When people have financial problems, they are considering any options that allow them to generate additional income. If you are interested in photography, you can make good money online. For this purpose, there are special services on the Internet - Photo banks, we will look into how to make money from photographs in this article.
Photo banks are special resources where photographers can sell their work. Users who need high-quality images buy photos, and the author receives a certain amount from each sale. It should be noted that a business on photo banks can bring good profits.
The most popular photo banks offer to take an exam. If they pass the test, the author can earn decent money. With the right approach, such work can become your main source of income.
To make a decent income from photo banks, at first, you need to devote a lot of time to this. The most important thing for beginners is to fill out a portfolio. It should contain a lot of quality interesting works. It is advisable to upload fresh pictures every day. Before you put your photos up for sale, you need to process them in a graphics editor. And you also have to spend a lot of time on this.
At first, the earnings will be ridiculous, but over time everything will improve. Beginners often wonder how much they can earn from photo banks? You get 20-30% commission per image. At first glance it may seem that this is very little. But each photo is sold many times, thanks to which you can earn about $20 every day. It’s not difficult to calculate how much you earn on photo banks per month. At least it's 400 dollars.
To receive $100 a day, you need to upload at least 1 thousand photos to your portfolio. Professional photographers who have several tens of thousands of works in their portfolio receive more than 20 thousand dollars a month.
In addition to making money on photo banks, you can start making custom photo books. This type of activity will bring good additional income.
If you want to make good money, you need to take pictures high resolution. You should not upload photos from your phone to popular Russian photo banks to make money. To work, you need to buy a camera with good resolution.Before you start working, you first need to decide on the topic, and also carefully analyze the demand in this segment.
It is advisable to work with foreign photo banks, since our people are not yet accustomed to paying money for images. Of course, there are such clients, but they are very few. But in Europe and America, photographs are bought daily in huge quantities.
In addition, foreign users pay good money for pictures. You can get paid 3-5 dollars for one race. But they can be downloaded an unlimited number of times.
When you upload your work, don't forget to add keywords as these are the keywords that buyers use to search for relevant images.
First of all, in order to make money on photo banks, you need a good camera. Another important tool is a PC, as well as a certain set of programs. You need to ensure constant Internet access to download photos at any time. In addition, you will have to work with an image editor. You also need to learn how to make vector drawings.
Persons who have reached the age of 18 can participate in photo sales systems. This is especially true for foreign resources. To register, you will need a scan of your passport or driver's license. If you want to work with foreign resources, you need to know English language, maybe with a dictionary.
For example, you have your own Internet project and you need unique images for it. Hiring a photographer for these purposes is too expensive, so the owners of web resources prefer to buy photos from a photo bank. Thanks to this, the number of images sold is constantly growing. It’s not just web designers who buy their favorite photos. Some users decorate their homes with them.
Any photo bank of pictures puts forward certain requirements for photographs. Basically, they are almost all the same:
We should also talk separately about the quality of the photographs. They are bought for website design, printing advertising posters, production souvenir products and other things. The higher the quality, the more often your work will be downloaded. Remove all unnecessary noise, and also fine-tune the colors and sharpness. Images with distorted colors, double outline or other defects are not allowed for sale.
Don't forget also that the photo should be interesting. Therefore, you should approach this process creatively. Try to beat each image, and it will definitely bring you a good profit.
Most stocks accept not only photos, but also vector images, 3D graphics, and videos. The main buyers: advertisers, designers (including web designers), and less often - private individuals.
Photo stocks as a way to earn money can turn into a source passive income. When using a Royalty Free license, the same photo is posted on several sites and can be purchased an unlimited number of times. Over the years, things turn into partly passive income: you receive payment for work done a long time ago.
Thanks to placement on the resource, the photographer does not look for customers on his own; he uploads his pictures to the site, and the stock acts as an intermediary in their sale.
Images are purchased all over the world; on most sites, payment is made in dollars and transferred through foreign payment systems. So the stocker does not depend on the economic situation in the country.
Main disadvantage– for a good profit you will need to upload a lot of new photos almost every day. The first few years will be spent understanding the audience's needs and developing photography skills. You will start receiving money quickly, but the first amounts will be small.
