How to sell your pictures online

How to sell your photos online, or how to sell your illustrations online, or How to sell your pictures online

i.e. how to make money from your camera (film or digital), from your brush and canvas or from your graphic tablet

Introduction

If you are a photography enthusiast you might wonder what to do with your photographs. Probably your relatives and friends appreciate your work, you might have framed a few pictures and placed on the walls, but sooner or later the question will come ‘what’s next?’ There is a possibility to make income from your hobby without becoming a full-time professional by selling pictures via stock agencies. Many amateurs are happy when they are able to offset the cost of their equipment (and their significant others become happy too). Professionals doing for example wedding or event photography could also benefit from submitting some of their work to stocks.

This article is written for photography amateurs and for professionals not experienced with stock photography, and for graphic illustrators. In the beginning it talks about stock photography in general, and compares traditional photo libraries with microstock. After the general part the article provides more detailed information about most popular stock agencies.

This is not a recipe of becoming rich quickly; as with any other business the result will depend mainly on your efforts.

What is stock photography

Stock photography consists of existing photographs that can be licensed for specific uses. Book publishers, specialty publishers, magazines, advertising agencies, filmmakers, web designers, graphic artists, interior decor firms, corporate creative groups, and other entities utilize stock photography to fulfill the needs of their creative assignments. By using stock photography instead of hiring a photographer to perform on location shooting, customers can save valuable time and stay on budget.

Stock photography is sometimes called a photo archive, or just stock photos. Outside the U.S.A. they are generally referred to as picture libraries. (Quoted from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_photography)

Stock photography companies are agencies selling to buyers the photos supplied by photographers and taking part of the price as commission.

Historically photo libraries consisted of slides, negatives and prints physically stored in an archive. Modern stock photography agencies use digital media more and more often, and that naturally allows them to go beyond photography by adding video and illustrations to their media collection.

The advantage of stock photography to photographers is that they can make money from the photographs made without an assignment, otherwise collecting dust in a corner. This is interesting both for amateurs who could start getting some compensation for their hobby expenses and for professionals who often have some unused pictures at their disposal. Another advantage of stock pictures (same for photographers and illustrators) is that successful pictures will sell again and again over the years unlike an assignment work that is only paid once.

Traditional stock agencies are only open to professional photographers. A photographer who wants to work with such agency has to present 300 to 1000 pictures for evaluation and this doesn’t guarantee he will be accepted.

Contrary to that the microstock agencies open to everyone having a few decent pictures. Most agencies have an entry exam, but the number of pictures you have to supply is low (between 3 and 10), and you have several attempts in case you fail. Of course having a limited number of pictures in the portfolio will not generate high income; but it allows amateurs to enter into this business, to generate some supplementary income and to grow further. To give you a practical example, I am a photography amateur with over 20 years experience. After working with microstocks for 1 year I learned more about the technical part of photography than I learnt in the previous 20 years. Thanks to microstock the technical quality of my pictures has grown enormously, and I realize now how many mistakes did I make before.

Since the invention of the computer and desktop publishing, the role of visual messages in the communication process is expanding. It means a growing need in pictures on the market. Also, the designers using the stock images say that every next time they work on the same subject they are looking for new images – i.e. there is not only constantly growing need in pictures; but there is constant need in new pictures.

Traditional vs. microstock agencies

Microstock (or Micro Stock) photography is an offshoot of traditional (macro) stock photography. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies (including a willingness to accept images from “amateurs” and hobbyists), and (3) sell their images at a very low rate (anywhere from $.20 - $10) for a royalty-free image. (Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstock_photography) The value of individual image sale in traditional agencies vary from several tens dollars to several hundred - however direct comparison isn’t valid because of the difference license types. This will be discussed in more details later.

Another difference between traditional and microstock is that the buyers have to search the images themselves on microstock sites using the search engine. Buyers of traditional stocks usually talk to the agents who help them to find what they need.

While traditional stock photography market exists for several decades, the microstock business model is tightly linked with the internet and achieved significant volume within the last 2-3 years. It is not truly mature yet, it continues growing and evolving fast.

The fact that microstock agencies sell pictures for very low price have caused many hot discussions. Many photographers attacked microstock claiming it devalues their work and harms their business. However this is not completely true. Let’s compare traditional stocks with microstock side by side, talking about the price; value of photographer’s work; and impact on photo business.

