Selling your photographs online
Selling your photographs online can range from a way to earn a little extra cash, through funding all the nice equipment our hobby demands all the way up to a serious money earner. Not all of us will be good enough to fall into the last category, but I hope this page gives you some pointers and saves you a bit of time researching the alternatives.
Equipment required
In theory it shouldn't matter what equipment you have but in practice there are a few features which will help you sell more.
Minimum resolution varies depending on where you hope your images are being used. As low as 3MP can be sold on micropayment stock photography sites but 6MP or higher is generally going to open more opportunities such as traditional stock photography.
Noise levels in your images should be as low as possible. Some sites such as iStockPhoto are very picky about noise so you will really want a camera with a DSLR APS-C sized sensor or larger to reduce noise. Noise reduction software such as Noise Ninja will also be useful.
A polarising filter will improve your images greatly, especially those with sky, water or windows in. A polarising filter will allow you to get rich blue skies, dark green foliage and minimise reflections from water and glass. Make sure youget a circular polarising filter as the linear type may confuse the autofocus and metering systems in your camera.
A tripod is always a good investment for better photos. Even at handholdable shutter speeds all camera shake will be removed, and you will have the flexibility of being able to choose the perfect aperture for the effect you desire.
Post processing can give your images a real edge. Enhancing contrast, reducing noise and a touch of sharpening will give your images that extra punch to stand out and open buyes wallets. Do be careful not to be too heavy handed. Good post processing is an art in itself and I recommend you read the retouching forum at dpreview if you are new to this area. Software doesn't have to cost the earth either. While many people will tell you that Adobe Photoshop is required you can get the Gimp or Picasa for free (although Picasa is quite limited), and Paint Shop Pro is quite reasonably priced.
Ways of selling your pictures
There are several ways to sell your photos online:
- stock photography
- micropayment stock photography sites
- selling prints through a fulfillment site
- selling your prints directly
Stock photography has existed for many years but it is only since the widespread adoption of the internet that it has become accessible to more photographers. Generally the stock photo provider will take a copy of your images and host them on their website. When people want to buy a photo they can just download it and the photographer will get a proportion of the sale. Many stock photo sites sell images on a royalty-free basis which means the end user doesn't have to pay any royalties: they can use your photo as many times as they like and do what they want with it. To allow your images to be offered in this way there are restrictions on what your photograph can contain, mostly related to copyright symbols such as manufacturers trademarks and some buildings, and recognisable people. It is possible to have a a 'model release' form when your photos contain people, where the subject of the photo signs that it is OK for the photo to be sold on a royalty free basis. There is a further complication to this in that if an image is only to be used for editorial use (e.g. to accompany an article in a newspaper, magazine or book) then the restrictions do not apply.
Alamy is one of the major sites in stock photography. They have a very high standard before they will accept submissions and image files have to be at least a 48MB TIFF, which means a very high resolution camera, upsizing software or a professional film scanner. They take a 25-35% charge on each sale.
shutterpoint is aimed at the small photographer. They take a 15% charge on each sale, plus a flat subscription fee which starts at $15 per year for 50MB of storage space. You can set the price on each of your photographs to whatever you feel is reasonable and you decide on the license for each image between commercial royalty-free and editorial royalty-free. Most photographs on the site are selling between $25 and $40 with resolutions from 4MP upwards.
Photographers Direct allow you much more control over your pictures. You only upload a small thumbnail and the end user of the photograph then negotiates rate and usage with the photographer. In return for the introduction photographers direct take a 20% charge, or no charge if you sign up to their subscription which starts at $333 (£185) per year. Images must be more than 3000 pixels on the longest side. You will need to provide a sample of images when registering so that photographers direct can check your pictures are up to their standards.
Picture Stock are a distribution agency and do not sell your photos directly. They charge a fee for each image you submit and take a 50% charge on any sales. They accept submissions by post and charge you $0.50 per digital image or $0.75 per slide, print, or negative image. After you have sold 3 images you no longer have to pay this fee. You must submit a minimum of 25 images (costing $12.50 for digital images). Your images will be removed from their system after 3 years. They only require low res digital images (1MB) and if any of you digital images are sold you need to e-mail them a full resolution copy.
Micropayment stock photography is a variation on stock photography where the end buyer pays less (around $3) for the photos and the photographer therefore gets a small amount for each image downloaded (e.g. $0.20).
This means that it can take a long time to get payment as you need to sell a lot of images to reach the minimum payout value but the number of photos downloaded from these sites is greater than traditional stock photography because of their low prices, so it is more feasible to have a lot of your images downloaded. You lose all control of your images and it may be galling to see an image that earned you 20 cents being used for a national marketing campaign. You also have to be quite canny to see what kinds of image sell well - artistic landscape photographs are unlikely to appeal to a stock audience. Many of these images will end up being used for business presentations, so strong images like handshakes, blue skies and signposts are popular. Other images will be taken to form composite result so strong textures and patterns could sell well. The most popular images do get many downloads though and so can make a fair amount of money.