First, we register on the photo bank website. Large sites ask you to provide scans of documents (mainly foreign passports) and pass a short exam. Upload photos (5-10 pieces), censors evaluate them and decide on your registration.
Beginners are advised to start with simpler photo stocks, without exams. But you should register immediately and everywhere, and on large venues Same. Large photo banks bring more money, and participation in exams increases the level of the photographer and adds useful experience.
The work of a stocker looks like this: create and upload an object, select a relevant title, description and more keywords, wait for verification, receive payment.
How can a beginner make money on stock photos? Get into a “trend” (take photographs on popular topics) or take photos that others cannot take.
But it is not the artistic, but the practical (commercial) value of the product that is important. It is most often bought for business, and complex ideas are not appreciated.
To understand which direction you should move, study photo bank reports: which keywords have the largest number of customer requests.
Popular topics for selling photos:
To put up images of people for sale, you must attach a model release confirming the person’s consent to use the photo with his or her participation.
To start on photo stocks, you need to have basic knowledge of Photoshop, for artists - Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator. In most cases, the requirements for image quality are high, so you need a SLR camera. Branches of well-known drains or separate resources have appeared, intended for photographs on mobile phone. This app is Clashot from Depositphotos, EyeEm, Foap, Twenty20, Lobster.
The main requirements for images uploaded to the photobank:
To have a good income, post on at least 5-6 portals. The most famous:
The stock photo commission is 30-70% of the cost of the photo. On average, a photographer receives $0.14-0.3 per job for a one-time download. In rare cases, you can earn up to a thousand dollars per photo (many sales). A successful picture actively brings profit in the first six months, then it is purchased less often. Before continuously using photo stocks, you need to immediately create a portfolio of 100-200 images and constantly update it. It is recommended to add at least five to six new pictures per day.
A good photo brings in about $0.5-0.7 per month. With a thousand works in a portfolio, a photographer receives about $600 monthly. This figure is realistic provided it is placed on several stocks.
To understand how to make money on stock photos, study current trends in the field of visualization, reports, popular images and techniques of popular photo stockers. In the future, it is worth developing and promoting your own website, which will allow you to access the Internet without intermediaries.
Nowadays you won't surprise anyone good quality pictures. Modern digital photographic equipment has become accessible to any consumer. And with it came the opportunity to replenish your wallet - making money on photo stocks. Only relative liability can bring from 500 to 1000 dollars per month.
Amateur photographers doubt the real realization of their creativity, which can become a source of income. Although in today's market, non-professional work is highly valued. Unlike staged ones, they are lively and emotional.
It is important to know which photo stock platforms and in which direction to start your career.
Amateur photos can become top ones
Photostock is an online platform where a large volume of photographs, vector images, videos, music files, and 3D graphics are stored, which can be legally purchased for personal use.
For example, to design a veterinary clinic, you need photographs of animals. You can purchase them on photo stocks for a small fee.
To find out how this payment ends up in the author’s account, you need to understand the concepts of microstocks and photo banks.
In a technical sense (registration, downloading material, etc.) these platforms are no different. But there is a fundamental difference in the licensing issue. On photostocks and microstocks, uploaded photos can be downloaded by users countless times. Moreover, each download brings the author from 25 cents to 1 dollar.
The photobank pays significantly more for the material, purchasing copyrights. Thus, this image can be sold only 1 time.
Types of purchased licenses on photo platforms:
License for stock photos
When searching for works on the site, customers use sorting by popularity, size, orientation (portrait/landscape) and keywords. When uploading images, you need to consider the need for a relevant work title and description.
The Internet space contains dozens of photo stocks and photo banks. The most popular and reliable photo banks for making money:
Shutterstock Official Website
You can also use the services of BigStockPhoto, CanStockPhoto, Crestock, Lori, Istockphoto.
The peculiarity of making money using photo stocks is that after working once to create a photo, the photo begins to work for its owner, bringing passive income.
For each image, several smaller sizes are generated. The cost of downloading also depends on the size.
The main interest in images arises in the first six months after they are posted on the site, but sales can continue further. The most popular ones are downloaded up to 15,000 times.
Individual vector elements are in demand, rather than complete compositions. They are used in filling websites, in printing, etc.
