Stock Images

StockPhotography, Digital Cameras & Making Money

2008-03-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

You perhaps already know that there are really only a couple of principle ways of making money from photography. In fact, there are only two. There's Assignment Photography and Stock Photography - both are lucrative if they are handled correctly and professionally. Assignment photography is based on you taking pictures at a predetermined function or event. Stock photography however, is based on you taking the pictures and hoping that someone will buy them later. Remember, this is in principle only. There are ways to ensure that you do in fact sell stock photography. More on that later. It's true that stock photography demand a lower price in general but they have a wider audience and base. Their sales can also be ongoing.

There are Stock Libraries all over the internet which are keen on being the agent between the photographer and the buyer. The system is pretty much the same between most of them except for a few. You take a clever picture, they post them on their highly visited sites and 'on sell' them to agents, production houses, designers, advertising, publishers etc. This is a highly popular vehicle and has grown tremdously over the last decade. This manner or niche of photography has many benefits including when you are just starting your photography business part time or looking for some compounding income so that you may one day move into your planned business. The list goes on.

This way of marketing photographs has more 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. However, you can avoid these stock houses and work with those who have better systems too. 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. However, I will soon show you a good way to beat the bigger fish if you so choose - stay with me!

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.

Many stock library have 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. In a second, I will show you where you can get some great information on making good money with your digital camera related to all of this.

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 choose without paying additional licensing fees.

Article courtesy of Roy Barker who has supplied you access here to cash from your camera or if that link is inactive try http://photography-business-tips.com/2007/02/28/stockphotography-digital-cameras-making-money/

Where To Find Free Stock Photography, Clip Art, And Other Graphics For Your Web Site

2008-03-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

MorgueFile

The name "MorgueFile" refers to a popular newspaper business term that describes a file that holds past issues flats. Here you can have access to a sizeable database of downloadable images, without the need to even register. Pictures are grouped into several categories. Just click on what you want, and thumbnails of the selections pop up for easy browsing. You can even give a little something back by submitting your own pictures, although you will have to register for that. Chat rooms and forums provide a community of people to ask if you need some advice. An online store of books, computers, and cameras round out the package. A highly recommended site for bloggers and web designers alike.

Webweaver's Free Clipart

Clip arts are tiny illustrations that can help to get your message across. With these little pictures, a website can look alive and full of activity, catching the attention of anyone who just happens to be passing by. For web designing newbies, Webweaver's Free Clip art is a good place to start browsing for these webpage ornaments. Just like the MorgueFile, images from this site can be used for free, with no copyright or usage rights to worry about. The clip arts are in sets of well planned categories, and finding the images you want is easy. There are Christmas and New Year clip arts, as well as most other major holidays. Cliparts for entertainment, animals and nature are also available, though the size of their selections can be inadequate. Good thing they accept submissions, too. Though some of the clip art seems outdated, there's enough here to justify a visit.

Adsen Favicon

See that little icon on the address bar on top of the webpage? That's a Favicon, and if you ever wondered how you can change that into something that's more to your liking, then Adsen FavIcon is the program for you. It is a simple editor that can convert a GIF, JPEG, or PNG into a favicon.ico file. When done the image shows up on IE's favorites list. It works with other browsers as well, such as Firefox and Opera.

Daily Clip Art

Every day, Daily Clip Art (www.dailyclipart.net) adds one or two new pieces of clip art. It doesn't sound like much, but over a period of months they've built up an impressive library of colorful and fun clip art on a wide variety of topics. The images there include animal clip art, music clip art, sports clip art, and much more. Every image is available for free use. Or, you can pay $4 for a hi-resolution version of any image.

Making sure that everything corresponds to a central idea goes a long way to establishing a website's professional feel. To do that, you need just the right images and design to make everything feel whole. Free image archives and simple image editors can certainly help you make everything look just right.

Kevin Savetz is creator of www.FreeForYourSite.com, a blog that covers free webmaster tools including SEO tools, keyword tools, graphics utilities, and more. All of the utilities mentioned in this article are linked in the web site graphics category at FreeForYourSite.

Stock Photography

2008-03-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

Today when it comes to finding the right kind of stock photography which you can then use as part of your advertising campaign or website design there are plenty of places where you can find the right ones for you. No longer are you restricted to finding an agency close to where you live to provide you with the photographs that you want a quick search of the internet will bring up a whole list of agencies around the world.

As you will soon discover once you start looking more closely at what these agencies have to offer they will all provide you with a system that makes it very easy for you to search and find what you want. Most will have their photographs divided up into various different categories and so if you know exactly what it is you are looking for within a matter of minutes you will find what it is you want. But if you are unsure they will also have search facilities available that allow you to search by selected keywords, types of image as well as what the options are in relation to the licences on the photographs.

When it comes to the licences that are placed on these photographs you will have to choose between either rights managed, released, non exclusive, exclusive and royalty free ones. With the rights managed images or photographs you will be required to pay the agency a fee which then entitles you to use them for a set period of time and for every time that you use them. Therefore if you are looking to use the same photograph in both a brochure as well as part of a print advertising campaign then you will be required to pay the agency 2 fees as this counts as you using the same photograph or image twice.

As for released images these are photographs which the owner of the image has signed a release and so making them available for licensing through which ever stock photograph agency has them. If you choose to use these kinds of images or photographs you need to make sure that they are released or you may have to end up trying to contact the owner of the image to see if they will release them to you.

The final kind of stock photography images that we are going to be looking at now are those known as Royalty Free ones. These are the kinds of images where you do not have to pay a usage charge every time that you choose to use them. Instead once you have paid the initial fee then you are licensed to be able to use them as many times as you want for as long as you want. But be warned unlike the other methods mentioned above with these you do not have sole and exclusive rights to use them and so they can still be used by others. Also it is important to note that although you hold a licence to use these stock photographs you do not have the right to then sell them on to others.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.imagebankguide.com/stockphotography.html - Stock Photography

Are You Looking to Sell Your Photos as Stock Photography?

2008-03-01T02:32:00.000-08:00

There are a number of sites that accept photos to sell as stock, ranging from microstock sites that accept amateur photographers to the big-name players in the industry. Stock photography can be very rewarding if your pictures are the type they need. This is not the same as setting up a photo gallery - stock houses don't want another sunset picture or a shot of your backyard rose bush.

It's important to read all the instructions for submitting your photos. Most sites have a minimum resolution requirement and list the subject matter they are looking for. And most require model releases and possibly even property releases. If you're looking to start making some $$$ for your photos, here are a number of sites to try.

Microstock Sites

Shutterstock - this is a subscription based stock site. It is free to submit photos, however users pay a monthly membership fee. The payout is $.0.25 for each photo download. Because this is a monthly fee, users will typically download multiple photos per month. Shutterstock is also now accepting Video Footage, with a payout of 30% of the purchase price which typically ranges from $69 to $199.

Dreamstime - this site has a generous compensation model. Purchases by users are done on a credit model, with a small photo (800x600) selling for 1 credit - up to a very large 8MP+ file selling for 4 credits. Photographers earn 50% of the sale - 60% if the image is exclusive to Dreamstime. There is also a sliding increasing scale based on the number of total downloads you have as a photographer. So as a beginner selling the smallest size photo, the payout starts at $0.50 and can range all the way to $4.80 per image for an exclusive 8MP+ photo. Definitely check these guys out if you are serious about selling your photos!

Fotolia - this is another credit based site, with the photographer payout starting at 33% for a non-exclusive photo. Currently 1 credit = $1.00, and Fotolia also has a increasing scale for number of files sold. The photographer has some control on setting the price for the image based on the file size and their overall ranking. At the top range for a 15MP+ photo the maximum selling price can be 100 credits for an exclusive photo - with a payout of 64%. This is a strong contender in the microstock industry and well worth a look.

While it may be difficult for amateur photographers to break into the world of stock photography, microstock sites like the ones above provide a good opportunity to start making money with your photos. If you want to make money with a hobby you love, these sites could provide your start!

Be sure to visit Shutterbug Source for more great photography tips, techniques and resources

An Overview On Stock Photography

2008-02-29T01:46:00.000-08:00

One way that photographers share their work with the world is through stock photography. The average person may wonder what exactly stock photography is. Stock photography is when photographs are shared with licensing attached.

Anyone can use it, but in order to do that, understanding of all the legal aspects is critical in order to avoid being sued.

Stock photography has been around for a long time. According to wikipedia.org, H. Armstrong Roberts started the first agency for this type of photography in 1920, and the company is still going strong today under the name Robert Stock. For years, photography stock was composed of "outtakes ("seconds") from commercial magazine assignments."

But, in the eighties, it had become unique, and photographers began making photographs just for photo sharing. Today several online photography stock houses exist, but before being used, the legal terms and aspects must be completely understood in order to avoid being sued.

One type of stock photography is royalty-free. This does not mean that the photograph can be used for free. What royalty-free means is that in order to use a specific picture, a photo buyer pays a one time fee to use the picture many times for a multitude of purposes within certain guidelines. Usually a time limit does not exist as to when the image can be used.

However, a royalty-free image does have a limit on exactly how many times the photograph can be reproduced. All of these restrictions will depend exactly on the contract that is decided upon.

One thing to consider with stock photography regarding royalty-free is that exclusive rights are non-existent. If a publication wants to be unique from the others, than royalty-free images are not the way to go. The best bet for uniqueness is to have an photographer on staff.

Stock photography has another kind called rights-managed that is sometimes difficult to understand. Rights-managed photography stock is when an image is negotiated exclusively for a certain allotted time frame.

During this time frame, no one else will be able to use that particular image for any reason. How long that this will go on will depend on the contract negotiations that are made for the image.

Because of online photography sharing, it has become readily accessible for all to use. Some agencies allow for images to be used for free, and others are based on contracts for their photography gallery.

Photojournalism uses it regularly, but the in's and outs of the business must be fully understood to take advantage of all of the images that are flooding the market.

Whether or not to use rights-managed or royalty-free images will depend on what can be negotiated within a contract, and the legalities can get sticky.

Before using stock photography, make sure that research is done in order to avoid any lawsuits that will ultimately take away from any profit of the images used.

The art of digital photography brings great memories to anyone. Browse to Mike Selvon portal to find out more about stock photography

We greatly appreciate your feedback at our photography blog.

Selling Stock Photography - How To Be Clever And Profit

2008-02-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

Online marketers (info-preneurs) often talk about just how important it is to find what the market wants, then sell them what they want. In other words, find out what people really want, and then provide the solution. I've no doubt that this approach will work just as well with selling stock photography.

Let's say you've created a hundred photos that, although they make great eye candy and tell a unique (photo) story, no stock agency wants. They may have said we have too many of this type of images already, and have their reasons. At this point you can choose to see this as a learning experience and try a new approach, or continue creating similar stock photography that you hope will be accepted, one day.

However, I'm sure you'd agree, it's better to work smarter than harder. This means that with stock photography you'll need to get flexible and bend your creativity a little, perhaps shaping it towards a more profitable approach. And the good news is that this is very do-able. After all, you are in charge with what the camera sees and what it doesn't. You decide on what pictures you want to take.

So, maybe it's obvious, but if you want to sell more stock photos, find out what the stock agencies want (and need). Believe me, they'll tell you. Most, if not all, of the stock agencies or micro stock agencies out there will have a 'needs list or wants list' at their website. Make that your first destination. Be diligent in your research and you will have better success selling stock photography.

Your next step would be to create a theme of photographic work that's tailored exactly to the stock photo agencies needs and wants and then submit these specific images to them. Obviously there'll be themes that you won't be able to shoot, but there will be some that will fit well with your own lifestyle, environment, location and photo style. This should increase your chances of making photo sales.

A quick search on a few stock photo agencies web sites revealed that they are keen for photographers to "...provide something more unusual, or sought after... and it might make the most downloaded page." In other words, don't create photographs too similar to every other photographer. Just make sure your unique, individual style makes your images stand out, and at the same time be aware of what the stock agency really needs.

Another simple way to realize selling stock photography success is by going to photo agency or stock libraries web sites and looking at what types of images they have, promote, use and sell... often. You're looking for the type, and styles of images that they prefer. Is there certain image themes that get downloaded (sold) often? What styles seem to sell regularly?

Check to see if there are images similar to what you create, or check the downloads section... the micro stock sites will usually show you how many times an image has been downloaded... of course, the more the better, that means it's more popular (more money for the photographer). And then you can ask yourself "can I create images similar to this...?"

Being honest with yourself and your abilities as a photographer is important... It's a huge time decision to submit images to stock photo web sites... you really do need to ask yourself how likely will it be that I can make sales through this website? And also, is it the best use of my images and time?

If you can stay open minded about what themes you shoot (especially with the great flexibility of shooting digital photography), and focus on moulding your passion into 'what the market wants' then you might find that your unique little approach to selling stock photography keeps photo buyers happy and you in profit. Go for it.

