How to Sell Photos

Do you have what it takes to sell your photos online?

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It almost seems unfair to make money of off what you love to do, especially when it is as enjoyable an art form as photography is. Yet a viable market exists to do so. However, to sell photos online or off is difficult, despite passion and talent.

The good news is that good photos are always in demand. So If you have never made a concerted effort to sell photos online or have not had much success in doing so, these tips may help.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Camera
Tripod
Photo-editing Software

Sell Your Photos Online

Step 1

Decide on what type of market is suitable to sell your photographs. Many people look to sell photos online, and this can be done via stock photography (or microstock) websites, an online portfolio and print-on-demand, to name the most popular options.
Step 2

Investigate the competition and pricing structure to see if it is a good match. Note that little money is made per photo on most microstock sites, but photographers who sell many photos tend to do fairly well annually.
Step 3

Avoid more rejections and sell more photos.

Read the directions for stock photo submissions carefully. Rejections often occur because of minor technicality or because a niche is overly saturated (e.g., flowers or sunsets). Stock photo sites vary in their desire, or lack thereof, for image sharpening and other photo-editing techniques as well.
Step 4

Obtain feedback from other photography enthusiasts before you try to sell your photos and throughout the process. Accomplish this by adding photos to a public or private photo gallery. Use this feedback to improve your technique but also put criticism in perspective.
Step 5

Learn what separates photos that sell from snapshots.

Acquaint yourself thoroughly on aperture, exposure, shutter speed and depth-of-field for starters. In combination with good lighting and focus, some mastery of these areas will greatly improve your chances for success.
Step 6

Take many, many shots. Amateur photographers often fail to sell photos as they miss the best shots or over-inflate their focus skills. Twenty-five to fifty shots may be needed of the same scene to get one worthy photo.
Step 7

Ensure that your photos are at highest resolution and use professional interpolation software if needed to meet size requirements. Save photos as the highest resolution TIFF or JPEG, per site requirements.
Step 8

Avoid the overuse of photo-editing software, especially to compensate for lack of photography skills. Often software filters degrade the quality of the photo, and professionals have a good eye for heavily tweaked work. The bottom line is that photo-editing software should enhance but not replace good photography technique.
Step 9

Creative image on royalty-free photos by Spiders at Sxc.hu

Build a photography portfolio to demonstrate your work and optionally sell photos directly. While you are building a name for yourself and improving your technique, try submitting your photography to free microstock sites, such as sxc.hu.

Comments

Lolabug26 said

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on 10/9/2008 Great Article! Very Helpful! Thanks!

lilianne said

on 10/8/2008 Thank you for the article. I took many photos for hopechestjewelry.com and have been thinking about selling jewelry photos to stock market. One thing I am not so sure is that I do use photo editing software and you mentioned it is best not to use it so much. But I will give it a try. Thank you.