Royalty Free Images

Tuesday 20 May 2008

The humble potato scone and a cup of tea



The humble potato scone and a cup of tea

Two potato scones, sitting very comfortably with some bacon and fried bread AND a cup of tea, the tea being in a somewhat appropriate green and white hooped mug.

This image is another victim of Fotolia's search engine. Nonetheless it is still one of the best sites to buy and sell photographs and design.

Potato scones are a very popular breakfast item in Britain and Ireland. In Scotland they are known as Tottie or Tattie Scones. In Ireland, Farls and the rest of Britain, Potato Cakes. They taste best fried, but in these health conscious days, they aren't bad toasted either.

Sorry about the ugly watermarks, but this image is part of my 'for sale' images. If you really need to use the image, get an unwatermarked copy, here. Like I said, this image is a victim of Fotolia's search engine. The link will take you to my portfolio, where you will find the image in the latter (i.e. higher numbered) pages.

Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

The humble potato scone

The humble potato scone

Two potato scones, sitting very comfortably with some bacon and fried bread.

This image is another victim of Fotolia's search engine. Nonetheless it is still one of the best places to buy and sell photographs and design.

Potato scones are a very popular breakfast item in Britain and Ireland. In Scotland they are known as Tottie or Tattie Scones. In Ireland, Farls and the rest of Britain, Potato Cakes. They taste best fried, but in these health conscious days, they aren't bad toasted either.

Sorry about the ugly watermarks, but this image is part of my 'for sale' images. If you really need to use the image, get an unwatermarked copy, here. Like I said, this image is a victim of Fotolia's search engine. The link will take you to my portfolio, where you will find the image.

Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

Friday 2 May 2008

Hooray for fotolia

As much as I love being a 'microstocker', one of the things that really bugs me is not being told who has licenced my images, where they are being used and for what reason. Neither do I know the ins and outs of why this is. Client confidentiality is the obvious thing that springs to mind, and there may be data protection issues, so I can understand why this info isn't released.
Fotolia are one microstock company that has at least partly addressed this. When you work your way down your list of sales, each sale in the right hand column has a link marked which takes you to a sales page showing the following info.

Download details

Thumbnail Bouncy Castle
Download date 2008-04-22 11:27 am
Downloader name hidden
Downloader company name hidden
License Type M Standard
Credits 3

Now I have hidden the downloader and company name, but the info I get to see, is enough for me to do a little searching and get an idea of who might be licencing my images and where they are being used.

So far I have seen that my images are being used by these sort of companies, organizations and individuals:

Reasonably well known design companies
Training and management consultancies
Some higher profile design companies
Computer memory manufacturers
Children's clothing manufacturer
Film and Television Production
Multimedia solutions providers
Computer Games Developers
Telecommunications industry
Domains and website hosting
Communications specialists
The Aerospace industry
wedding co-ordinators
Religious communities
Water ski-ing training
Major Medical Journal
Water ski-ing training
Audio Visual solutions
Property developers
Advertising agencies
network technology
Event management
Calendar producers
Corporate solutions
Sign manufacturers
Hotel management
Travel companies
Media consultants
Catering industry
Sticker designers
Equities brokers
Marketing execs
Print companies
IT infrastructure
Stage designers
Food packaging
Embroiderers
Toy-makers
Health care
Art supplies
Publishers
Artists

Being a microstocker can have its down-moments, but just knowing that my work is reaching such a spread of businesses etc, gives me a little lift.

Well done Fotolia


Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

Thursday 24 April 2008

What is Microstock Photography?

What is microstock photography?

(the short answer is, it is like Flickr though with earning potential for you... but read on).

Before understanding what microstock photography is, it is worth knowing what stock photography is.

All the images you see in your daily life have to come from somewhere.

These images are primarily supplied by photographers and designers, though typically they will get into the media via a stock agency. Stock photography consists of existing photographs that can be licensed for specific uses. Publishers, advertising agencies, graphic artists, and others use stock photography to fulfill the needs of their creative assignments. Professional photographers submit thier work to a stock library, or stock agency. When a publisher, for example, needs an image to illustrate a book, they will approach a stock agency to supply them with their needs. The publisher will be supplied with an appropriate image under licence from a stock agency for a fee, which is split between the agency and the photographer. Traditionally the cost of these images can range from hundreds of Dollars, Pounds or Euros up into the thousands. It would be easy to think that professional photographers are well paid - they do still have equipment to pay for though. But let's move onto microstock photography.