Raster graphic and traditional drawings (watercolor, pencil, etc.) are a separate topic for sales. The big minus is filling out special forms for property.
It is most profitable to sell work for commercial purposes for the production of mouse pads, postcards, calendars, etc.
The client pays the photo bank, and the photo creator receives a percentage for each download. It can be 30-70%.
As a beginner, you can earn up to $80-100 per month. When adding several thousand pictures to your portfolio – up to $500-600.
The main benefit is passive income for multiple downloads
Calculation for example. The portfolio contains 200 photographs. In 1 day, a quarter of them are downloaded from different sources - 50 images costing $0.25 each. Total $12.5 per day. Accordingly, per month – $375.
Advanced stockers create and promote their own websites for selling photos on the Internet without intermediaries.
Let's name real examples:
Top photographers earn up to $1000 per month.
Minimum required:
A “cool” camera is not a prerequisite
Knowledge of English will make the task easier, or an online translator will help.
Step-by-step instructions on the process of how to make money on photo banks and photo stocks will prompt further practical actions.
A good place to start is by studying stock reports, consumer demand, and keyword searches. You can start filling a niche that is in short supply, where there is little occupancy, but taking into account your creative range.
Customers of an online platform buy a product for business, so they focus on the commercial significance of the material, and not on a complex artistic concept.
The main thing is commercial significance, and a simple artistic concept
Registration is actually an electronic conclusion of a contractual relationship between the user and the resource. It gives you the right to legally sell your product (photos, drawings, videos, music files, etc.). Data is entered in English.
Shutterstock requires linking documents during registration, the rest - upon the first withdrawal of funds.
For the identification process, a scanned image of the passport and, of course, the international passport are required. In some cases this may be a driver's license.
Image requirements:
There are certain requirements for downloading. It is necessary to indicate in English not only the name and category of the photo, but also to describe it (Description), as well as define keywords (Keywords), from 30 to 50 pieces. Keywords is the main parameter. The more photos there are, the higher the likelihood of being found in a search engine.
From the first photos there are certain requirements for uploading
The exam system exists only on Shutterstock (10 works) and Depositphotos (5). Photos must be of excellent quality (focus, lighting, exposure) with a variety of themes and subjects. Vector illustrations make it easier to pass control.
If 7 out of 10 Shutterstock exam papers are accepted, you will be registered with unlimited photo upload options. And the credited product is put up for sale. If only 6 are approved, the registration application is rejected.
Notification of acceptance or rejection with comments is sent to the specified email. Fresh or revised footage can be sent again after a month.
For a permanent income, you need a portfolio with 100-200 works, which is updated regularly.
A RoyaltyFree license gives you the right to post identical works on multiple platforms. It is important to replenish your portfolio with 5-10 photographs daily.
Thus, earnings from photographs are real and depend on the regular filling of the portfolio and the number of partnerships with stocks.
The more photos in the portfolio, the better
You can fail the exam for several reasons:
The exam can be taken more than once
Few stockers make it past the exam stage. But they get 50-70% of their profit from cooperation with Shutterstock. Therefore, if you fail to pass the control the first time, you need to try repeatedly.
Withdrawal of funds – earnings from drawings and photos – starts from $50. On Shutterstock – from $100.
You can use payment systems WebMoney, Moneybookers, PayPal. The first two, according to reviews, are the most convenient for translations. The PayPal system does not operate in the range of CIS countries.
Foreign payment systems are used
It is best to process the footage in Adobe Photoshop. You can adjust the exposure and color correction, set a white background, remove shadows and add names with keywords (File -> File Info). To remove noise, use the Imagenomic Noiseware Professional plugin, installed separately in the program.
It’s better to start with 1, maximum 3 photo stocks, but with active uploading of your works in order to get results, and with it further incentive.
Despite the difficulty of passing the selection when registering on Shutterstock, you should start with it, because... the lion's share of the profit comes from there.
Think like a designer making a banner or designing a website or office, like a journalist looking for a photo for an article.
Minimalism in composition – maximum interest. The principle applies: simpler means better.
Main principle: simpler is better
Happy, bright and light photographs attract buyers more than dark and gloomy ones.
You can make money on what is interesting to the customer, and not to the photographer. It is necessary to study demand based on the popularity rating of the photo. Abstraction and landscapes are less in demand.