Martin Hurley, the Selling Photographs Online dude is an unconventional modern day artist and photographer who helps people uncover their inner talents and passions... and make money from taking photos! Why not start selling your photos online? Visit now to get powerful tips, ideas and secrets and sign up to my free ezine. Get the full story about Selling Stock Photography here.

How to Make Money Online With Stock Photography

2008-02-27T02:03:00.001-08:00

One time-honored way of making money from photography is by the use of stock photography. More often than not, this meant only film photography, however at this time; digital photographers can license their work in this manner as well. Stock photography is photographs that can be licensed and then used for exclusive reasons.

Many people use stock photography, since it is faster and more inexpensive than hiring a photographer to take exclusive pictures. Many creative professions use stock photographs, such as ad agencies, graphic artists and web designers as well as filmmakers and publishers, although this is not a total list as there are many other businesses also use stock photos.

A collection of stock photography may also be called image banks or photo banks and photo archives as well as picture libraries.

Where do you and your digital photography service fit in to all of this?

Well, photo banks are in desperate need of good photographs. They will license from photographers just like you, the digital photography that they hold in interested. You will have a good many hits while searching on Google for one of the terms mentioned above.

You should understand these three terms when you license your photos with a photo bank.

1. Royalty Free

When using a Royalty Free agreement the photographer is able to sell the image as many times as you wish. The user pays a one-time fee and then uses the photo as many times and for many purposes, according to their needs. A Royalty Free license normally will specify the number of times the image can be legally reproduced by the buyer.

The print run is what is known as the number of copies and if the buyer makes more copies that the print run they then pay an additional fee for the use of each copy. Therefore, those who have large print runs such as magazine publishes do not use Royalty Free images.

2. Rights-managed

Rights-managed is also known as licensed images. With this typo of agreement, the buyer may or may not have the exclusive rights to the particular image. However, the licensing terms will negotiate its exclusivity.

Each time the photo is used the buyer pays for the privilege. However there is a time limit place on the image licenses of rights-managed photographs, this means that if exclusivity was part of the negotiations, the photograph can be resold upon expiration of the time limit but never before. The geographic location and length as well as distribution and exclusivity determine the applicable fee.

3. Editorial

Editorial is a term that refers to subjects within the photos and whether or not they need a special release to be shown. Only for news or educational purposes can the photographs be shown without a release from the subjects therein. On the other hand, a signed release will give allowance of using the photograph for display with controversial material as well as in advertising.

It should be noted that stock photography licensing has become somewhat complex with the use of digitization. Special licensing agreements must be reached for a stock image to be used on an electronic product that can be copied or even used on a website. A lawyer who is versed and licensed in entertainment or copyright can be of aid if you are planning to offer your digital photography as stock photos.

No matter if stock photographers practice digital photography or film, the Stock Artists Alliance is a worldwide organization that protects their rights.

John Renolds is a Photopreneur that shares his strategies for generating different sources of income with digital photography at his blog... To learn how you too can turn your love for photography into a money making home business, check out John's blog now at http://photopreneurblog.com

Mastering Editorial Stock Photography WorkFlow

2008-02-26T02:57:00.001-08:00

The Information Age is upon us. The time it takes to deliver information has become so quick as to be almost instantaneous. This allows us to capitalize on opportunities with new efficiency, and helps us avoid unnecessary risks. The “information float” is collapsing.

The change is here. Photography technology is outdoing itself. Digital transmission of images is a reality. Printers can produce images that compete in quality with film. Digital cameras have taken over. Storing images in digital form is now de rigeur. The average photographer can provide clients with on-line retrieval and viewing of their stock selections.

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“It’s Still the Same Show…”
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But don’t let all the bells and whistles distract you. The actors, props, and settings may be different, but it’s still the same show. Getting pictures that are publishable still takes creative ability -- and that takes talent. And it has always taken more than talent to consistently receive checks from publications and ad agencies, and to see your credit line in national circulation. That takes marketing know-how, and always will.

ASSIGNMENT PHOTOGRAPHER
PRICING YOURSELF FOR ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are an excellent way to capture stock photos that may not be available to you ordinarily. During your lunch break, or before or after completing your assignment, take advantage of the location by taking photographs in the environment you find yourself in on this assignment.

Freelance photography sites on the web and in your library, are helpful in researching how to price yourself for your day rate.

Three tips: Since each publication you work with will offer a different ‘day rate,’ based on such things as circulation, advertising revenue, and size, you’ll find day rates ranging from $400 a day to $2,000 a day. In addition to the base ‘day rate’ fee, it is acceptable to also submit a statement for expenses. Such as: mileage, 45 cents per mile to areas outside your general metropolitan area, (if you live outside the general metropolitan area of the publishing house, do not charge a fee for coming into the city), car rental, plane, train, meals, and lodging. Also, photographic expenses: renting of special equipment; props; model fees; location charges (such as rent); mailing and/or carrier charges; phone calls (beyond the ordinary); messengers; porters; guards. Be sure to keep your receipts and staple them to your statement. Pricing Your Photo

Three popular pricing guides:

FotoQuote, Cradoc Corporation, Phone: 1 206 842-4030; Fax: 1 206 824-1381; www.fotoquote.com; info@fotoquote.com

Jim Pickerell’s, Selling Stock, 110 Fredrick Ave Ste A, Rockville, MD 20850; Phone: 1 301 251-0720; Fax: 1 301 309-0941; Email: jim@chd.com.

Michal Heron’s, Pricing Photography, 28 W 71st St, New York, NY 10023; Phone: 1 212 787-1272; Fax: 1 212 721-0844; email: mheron@interport.net.

The Law of Probability is on your side if you direct your initial marketing efforts to the specialized magazines and book publishers listed in periodical directories such as PHOTOGRAPHER’S MARKET*, and other directories found on a web search. These directories list the names and addresses of hundreds of publications and websites.

FIND YOUR MARKETS

Don’t be tempted to be “all things to all photobuyers.” This is usually the first mistake the fledgling photo illustrator makes. Photo editors recognize that one photographer can’t be that versatile. Their primary concern is that they get material that’s accurate and knowledgeable to present to their readers and advertisers. The editor would prefer to work with a photographer who already knows something about the subject area of his/her magazine.

Focus on a market area that appeals to you, such as outdoor recreation, dog training, medicine, or education.

Turn over a new leaf. Get prepared for a genuine assignment by giving yourself some “practice” assignments this coming year. Using photo stories in one or two of your targeted publications as guides, duplicate the photos taken by that photographer, and teach yourself how to develop photo essays.

Select certain publications in your interest areas. All of these publications will have a web presence. To get more information about their photo needs, find the section called, “Submission Guidelines,” or “Photo Guidelines.”

Many specialized markets work with monthly photography budgets ranging from $15,000 to $30,000. Many spend $40,000 - $90,000 (per month – not per year). If you zero in on just 10 specialized markets, you will have, as they say in the marketing field, found your “corner of the market.” The photo editors of these markets will consider you an important resource.

Once you have made some sales to an editor, he or she will be interested in sending special assignments your way. If you engage in your photo marketing as a spare-time endeavor, you’ll still be able to handle lengthier assignments by scheduling them on your vacation time (and as a result give yourself free vacations!).

* 4700 E Galbraith Road, Cincinnati OH 45236, (513) 531 2690, x 1226, photomarket@fwpubs.com, Contact: Donna Pohner.

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

Stock Photography - How To Counter Image Thievery

2008-02-26T02:55:00.000-08:00

Most photographers who come to me raise this issue at the beginning: "How can I make sure no one will steal my photographs?". There is no way to be a 100% sure that your images won't be stolen but there are a few things you can do.

On the technical side, some photographers point out that if the right-click "Save image as..." option is disabled, their images are safe. No, there are not. First, on the Mac and on Linux, this doesn't work. Second, on Windows, if you turn off Javascript, this right-click option will work. Third, any image on displayed on your web browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer) can be saved if you look at the source of the page: it doesn't take a Computer Science degree to do that. Also, some software vendors try to sell you plugins that should solve this problem. Usually these "solutions" are quite expensive and truth is that even those most complicated software that require server-side and client-side implementations cannot prevent a screen capture. It's as simple as that. Not matter how much money/time you spend, there is no technical solution.

If reading this statement makes you anxious, please consider this: How customer-friendly do you want to be? The more protective you are of your work, the harder for your clients it will be to see it. If they have to install a plugin to see your work, they might as well go next door. Besides, I personally dislike to be treated as a thief or a threat when I go shopping: that's bad security because it scares your customers away. In other words, don't "punish" 99% of your clients because 1% of them are thieves. If you don't trust people, don't get into any business at all.

So, what can you do? First thing, be careful to what you display and where you display it. It's never a good idea to make your high-resolution photographs available for download on photo-sharing websites like Flickr. Icelandic photographer Rebekka Guoleifsdottir had a bad experience about this: her work was supposedly taken from Flick, printed and sold by some third party. This is every photographers' nightmare. Of course, you can call your lawyer but it's going to cost a lot and, in this case, the supposedly thief was located in another country making things much more difficult. First quick fix: if you are using these services, make sure you do not upload photos larger than 500 pixels (largest side). Even if someone would take the 500 pixel wide image, he would not be able to sell it: it's too small. Using Photoshop to make it bigger would only result in a pixelated image. Second quick fix: apply a watermark. Don't be too aggressive with the watermark because it's visually annoying. If your image is no wider than 500 pixel, there's no point in putting it in the centre: your image is already small enough and remember, you do not want to scare your customers away. On your watermark, you should display the copyright symbol, your name, and optionally a web address where to find your work.

To sum up, there's no ultimate solution about image thievery but you can take some proactive step to fight protect yourself against this. However, scaring away your customers won't do any good. In fact, don't forget that the web works differently than the "offline" world: your competitor is just a few clicks away and if someone steals one of your low-resolution image and put it on a personal website, ask him/her to delete your work or give you credit for it: they usually comply. After all, it's not a physical good: no money was lost.

Eric Imboden is passionate about stock photography. He can be seen at http://www.kumaru.com/ where he helps photographers promote their photos and sell them commission-free. He always welcomes new ideas or comments about his website or articles. Email him at: info@kumaru.com

Elusive Images in Stock Photography - Ocean, Water, Life

2008-02-14T04:31:00.000-08:00

As humans, our strongest emotional responses - both positive and negative - come from visual cues. That's precisely why the old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words," has more than a ring of truth to it. When you're flipping through a magazine or surfing the Web, the photos are what make you stop and look. Today, the images that are most effective in capturing the attention of readers and web visitors alike can be summed up in three words: ocean, water, life.

Imagery is Everything

Those who are in the business of advertising or web design understand that developing a wonderful product or a website full of useful information is important, but it's only one component of success. Choosing the proper imagery to communicate to the potential customer or visitor can result in resounding success, while selecting the wrong images can be disastrous in terms of sales and web "stickiness."

Carefully selected images can help to establish and reinforce brand awareness, can help to target niche markets, and can help to build customer loyalty. Today, lifestyle photography is the primary means of conveying consumer messages -so much so that product photography is often a small element of a print advertising campaign or a web design.

Lifestyle Photography Conveys Concepts

The primary purpose of lifestyle photography is to convey concepts. For example, a photograph of waves lapping on the beach can convey relaxation, freedom, luxury, and promise. Photography of crashing waves can communicate agitation, strength, and persistence. Images of still water with stormy skies can convey turbulence, doubt, conflict, and confusion. A hand reaching out of the water can relay a message of hope or of hopelessness. Photography that depicts surfing can communicate youthful exuberance or a hip, active lifestyle.

Finding Unique, Captivating Images

If you use these types of ocean, water, and life images in your advertising campaigns or web design work, you know how frustrating it can be to find the right photography to communicate your key concepts. Most, if not all, major stock photography companies have either a limited number of images, or images that are dated. When you're looking for unique images that evoke the proper emotional tone, it often pays to patronize smaller stock photography companies, particularly those that specialize in ocean, water, and life images. The images that will allow you to stand apart from your competition may very well come from a company that is steeped in the surf and water lifestyle.

Besides offering unique stock images, the right stock photography company should be able to offer you exclusive rights, should you so desire, should track the use of all photos, and should consider commission ideas. In other words, if you need a certain type of ocean, water, or life image, the company should consider shooting the image for you and then adding it to their stock catalog.

With ocean, water, and life photography quickly becoming the most common images used in advertising and web design, it's important to find a stock photography company that can deliver the unique images that will give you the edge and set you apart from your competitors.

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

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

2008-02-14T04:30:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

Hong Kong Photographer Stock Photography Royalty Free vs. Licensed

2008-02-13T04:31:00.000-08:00

There are two types of licenses for the reproduction of photographs. One is called Traditional License the other Royalty Free.

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.

