size is also bigger and is five times that of the 35mm. One small limitation if you perceive it as a limitation is that you will get 10 frames only in a 120 film roll. But the good part is that due to the increased image size, you will be able to enlarge without any considerable loss of quality. The other key thing is that the 6x7cm color transparency is very impressive on a light box as compared to the 35mm and 6x4.5cm.

If you are aspiring to be a stock photographer then you need to start with the 6x7cm.

Seth Willis is the webmaster for http://www.Starephotography.com he enjoys photography as well as painting and blues and Jazz guitar.Stare photography is an Online school for budding and seasoned photographers to enhance their skills or start a new career.

Selling Stock Photography

 Selling stock photography to a stock image library could be a great option for you if you're more interested in taking pictures than selling them. One of the major problems associated with freelance photography on a part time basis is the lack of time. If you have a separate job that takes your time from Monday to Friday, the only time you have left to take pictures are evenings, weekends and holidays.

If you add up all this time together, it looks okay, but to actually make money from your photography you can't just take pictures, you need to sell them as well. That in it self can be very time and labor intensive. If you have a family, you probably have even less free time, so you need to make best use of what you have.

Many photographers don?t actually know how to sell their photography either. There is very little point in trying to sell pictures to magazines and publishing houses if you don't actually know what they want or when they want it. If you send off pictures to these types of publications, the chances are you will be getting them back again within days; you will have achieved nothing except waste time and money.

A great way to overcome the problem of selling your photography is by storing your work with a stock photo library. With a stock photo library, all the selling is taken care of for you. This gives you a source of income for your photography, and gives you more time to spend on taking pictures.



So, if you want to find out more about transportation stock photography or about motorcycle stock photography or even about nautical stock you should click these links.

Your Guide to the world?s Best Online Stock Photography Resource Center

The process of utilizing existing photographs for various commercial, advertising and media purposes is termed as Stock Photography. Especially for individuals in various creative industries like web designing, book publishing, advertising agencies, magazine editors, graphic artists, interior decorators and those working in various creative corporate groups, the availability of stock photographs in online sites proves to be a great boon. Along with providing you an easy way of browsing through thousands of professionally taken photographs relevant to your particular field of work, availing stock photographs proves far more economic than individually appointing professional photographers and obtaining photographs of different entities shot over various locales. Whereas, large databases of online stock photographs allow you to make selections suiting just your precise requirements, availing such existing photographs saves you a lot on time, money and resource investment. Epictura provides a large database of stock photographs to meet your every creative need. Professionally taken and clear in design, their stock images are tailored to suit your every creative requirement.

In most stock photo agency, you will get a wide range of images, available in high and low resolutions to serve your various web and print purposes. Clear, sharp and captured with careful attention to every detail, the stock photographs available are ready for immediate use in your advertising and communication projects. Whereas, the images are all professionally captured by competent photographers, the images are also color corrected wherever required using the latest digital equipments so that the final products you are offered are in their best forms. The stock images available at Epictura are stored as JPEG RGB files in their database so that once you make your selections and purchase the photographs you can easily download them for your work.

The image galleries of Epictura cover a wide range of subjects from holidays and festivals to various everyday categories. From pictures of various seasons like autumn and winter to those of festivals like Christmas and winter sports events, you will find stock images and illustrations in a variety of categories. At the same time, images of everyday topics like beauty, biotechnology, birth, cuisines, environment, life and security are available for your ready use. You can also search for images related to various occupations and workplaces like call centers in their stock photo databases.

Purchasing stock images and illustration from Epictura is as easy as it gets. For your convenience this stock image agency presents a database of categorized resources available under various subcategories. All you need to do is visit the relevant galleries containing photographs of the topic you are looking for and a range of thumbnail images will be displayed to you. You can select the photographs of your choice by simply clicking on the relevant thumbnail to see a larger image and add it to your shopping cart if you plan to consider it for purchase. In you virtual shopping cart you can, in this way, collect (and change) as many images as you wish. Once you decide on the images or CDs you want to purchase, you can simply click on the checkout link provided and specify all your details according to the instructions specified. At this point you enter a secure server page where you specify all your personal details and payment options. No matter how many images you plan to purchase or the financial amount it involves, you can rest assured that all financial transactions are made under the safest conditions. As the server runs with SSL (secure socket layer) whatever information you provide during your financial transaction are encrypted and not visible during the transmission process. As a result of this, your sensitive details are kept confidential. Handled by Worldpay, the world?s best secure payment gateway, all transactions made to and from the website are safe and secure. Once you have purchased your photographs, you can download the high resolution image files from your account section. In case you have ordered CDs you can rest assured your purchased products will be shipped to you within 24hrs.