Microstock photography puts the earning power once mainly enjoyed by a professional elite into the hands of the amateur or hobbyist.

In other words if you are an amateur or hobbyist, your images no longer have to sit on your hard drive doing nothing - they can now earn you at the very least enough money to pay for your hobby - at the most a very good living (the reality is that the majority of 'amateurs' use microstock photography to earn a few extra quid or dollars to help pay the bills, but cash is cash).

Microstock photography is an offshoot of traditional stock photography. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they

  • source their images almost exclusively via the Internet,
  • do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies (including a willingness to accept images from "amateurs" and hobbyists), and
  • sell their images at a very low rate (anywhere from Pennies to pounds, Cents to Dollars or Euros) for a royalty-free image.

Initially some photographers are put off by the apparent low-earning potential per photo BUT, where a traditional stock photographer would earn a healthy amount on one image ONCE or maybe TWICE, the nature of microstock photography is that you can be earning small amounts per image OVER and OVER and OVER.

A number of microstock sites also sell on your behalf, vector art, and some sell Flash animations and video, as well as images.

Each microstock company uses a different pricing and payment scheme. Photographers can upload the same pictures on multiple sites or, with some agencies, become an exclusive supplier and receive an increased commission and additional benefits.

There is no fee to post photos on a microstock site. However, microstock companies do not accept everyone or all photographs, though if you can take a technically sound image of 'typical' stock requirement your images will be accepted. Each employs a team of reviewers who check every picture submitted for technical quality, as well as artistic and commercial merit. Photographers add keywords that help potential buyers filter and find pictures of interest.

Have a look for yourself, I have included links below to my favourite microstock agencies.

Don't blame me if you become addicted!
Royalty Free Images


Fotolia


Stock Photos, Royalty Free Stock Photography, Photo Search




Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

Keywording

Keywording


This is just a really quick word about keywording. Nobody likes doing it, but it has to be done. Keyword BEFORE you upload. Use IRFANVIEW (it is free). Load your image into Irfanview, Press I, click the "IPTC Info" button, enter the info into the fields (use the tabs as well), click write on the dialogue box when you are finished, and you are done. Make a copy of the info you entered, either as a text file or excel file - whichever suits you.

Why keyword before you upload?

Because you only have to do it once. If you upload to multiple microstock site and don't keyword (i.e. add IPTC info), you will need to keyword for every site which as well as being mind numbing is unnecessarily time consuming.

Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

Tuesday 22 April 2008

oops!

oops!

Don't worry. No-one has slipped up, tripped up or spilt milk. I post this image here to show you the type of simple image that can earn you money on microstock.
This is exactly the sort of thing that publishing houses often look for, but deadlines dictate that it can't be 'knocked up' in-house. I have these and similar images spread across a number of stock agencies. They don't take long to make and, most importantly, they sell.
You will notice this is watermarked YayMicro, so I may as well tell you that at the time of writing Yaymicro is a new stock agency which is currently building up its seller/image portfolio. Yaymicro, until recently, were only granting membership by invite only - the current situation at the time of writing is that anyone wishing to sell can join - I don't kow if they will be reverting to invite only for sellers, when they open their doors up to buyers in June 2008, so it is probably best not to hang around sign up now and have your images ready for their first buyers!

Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics

Variety - and a small selection of my stock

Being new to Microstock means I haven't settled into any 'niche' or corner. Not only are my photographs varied, but also the bits of graphic work I do from time to time has a certain variety.
I don't see variety being a bad thing at this stage - the microstock industry needs this. This is encouraging because the beauty of microstock is that it is attracting those who have otherwise treated their photography as a general hobby - and only a hobby. What microstock is doing for the general hobbyist is allowing them the opportunity to make some money from images that would otherwise be hidden in a hard drive, or seen once a year at the local photography club. Although I may be wrong, in my experience the general hobby photographer has not settled into a speciality - their pictures have a healthy variety, which is healthy for the stock industry.

Unwatermarked versions of these images are offered at the following sites, for use in a variety of situations from simple website illustration to top-end advertising campaigns.
Alternatively rather than buy images, you might like to sell your photographs and artwork.

The following links are agencies where you can buy and sell photos and artwork.
Most of the photos you see on this blog are images I sell regularly through these agencies. If you can take a better picture than those I have on this blog, you will easily make money. Good Luck.

istockphoto

Fotolia

Dreamstime

Bigstockphoto

Yaymicro

Mostphotos

Featurepics