Stock Photography Lesson - Quality Requirements for Online Stock Photograph Sales

2008-02-13T04:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Stock Photography - Stock Photos Offer Quality, Choice And Savings In Time And Budget

2008-02-12T02:46:00.000-08:00

Whether you're a PR consultant, a web developer or graphic designer, chances are you've experienced the time-intensive quest for the perfect image. And I'd be willing to bet that you've also experienced the angst that accompanies the quest. Will you find the right image in time? And will it blow your budget?

Despite your mega Microsoft clip art library, and the vast (and depending on your use, illegal) repository known as Google Images, the just-right image, art or photo has eluded you. Meanwhile, the deadline is fast approaching ... and along with budget constraints, there's no time to hire a professional, and taking the shot yourself doesn't yield the expert quality you need.

Consider the plethora of images and variety available through low-cost, royalty-free stock photography. Stock photos provide quick access and speedy delivery, superb quality and a broad selection, usually categorized by descriptive keywords or found quickly with a searchable database. With high-quality stock photos starting as low as a buck each, the price just can't be beat.

Advantages of Using Stock Photography

Save time - Stock galleries provide a way to move quickly from an abstract concept straight to the presentation. Thousands of images and photos are readily available and quickly downloadable via the Internet, so the designer, developer or marketer can leap from the work plan to the storyboard, PowerPoint, brochure or web page.

You'll no longer need days to set up a photo assignment, or spend the hours it used to take perusing clip art books, graphic files or endless CD-ROM galleries. With most online stock photo providers, you can create an account and download samples or purchase the perfect image in a matter of minutes.

Excellent range of selection & choice - Stock photography provides an unbeatable selection. Just imagine the advantage of having hundreds of photographers, models or designers on staff -- along with hundreds of artistic styles and expressions. Stock libraries and galleries allow you to choose descriptive keywords, or combine keywords to get even more specific search results. Do a quick Search at LuckyOliver to see what we mean. And while you're at it, go ahead and test-drive (or grab a comp of) one of LuckyOliver's watermarked images -- there's no purchase required for that!

It guarantees a level of quality - Sure, there are plenty of free photo web sites--and many of them are filled with all kinds of garbage, like junky low-resolution photos, animated gif files and other stuff that may not have anything to do with what you need. You can expect remarkable quality from microstock libraries since the providers have high standards for accepting and approving any photo and art submissions.

It's legal and ethical - Buying stock photos helps you avoid any legal issues associated with copyright. At stock photo suppliers such as LuckyOliver, you don't have to worry about collecting and filing model releases. You simply make the purchase and use the photo, hassle-free. LuckyOliver compensates the photographer--which saves you time and money once again, with less forms to sign and fewer checks to write.

It's affordable - Some stock photos are inexpensive, but not cheap looking--though prices do vary. While some stock providers charge a lot -- or whatever their market will bear -- there's oftentime little artistic difference between the high-dollar finds and the less expensive stuff.

For use of most stock photographs at a site like LuckyOliver, prices range from $1 to $12 per photo, with discounts available for bulk purchases. Affiliate programs may also be available, and could prove worthwhile for web developers who offer custom templates to customers or for advertising agencies, marketers and PR firms with clients who want to choose their own images and photos.

Bryan Zmijewski is the fearless leader of stock photography provider LuckyOliver. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class and not doing too shabby at Stanford, he started ZURB, a customer experience firm. Not content having one successful business and being a designer/photographer himself, he grabbed another cup of coffee and started LuckyOliver, a place where artists and photographers buy and sell photos and images for as low as $1. Contact him at feedback@luckyoliver.com or visit www.luckyoliver.com

What Is Stock Photography?

2008-02-12T02:44:00.000-08:00

Stock photography is simply photos taken "on spec". This means the photographer takes pictures of various objects, people, or situations, and sells them after the pictures have been taken. They are not on a specific photography assignment, instead they are taking photos of subjects they'd like to take pictures of.

Stock photography is primarily used in printed advertisements, brochures, magazines, and websites, though there are many other ways stock photography can be used.

Stock photography is licensed in several different ways. The two most popular are Rights Managed Stock Photography, and Royalty Free Stock Photography.

Rights Managed photography is the use of stock photos that are licensed for a specific, limited time and purpose. If an advertiser for instance, needed a stock photo for one specific ad campaign, they could license a photo for that specific use. And they'd be limited to using the photo only for that campaign. They'd also be charged based on the size of the ad campaign they intended to use the stock photo for.

If they wanted to use the same photo again, they'd have to pay another fee. And that fee might be different, if the campaign use and sizes are different. These recurring fees are called royalties, and with rights managed stock photography they can be quite hefty. Ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars for the limited use of one photograph.

Royalty free stock photography allows you to pay a license fee once, then use the photo multiple times. There are usually limitations on this form of stock photography, however the restrictions are not nearly as narrow as rights managed photography is. A designer or advertiser could license one photo for instance, and use it in hundreds of different ad campaigns, without incurring additional fees. In other words: No royalty fees need to be paid.

Generally royalty free stock photography can be licensed for as little as $50 up to several hundred dollars depending on the licensing source and rights given.

One of the most popular forms of stock photography for small and web based businesses, is royalty free micro stock photography. This is a variation on the royalty free model, but it's referred to as "micro stock" because designers and advertisers pay just a dollar or two per image license.

This type of stock photography has become quite popular with website owners particularly, because it's a very inexpensive way to get top quality photos for use on their websites. Quality stock photos can be licensed for as little as $1 in smaller, web friendly sizes. And prices go up to about $3 or $5 for larger, print quality photo sizes.

Since these photos are royalty free, designers can use them multiple times for that one time low cost. Be sure to check the licensing restrictions though. Royalty free does not automatically mean "public domain" or "copyright free", and each micro stock photography site has their own particular use restrictions on the photos you license.

Kathy Burns-Millyard. Want to learn more about Royalty Free Stock Photography? Visit The Free Online Guide to Stock Photography at http://www.Stocktography.com

Digital Stock Photography

2008-02-09T02:43:00.000-08:00

The term “digital photographs” means photographs that can be viewed on a computer screen, mobile phones and Palmtops. Digital photographs have changed the way stock photographs are sold and distributed. Digital photographs are captured using a digital camera that is synchronized to a computer. Varieties of special effects are applied to digitally the formatted image. These photographs can be copied to CD’s, printed on paper, sent by e-mail or downloaded from a web site. Photographers submit these images to stock photo agencies or represent themselves by launching their own website. Digital Stock Photographs can be obtained directly from websites, stock photo agencies or directly from stock photographers. Digital stock photographs are widely used by advertisers, television commercials, web designers, calendars and greeting cards companies.

Digital stock photography is filed under different categories, so that photographs can be searched easily according to different categories. Digital stock photographs are most often of nature scenes, celebrities or wildlife, but the categories are virtually endless and the list is growing all the time. A customer can receive photographs by electronic delivery, thus reducing the delivery cost and time.

Some stock photography is free of copyrights, which means nobody owns the rights. Therefore, this kind of stock photography can be utilized for free by anyone for any purpose. They are not as in demand, though, as copyrighted works. Digital stock photography added new dimensions to stock photographs in the way that they are captured, displayed, marketed sold and distributed. The demand for digital photography is great and the future is bright.

Stock Photography provides detailed information on Stock Photography, Free Stock Photography, Digital Stock Photography, Nature Stock Photography and more. Stock Photography is affiliated with Black and White Photographs

Stock Photography

2008-02-08T00:45:00.001-08:00

Stock photography is images that can be used by advertisers, magazines, publishers, graphic designers, web designers, calendar and greeting cards companies, and television and film producers for commercial purposes. Instead of hiring a photographer to shoot an image or event, one can go through a stock photograph library and order a wide range of photographs. Using stock photography saves a consumer a lot of money. Images can be purchased through the Internet, delivered by e-mail or downloaded. The business of stock photography began around the time of the American Civil War, when photographers sold images of war to use in stereo viewers.

Stock photographers can resell their images to as many different customers as they desire, because they hold all copyrights. Photographers who are interested in selling stock photos can represent themselves, as well as contact a stock photography agency to represent them. Oftentimes the photography will be placed in catalogues for easy perusal, eithe online or in print.

Prices differ from photograph to photograph and customer to customer. Generally speaking, the price is based on how many people are going to view the image once it is published. Stock photographers have the advantage of showing their work worldwide. Some of the most popular and sellable photographs are of sunrises, sunsets, clouds, nature, animals and birds. The list goes on. Some stock photography carries no copyright law attached to it. This means anyone can use the photography for whatever purpose they intend. This type of free-of-rights photography is sometimes called clip art.

Nature Stock Photography

2008-02-07T00:28:00.001-08:00

Photographs of wildlife, flowers, birds, reptiles, snowfall, landscapes, sunsets and other sceneries are often used as stock photographs. Stock photography is photography that is used by a number of people for a number of reasons. One person - usually the person who took the photo - gets paid each time someone buys the rights to it. Nature photography is in great demand among publishers, artists, graphic and web designers, book publishers, greeting card companies and others for web design and publishing their websites, books and greeting cards. Nature stock photographers can earn good money selling nature stock photographs, as some of them fetch a very high price.

For assignment photographs of nature, a customer has to hire a photographer and send him/her to a particular destination to shoot images. This can be very expensive because it not only involves the price of the photographs but the photographer’s out-of-pocket expenses as well. Instead, a customer can opt for nature stock photographs that are readily available with nature stock photographers or agencies. Stock image agencies or stock photographers have a wide range of nature stock photographs to choose from.

Nature stock photographers who intend to submit their nature images to stock photograph libraries have to be good. The photographs have to be excellent with high resolution. A customer will select the photograph of choice and pay the quoted price. It is advisable that a nature stock photographer market, sell and distribute their photographs through their own website in order to reap the most financial benefit.

Free Stock Photography

2008-02-06T00:40:00.001-08:00

The term “free” stock photographs does not mean that the photograph or images are free by default. Royalty free stock photography means a customer pays fees only once for a photograph. They don’t have to pay every time they need to use it. A free stock photograph can be used as many times and as long as the customer wishes. However, the copyright remains with the photographer who owns the photograph. When a customer buys free stock photograph, it is theirs to use, but they cannot sell it.

If a customer wants to use royalty free stock photographs on their website, they must make sure that their license permits the right of publication of the image. Many royalty free stock photographs are sold under the license for printing or electronic use only. These photographs are becoming more and more popular and are available on many websites and CD’s. The main drawback of free stock photographs is images can be purchased by anyone and used multiple times. A potential buyer has no way of knowing whether someone else is using the image.

Generally, fees for royalty free stock photographs depend on size and not on usage. A copyright holder can sell a photograph to anyone. However, is a customer is looking for a unique, one-of-a-kind image for a corporate campaign, etc., and then is wiser to hire a professional photographer? The difference between stock photographs and royalty free stock photographs is that a stock photograph can be used only once after licensing. If a customer wants to use it again, he needs another license. Royalty free stock photographs can be used many times over a long period of time.

Shooting Stock: The Art of Stock Photography and how to Make Money with it Online

2008-02-05T02:07:00.001-08:00

Stock photography in itself is not new, as so many photographers starting their careers believe, but online stock photo agencies certainly are. Stock agencies of yesteryear simply consisted of an image bank of hundreds of thousands of slides/negatives and prints, from which a buyer had to manually select his perfect image, the difference being almost the same as that of a conventional library of books as compared to an online one. The rules and methods of catering to a stock photo agency remain the same, as do the agreement terms ‘royalty paid’ and ‘royalty free’ , both of which will be discussed in more detail later in this article.

The business of buying and selling stock photographs online can certainly be a tricky one, as it is not always the ‘pretty picture’ that gets selected for a sale, as one learns with a bit of experience. Any beginning photographer learns from his ‘guru’ or from experience, to show the client the final image created for them , not the five or so he rejected before he was satisfied he’d captured the right effect, but this doesn’t apply to stock photography , as there is no one particular client in question. The saying goes "one man’s meat is another’s poison" and it is just as true that what one stock photography client wants will be nothing like what another is looking for, sometimes a photo YOU would have rejected is just the one someone else loves!

The beginner needs to understand the terms 'royalty free’ and ‘royalty paid’. Just as implies, the term ‘royalty paid’ means that whenever an image sells, the photographer gets a percentage. For example, if it is sold for the use of a book or magazine publishing, the photographer gets paid a ‘royalty’ every time a book is sold. On the other hand, the term ‘royalty free’ implies that the photographer has given total rights to the publisher, for the specified usage, and gets no commission on every sale of the publishing. It is wrong to generalise that one kind of agreement is ‘better’ than the other. A royalty paid agreement may or may NOT give long term returns, whereas a royalty free image will give a high initial income. There really is no rule of thumb about this , and it is only by experience and preference that you will find out what works for you.
As a side note, it's always a good idea to check the reputation of the publishing house when making a royalty paid agreement.