Whereas, all products are checked to provide you the best quality available, in case you are not satisfied with the purchases you have made or want to exchange some defective image, you can easily do so and request for new image file. However, all requests must be made within 48 hours of receiving receipt of images and CDs. In case you want replace some product you have purchased or exchange a defective product, rest assures your replacement will be made available to you within 24 hours in addition to time required for shipping the products.

In addition to an exclusive collection of some of the best photography in the world, the CD collection available at Epictura is also one of the best that you will get today. From family, education and health to lifestyle, landscape and occupations, you will get whatever data collections you may require for your various projects. With over 800,000 images and 2000 CDs Epictura provides some of the widest collections of stock photographs available today. What is even better is that as these images are available in a wide range of prices, you can select whatever you require the most within your budget. Whereas, single images that you select can be downloaded in very short time, you can get the CDs of your choice within 24 hours of placing your order.

A collection of stock photographs is often referred as photo archives and picture libraries. Such photo archives are essentially websites where large image banks containing thousands of stock images are maintained and stored. A look at some stock library section, will give you an overall view of the large collection of stock photographs maintained by the website. Looking through the various categories of images under different sections like ?Digital Vision?, ?Medio mages?, ?Photodisc?, ?Stockbyte? and ?Stockdisc? will give you a glimpse of the large number of collections the site maintains under each category. A look into the ?inspirestock? section will provide you a view of the large range of premium business and lifestyle stock images avialable for your use.

The image files are available in JPEG and RGB file formats in a number of sizes. As a result, depending on the nature of your work and the type of image you are looking for in particular, you can select stock photographs suiting your requirements the best. Whereas, the small files are usually 700ko to 2mb, multimedia 72 dpi and 500-800 Ko in jpeg file size, the medium ones are usually 10mb to 12mb with image size of 1/2page and 1-2Mo jpeg file size. The large files available are 20mb to 28mb, full page images and 3-5Mo jpeg file size the extra large images are 48mb to 55 mb, with double page image size and 3-5Mo jpeg file size. So, depending on type of work you are doing and the type of image you require, you can select stock images fitting your requirement and budget the best. The preview pages will provide you information on the different sizes and prices in which each of the stock images are available.

You can readily use these images in different layouts without having to change the files first. If you are planning to use tem in designing web pages, it would be better to resize the images to fit their final size before using them on your web page. If you decide to use them in offset printing work, it would be helpful for you to translate the files to CMYK mode first. A look into the prices section will inform you on the different rates charged for the various categories and types of stock images available. In all cases, you are granted a royalty free license agreement according to which on your purchasing an image you are granted a non-exclusive and non transferable right to use that image.
Albert Mills is a freelance photo researcher based in Barcelona, Spain currently contracting for an international publishing group based in london and leading advertising agencies in Europe. http://www.epictura.com alisonyoung@epictura.com

"Blowin' in the Wind..." The New Breed of Stock Photographers:Digital

A dictionary description of ?photographer? could be something like this:

?A photographer is a professional who earns at least ? of his or her living from photography, is listed in the yellow pages or the equivalent, and operates out of his/her professional studio or home office.?

At least that?s how we used to describe them.

By the year 2010 (only a few years away), it will become evident that a stock photographer is anyone with a top-of-the-line digital camera, some talent, a sensitive eye, and who is technically capable of producing and delivering a high-resolution image suitable for publication.

Most of these stock photographers will be self-taught, have no degree in journalism or photography, and own a minimum of equipment. And, yes, won?t know how to spell emulsion, transparency, Velvia or Provia.

It?s inevitable. We saw it happen in the last century when art materials became inexpensive for any consumer. Watercolor pads, oils, canvas, brushes ?all became accessible to just about everyone. And everyone, it seemed, began exhibiting their artistic talent. Original art burgeoned. It was good. And it sold.

Have you noticed the same is happening in this century with photos? The sale of iStock to Getty Images for $15 million should be proof enough that persons who have no previous experience in stock photography can enter this field in the click of a shutter.

If you?ve got a good eye for design, composition and color ?why not?

Welcome to the new breed of stock photographers.

THE TRANSITION

To flourish in the field of editorial stock photography, no longer will it be necessary in the year 2010 to acquire a brick-and-mortar location, or to advertise in a trade magazine, or send direct mail promotions to your client list.

Varying degrees of talent and capability, as in any profession, will surface ?that?s for sure. For the photo editor, as long as the supplier can deliver that on-target picture, capable of professional reproduction, the buyer will care little about the track record of the photographer. There! I called him a photographer, even though the photo might be the first image that came out of his digital camera.

This new breed of digital stock photographer fits in with the new search and delivery methods being adopted by today?s photobuyers.

Most editorial photobuyers have a (relatively) long window of time to gather their needed images. (Unlike art directors in the commercial world, who often need images yesterday, or at least ?today.)