On calendar holidays there is a peak in sales of thematic works. Especially March 8, Mother's Day, New Year and Christmas, February 23, etc.
Searching for keywords is time-consuming but rewarding.
Familiarity with the rules is mandatory. If you have language difficulties, an online translator will help you. Russian-language photo stocks are simple and easy to use, but foreign stocks bring more profit.
Advantages:
Flaws:
As with any business, there are pros and cons
It is important to assess your strength and readiness to work regularly in this area, which requires a certain amount of time and effort.
A hobby can always turn into a source of income. Beginners have a chance not to get lost. Passive profit from previously done work is the main incentive for selling on photo stocks. Choosing the right platforms, regularity, studying trends, self-education are the criteria for achieving the desired result.
When a photographer begins to think about increasing income from his photography activities, his gaze will certainly be directed towards stock photography. In my opinion, all photographers go through the stage of considering stock photos as an additional or main income and trying to make money from them. The popularity of stock photography among beginners is extremely high due to its attractive business model.
What attracts newbies to photo stocks and photo banks?!
First of all, with its supposedly passive earning model. It would seem that upload photos to stock and sit and count your money. But is this so?!
It has long been noted that to successfully make money on a stock photo you just need a huge portfolio of very high-quality photographs, about several thousand. And all those stories successful income, which you already read before you got to my photo blog, are silent about one essential fact: photographs must be of commercial value.
Here it is highly advisable to understand what photostocks are. There are two options for understanding its essence: selling your photographs and someone else's business. Ask yourself a reasonable question: If any photo stock is successful business its owner, then what approach will this businessman take?! Of course, he will sell what another business buys.
From here we can draw a simple and obvious conclusion: photo stocks need those photos that are in demand by some business. And therefore, it can be argued that all your photos of cats, flowers, surrounding landscapes and your friend Lyudka are simply not needed by photo stocks. These photographs have no commercial value, and it is not photo stocks that determine the demand for them, but a certain business and its customers. The better you understand this, the easier it will be for you to start working with waste.
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
I'm afraid I'll upset you, but the amount of your earnings is unlikely to be large. Most likely it will be several tens of dollars per year. And this phenomenon has its own explanation.
What does your income from photo stocks consist of?! Of course, from the number of photographs sold. Relatively speaking, each photo costs a few cents (0.20 - 0.33 cents) and now, imagine the number of photos that you need to sell to earn a hundred dollars. This is approximately 500 photographs.
It would seem not so much, but this is 500 photographs in conditions of fierce competition and an endlessly falling demand for them. Look at the following photo:
How many times have you seen pictures like this on websites?! Yes, they are everywhere. Please note that the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet makes full use of foreign faces on their sites, and this may indicate several things:
By the way, the above photograph has absolute commercial value. It will sell well because it can be used to illustrate almost any business. Ask yourself a simple question: Will I be able to take photographs of similar quality and content?! By the way, stock photo inspectors may have questions about your photos regarding the content. I’ve heard that some topics, like the above photo of a call center, are so full of the same type of photos that inspectors simply don’t let similar photos through for sale.
So. The first thing you should evaluate if you want to make money on a stock photo is the commercial component of your photos and the quality of their execution, relative to what is already sold on the stock photo. Believe me, the more honest you are with yourself, the more time and effort you will save yourself.
Now comes the fun part. If you can provide stock quality to your photos, then you will already be a very professional photographer whose schedule will be booked for months in advance offline. And it will be easier for you to earn money offline than to wait for someone to buy a couple of your stock photos.
Now, I would like to tell you a little about the subscription system that exists on photo stocks, and how it will prevent you from earning money. One way or another, all photo stocks offer a subscription, within which you can purchase a limited or unlimited number of photos for a certain amount per month or year. It would seem that there’s nothing wrong with it, but look at the screenshots of photostock subscriptions:
All you need to do is divide the cost of the subscription by the number of photos in that subscription, and then calculate your 30-50%. You will receive the amount that you can earn from selling one photo by subscription. Impressive?
What does this mean for a beginner?!