The price

Direct comparison of prices isn’t valid: majority of traditional stock sales is made under so called Rights Managed (RM) license giving certain rights to the buyer and restricting the rights of other potential buyers. Often usage rights are sold exclusively to one buyer (typically for a limited period of time). Indeed that way of selling means that a high price will be paid for the image (typically several hundred dollars). Unlike traditional RM license the microstock companies sell images under Royalty Free (RF) license. RF license allows the same image to be sold to multiple buyers at the same time; and the same image may be sold by several microstock companies at the same time. This means that the income from one picture in one year sold via RM license could be the same as the income from multiple sales of the picture under RF license even the price of one RF sale is low.

While focusing on the RM license, the traditional agencies sell under RF license too. Typical price of such sale varies from several tens dollars to a few hundred. However the terms of the traditional RF license aren’t the same as the standard microstock RF license so direct comparison is still not valid. The standard microstock RF license restricts the possible usage of the image (e.g. number of copies; usage in internet; usage on mugs and t-shirts may be restricted, etc.) while traditional RF license has fewer limitations. The microstock companies have introduced “extended RF license” that allows wider use of sold pictures. The extended license is similar to traditional RF license; and the price of extended microstock RF license is about several tens dollars i.e. comparable with traditional stocks.

Value of work

Indeed it sounds much better when your picture is sold for $500 comparing with $1 sale. However we are talking about business i.e. about money. The attackers on microstock say that ‘you sold your picture for $1 while you might have sold it for several hundred; why don’t you feel your work is devalued’. However this is an emotional statement, not a real argument. The numbers speak for themselves. The typical average annual income per stock picture sold by a traditional stock agency is about $2 (for example see the book of Lee Frost). It means that having a portfolio of 1,000 pictures in a traditional agency the average photographer will earn about $2,000 per year. The typical average income per picture in microstock agencies is about $0.6-$1 per month, i.e. $7-$12 annually (confirmed by my own experience and experience of several other photographers - and even higher number for more successful/popular photographers). It means that having a portfolio of 1,000 pictures on microstock the average photographer will earn about $10,000 per year.

So, what is really better value - getting $100 for one sale or getting $500 from five hundred sales? I don’t believe that my work is de-valued while it brings me more money than traditional stock.

Quotation from an internet forum: Istock has paid for all my equipment and more. I have a rule, not to buy anything on credit. If I need a lens.. I wait till my iStock accnt can cover it. I did have to start somewhere (D70), but I learned to use what I had to make it to the next level. Dizzo - iStock member since June 2004 - http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=45361&messageid=660258

I must put two disclaimers though: The numbers above is working average. There are successful talented photographers who can do much better (both in traditional or microstock) and there are less successful who will not do that well. Getting 1,000 pictures into your portfolio on microstock site is typically much more work comparing with traditional agency. While you could supply a bunch of slides into a traditional one, and they will do the rest of work for the microstock you have to have all work in digital format, it must be of a high technical quality (i.e. some editing is always needed), you must add the keywords yourself, and you have to upload pictures to the stock, and every picture must pass the inspection.

Impact on photo business

I am not running any stock agency on myself, neither I am a market analyst. Thus I am not in a position to make a comprehensive analysis. This said I do have a couple of comments.

Of course microstock does and will have an impact on photo business. It is a new business model and it’s there. However it is not going to destroy the existing market. When the traditional stock agencies started to grow two-three decades ago it did have impact on the assignment work. At the times of overall economy decline many companies shrinked their photo budgets and started looking for a cheaper alternative to assignment photography. However this didn’t kill the assignment photography business. When fast-food restaurants appeared they did have an impact on restaurant business, but the expensive restaurants continue to succeed.

The primary market niche of the microstock is not the same as of the traditional stock. The microstock is targeted primarily at low-end buyers - small design companies, corporate media etc. There is an overlap and some big buyers source from microstock too but there is no indication that microstock will ever completely replace the traditional stock.

Microstock is a new business model that has already proved to be successful. I don’t believe that ignoring or boycotting microstock (as some people do) makes any sense. The value of microstock is recognized by traditional stock business. The microstock industry leader iStockphoto was purchased for $50 million in 2006 by Getty Images – the traditional stock photography leader. Another microstock company Stockxpert was purchased by Jupiter media (one of the leading companies in traditional stock photography business).

You can read a designer’s point of view in the article “Why Micropayment Stock Photography is a Godsend”

Professional photographer and photo industry analyst Dan Heller has written an interesting article about microstock and his view on why microstock doesn’t really hurt the industry: The myth that microstock agencies hurt stock photo pricing

Open doors

Microstock agencies are very attractive for hobbyist and novice professional photographers because they keep their doors open for everybody who’s capable to produce good quality pictures. Doesn’t matter how few as long as they fit the requirements.