This ?float? is to their advantage. It?s not unheard of that a photo editor at a magazine, newspaper, or book publisher can allow three to four days for a lightbox delivery of a selection of images.

And here?s the difference in today?s digital age from the world of film that we have graduated from:

The photographer doesn?t necessarily even have to take a picture? until they get a phone call, fax, or email from a buyer who has found them through the Internet. It?s no different than the pizza deliveryman who doesn?t bake a pizza until he gets a phone call from a customer.

HOW THEY FIND YOU

You?ve probably noticed the search engines today can now handle three, four, and even five-word searches very well.

The new breed of stock photographer will add another dimension to his workflow: keywords (what we used to call captions). And they will be three, four and five-word descriptions. (Single word descriptions are now ?out.? Multiple word descriptions are in).

Here?s the good part. The photographer can have a hi-res digital image on a photobuyer?s screen within 24-hours of getting the original request. Now that?s speed of delivery.

Does this make you want to consider switching to digital ASAP? This is no longer a revolutionary way of doing stock photography; digital is becoming ?business as usual.? And it has many advantages.

Here?s just one advantage: say you receive a deadline photo request from an editor or publisher. This official request becomes a ?permission? or ?passport? for you to gain entrance to whatever or whomever the publisher has requested. Say the request is for a school classroom picture.

What school board superintendent wouldn?t be happy to give you permission? He would cut through the administrative tangle of getting you into the high school chemistry lab for the pictures, if he knew your photos were going to appear in the very Houghton-Mifflin textbook series they use daily. For the superintendent, your gift to the school of a few of the file images is free publicity for the school, to publish in the local newspaper as to how the school is spending the community?s tax dollars for the benefit of students.

The same system applies for museums, industry, agricultural centers, corporations, and dentists, even hospitals. You?ll be amazed how easy it is to get ?permission? when the request for picture-taking comes not from you, but from the media. Any media.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

?You don?t necessarily even have to take a picture?

until you get a phone call, fax, or email from a buyer

who has found you through the Internet??

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

All businesses and services are looking for good public relations plus their 15 minutes of fame.

In the meantime, while you are waiting for that call from the photobuyer, you can begin building a database of local subjects. It?s wise to do this because you might get a call for a skiing picture in July or a sailing scene in January.

And where do you find ideas for potential subjects for such photos?

Brochures and pamphlets at the local Chamber of Commerce, Visitors? Bureau, or Bureau of Economic Development, or the Regional Tourist Office brochures, all will show you what you should be photographing: landmarks, skylines, entertainment centers, industry, schools, museums, agriculture, and so on. Even check out the postcard rack at the drug store, and the Yellow Pages of the area phone books.

THE MISSING LINK

Is something missing here? Yes. You need a link between your keyword descriptions and the world of photobuyers.

Your first task should be to attach keywords to every photo on your website, so that the search engines will pick them up and add them to their database of information, accessible to photobuyers.

But be cautioned, photo researchers and photobuyers have learned that it?s easier to search a central website which has millions of keywords referring to large selections of photos, than searching millions of websites with only a limited selection of keywords and photos.

That?s why we began building our PhotoSourceBANK back in 1999.

https://www.photosource.com/products/psb.php Hundreds of photographers have entered over two million keywords and keyphrases describing their photos, and the system grows daily. We get 44,000 hits a day at our site and half of them are photobuyers seeking specific photos.

If you don?t have a website, or you want additional exposure for the keywords on your site, the PhotoSourceBANK is the place for you. You can enter keywords describing not only your existing pictures, but also those you haven?t taken yet but that you have ready access to. You can place up to 3,000 keywords and phrases on your own page on the PhotoSourceBANK site.

Several keywording services have been born since photographers and buyers have recognized the importance of keywording, that can help if you don?t want to do all the keywording yourself. One we can recommend is Paul Henning?s Stock Answers, 1 414 607 9642; paul@stockanswers.com

How does a photobuyer use the Internet to find the source of a hard-to-locate picture? You can see the process by doing this: -- in the Google search bar (or any major search engine), type in a really off-the-wall request. For example: ?talking drums and witch doctors.? After the last word (doctors), put a space and then the word, photosource. And click.

Scroll the site and see the keyphrase highlighted in red in one or more photographer?s lists of photo descriptions. Try this with any selection of your own. Google is making photo research fun!

While you are building your files of your photographs, you will probably discover some specific area or areas of specialization that you enjoy: teen basketball, gardening, small planes, dance, veterinary medicine, auto racing. A search engine will show you dozens of markets waiting for you in your specialization areas.

Your specialization?s are strong reasons for photobuyers to keep coming back to your site. You?ll find that if you specialize, a photobuyer whose photo needs and publishing focus match subject areas you cover, will use your site as a dependable resource and want to keep up to date on your new entries.

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com/products