Now, some more on the nature of images suitable for stock photography. When shooting for stock sales, remember to get every possible angle and every possible lighting effect, all permutations and combinations. When offering a set of images, offer every one that you shot. Try and look from the publishers’ point of view, and understand that something as seemingly trivial as a pen or a glass of water may be required by an advertising company across the globe, who would really hate their time wasted on setting up a photoshoot specially for that. Also, remember that we live in a globalized world today, and the more diverse the people are in your photographs, the better the chances of one of them being sold.

Micro payment agencies have sprung up of late, which allow the buyer to download and use an image for several dollars, royalty free! Shocking as this may sound, photographers who market their work this way CAN make a steady income – where they lose on higher payments , they make up in number of sales. But some leading stock agencies refuse to market photographers who cater to micro payment agencies, and understandably so.

The beauty of mastering the shooting and sales of stock photography is, that they allows the photographer to live life more or less according to his or her terms, up to a point. Some pioneering stock photographers travel as they please, uploading their images to stock agencies, and getting paid online!

George Ryan works for HeyGeek! Inc, administrating and managing several websites including http://www.ebooks.cc and the wildly successful stock photo marketplace http://www.greatstockphoto.com, where photographers get $0.95 per download.

Is It Still Called Stock Photography

2008-02-04T01:32:00.001-08:00

Keeping up with the times...

Is It Still Called Stock Photography?

A century ago, magazines featured mostly text. Graphics were secondary. Today, it's reversed. If you include advertisements, our periodicals today feature more graphics than text. The new "automated" stock photo services (with Royalty-free photos that offer lower prices for photos), are providing quality generic images to publishers who previously couldn't afford photography as an option. As a result, new markets are now opening up for photographers who produce generic images.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

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 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

Stock Photography - The Basics Of Stock Photography

2008-02-02T00:48:00.001-08:00

Many photographers have problems understanding how stock photography works. The common idea is "give some photos to an agency, get some money back". However, it's not as simple as it looks and having 200 nice pictures will not get you far. Let's review the basics of stock photography from a photographer's viewpoint.

First and foremost, quantity matters. To certain extend, it matters more than quality. Most clients come to a stock photo agency because they want to have choice, not because they distrust photographers. More often than not, they don't have access to them! Many photographers prioritize quality over quantity because they believe they'll shot the perfect picture that everyone will like. It's every artist's dream... but it is just a dream. Keep building your stock over time: each photo is an investment that will pay back later or add value to the rest of your stock. Think about the planets and the law of gravity: the bigger they are, the stronger the attraction is.

Diversity adds value. It doesn't mean you have to shot flowers on day, industrial machinery the next, although it would not hurt. It means that you need to shot flowers in different contexts: individually, in group, in the countryside, at any ceremony, how they are 'produced'... your florist might teach one thing or two. Diversity is essential because the buyer has a different life experience than you and perceives beauty differently and you do not know which one. In order to build up motivation, it's a good idea to try to tell a comprehensive story, or many stories, about your subject: it will encourage you to see as many aspect of the subject as possible.

Go out and meet the world. No need to climb the Himalayas or shot models on a tropical island. See your surroundings with a beginner's mind: buyers need photos that convey meaning and photographers need to illustrate the world by removing "noise" from the object/subject. That's your added value. Sure having a great subject/object is helpful but you should not attach too much importance about it as composition is one of the things that make your stock photos valuable: learn how to tell a short story with your photos. Even a big city congestion needs your know-how: the first car's make is meaningless if the story you want to tell is about the endless stream of cars.

Last but not least, don't pay too much attention about the "what sells" lists. Why? Because it might sell, but at lower prices too. Think about those faked business environments photos: they are meaningless and sell for nothing. Besides, if you don't like the theme, it's not going to help you: you won't keep doing something you don't really enjoy, even if it brings you some money.

Some photographers may look down on stock photographers, but there's no boundary between fine art photography and stock photography. Stock photography really is an art and it has to come from your guts, from your perspective on your world. Do it to communicate your ideas and stories to people. The successful photographers are those who don't get shy, show their work to people, and keep on improving. Art is a journey, not a destination.

How to Choose Stock Photography for Your Ebook Covers

2008-01-31T22:42:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-31T22:41:00.001-08:00

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.

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.

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

2008-01-29T23:14:00.002-08:00

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.

Photos enhance the look of a website.
Communicate so much more than words, they communicate emotions.
Photos can be customized for borders and backgrounds.
Photos have more impact than clip art. (They tend to give a more professional look.)
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:

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

2008-01-29T23:14:00.001-08:00

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/

Kinds Of Stock Images

2008-01-28T02:43:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-25T03:09:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-23T03:01:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T02:38:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-19T02:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Dust, Scratches and Noise

What kind of camera will I need?

Quality Lens the most important part of your kit.

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.

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

2008-01-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

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...

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

2008-01-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-17T03:17:00.001-08:00

What is Stock Photography?

The Advantages of Stock Photography

Consumers Benefit from Stock Images, Too

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

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

2008-01-14T01:38:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-14T01:37:00.001-08:00

Let me backtrack.

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.

WHAT IS EDITORIAL STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY?

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

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?

2008-01-14T01:36:00.001-08:00

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.

7 Tips for Successful Stock Photos

2008-01-11T02:12:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-11T02:11:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-09T01:38:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-09T01:37:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-07T00:22:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

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.

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?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??

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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

How To Sell Your Pictures As Stock Photography

2008-01-03T23:05:00.000-08:00

I love taking pictures. I just can?t get enough. The more pictures I take the better I want to get. This also means that the more pictures I take; the more high quality equipment I want. It?s an addiction. Many photography hobbyists have the same problem I do. If you don?t want to pour all your money into your photography hobby, there is another option. You can turn that photography hobby into a successful photography business. A great way to get started doing this is through stock photography. Businesses all over are looking for pictures to use in brochures, websites, advertisements, and more. These businesses will happily pay for your pictures rather than hire a photographer to take pictures for them. Here are some tips on how to get started on making money from your photography.

The first thing you need to do to start your stock photography business is to decide if you want to sell your pictures on micro or macro stock photography sites. Micro stock sites (ie. istock, dreamstime, and shutterstock) operate on the premise that if you offer photography at a low price, you?ll get more sales (which they do). These sites sell pictures for as low as a dollar for small sizes, up to ten or twenty dollars for a large copy of your picture. They also offer other options like allowing prints, and exclusive license (they pay you a lot more but you can no longer sell the picture to anyone else). Photographers get a percentage of the sale, which can vary from 20 to 80 percent of the sale price. Many photographers don?t like these sites because they sell photography for much less than they feel it?s worth, but many small businesses rely on them for affordable stock pictures. The other option is macro stock photography (ie Alamy and MyLoupe). You will probably sell A LOT fewer pictures on macro stock sites, but on these sites you make significantly more per picture, usually around $250 per photo (as opposed to the 60 cents I made off my first micro sale). Most of these sites will only accept pictures with over 6MP, but if your camera has fewer pixels, you can learn to upsize your photo in an editing program. While it is your own choice which route to take, many photographers start out on micro sites and then start moving their best pictures over to macro photography sites as their skills improve. You should note that some macro sites will not do business with photographers who sell their work on micro sites, so be sure to check their policies before uploading.

Once you?ve started uploading pictures, you need to remember not to stop. The more pictures you have online, the more sales you will make. Most sites have uploading limits and if you can, you should try to put up as many pictures as you are allowed. You should also put your pictures on as many sites as possible. Many people have their favorite stock site and only look for pictures there. This means you can put shots up on multiple sites; although many sites will guarantee you a higher percentage if you decide to upload a picture to their site exclusively. I would try not to overlap picture on macro and micro sites since someone probably wont pay $300 for a picture they can get for $1.

The next key to becoming a top seller is to take pictures with content that sells. Whatever you?re subject is, you will almost assuredly sell more pictures if the background is a solid color. Black and white are the best, but any solid color will work. Generally people want a subject without a background. If the background is a solid color, it?s much easier to remove with an editing program. If you want to know what subjects sell best, most sites have a section where you can see their most popular downloads. Just remember to get inspiration from these photographs, don?t copy them. If all else fails, you can never go wrong with pictures of people. You will need to get releases signed ahead of time for pictures of people with recognizable faces and also of recognizable property.

Hopefully these tips will help you get started making money with your photography. Just remember that, just like getting the perfect shot, starting your business takes time. You just need to work hard and not give up, no matter how slowly it starts. Many people started out slowly and are now making enough on stock photography sites to take photographs full time.
Lawren Graf writes for DigitalShotsGuide.com. To learn more digital photography tips, and cool photography techniques to use in your portfolio, visit us.

Using Stock Photos: Royalty-Free vs. Rights Managed

2008-01-03T23:04:00.000-08:00

If you have searched for photos to use on your website, you have likely encountered the terms royalty-free and rights managed. So what is the difference between these types of photos?

Rights-Managed Images: Images you purchase for a specific purpose at a specific price (think renting the photo or paying to borrow the image). The price of the picture is usually determined by how you want to use the picture (on the web, in print, etc.). The plus side to using a rights managed photo is that you will most likely NOT see anyone else using the same photo (or model) promoting another product. The downside is of course the price; rights managed photos can cost you double (even triple) of what royalty-free runs.

Royalty-Free Images: Images purchased outright, either as single images or on disc volumes in bulk, and can be used any way you want, with certain restrictions. Pricing for royalty-free images is usually decided by the size of file you want to purchase; the larger the file (meaning, the better the quality of the image), the higher the price. The good news with royalty-free images is that if you are using them for the web (on websites, advertisements, etc.), you can use the smaller files, thus saving yourself a lot of money. For printing purposes however, you will need to buy the larger file sizes. And typically royalty-free images can be used however you like.

So which one should YOU use?

If pricing is the major factor, royalty-free is the way to go. You can save even more by purchasing your photos through a subscription-based website (which will cost you $140 and up for access to over 100,000 photos) instead of buying individual images (typically $50 and up per photo). For general web use (website or banner ads), we recommend you choose royalty-free photos over rights managed.

If price is not a factor in your advertising budget, or you are worried about someone with a similar product using the exact same photo as yourself, then rights managed might be the right option for you.

We really only recommend rights managed photos for larger companies who will be doing wide spread advertising - such as television ads - who want to avoid brand confusion.

Gerae Lindsey is a freelance web designer specializing in web development for small and home based businesses. Visit her website for more web and graphic design tips at http://www.lindseywebdesign.com

Stock Photography, Royalty Free or Exclusive

2008-01-01T22:33:00.001-08:00

Acquiring stock photography images can be costly; however, the cost is often worth it. Nevertheless, when do you pay for exclusive rights to an image, and when is it just not worth it? Images can be purchased with different license types, either royalty free, rights managed or protected or exclusive rights.

All stock photography services offer different types of licenses and these licenses are all different from each other-you can even negotiate some licenses. Before purchasing a royalty free image, read through the licensing policy to make sure that their license applies to how you intend to use the image. For 'exclusive rights' or 'rights managed' images, you may have to relate to them the exact intended use before they quote a price.

Royalty Free (RF)
Royalty free images are usually the least expensive choice ranging from as low as $1 to $450/ea. Many stock providers offer a subscription program for RF images that support multiple downloads for $20 to $600 per month. Although RF images are inexpensive to purchase, they do not offer any protected licensing, which means that an unlimited number of that image may be sold to others and used for a variety of applications. Keep in mind it is the buyer's responsibility to check for model releases before using an image. Usually RF images only have to be purchased once to be used multiple times in multiple projects.

Even though RF images do not carry exclusive rights, they are still a wise and budget-friendly choice for many applications. If you need an isolated object image, RF is an excellent choice. Some agencies even offer pre-masked images you can buy for a dollar or two. Object images are usually not the focus of an ad campaign, a picture of a lollipop or a stapler are literally a dime a dozen and there is no need to spend a lot of money on such an image if it is not the center of your project.

Secondary webpages or short-term ads can use RF images. For example, during the holiday season, an image of a wreath or a group of friends celebrating can be purchased for nearly nothing, they add a little spice and timeliness to your projects, yet are still usually not the main focus.

Background images, landscapes or other flora or fauna photos are not usually specific enough to warrant an exclusive license, unless you are using it for an application that requires a license such a greeting card, calendar and so on. For example, a picture of sunset may be used to evoke a mood, yet that mood is related to previous experiences, not that specific image.

Rights Managed or Protected

Rights managed or protected licenses will usually allow you to use a photo for a specific use for a specific amount of time; the stock agency will ask you where you intend to use the image and the duration. However, generally they are not exclusive rights. Some services offer different agreements depending on whether the image is for commercial or editorial use. These types of licenses may start at under $200 for a small image, but for something like a calendar or home page, use may reach $1000.