The stock industry leaders (such as Getty or Corbis) basically have their doors shut. They work with a limited number of photographers and they are not interested to significantly increase the number of their contributors. They might occasionally accept an exceptionally hight caliber professional who has a stock of thousands pictures, but that happens rarely.

The smaller traditional stock agencies do accept new contributors, but they are also very selective. Typically, their “information for photographers” page states that “if you are interested to cooperate, submit 300-500 pictures from your portfolio for our consideration” and they assume that photographer’s portfolio is measured in thousand pictures.

That means that photography amateurs or beginning professionals don’t have a chance to get to any of traditional stocks. I must mention a couple of exceptions though: Alamy and Photoshelter are 2 agencies that use microstock supply model but traditional stock sale model.

Contrary to traditional stock, microstock welcomes everybody. Some of them don’t have any entry exam so you can start contributing from as little as one single picture. The others ask 3 to 5 pictures (10 for Shutterstock) for an entry exam, and after you proved you are capable to supply quality images you can add as little as one picture a time. That is clearly an open invitation for all kind of hobbyist photographers and for pro-s that don’t have a large portfolio. The same time it doesn’t really stop the well established professionals to supply their larger portfolio and to compete with the amateurs (that some professionals are actually doing these days).

One disatvantage for professionals that microstock has is that it uses crowdsourcing supply model, i.e. that photographers have to spend their own time uploading pictures, assigning correct keywords, categories, model releases. Typically, the traditional agencies are taking this load off the photographer.

How to sell stock pictures

Technical quality and copyrights

First of all you have to have a few decent pictures (I would say 15-20 as a very minimum) and you need to be able to produce the pictures that will not be considered a “snapshot”. “Snapshots” are typical family pictures, party or touristic ones made with automatic cameras without any thinking behind (about composition, lighting, background, etc). If you only made snapshots so far it’s better to go and learn a bit more about photography before submitting anything to photo stock.

Technical quality of your pictures must be good. Most stocks don’t require very high resolution (typically the minimum is 3-4 megapixels) but your pictures must be clean, sharp, correctly exposed, not having much noise etc. If you use digital camera always shoot in RAW format and never in JPEG.

Stock pictures must be clear of any trade marks i.e. there must be no logos, company names, etc. on the stock picture. That includes clothes and electronics such as mobile phones (it’s ok to have phone in the picture, but there should be no visible logos). Sometimes you can remove the logos digitally, sometimes the picture is simply not suitable for stock. For example you can’t make a stock picture of Time Square in New York - there is too much advertising around. Also, copyrighted objects can not be a primary subject of the picture without a property release (such as Sydney Opera) but they can freely be included in a cityscape pictures. Photos of art work (paintings, sculptures, etc) are unacceptable.

Photographs of naked children/babies are generally not accepted by stocks (because of paedophilia fears).

You can learn more about the technical requirements and about copyright issues on the microstock websites, for example at istock web page http://www.istockphoto.com/training_manuals.php

Right Subject

You must understand that most of the time stock pictures are used as illustrations. Thus the picture with a clear message will sell better than a generic one. For example a fine-art portrait of a pretty girl will not sell as good as a portrait of a smiling girl talking on her mobile phone. Positive messages sells better than negative. People and objects isolated on white background sell very good. Industrial pictures sell good too.

In general it’s a good idea to shoot specially for stock. However some people don’t like that. There are people who like walking in a park and making nature pictures and not photographing anything else. This is understandable and acceptable and such people can still make some money on stock but they will earn less.

The photographs of your cat, your dog or flowers in your garden are likely to be rejected unless they are of extremely good artistic and technical quality. Landscapes work better although it is not the best selling subject - on one hand there are very many landscapes in photo stocks already, on the other hand the demand for other picture categories is much higher. However if you have good quality picturesque landscapes just use them. Nature details can also be accepted and will sell if they look nice and/or if they have a message or illustrate a concept. I started my stock experience with nature and landscape pictures and several of my best sellers are nature/landscapes. An example of a well selling nature picture is a cobweb with dew drops. It illustrates not only spiders but also a concept of the internet.

When you have recognizable people in your pictures you must supply a signed model release, otherwise stocks will not accept it. You can find a generic model release form at the end of the article.