This means that a crowd of subscribers will buy photos at a deep discount and you will earn less money from these sales. Of course, all those clients who buy photographs en masse will use subscriptions, because it costs them less. As I already said, stock photos are a business, and businesses are interested primarily in money, not your photos. I think you shouldn’t expect any actions from photo stocks aimed at increasing the direct income of photographers. There are many photographers, but photo stocks have less and less money.
I remember the epic threads on stock photography forums when stock photography introduced this system. I understand and sympathize with stock photographers, but the howl then reached the heavens.
In addition, we should not forget that there are already photographers on photo stocks who have made a name for themselves and you will have to compete with them. For example: one of the most famous stock photographers, Danish Yuri Arkus. On the Internet you can find his interview, a list of photographic equipment used and the amount of his earnings. He uses professional models, he has several assistants, he has a Hasselblad and yes, he is a millionaire and your competitor. Do you have everything that Arcus and others like him have? I doubt.
What conclusions can be drawn? I guess the following:
Of course, you can object to me, they say, there are photographers who make money on stock and earn quite a lot. Of course, but there are not so many of these photographers, and most stock photographers do more part-time work than they really earn.
And therefore, when I read another success story about how a novice photographer managed to earn large number money, having uploaded a hundred photos to a photo stock site, I am inclined to strongly doubt its veracity. Success in stock photography can only be achieved in one case, if you treat it like permanent job. The work is hard and tedious.
Oh, it's not difficult at all. It is enough to take several hundred photographs of commercial topics, select a description and keywords for them, and upload them to a photo stock. After which, it is sad to observe very weak or even non-existent sales.
I will share one interesting observation. A photographer posting his photographs on a stock photo site does not earn money here and now. He just credits his own business, counting on success in the future, which may not exist.
Before you start working with waste, I ask you to take a piece of paper with a pen, sit down and start writing down all your potential expenses. It is necessary to take into account not only cash expenses to pay for the same models, but also time losses in searching for these models. Add in equipment depreciation, electricity, photo retouching costs, and the cost of administering it all.
As a result, you will get a certain amount, which will mean how much you will credit your expected income from the stock photo. A friend of mine, having made similar calculations, came to the conclusion that it was more profitable for him to take photographs with documents. I can't say he was very wrong.
And if after all, I haven’t convinced you of the uselessness of this activity, then go for it. I sincerely hope you succeed.
*** Everything written refers to the microstock model. This is when one photo is sold many times, but for mere pennies.
Photostocks (also called microstocks) are special services through which Internet users can sell copyright photographs. Initially, the list of possible operations included exclusively the sale of photographs, however, after a certain period of time, photo stocks began to offer the possibility of selling vector graphics, various illustrations, video and audio clips of a wide variety of subjects. According to the established procedure, sales from a user who decides to register on a photo stock will go directly under a license called “royalty free”, without royalties. In other words, sales will be carried out at a relatively low price, but they can be made quite a large number of times. One example can be given in which a user has photographs that have already been sold several hundred times.
Important! By taking advantage of the opportunity to sell the same photo multiple times, you can provide yourself with a constant and stable income.
It is important for any user to know how much do they earn on stock photos?, what efforts need to be made to ensure stable high income. In practice, everything depends solely on your own capabilities (primarily creative), and a little luck. To be able to make money from your own photos and achieve a profitability of 10-15 thousand rubles per month, you will need to regularly upload current photos to the service. In fact, the photographer's fee amounts to approximately 30% of the final cost of the material sold. Thus, after selling a photo for $1, the user can expect to receive a reward of 30 cents (maybe even more, depending on the conditions of work on a particular photo bank). If about a hundred photos are posted daily, a significant amount of money is obtained per month.
In numbers, the ratio of uploaded photos in the user’s assets and income level can be displayed as follows:
But it’s still important to figure out whether it’s realistic to make money on photo banks. This way of earning money is quite realistic, but the user will need the following set of equipment, tools, accessories, and skills:
And, of course, it will be mandatory to have the skills to fully work with all software products, regardless of their complexity. In addition to the ability to work with raster images, you need to learn how to process original photos through vector graphics, in this case, the success of the work will increase approximately several times.
Now it is important to determine what are the best photo banks for making money - how to choose? In accordance with the services provided and the benefits for the potential user, it is worth highlighting several resources:
Having figured out the procedure for working on photo stocks, it’s worth trying this way of earning money.
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