This is a good choice for home page, magazine or medium to high exposure use. Typically, rights protected images can only be used for one specific application so there are fewer chances that another company will spread the image all over its pages at the same time that you do.

Sometimes these types of licensing will support template use, greeting cards, calendars or posters and so on, but be sure to read or negotiate the terms before you use the image.

Exclusive Rights

'Exclusive rights' restricts others from purchasing the same image. This is necessary if you need an image that is going to represent your brand, logo or for high exposure use, like the front page of your magazine. Images purchased for a large campaign should be exclusive; you do not want to chance that the ad agency across town chooses the same image for its next billboard.

If you hire an assignment photographer or commission work, you will also want to negotiate exclusive rights. Exclusive rights should be secured for book covers, CD jackets and so on.

Exclusive Rights can get costly, but for the rights and protection, they are well worth it.

Overall, make sure that you read over all the terms that a stock agency sets to protect yourself and your image. Diversity is key, you may use a subscription program for isolated images and low exposure RF stills, another for right protected images and another for commissioned work or editorials. Working with several agencies may, in the end, save your time and budget.

Pamela Stevens

Pamela Stevens writes for TopTenREVIEWS.com, a review site that publishes unbaised reviews on a wide range of subjects, including software, online services, hardware, movies and actors.

Stock Photography - Who Wants To Know How To Sell Online? Learn The Business Of Stock Photography

2007-12-29T02:05:00.001-08:00

In the past getting into Stock photography was a huge undertaking. You either had to set up your own mini Agency or sign on with one of the big agencies. If you set up your own agency you were required to do all the leg work of sorting, filing and marketing your images. If you signed on with a big agency you were required to have at least 1,000 images before they would even talk to you. With the advent of the Internet and the growth of high-speed broadband connections these barriers have been eliminated. Today anyone with a quality digital camera can enter the stock photography market place and make money selling their images online.

There are literally hundreds of agencies online offering photographers a place to sell their images. In addition photographers have the opportunity to set up their own online mini agency or add a Stock Page to their portfolio site.

The big agencies have also moved online, but their requirements for acceptance have also become more difficult. Getting your images in Gettys or Corbis is very difficult and for the most part the domain of well established professional photographers.

However you chose to sell your images online, one thing is for sure you will have to adhere to the three basic principles of the successful stock photographer ? Quality, Quality, Quality. Oh and lets not forget Quantity.

What photos will sell?

The first step in selling your images on-line is understanding what images sell, and which sit and collect cyber dust. Truth be told there is very little restriction on what sells and what does not sell. The key here is to understand which type of images sell the most and in the case of Licensed images the most often. As you sell your images on line you will need to understand that just about any image can sell as long as it meets the technical requirements of the agency and you can find a buyer.

A search for ?Stock Photography? on Google returns 15,400,000 sites. The biggest agencies like Corbis and Getty are of course listed first. These agencies are still the domain of professional photographers with huge libraries, and will not entertain enquires from amateur photographers. They have huge libraries of images from professional shooters and even hire their own photographers to shoot stock on assignment for the agency, which the agency then owns. All the regular photos that you would think are really great and will sell have been done and are sitting in these agencies files. These are what are generally know as commercial stock photos and your chance of selling these is not so good.

What you will be able to sell are EDITORIAL stock. Editorial stock does not sell for as high a price as Commercial Stock, but you will sell more images more often than when trying to sell Commercial Stock.

The images you will be able to sell are the ones that no one else has or that no one else has access to such subject matter. What you need is a niche. Pictures of regular people doing regular things, shot in a professional and appealing manner are what you will be able to sell online. Photos that sell are the ones that tell a story or as stock photographers like to call them; photo illustrations. A photo illustration is a photo that has something going on in it. We have all heard the term ?A picture is worth a thousand words? well when you hear this, think Photo Illustration. These are the stock photos that sell well.

Always try to include a person doing something. A picture of a tractor in the field is good, but a picture of a tractor with the farmer sitting on it, is much better. (Image Farmer in the Field). If you insist on taking scenic pictures and expect to be able to sell them, if you include a person actively doing something, your chances of a sale are greatly increased. For instance, a shot of a beach sunset in great, but remember there are hundreds of just such images already in circulation, take the same shot and add a silhouette of a boy chasing a football and you have a much more saleable shot.

Also when you are taking pictures try to imagine a theme or mood. By this we mean try imagine a feeling you want to convey with your photos. Some are happy shiny people holding hands, while others will be more somber or moody. A photo that has a clear mood or theme will sell well. You can use colour, shapes and texture to illustrate different moods and themes. Images that convey feelings have high resale value. Images that are stereotypical have less. By stereotypical we mean the stuff we have all seen a thousand times in a thousand magazines and other places. While you may think that the silhouette of lovers kissing against a backdrop of a gorgeous sunset is a good marketable picture, it has been done to death and if we searched any of the major stock libraries we would find many examples of this exact picture. What might be better would be to show the couple doing something a little less typical, maybe one taking the picture of the other???

Also remember the rules of composition. The law of thirds works well and so do tightly cropped images. The old rule of ?keep it simple? applies. This is not a book about how to shoot good images, there are thousands of such references available, what we are teaching you here is how to sell them online. Just remember, the images that sell are the attractive appealing ones with good composition and good exposure.

One thing to remember though is that as most of the agencies websites display the images on thumbnail pages, having images that are attractive as thumbnails increases your chance of a sale, this follows from the rules of compostition and cropping already discussed.

Selling images online is the next big thing, something that every keen hobbyist is looking to get into. The principles of photography apply, but you must temper them with some business sense, knowing which photos sell is the best start.

Sean David Baylis is a photographer living and working in Hong Kong. Stock Photography - Who wants to know how to sell online? Learn the business of stock photography. Sign up now for the second lesson, also free...

Stock Photography - Who wants to know how to sell online? Learn the business of stock photography.

2007-12-26T23:15:00.001-08:00

Stock photography is a huge industry, one that generates steady incomes for those photographers with the willingness to succeed. As with any worth while undertaking nothing comes easy and nothing comes for free. To succeed in this game you need to be able to; a) take saleable photographs, b) be organized enough to get them to the market. c) be patient and keep adding more images to your library In the past getting into Stock photography was a huge undertaking. You either had to set up your own mini Agency or sign on with one of the big agencies. If you set up your own agency you were required to do all the leg work of sorting, filing and marketing your images. If you signed on with a big agency you were required to have at least 1,000 images before they would even talk to you. With the advent of the Internet and the growth of high-speed broadband connections these barriers have been eliminated. Today anyone with a quality digital camera can enter the stock photography market place and make money selling their images online. There are literally hundreds of agencies online offering photographers a place to sell their images. In addition photographers have the opportunity to set up their own online mini agency or add a Stock Page to their portfolio site. The big agencies have also moved online, but their requirements for acceptance have also become more difficult. Getting your images in Gettys or Corbis is very difficult and for the most part the domain of well established professional photographers. However you chose to sell your images online, one thing is for sure you will have to adhere to the three basic principles of the successful stock photographer - Quality, Quality, Quality. Oh and lets not forget Quantity.

What photos will sell? The first step in selling your images on-line is understanding what images sell, and which sit and collect cyber dust. Truth be told there is very little restriction on what sells and what does not sell. The key here is to understand which type of images sell the most and in the case of Licensed images the most often. As you sell your images on line you will need to understand that just about any image can sell as long as it meets the technical requirements of the agency and you can find a buyer. A search for "Stock Photography" on Google returns 15,400,000 sites. The biggest agencies like Corbis and Getty are of course listed first. These agencies are still the domain of professional photographers with huge libraries, and will not entertain enquires from amateur photographers. They have huge libraries of images from professional shooters and even hire their own photographers to shoot stock on assignment for the agency, which the agency then owns. All the regular photos that you would think are really great and will sell have been done and are sitting in these agencies files. These are what are generally know as commercial stock photos and your chance of selling these is not so good. What you will be able to sell are EDITORIAL stock. Editorial stock does not sell for as high a price as Commercial Stock, but you will sell more images more often than when trying to sell Commercial Stock. The images you will be able to sell are the ones that no one else has or that no one else has access to such subject matter. What you need is a niche. Pictures of regular people doing regular things, shot in a professional and appealing manner are what you will be able to sell online. Photos that sell are the ones that tell a story or as stock photographers like to call them; photo illustrations. A photo illustration is a photo that has something going on in it. We have all heard the term "A picture is worth a thousand words" well when you hear this, think Photo Illustration. These are the stock photos that sell well.

Also is is important to enjoy your photography so go out and shoot things that interest you; your trip to the fair, grandma doing her needle point, dad cooking burgers on a backyard BBQ & your brother mowing the lawn. If you work in a factory or mill and can get permission from your managers or boss to take pictures, these type of images have great potential. Industry, commerce and business are areas of high value in Stock Photography. Always try to include a person doing something. A picture of a tractor in the field is good, but a picture of a tractor with the farmer sitting on it, is much better. (Image Farmer in the Field). If you insist on taking scenic pictures and expect to be able to sell them, if you include a person actively doing something, your chances of a sale are greatly increased. For instance, a shot of a beach sunset in great, but remember there are hundreds of just such images already in circulation, take the same shot and add a silhouette of a boy chasing a football and you have a much more saleable shot. Also when you are taking pictures try to imagine a theme or mood. By this we mean try imagine a feeling you want to convey with your photos. Some are happy shiny people holding hands, while others will be more somber or moody. A photo that has a clear mood or theme will sell well. You can use colour, shapes and texture to illustrate different moods and themes. Images that convey feelings have high resale value. Images that are stereotypical have less. By stereotypical we mean the stuff we have all seen a thousand times in a thousand magazines and other places. While you may think that the silhouette of lovers kissing against a backdrop of a gorgeous sunset is a good marketable picture, it has been done to death and if we searched any of the major stock libraries we would find many examples of this exact picture. What might be better would be to show the couple doing something a little less typical, maybe one taking the picture of the other???

Also remember the rules of composition. The law of thirds works well and so do tightly cropped images. The old rule of "keep it simple" applies. This is not a book about how to shoot good images, there are thousands of such references available, what we are teaching you here is how to sell them online. Just remember, the images that sell are the attractive appealing ones with good composition and good exposure. One thing to remember though is that as most of the agencies websites display the images on thumbnail pages, having images that are attractive as thumbnails increases your chance of a sale, this follows from the rules of compostition and cropping already discussed.

Sean David Baylis is a photographer living and working in Hong Kong. Stock Photography - Who wants to know how to sell online? Learn the business of stock photography.#break#

Free Stock Photography

2007-12-23T22:45:00.001-08:00

The term ?free? stock photographs does not mean that the photograph or images are free by default. Royalty free stock photography means a customer pays fees only once for a photograph. They don?t have to pay every time they need to use it. A free stock photograph can be used as many times and as long as the customer wishes. However, the copyright remains with the photographer who owns the photograph. When a customer buys free stock photograph, it is theirs to use, but they cannot sell it.

If a customer wants to use royalty free stock photographs on their website, they must make sure that their license permits the right of publication of the image. Many royalty free stock photographs are sold under the license for printing or electronic use only. These photographs are becoming more and more popular and are available on many websites and CD?s. The main drawback of free stock photographs is images can be purchased by anyone and used multiple times. A potential buyer has no way of knowing whether someone else is using the image.

Generally, fees for royalty free stock photographs depend on size and not on usage. A copyright holder can sell a photograph to anyone. However, is a customer is looking for a unique, one-of-a-kind image for a corporate campaign, etc., and then is wiser to hire a professional photographer? The difference between stock photographs and royalty free stock photographs is that a stock photograph can be used only once after licensing. If a customer wants to use it again, he needs another license. Royalty free stock photographs can be used many times over a long period of time.

Stock Photography provides detailed information on Stock Photography, Free Stock Photography, Digital Stock Photography, Nature Stock Photography and more. Stock Photography is affliated with Black and White Photographs.

Stock Photography -- Stock photos offer quality, choice, and savings in time, budget and client satisfaction

2007-12-20T22:47:00.001-08:00

Despite your mega Microsoft clip art library, and the vast (and depending on your use, illegal) repository known as Google Images, the just-right image, art or photo has eluded you. Meanwhile, the deadline is fast approaching...and along with budget constraints, there's no time to hire a professional, and taking the shot yourself doesn't yield the expert quality you need.

Advantages of Using Stock Photography

-->Save time- Stock galleries provide a way to move quickly from an abstract concept straight to the presentation. Thousands of images and photos are readily available and quickly downloadable via the Internet, so the designer, developer or marketer can leap from the work plan to the storyboard, PowerPoint, brochure or web page.