When choosing a microstock site make sure you consider how much the buyers are paying for the photos as this will affect how many images they download. If they have to pay per image then they are likely to be more choosy about what they take than if they have a subscription. Also be careful that you know which sales will be earning you money, for example greatstockphoto don't pay anything for images that have been downloaded by one of their weekly subscribers which in my experience is how the great majority of images are downloaded.
| Cost to image downloaders | Payment per image | Minimum payout | |
|---|---|---|---|
| great stock photo | $0.99 per image | $0.79 | payment monthly only through paypal |
| $12.99/week | $0 | - | |
| ShutterStock | from $139/month for 25 images per day ($0.19 per image) | $0.25 | $75 |
| iStockPhoto | $1 to $5 depending on size | $0.20 to $1 (20%) | $100 |
I do not have many images uploaded but in my experience ShutterStock has been far preferable to iStockPhoto. iStockPhoto are very picky about the noise level of images so a DSLR is pretty much essential. They also took longer approving images, and some time after my images were approved they were removed as they didn't meet the noise standards any longer. I have also had some photos downloaded from ShutterStock whereas iStockPhoto has never made me any sales.
Selling prints through a fulfillment site is an easy way of selling your prints - you upload your photos, set the prices and wait for the cash to roll in! You are also assured that your images will only be used to make prints and people cannotuse them commercially for their own benefit. The downside is that there is a reasonably large subscription charge so unless you are quite confident of making a lot of sales you could well end up losing money. Most of these sites work on a base price which is what they charge people for printing their own photos. You set your own print prices for the various sizes, and for each sale the fulfillment site will take off the base price and as their charge they will take a cut of the profit. Most of these sites charge postage and packing on top of your print price - all of which will go to the site.
| Subscription | Charge per sale | Starting web space | Additional web space | Bandwidth | 4"x6" base price | 5"x7" base price | 8"x10" base price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| eventpix extra (photos shipped to you) | $100/year plus from $39.95/month for 60 uploads/year to $99.95/month for unlimited uploads | 10%-12% | n/a | n/a | n/a | |||
| eventpix extreme (photos shipped to customer) | $100/year plus from $39.95/month for 60 uploads/year to $99.95/month for unlimited uploads | 12%-14% | n/a | n/a | n/a | |||
| exposure manager | $9.99/month or $79.99/year | 10% after base price deducted | unlimited | not needed | 20GB/month | $0.39 | $0.85 | $2.45 |
| exposure manager 'Art' | $4.99/month or $49.99/year | 10% after base price deducted | 1GB | 5GB/month | $0.39 | $0.85 | $2.45 | |
| Fotopic premium | £5/month or £45/year | 10% | 1000MB | 2000MB/year | ||||
| Printroom professional | $99/year | 13% + 3% payment processing | 300MB | $20/100MB | $0.39 | $0.99 | $2.99 | |
| smugmug pro | $149.95/year | 15% | unlimited | not needed | 16GB/month | $0.29 | $0.99 | $3.99 |
Selling your prints directly (sometimes called self fulfillment) gives you more control over the process and increases your profits as you just have to pay to get the prints made. However there will be more work involved in processing the orders, having them printed and sending them out.
Selling through eBay is a popular option and it is possible to sell multiple items in one auction to reduce the overhead of eBay's listing fees. eBay will however take a proportion of the final price (about 15%), and if you accept paypal payments by credit card there will be another charge to pay there..
You could set up your own website and when done properly this can look much more professional than pages on eBay. A payment button can be added to your site to one of the online payment services such as paypal. You will then be paying out for web hosting costs, and web design services or web design software (free alternatives exist).
Ktools PhotoStore is a product you can purchase for your website for a one-off cost of $295 that manages a shopping trolley and payment through PayPal or 2Checkout.com. The customer can download a high resolution image file or send an order for prints to you.
Managed services are a way of selling your prints without the hassle of maintaining a website. For a charge the site will host your images, handle payment, take a charge and pass on the remainder to you. You still have to print the images and post them off yourself.
| Managed services | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site | Subscription | Commission charge | Transaction fee | Integration with your own website |
| eventpix essentials | $100/year plus from $6.95/event for 50 images to $39.95/event for 1500 images | none | none | |
| exposure manager | $79.99/year | 10% | $0.50 | |
| express digital PhotoReflect | none | 10 to 15% depending on volume plus 3% payment processing fee |
||
| Labprints #1 | none | 5c/image upload | must handle payment yourself | |
| Labprints #2 | $39.99/month up to 2500 images 1c/image over 2500 |
none | must handle payment yourself | |
| Labprints #3 | none | 15% | 3% | |
| time exposure | $352/year (plus $148/year and $74 setup fee if you don't have a website) |
none | none | Possible |
Good luck in your endeavours, and above all have fun with photography.
disclaimer: while I have made every effort to ensure the information on this site is correct it is important that you check the details of any site before signing up to their services as I cannot be held responsible for any charges they may make. If any of this information is incorrect please let me know.
Dan Pidcock's photography page
Copyright Dan Pidcock 2006