Where to start

It’s harder to get accepted by the leading agencies. They generate best sales so missing them would be a valuable loss for you. Thus it’s a good idea to get prepared with “second rank” agenices first before applying to the “top league”. I would suggest you to start with Fotolia and Bigstockphoto first (and maybe Lucky Oliver). After getting initial experience I would go to Stockxpert followed by Dreamstime. iStock and Shutterstock are better to be entered after having a decent stock experience elsewhere.

Below I will provide additional details about the leading microstock agencies. The links to the agencies contain my referral number. While it is up to you to use it or not during registration I will appreciate you using it in return for my efforts of writing this article and answering your questions. You will not loose a penny if you register with my referral number, but I will get a little commission from the stock if you do so.

Every time you upload a picture to a stock site you have to provide the title, the description, the keywords and category. To save time submitting the same picture to several sites it’s better to put that information into EXIF/IPTC fields while editing your picture(menu File, File Information in Adobe Photoshop, or Ctrl+Shift+Alt+I). It’s crucial to provide as many as possible correct keywords. That’s your only (really useful) marketing tool on the stock sites, so learn to use it effectively. Don’t use keyword spamming (adding popular but irrelevant keywords) but do your best to provide as many as possible really accurate keywords. http://thesaurus.com can help you finding words. Searching for similar photos of other authors and checking their keywords helps too (but don’t copy all their keywords blatantly).

iStockphoto

iStock is an emblem of the micro payment business and is often used aa a synonym of the word “microstock”. Canadian based it’s basically the first microstock agency in the world. It has grown from a designers picture exchange site and is several years old. Powered by Getty Images these days, iStock remains one of the microstock business leaders both financially and technologically.

The downside of iStock being so famous is very tough competition among photographers. Therefore average amateurs are getting less and less income from iStock now comparing with a year ago. However good photographers are always able to succeed.

iStock is the only community-based agency that uses “crowdsourcing” in it’s business model. Image inspection, forum administration are done by selected agency contributors who get a little comission for that (unlike other agencies having paid employees); regular international photographers gatherings are organized and sponsored by iStock. The number of sales of every picture and every contributor is transparent for other community members so you can easily see the leaders and their best sellers and learn from them.

Technical requirements for submitted pictures are hardest at iStock; but the inspectors opinion is the most consistent inspector to inspector and day to day.

After becoming an iStock image contributor, and after making 500 sales you will get an option to become exclusive to iStock. This will give you higher comission and better promotion but you will be unable to contribute to other Royalty Free stocks. Financially this is not as good as staying with several agencies (for most photographers) but many people prefer to save time and efforts by working with a single agency. Almost all top iStock contributors (having more than 25,000 sales) are exclusive to iStock with a very few exceptions.

Typically the pictures you submit to iStock are not starting giving you the income immediately, but good pictures will sell again and again even if you stop uploading new ones.

iStock is definitely a site I advise you to be in, but I would advise you to apply to iStock after having initial stock experience with the other agencies (although not a photographer but an illustrator the exam may be not that difficult comparing with photographic one). You need to supply 3 photos for the exam and you can get a couple more attempts if you fail.

Shutterstock

referral number 56290

Shutterstock is a private American company. It is the only microstock agency that is 100% subscription based (while other agencies either focus on per-image sales or try to combine the two). It is comparable with iStock on the market in the number of images and sales. For very many contributors Shutterstock is number one in terms of income - but only if you constantly feed it with your new pictures.

Photographer’ sales on Shutterstock have a very strong dependency on new uploads. If you have good pictures in your portfolio but don’t upload new ones, the sales will be slower and slower. Keeping constantly uploading new pictures will get your sales growing - not only the newly uploaded pictures will sell but the old ones too.

The image inspectors of Shutterstock are company employees. The judgement varies a lot from one inspector to another. Pictures not accepted one day could easily be accepted another time. Shutterstock is very causious about image noise - they prefer more noise reduction even if it harms some image details (but it still shouldn’t go to a ridiculous extend).

The entry exam on Shutterstock is one of the most difficult. You must submit 10 pictures, and at least 7 of them must be accepted. If you fail you can only retry after one month.

Shutterstock doesn’t have exclusivity in any form. While Shutterstock isn’t a community the contributors forum is as active as the one on iStock.

Shutterstock is definitely a site I advise you to be in, but I would advise you to apply to Shutterstock after having initial stock experience with the other agencies.