-->Excellent range of selection & choice - Stock photography provides an unbeatable selection. Just imagine the advantage of having hundreds of photographers, models or designers on staff -- along with hundreds of artistic styles and expressions. Stock libraries and galleries allow you to choose descriptive keywords, or combine keywords to get even more specific search results. Do a quick Search at LuckyOliver to see what we mean. And while you're at it, go ahead and test-drive (or grab a comp of) one of LuckyOliver's watermarked images -- there's no purchase required for that!

-->It guarantees a level of quality - Sure, there are plenty of free photo web sites--and many of them are filled with all kinds of garbage, like junky low-resolution photos, animated gif files and other stuff that may not have anything to do with what you need. You can expect remarkable quality from microstock libraries since the providers have high standards for accepting and approving any photo and art submissions.

-->It's legal and ethical - Buying stock photos helps you avoid any legal issues associated with copyright. At stock photo suppliers such as LuckyOliver, you don't have to worry about collecting and filing model releases. You simply make the purchase and use the photo, hassle-free. LuckyOliver compensates the photographer--which saves you time and money once again, with less forms to sign and fewer checks to write.

-->It's affordable - Some stock photos are inexpensive, but not cheap looking--though prices do vary. While some stock providers charge a lot -- or whatever their market will bear -- there's oftentime little artistic difference between the high-dollar finds and the less expensive stuff.

Bryan Zmijewski is the fearless leader of stock photo provider LuckyOliver. Bryan is founder and big cheese of ZURB, a customer experience firm. Not content having one successful business and being a designer/photographer himself, he grabbed another cup of coffee and started LuckyOliver, where artists and photographers buy and sell photos and images for as low $1 each. Contact Bryan at feedback@luckyoliver.com or visit http://www.luckyoliver.com.

What every photo researcher ought to know about buying digital stock photos

2007-12-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Buying Digital Stock Photos ? If you've been a photo buyer for your magazine or site any length of time, you probably realize how much the photography industry has changed.

Many professional photographers are now using high-quality, high-res digital cameras instead of film for their stock photos. Read below to find out the easiest way to locate and purchase digital stock photos for your magazine, brochure or Web site.

Where to Buy Stock Photos

One way to find stock photos quickly and easily is through a stock agency Web site. Stock agencies provide several benefits.

- They offer a large inventory of stock photos by many different photographers. - You can choose from a variety of styles, colors, photo sizes and quality. - With digital stock agencies and portals, you can normally buy right from the site without having to put in a request for certain images - You conveniently have 1,000s of stock photographers in one location instead of having to sift through individual photographer's stock photo submissions sent by parcel post. As you know, postal mail doesn't come with a search box! - With a stock agency or stock image portal, you can save time because they offer uniform buying guidelines, download methods and search capabilities no matter which photographer you choose.

?Individual Photographers

Another way to find digital stock photos on the Web is to contact a freelance stock photographer directly. You might need to work with a photographer one-on-one if ...

a) you need stock photos for a specific location or with a specific theme, and are unable to locate the photos you need, or

b) you'd like to assign certain projects to one photographer who specializes in that field. It is even possible to work with some stock photographers by setting up an "on spec" relationship.

This means that you give the stock photographer your photo needs and he/she shoots images with the understanding that you may only purchase one or two (or none) of the stock images.

I have worked with several textbook photo researchers this way and I've found that the images the photo buyer didn't use many times sold at a later date to a different photo researcher.

Working "on spec" may be easier to set up than you may think, especially if you catch the stock photographer during a slow photo period.

"On spec" is many times a win-win for the stock photographer and the stock photo researcher.

This is just one example of how the Internet makes it possible to work with one or many photographers and transmit your photos quickly by email or by download from a photographer's Web site.

Quality and Size of Digital Photos

Probably one of the most confusing aspects of buying digital stock photos is how to determine the size and quality of an image.

When you receive photo submissions by postal mail, you have the actual photo print or transparency in hand, making it easy to determine if the quality and size are adequate for your project. However, with digital photos it's not always that easy.

Formats Used in Digital Stock Photography

JPG (or JPEG) format, which is one of the most popular formats for digital stock photos, enables the photographer to reduce an image's size tremendously for emailing to photo buyers while retaining the size and quality needed for most magazines and publications up to even a two-page spread.

Most digital stock images are displayed as thumbnail images, and then high-resolution (high-res) images are emailed at the photo buyer's request.

Warning: A major drawback of using JPG digital files for photos is, if the photo is re-saved over and over it will lose some digital information each time it is saved. So, it's a very good idea to save a JPG image as a Tiff file as soon as you receive it. This way you can save it without sacrificing quality.

?Fortunately, most stock photo agencies require that images be of top quality before they're accepted. This eliminates your worries about the quality of images in many cases, but always make sure the size of the stock image fits your needs before making a purchase.

Model / Property Release

If you plan to use your stock image for advertising purposes, or for some editorial use, you may need a model or property release. Check with your magazine or client and do some research to make sure which images will need a release.

Licensing Agreement for Digital Stock Photo Usage

Also, read the photographer's licensing agreement carefully so you'll know how, where and the length of time you can use the photo.

The general rules of usage still apply when buying stock photos on the Web. That's another reason to work with a dependable stock agency site or directly with a professional stock photographer.

Use these tips to help locate great digital stock photos easily, and when you need them!

Bob Pardue is a professional stock photographer located in the Southeastern USA. His stock images have been published in numerous books, reports, and publications in the USA and abroad. Bob Pardue Stock Photography

How to Save Big Bucks in Purchasing High Quality Stock Photos.

2007-12-15T04:44:00.001-08:00

Pictures and graphics are one of the most important elements that a company uses to create brand awareness and communicate its message. Ever wonder where those images come from? The general term for these images is "stock photos" and the evolution of digital photography has caused a revolution within the stock photo industry. In our business of selling trade show displays and designing graphics for these displays we are constantly challenged with how to develop a graphical message that is suitable for trade show graphics. Trade show graphics are considered large format printing and it has its own set of challenges, especially when it comes to finding high resolution photos that when printed look presentable. Many of you have probably taken an old 35 mm picture and blown it up to a poster size graphic only to see the quality deteriorate that it only looks good when your fifteen feet away. Imagine taking that same picture and making it 7 feet tall by 10 feet wide. Yikes!

If you're the likes or Nike or McDonalds it's no big deal to arrange professional photographers to take high resolution digital photos for any type of ad campaign, brochure or billboard. If you're the average small business in America then you have a bit of a challenge finding images that won't break the bank account. For most of our clients this is where the "Sticker Shock" of buying stock images comes into play.

So how does one get high resolution images for displays? Before the turn of the century, that is the year 2000, the world of stock photography was dominated by a few industry giants like Getty Images and Corbis and still today these two companies can supply you with just about anything. For example, let's say you want a high resolution picture of "Britain's two man bob sleigh team, competing at international sporting event, 1948, St. Moritz, Switzerland". You'll have to get this type of image from one of the major suppliers. In fact here's the link for this image on Getty.

Britain's two man bob sleigh team image

There are two types of images in the stock photography world. The bob sleigh image is "Rights Managed" which means you have to detail how, where and when you'll be using this image for marketing or advertising purposes. For a trade show display this image would cost you anywhere from $975.00 - $1350.00 per year for one display. This is where the sticker shock happens! The other type of image is called "Royalty Free" which means you can use it for most things and only have to pay a flat fee. There are lots of variations in "Royalty Free" so make sure you understand the conditions of using the photograph. "Royalty Free" images are usually priced in the range of $180.00 - $350.00. Sounds pretty good until you realize that you may need 10 photos to achieve the design you want.

What if there was a way to reduce that pricing to $10.00 per image? Almost sounds to good to be true, but it isn't. Digital cameras and the Internet have completely revolutionized the way high resolution images are being bought and sold and this new segment is called "Microstock". Microstock photo websites are where individuals can buy and sell their high quality images. The average consumer can easily purchase a professional level digital camera and with a little training can create all kinds of unique images to sell, especially when you use your photography skills along with the power of some photo editing software like PhotoShop. The two best known Microstock photo websites are iStockPhoto and ShutterStock. Both of these sites offer hundreds of thousands of high quality photos for large format printing purposes. These images are still "Royalty Free", but "Extended" licenses are available when you print large quantities of brochures or other marketing materials.

If you purchased "Royalty Free" photos from one of the major industry websites then the photos in the design could easily range from $1980.00 - $3850.00. If you purchased "Rights Managed" photos you would spend $10,750.00 - $14,850.00.

This cost savings has gotten the attention of the "big guys" to the extent that iStockPhoto was recently purchased by Getty Images for $50 million dollars.

So if you need high quality high resolution photos for Trade Show Displays, Exhibits or Booths or any other large format printing job make sure to check out all your options including the Microstock world.

Check the complete article at: http://www.smashhitdisplays.com/Trade-Show-Articles-News-Tips-Suggestions/2006/March/How-To-Save-Big-Bucks-When-Purchasing-High-Quality-Stock-Photos.htm

Evan D. Owen, President, A Smash Hit! Trade Show Displays Founded in 2003, is a leading Internet distributor of trade show display products primarily servicing North America. As a wholesaler we can offer display products at half the price as local suppliers. We offer full graphics design, printing and can work on displays as small as tabletop units to larger island style displays

Using Stock Photography In Your Design Projects

2007-12-13T22:26:00.001-08:00

Need a great image for your latest design project or newest website? Then stock photography is the answer. Stock photography is images that are sold over and over. The images come in many different forms. Traditional stock photography includes images that are sold for a one time or limited time use only. An ad agency needs a photo of a couple for a print ad. They pay the stock photography agency a fee to use that photo one time in their ad. These types of images are very high quality and usually very expensive. They are restricted in their use and have other limitations.

Then there is Royalty Free stock photography. These images may not be the same quality but are much less expensive. They may or may not have restrictions on use. They could have no restrictions to use on a web site but there may be a fee if you wanted to use it in a print ad or package design.

License free means there are no restrictions on where you can use the images. Usually these are low resolution images suitable only for the web.

You can find images at any number of stock photography websites. Some individual photographers have their own websites where they sell only their photos. There are a number of large stock photography websites that handle images from many sources. You will also find collections of stock photography on cd's, often themed based. There are also a number of free stock photography and clipart websites and specialty sites that deal in different themes such as vintage photos.

The costs for stock photography will vary from site to site. Some sites offer different sizes of the image at different resolutions. The higher the resolution and the larger the image, the higher the cost. These images are usually for print use. At the low end are images suitable for a website. You can pay per image or buy a subscription that will allow you to download many images over time. All sites have a search feature so you can find the perfect image for your project. Some sites specialize in certain types of image, while others have images in many different categories.

Some sites will allow you to download a comp or sample of the image you are interested in so that you can try it out in your layout or design. They will have a watermark of the stock photo agency across the image, so it is only suitable for testing and not the final layout.

Remember, images you find on the internet are not free for the taking. Many images are copywrited so when you find a great image in a Google image search, that doesn't mean you are free to use it in your project. If you find an image you like, then buy it. It is the right thing to do.

Great images will give your next design project a fresh new look so give stock photography a try.

Find free stock photography images at http://www.keystockphoto.com and vintage stock photography at http://www.vintagephotocafe.com

What's It Worth - Pricing Your Stock Photography

2007-12-07T22:58:00.001-08:00

Out of the blue a business contacts you wanting to use one of your pics. They have seen it at your web site, on your blog or at an exhibition and are requesting availability and price. After the warm glow wears off how do work out what it is worth? What can you ask for and still get the sale? But you don?t want to give it away, do you?

Firstly they are not buying a print. They are requesting the right to use your pic a multiple number of times in a way that will enhance their business and their sales. They will handle the printing side of things you are just providing the image. So the question really is what is it worth to them?

To determine this you need more information.

What is its intended use: Advertising or editorial?

Specific use: Newspaper & magazine ads, packaging, point of sale, brochures etc for Advertising (remember if it is for advertising you will need model releases for any recognizable people); Books, newspaper or magazine story illustration, news letters etc for Editorial.

Size and Placement: Full page, ? page, ? page or spot, front cover, back cover, inside.

Distribution: How many impressions and/or times will it be used. If in a newspaper or magazine what is the circulation? If it is packaging, how many bottles of wine will your image label?

Exclusivity: Can you sell the image to a competitor or does the company want exclusive use and if so for how long?

Once this information is in place you are in a position to calculate the value of your image to the company. There are several places on the net that can help, Stock Photo Price Calculator which can be seen at http://photographersindex.com/stockprice.htm is one. Use of this calculator will get you a high, average and low price based on current market expectations which you can use for your negotiations.

When I contact the enquiring business for the above information I usually ask, in that initial email, what their intended spend is on the project. Mainly to get an idea of how professional they are. If they indicate the overall budget for the project, 20% to 25% will be for resources, just be aware that your image is part not all of the resources. If they don?t have a budget, mmmmmmmmm.

