Now It’s Easier Than Ever To Sell Digital Photos Online

September 2, 2009
by Danny Haberg

Now you can sell digital photos online and make great money by using sites on the Internet called micro stock photography sites. By offering your photos in a high resolution format and are considered ‘good stock’ photographs you will succeed.

First thing you must do is to learn how to take the shots that are good stock. These are photos or sometimes imagery that is available to be used for specific uses and can be licensed.

Art Directors, graphic artists, designers, marketing professionals and advertising agencies have made this type of photography very popular in websites, magazine ads and marketing brochures. They don’t want to hire a professional photographer for common images so the buyer will license an image and commission is paid to the photographer. You can read books on how to take stock photographs that are qualified for licensure but here are some tips:

Do not be fooled into thinking that the snapshots you have taken in the past or the shots that are touristy will be good candidates for sale because these are not what the professionals are looking for. They need to be desirable for designers and art directors and commercially in demand. Check out some of the professional sites on the Internet for photography and study the shots listed there to get a feel for what is selling.

Never submit any photographs that come with logos, trademarks, third part images and brands to any micro stock photo agency. They will immediately reject these items. If any of your photos contain a person in them that is recognizable you will be required to submit a model release form along with the image. Most agencies have their own forms but there are also standard ones that will work just as well.

Before deciding on a website that you will sell digital photos to, sign on some and look through the website. Take note of the images that are stocked and ask yourself if your photos are equal in style and quality. Usually you will be able to see how many people have viewed the photo and also the times that it was downloaded.

You will want to visit some of the websites that are currently selling ‘good stock’ photos. You will want to view what images are listed for sale on these sites and see if your photos compare to the style and quality that are posted up there. Also, check how many times the photos have been viewed and downloaded to see what the activity is on the website. Logging on to the community forum on these agencies websites and speaking with some of the people that have photos on there for sale will help answer some of your questions and also help you to decide if your photos will be good enough to post on these websites.

You will want to list your photo in as many categories as possible on the photography site so that when buyers are searching for images they will be more likely to see yours. Buyers will use categories to search as well as keywords. These keywords are also important and you will want to pick the best ones that you can to describe your photograph. There are places on the Internet that you can search and find keywording tools to get the highest quality keywords available.

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