How to earn money in Stock Photography

Example Photo

This article explains how to make money from your photography. A good amateur photographer has many photos in their collection that could be earning money now, with little effort on their part.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Good quality digital camera of at least 4M Pixels
• Photo editing software

1. Waves off Hawaii

   Browse through your photo collection and identify sharp, well exposed landscape or nature photographs. Look for ones that do not have visible people or private buildings to avoid copyright issues. The one above is an ideal example.

2. Carefully examine and perhaps reprocess the image to get the white balance correct, good exposure and details in the shadows. Don't have blown-out highlights. Check for noise - tiny speckles of color - and remove if necessary with your editing software.

3. Save the file as a JPEG at maximum quality - this is important to avoid compression artifacts.

4. Join a stock photography site. The ones that are easiest for beginners are Dreamstime and BigStockPhoto. Once you have developed a portfolio of good quality images, you can try Fotolia and Shutterstock - the latter is the best earner for most photographers. Upload your photographs and don't be disheartened if the first few are rejected!

5. Foreclosure Sign

   Once you have learned what works and what doesn't, try taking photographs specifically for sale. This one, for instance, is in big demand at the moment! Good luck.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to find unusual views of landscapes or nature

• Think about how the photo could be used - leave space for words in an ad

• Don't copy someone else's work

• Avoid recognizable people unless you have a valid model release

Resources

• Examples of stock photographs