If the business is unknown to you or it is your first dealing with them, asking for your money up front is not out of the question. It can also be a face saving tactic when being pushed for a lower price that you feel is their top offer. If you are offering payment at a later date, it is essential that you include on your invoice ?licensed rights are not assigned until the invoice is paid in full.? This will give you some sort of fall back position if the money never arrives.

Beware of the old chestnut of ?we will be buying a lot more of this type of image in the future, can you do something about the price?. My response to this one is along the lines that I give discounts to regular buyers and a regular buyer is one with a history of 5 or more purchases. To the exposure I will get, just think of the dollars in the bank in the future, argument my response is I have to pay my bills now. I mean who really does the read the photo byline on a wine bottle label?

Don?t forget this is a business negotiation, the buyers job is to get the image at the lowest price they can, your job, apart from making the pics, is to get the best price you can for your image.Henry Bateman is an artist/photographer, his work can be seen at http://www.pissedpoet.com and at http://pissedpoet.blogspot.com

What's it Worth - Pricing your stock photo

2007-12-04T23:03:00.002-08:00

Firstly they are not buying a print. They are requesting the right to use your pic a multiple number of times in a way that will enhance their business and their sales. They will handle the printing side of things you are just providing the image. So the question really is what is it worth to them?

To determine this you need more information. What is its intended use: Advertising or editorial? Specific use: Newspaper & magazine ads, packaging, point of sale, brochures etc for Advertising (remember if it is for advertising you will need model releases for any recognizable people); Books, newspaper or magazine story illustration, news letters etc for Editorial. Size and Placement: Full page, ? page, ? page or spot, front cover, back cover, inside. Distribution: How many impressions and/or times will it be used. If in a newspaper or magazine what is the circulation? If it is packaging, how many bottles of wine will your image label? Exclusivity: Can you sell the image to a competitor or does the company want exclusive use and if so for how long?

Once this information is in place you are in a position to calculate the value of your image to the company. There are several places on the net that can help, Stock Photo Price Calculator is one. Use of this calculator will get you a high, average and low price based on current market expectations which you can use for your negotiations.

When I contact the enquiring business for the above information I usually ask, in that initial email, what their intended spend is on the project. Mainly to get an idea of how professional they are. If they indicate the overall budget for the project, 20% to 25% will be for resources, just be aware that your image is part not all of the resources. If they don't have a budget, mmmmmmmmm.

If the business is unknown to you or it is your first dealing with them, asking for your money up front is not out of the question. It can also be a face saving tactic when being pushed for a lower price that you feel is their top offer. If you are offering payment at a later date, it is essential that you include on your invoice "licensed rights are not assigned until the invoice is paid in full." This will give you some sort of fall back position if the money never arrives.

Beware of the old chestnut of "we will be buying a lot more of this type of image in the future, can you do something about the price". My response to this one is along the lines that I give discounts to regular buyers and a regular buyer is one with a history of 5 or more purchases. To the exposure I will get, just think of the dollars in the bank in the future, argument my response is I have to pay my bills now. I mean who really does the read the photo byline on a wine bottle label?

Don't forget this is a business negotiation, the buyers job is to get the image at the lowest price they can, your job, apart from making the pics, is to get the best price you can for your image.

Henry Bateman is an artist/photographer and his work can be seen at www.pissedpoet.com and at pissedpoet pics

Find Great Photos for Your Web Site From Stock Photography

2007-12-04T23:03:00.001-08:00

Do you need great pictures? Are you looking for pictures to put on your website? If you need some pictures and you need to find them quickly, if you need photos to use on a website, or if you need photos and can not pay/do not have time for a professional photographer, stock photography may be the answer.

What are stock photographs? Stock photos are those that are submitted to a photo library. The library then sells the rights to use the images (usually on a website) and the library keeps part of the fees. The great stock photographer can make good money by submitting photos to the library regularly. They may make a good amount of money from the photos.

There are many services out there to offer you great stock photography. No matter what you are looking for, you can find a photo library that will have it for you. You can find thousands of pictures of people, places, animals and much more. A quick search on the internet will show you there are many photo libraries available. Corbis is one popular one. They all have different fees you will have to look for yourself.

With the many stock photography suppliers on the internet, you can browse through hundreds of thousands of photos on the topics you are looking for. Many of these come royalty free and some do not. You can usually search for these in a specific way as well.

In the long run, the fee you pay to use the photos on your site are usually worth in and are cheaper than any other alternative. They are really great, high quality photos. Many of them are done by very professional photographers that are looking to make some extra money and maybe even extra exposure by placing some of their work in the stock photography market.James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest. Read more at www.stock-photography-central.info

Custom Photography versus Stock Photography

2007-12-03T02:58:00.001-08:00

In the 1990's, the photography industry went through a revolution. Now it's common to discuss imagery in terms of pixels per inch, jpegs, and tiffs. No longer do we discuss photography just in terms of film specifications. Digital images--both custom and stock photography--and software such as Adobe? Photoshop? are commonly used. As a result, we all need to be careful. As consumers, there are many options and legal implications to be aware of when buying and using graphic images.

Rights to photos: custom and stock

A question to ask early on in a project is, "Who has the rights?" Copyright law protects images as property of the photographer, with specific rights as defined by contract. These usually relate to time frame, types of use, and use in photographer's promotional materials.

"For example, if you're shooting an ad campaign, you may want to purchase rights for a year. If you extend the campaign, however, you need to renegotiate your purchase agreement with the photographer," notes Kim Cobb, team leader at The AVS Group. "Any models, professional or not, used in pictures, should also sign releases, and you should be aware of any time or usage restriction that may be included in the release."

"At AVS, you have rights to use images we shoot for you for as long as you want, in any type of media. There is no additional charge for these rights," says Cobb. On the other hand, rights for stock images vary depending on the purchase agreement. Usually stock image firms allow the user free use of an image to present a concept or rough. If the user wants to use the image in a project, though, the image must be purchased.

Purchased images generally come in two types: traditional and royalty-free. The traditional license purchase is based on a full gamut of contract specifics and should be carefully reviewed. The second type, royalty free, typically allows the buyer to use the image with very few restrictions. Usually they are purchased for a one-time flat fee and altered to create new, unique works by the graphic designer.

What rights do consumers have for stock images?

"We're often asked to provide the stock images that have been used in the creative execution of client's project, but that is usually expressly prohibited in the license," says Cobb.

As a rule, licenses state that the images may not be sublicensed, resold, or otherwise redistributed. Nor can they be detached from a product or Web page. Clients can receive the digital media as part of the product, but not separately.

Can consumers use their own images?

Yes. Having a disk of useable imagery at your fingertips is convenient, plus you can always add more.

"You might want to consider having commonly used images of your products or services compiled on a CD in formats you can use," notes Cobb.

Some variables to consider would include how you plan to use the images (PowerPoint? presentations, Web use, printing, etc.) and color format (CMYK for print and RGB for electronic delivery).

Always read the fine print!

It is important to understand that the information in this article is intended to highlight general issues and is not legal advice or a solution to individual problems. If you do have further questions or problems, seek competent legal counsel before relying on this or any information. It is your responsibility to ensure that you comply with all laws regarding your use of an image. The penalties can be severe.

The AVS Group is a marketing, training, and communications company. AVS is in La Crosse, Wisconsin. AVS helps clients communicate and market effectively. AVS can be found online at http://www.avsgroup.com

Custom Photography versus Stock Photography

2007-12-03T02:58:00.000-08:00

Rights to photos: custom and stock

What rights do consumers have for stock images?

"We're often asked to provide the stock images that have been used in the creative execution of client's project, but that is usually expressly prohibited in the license," says Cobb.

Can consumers use their own images?

Yes. Having a disk of useable imagery at your fingertips is convenient, plus you can always add more.

"You might want to consider having commonly used images of your products or services compiled on a CD in formats you can use," notes Cobb.

Some variables to consider would include how you plan to use the images (PowerPoint? presentations, Web use, printing, etc.) and color format (CMYK for print and RGB for electronic delivery).

Always read the fine print!

How to Chose Stock Photography for your Web Site

2007-12-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

How to Chose Stock Photography for your Web Site

by: Kelly Paal

1. Decide where you want to purchase your stock photography. There are large agencies and small independent photographers. While the agencies will have more to chose from and sometimes lower prices an independent photographer will offer more personalized service and opportunities for you to have custom work done, if that is what you need.

2. Dont go in expecting to find an exact image that is in your head, a large agency or an independent photographer will not have the man in a blue suit, holding a cell phone, next to the white blinds nor will they have the beach landscape with the green and white striped chair. You need to have a clear idea in your head of the message that you want to convey and search for an image that creates the message that you want. (If you want something specific youll have to pay for a photography to shoot to your specifications.)

3. Make use of a free comp image to try out the image and make sure that it fits with your project or web design. Most stock agencies offer some sort of free comp image for position only so that you can make sure that you like what youre going to buy. Please use this option, if available, and make sure that the image is going to convey the message that you want it to.

4. Pay for what you need. Dont pay for a 300 dpi image for a web design, and dont buy a 72 dpi image for something you intend to print. Make sure that the agency or independent photographer offers at least a printable and a web version of every photo. Buy only the size image that you need for your job.

5. How much do you want to pay and for how long to you want to use the image? This comes down to royalty free or rights managed. If you dont want the chance of your competitor using the same image or you plan to use the image on or for a product you may want to look at rights managed. This will cost you more but it will lessen the chance of your competitor using the same image. Keep in mind that if youre using the image for an extended period of time you will have to pay for the use of the image every year or so. If you dont feel that your competitor using the same image is a threat or you dont have the money for rights managed photos look into royalty free photography. This product is also great if youre planning to use the images for an extended period of time.

I hope these tips help to get you started in choosing stock photography for your web site, business, or product. Remember to shop around and look for what you need. Also if an agency or photographer doesnt have what you need ask, you may be surprised how helpful they can be even for specific requests. If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

Selecting Good Stock Photography in the Age of Digital

2007-11-29T23:00:00.001-08:00

Selecting Good Stock Photography in the Age of Digital

by: Beth Brodovsky

The business of stock photography has drastically changed over the last few years. Ten years ago, selecting photographs for your brochure or newsletter meant spending hours pouring over stock photography catalogs and ordering photo research to find the exact image. When the order came in a giant overnight package, designers would spread transparencies out on the light table, squinting through a magnifying loop to check every detail.

Enter the digital age.

High speed Internet connections. CDs. Searchable Archives. Royalty-free stock. These elements have changed the face of communication design forever. The quality, quantity, affordability and accessibility of stock imagery have made it the resource of choice for many organizations.

The advantages of instantaneous access to searchable archives of good images are numerous.

Speed :: We can never have enough of it. Search. Download. Import. Its remarkable.
Choice :: Searching "stock photography" on Google delivers 1,470,000 results. You can find pretty much anything out there.
Price :: While there are free resources, unless you are doing a school report, you may need something slightly more exclusive. Also, many of the free images are only good enough for online display and the selection is very limited. Royalty-free images are reasonably priced, you pay for only the size youll use and images can be used as needed with no extra charges.
Flexibility :: Image selections can be grouped, saved and emailed to others in the review cycle. People in different locations can simultaneously review ideas.
Archiving :: Some companies even keep a record of your buys that you can re-download whenever you need them. To use this resource effectively, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.
Plan ahead :: Will you ever need the picture to be printed? The low cost of "low resolution" images can lure you into costly mistakes. Images need to be 300 dpi (dots per inch) at the size they will be printed.
Low-cost tradeoff :: Pictures are now so affordable, everyones buying them. That means your image could show up in your competitors brochure. Some projects call for more exclusive imagery.
Image-enhancement :: When you need something totally unique, such as your product in the shot, it may be more economical to hire a photographer than to have your designer spend countless hours in Photoshop trying to get it just right.
Availability :: Good images still cost money. While many firms have images on file, dont expect your designer to have a database full of images right for your project.

When searching on the web, search for "stock photography" rather than doing an image search in Google or another search engine. Google returns all images from the web -- including those that are the property of others and not legally usable.

Beth Brodovsky is the president and principal of Iris Creative Group, LLC. Brodovsky earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, New York. Before launching her own firm in 1996, she spent eight years as a corporate Art Director and Graphic Designer, providing a sound foundation in management and organizational standards and structure. Iris Creative specializes in providing marketing and strategic communication services to clients in service industries and small businesses. For more information contact Beth at bsb@iriscreative.com or 610-567-2799.

Terms Used the in the Stock Photography Business

2007-11-29T22:59:00.001-08:00

Terms Used the in the Stock Photography Business

by: Kelly Paal

So you are a small business person or web designer and you want to purchase some stock photography for your website. Great. Photography is a wonderful way to improve the emotional impact of your site. But there are a few terms unique to the stock photography business that you should know.