Stockxpert

referral code miklav

Stockxpert is a hungarian company that is currently owned by Jupiter Media. Stockxpert is growing fast and can generate decent sales (for some photographers Stockxpert has came to the first place, for others it still stays behind Shutterstock - but it depends on the content of the portfolio and it’s growth).

5 pictures are required for the exam. Stockxpert is reasonably selective with the content and quality of the pictures, i.e. it accepts pictures a bit easier than iStock but not as easy as Fotolia; and the rejections are reasonable and understandable. No nudity at all, and even non-nude photos with erotic elements often rejected.

Similarly to Shutterstock, photographer’ sales on Stockxpert usually depend on the new uploads. Keeping uploading new pictures will get your sales growing - not only the newly uploaded pictures will sell but the old ones too.

If you are not sure about the quality of your work I would advise you to apply to Stockxpert after getting initial experience with Fotolia and Dreamstime.

Fotolia

referral number 5253

Fotolia is younger than market leaders but has grown quite big. European based although has offices in several countries worldwide. Most image sales are european.

Doesn’t have an entry exam; accepts supplied images very easily but rejection criteria aren’t clear (I have the impression that sometimes rejections are random). The sales usually start slow at Fotolia but more advanced photographers having portfolios above several hundred pictures report good and growing sales comparable with iStock and Shutterstock. My own portfolio isn’t that big yet and my sales at Fotolia are behind the leaders. Fotolia was recently upgraded website/engine to version 2 and according to several microstock contributors the acceptance is more difficult now than it used to be.

Fotolia is more open to artistic pictures comparing with the other microstock. Grainy, black and white pictures are accepted without problems.

While Fotolia is open for microstock beginners it does not provide a really good learning. Still it would be a good starting point to “try the water”.

Dreamstime

referral code res63233

Dreamstime is Romanian-American company. Typically it generates less sales than the top leaders, but it isn’t too far behind. There is no entry exam; and the image review criterias are similar to iStock. This combination makes Dreamstime a good place to start learning stock photography.

Dreamstime suggests optional image exclusivity (you will get higher commission if your image will be exclusive to Dreamstime) and photographer exclusivity (similar to iStock when you can’t be a contributor to other agencies if you become an exclusive Dreamstime photographer). Taking into account the lower sales at Dreamstime comparing with the market leaders exclusivity doesn’t make sense from financial point of view.

Bigstockphoto

referral code lYzAKgVABL

Bigstock is a smaller stock that haven’t achieved the same pace of growth as the ones described above. Still a nice site that is able to generate a decent profit for some contributors. No entry exam that makes it easy for beginners; but accepts most submitted pictures thus not providing a good learning opportunity.

[Update Sep-2007] The performance of BigStock has been declining for the last months, so I am not sure if it is worth the effort. May be it’s better to put the efforts towards 123rf.

123rf

referral code src_miklav

123rf used to be in the bottom of my list. However, it has been growing recently and now it seems to start taking the former place of Bigstock (for now they are going head to head).

While the sales aren’t high, 123rf can still add a few per cent to you stock income.

Crestock

Crestock is a young but growing Scandinavian photo stock. When they started Crestock was extremely picky accepting very few photos.

LuckyOliver

referral code MikLav

Is young (started summer 2006) and growing stock agency. The management is trying to make it funny and informal. Owned and managed by an experienced enterpreneur it has a good chance to become a big market player although at the moment the sales aren’t impressive at all.

update Dec-2008: after 1.5 years of work and constant communication about their progress and system upgrades, the sales are still very low. Many people complain about that in LO blog and in the forums. It generates much fewer sales (if any) than each of the sites mentioned above.

You have to submit 3 pictures for the exam.

Alamy

Alamy is not a microstock site. Alamy is a traditional stock but operating via Internet and open to amateurs unlike the other traditional agencies. Being a traditional stock it generates higher per-picture income from one sale, but the sales are much much less frequent than at microstocks and you have to have at least several hundred pictures in your portfolio in order to get regular sales. Until recently Alamy only accepted TIF files on CD/DVD, however they moved to JPEG recently and enabled upload via internet.

Other micro stocks

Canstockphoto, Stockphotomedia, geckostock and other - make very low sales and in my opinion are not worth the effort/time to upload pictures, attach model releases, select categories.

You can find a generic Model Release Form in English here. You can find a generic Model Release Form in French here.

Mikhail Lavrenov
Last update: January, 2008

Feel free to contact me if you have further questions about stock photography.

You can send an e-mail to [email protected]