Royalty Free - youll see this term often. What it means is that you pay a one time fee for an image and you can use it for as many times as you want for as long as you wish. It is a great way to get inexpensive photos. Now if you are concerned that your competitor would or could use the same image as you, photographers and agencies can continue to sell the image after you purchase it, then you need:

Rights Managed - this one is next term youll see. This means that you pay a fee for the image based on how, where, how long, and how many people will see the image. This one will cost you a lot more in most cases. This is worth it if you do not want your competitor using the same image for the same purpose. Usually the stock agency or photographer also agree not to sell the image to others in your field for the time that you are using the image. So you can see why this option protects your use of the image but youll also pay much more for this protection. Remember too that, at some point, you decided to discontinue using/paying for the image the agency or photographer can then sell the image to someone else, even someone in your field.

Flat Rate - this term isnt quite at common but it is similar to royalty free. Usually this means that you pay a one time fee for an image, but it can only be used for one purpose by one person. Pricing will be higher than royalty free but less than rights managed.

Copyright - even with royalty free you are still only purchasing the right to use an image not the image itself. All images are property of the agency or photographer who owns them. How do you know who owns them, there is usually a symbol with date and name of the person or agency who owns the image. No matter what you paid for the image you are NOT the owner of the image. This means you cannot remove the copyright information, alter the photo, use it as part of a logo that you own a copyright, or resale the image as your own.

These terms will get you started but remember there can be differences in these definitions from agency to agency and photographer to photographer. Every agency and photographer selling stock images should have a legal or license page to explain these terms and any others that they use, if they dont you may want to move onto another site. Be aware, read all the information, and know what you are buying.

How to Choose Stock Photography for your Web Site

2007-11-29T22:57:00.000-08:00

So youve decided to take the plunge. You know that stock photography is an effective tool for your web business, but where do you start and how do you choose the stock photo thats right for you. Here are some tips to get you started so that you are happy with your choice.

1. Decide where you want to purchase your stock photography. There are large agencies and small independent photographers. While the agencies will have more to chose from and sometimes lower prices an independent photographer will offer more personalized service and opportunities for you to have custom work done, if that is what you need.

2. Dont go in expecting to find an exact image that is in your head, a large agency or an independent photographer will not have the man in a blue suit, holding a cell phone, next to the white blinds nor will they have the beach landscape with the green and white striped chair. You need to have a clear idea in your head of the message that you want to convey and search for an image that creates the message that you want. (If you want something specific youll have to pay for a photography to shoot to your specifications.)

3. Make use of a free comp image to try out the image and make sure that it fits with your project or web design. Most stock agencies offer some sort of free comp image for position only so that you can make sure that you like what youre going to buy. Please use this option, if available, and make sure that the image is going to convey the message that you want it to.

4. Pay for what you need. Dont pay for a 300 dpi image for a web design, and dont buy a 72 dpi image for something you intend to print. Make sure that the agency or independent photographer offers at least a printable and a web version of every photo. Buy only the size image that you need for your job.

5. How much do you want to pay and for how long to you want to use the image? This comes down to royalty free or rights managed. If you dont want the chance of your competitor using the same image or you plan to use the image on or for a product you may want to look at rights managed. This will cost you more but it will lessen the chance of your competitor using the same image. Keep in mind that if youre using the image for an extended period of time you will have to pay for the use of the image every year or so. If you dont feel that your competitor using the same image is a threat or you dont have the money for rights managed photos look into royalty free photography. This product is also great if youre planning to use the images for an extended period of time.

I hope these tips help to get you started in choosing stock photography for your web site, business, or product. Remember to shop around and look for what you need. Also if an agency or photographer doesnt have what you need ask, you may be surprised how helpful they can be even for specific requests.
If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

1. Decide where you want to purchase your stock photography. There are large agencies and small independent photographers. While the agencies will have more to chose from and sometimes lower prices an independent photographer will offer more personalized service and opportunities for you to have custom work done, if that is what you need.

2. Dont go in expecting to find an exact image that is in your head, a large agency or an independent photographer will not have the man in a blue suit, holding a cell phone, next to the white blinds nor will they have the beach landscape with the green and white striped chair. You need to have a clear idea in your head of the message that you want to convey and search for an image that creates the message that you want. (If you want something specific youll have to pay for a photography to shoot to your specifications.)

3. Make use of a free comp image to try out the image and make sure that it fits with your project or web design. Most stock agencies offer some sort of free comp image for position only so that you can make sure that you like what youre going to buy. Please use this option, if available, and make sure that the image is going to convey the message that you want it to.

4. Pay for what you need. Dont pay for a 300 dpi image for a web design, and dont buy a 72 dpi image for something you intend to print. Make sure that the agency or independent photographer offers at least a printable and a web version of every photo. Buy only the size image that you need for your job.

5. How much do you want to pay and for how long to you want to use the image? This comes down to royalty free or rights managed. If you dont want the chance of your competitor using the same image or you plan to use the image on or for a product you may want to look at rights managed. This will cost you more but it will lessen the chance of your competitor using the same image. Keep in mind that if youre using the image for an extended period of time you will have to pay for the use of the image every year or so. If you dont feel that your competitor using the same image is a threat or you dont have the money for rights managed photos look into royalty free photography. This product is also great if youre planning to use the images for an extended period of time.

I hope these tips help to get you started in choosing stock photography for your web site, business, or product. Remember to shop around and look for what you need. Also if an agency or photographer doesnt have what you need ask, you may be surprised how helpful they can be even for specific requests.
If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

Photographers Worldwide Unite to form their own Royalty Free Stock Photography Library

2007-11-29T22:55:00.000-08:00

United Independent Photographers from around the world unite to form an affordable Royalty Free and Rights Managed Stock Photography Library.

At last, a stock photos library offering the highest quality stock photography royalty free stock photos, rights managed stock photos at one flat rate, low price and the actual artist receiving all the payment... No agency commission!

Beginning with a royalty free stock photography photo library called www.Flower-Photos.co.uk back in 2002, you may guess correctly that it was focussed (no pun intended, honest!) on flowers, plants and tree with some really high quality close-ups that made me feel as though I was entering another world.

As the art director, graphic designer and website designer of a garden centre, garden center to our American cousins, which was the flag ship of our group and our group belonging to the UK's largest chain of independent garden centres, I was in the perfect location to photograph flowers, plants, shrubs and trees at the drop of a hat.

The website really took off, paying for its self, the film and processing including scans from Fuji Labs UK and then began making a profit. Not a huge profit but enough to plough back in and expand the library.

I was contacted from a number of horticultural photographers over the first few years but declined their portfolios as I simply didn't have the time to manage a team of photographers and their work.

Over the years however, I couldn't ignore some of the quality of work being submitted and it wasn't just flower photography, it was every theme imagineable.

In 2004, with many of my own photographs, all the photos from www.Flower-Photos.co.uk and the sister site www.My-Flower-images.com I launched an all subject royalty free and rights managed stock photography website and image library called: www.Photo-Image-Stock.com or www.BuyRoyaltyFreeStockPhotography.com with 6 other photographers from around the world contributing a wide spectrum of themes from food photos and cuisine to motorbikes to landscapes and seascapes... it grew and grew and now in June 2005, there are 20,000 photos up on the site and that's only a small percentage of what I still have waiting to be sent up with more being submitted every week!

I and the library don't take a penny or any commission from sales. The payments go directly to the photographer, I get a larger viewership as there's more to see and hopefully broaden my chances of actually selling some of my own photos! I was sick of paying $200 for an image from stock photo libraries and then as I went through the online form and entering where the image was to be used and how many issues were to be printed, the price soar to $1,500 or more!

I thought it was about time someone started a library offering really high quality stock photography at a flat low cost price that didn't get higher the more editions or posters were being printed, where it didn't matter if the photo was being used on an inside page of a magazine or the front cover, where you could use the image over and over again with no additional charges.... www.Photo-Image-Stock.com provides just that - One flat rate of $77.00 / £40.00 / 58.00 for a single image and discounts for multiple image purchases as below:

2-4 images (10% discount): $69.00 / £36.00 / 52.00 per image

5-9 images (20% discount): $61.00 / £32.00 / 47.00 pi

10-19 images (30% discount): $54.00 / £28.00 / 41.00 pi

20-40 images (40% discount): $46.00 / £24.00 / 35.00 pi

The majority of stock photos are taken using slide / positive film but where digital cameras have been used, only the highest quality digital images have been accepted.

The slide film used is either Fuji Velvia or Sensia at ASA50 or ASA100, then the film is processed at FujiLab UK and scanned to CD at 450dpi and a physical size of 20cm x 13.5cm (8" x 5.5")

which is higher than the industry standard requirement of 300dpi but means that these images are crystal clear if used as a front cover of a glossy magazine.

There's also a second option for web designers or for those with low budgets so low they can't even afford our low rates, subscibing to our service for a low monthly or annual rate and downloading almost an indefinite number of medium res' photos high enough res' to be used on printed material if reduced in physical size but easily high enough res' to be used for in-house posters or on web pages.

I set out to provide excellent quality stock photography at a very low and affordable price that would enable graphic designers, web site designers, art directors, picture desks and anybody else, to stretch their budgets further and not choke every time they ordered a photograph from an stock photography library.... I hope I have accomplished this in some small way.

Anybody wishing to purchase our images can visit us at the websites above and any keen photographers with quality work wishing to submit their work can also find a submissions page with further information on our website also.

Neil J Bradford studied Fine Art, Graphic Design and Photography at St Albans College of Art and Design, Watford College of Art and Design and Watford Technical College between 1979 and 1984.

Selling Stock Photography for Amateurs

2007-11-29T22:54:00.000-08:00

It may have crossed your mind at some point that you would like to sell your images with some of the photographic stock agencies online. You may have then visited their sites only to be put off by the costs involved with regard to the equipment needed to "produce the goods". Many of the larger agencies need file sizes of 50MB which require professional or semi-professional equipment and for which the costs run into thousands.

What a lot of people don't understand is that there are "micro stock" agencies that cater for a different market altogether! You see, the huge image files required by the larger agencies are what are needed for large advertising or marketing companies that need to either show off exceptional quality or reproduce the images in print, at greatly enlarged proportions. But what about the rest of the world?

What about small companies that cannot afford the rates offered by large stock agencies? What about the sole trader or self employed that simply needs a few decent images for his/her website or small marketing campaign? What about colleges or faculties that have a strict budget but still need good images for their workshops or tuition? This is where you come in!

The agencies I am talking about, only need good, nice clean images of 2.5 megabytes or above which can be produced by cameras of around 3 mega pixels or higher. This would include your everyday advanced digital compact like a Canon Sureshot for example.

The cost of buying the images is kept very low for the consumer as the file sizes restrict the applications for which they can be used, but are perfect for the type of outlets I have just described. Therefore the payout is less to the photographer but sales happen a lot more frequently and you can earn yourself a nice residual income for as long as your images are online. Obviously the more you have the more you earn.

It doesn't mean that you can send any old tat in; the images must be clean (in all respects), interesting, well taken and well exposed. The agencies normally have a "wants" list which is excellent as it lets you know exactly what you have to do to earn money! Apart from anything, it also gives you more of a reason to go out and make use of your camera in a more exciting way.

There is a forum on the site that I use and recommend, that has a bunch of regulars that are always there to lend a hand with advice, hints and tips and also to give inspiration and motivation. It has a community of photographers that will put you at ease and help you on your way to earning money from your camera, and I can guarantee you will make friends there too.

After I had registered (which is free), I was a little bemused by it all as I had only ever used the larger agencies, so before I uploaded any images, I introduced another photographer to them. He had about 20 moto-x images on within a week and sold 6 of them immediately. I uploaded 1 image after that and sold a copy that night. I then uploaded 48 more, 5 were rejected but I sold 18 of the others within a week. I then submitted another 90 and so it goes on, all very exciting as the sales stats are updated every 15 minutes and you cannot help but keep "refreshing" the page!

It is by no means my main source of income, but the way I see it, I can upload smaller copies of the 50MB files I have on with larger agents here and add another stream of revenue for very little work. If you have images sitting around on your hard drive, or would like a reason to get up in the morning and go out and do something constructive, give it a go, there is nothing to lose.

One word of warning though, read very carefully the criteria for uploading images. If you consistently upload rubbish, your account will be suspended for 6 months pending review. I suggest that you read the submission guidelines for all stock agencies at my site here;

Selling Stock Photography at "All Things Photography"

and look for the yellow information box halfway down the page.

This will require work and a bit of commitment, but you can earn some nice pocket money here from your hobby and some of the regulars earn a good living from it, but you must follow and abide by the rules.

Good luck and hope to see you in the forums!

Nick Stubbs
www.all-things-photography.com

Nick is a professional photographer with over 20 years experience in wedding, portrait, industrial and advertising photography. He is a member of the SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers) and BPPA (British Professional Photographers Association).