Stock Photo sites

Questions & Answers
41

This.

And this

Most times its better to target your audience.

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42

Had the same reason for a shot of a church that was if thick mist.
Itā€™s mostly automated systems that reject.

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43

I had lots refused due to ā€œnoise grainā€ I recently bought Adobe photoshop and just ran an autofix, resubmitted and they were mostly accepted.

A few were rejected again as I titled them as Leyland Motors test track (as they have previously approved some with that title), i removed the reference to motors and they approved them. They donā€™t seem to like anything that is named unless you have a release form, if I submit any saying Blackpool tower thatā€™s a guaranteed refusal but if I title it Blackpool sea front itā€™ll go through.

It isnā€™t a big earner if you are just a hobbyist, I think my earnings are $1.71 at the moment, it has to get to $35 before they pay out, I think it is going to be a long wait :thinking:

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44

I have made $17 something in two years - I am going to be rich :rofl:

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45

Nice one mate, I would be in talks with an architect designing my house. :smirk::rofl:

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46

Anyone had much luck with PicFair?

I signed up a few days ago, had every imaged excepted (27) and even had 3 images starred. (Which means there really good) apparently. It costs nothing to sign up and create a shop and if you sell anything thatā€™s a bonus.

Has anyone done well from this?

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47

Very little to tell the truth. Iā€™ve sold a few bits and bobs, but nothing I would call ā€œstockā€ more from picking a niche (my area mostly) and promoting locally. I guess it just sits there and costs me nothing though. I was featured on their Instagram account and monthly ā€œbest ofā€ mailout which both drove views but no purchases. I think picfair is a little small for a stock site but is ok for general sales. The proper stock sites have some VERY good shots on them and realistically Iā€™m never going to compete unless an editor is looking for a specific place. Iā€™ve been trying to use it in tandem with my Instagram to see if that helps.

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48

Thanks Lee, yes I saw you had pic of the month, well done mate :clap: I seem to be racking up views 90 views in a few days. Probably all mine lol :man_facepalming: but like you say its free so what halm can it do just to leave them there. :+1:

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49

Nice one, iā€™ll take a look, might have some better odds than Shutterstock!

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50

I thought Iā€™d try some images on PicFair, got about 70 on there at the moment. No sales, but Iā€™ll leave them there for now and see how it goes. In comparison Iā€™ve about 900 images on Alamy and total sales to date are around $6K. Iā€™ve been supplying Alamy for over 10 years now. I think the days of big picture sales are gone though. When I first joined Alamy my first photo sale was $475, now they average about $50 per image and Alamy gets 50%. The way I look at it is, I shoot landscape images anyway and as well as sitting on my hard drives, they may as well be on the picture agency drives, doesnā€™t cost anything.

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51

Ah nice John, thanks for the info mate, is alamy as tough as shutterstock to get your images processed?

Think you right though, so many people creating great images these days itā€™s a tough market.

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52

Yeah Steve, the market is saturated. Iā€™ve never used Shutterstock, but yes Alamy is pretty tough. Thankfully Iā€™ve never had any rejections, but was told the main cause for rejection of images is over sharpening.

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53

I may look into it mate, thanks for the info, canā€™t do any harm just sat there and if they sellā€¦ bonus! :+1:

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54

Initial submission used to be 10 images and they scrutinised each one, if one failed they all did. As you build up your numbers of images QC select a percentage for checking.

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55

This may interest anyone thinking of selling their photos on photo agencies. For years Iā€™ve supplied www.alamy.com with landscape images (DSLRā€™s) and recently decided to upload some of my photos from my Mavic 2 Pro. All were accepted and there were no issues with quality control. Delighted to say that 5 of them have sold over the past couple of months for calendars, corporate use and marketing. Iā€™ve also been shooting images on my Mini 2 and although they are smaller in file size (Alamy used to have a minimum file size) Iā€™m going to try uploading them too. I was initially wary to send them Mini 2 pics in case they failed quality control (this affects your ranking), but will give them a go.

Pretty sure there was some discussion on selling photos recently but couldnā€™t find it in the search, although Iā€™m sure someone will be along shortly to merge this :thinking: :joy:

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56

Thanks for the merge, I did search for this threadā€¦ honest! :blush:

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57

Now you need to kick off in a different thread about why it was merged :joy:

Great to know you have made some sales and there wasnā€™t an issue having them excepted.
Well done mate :clap:

58

Iā€™ve had a similar experience with Alamy. I have about 1200 images with them taken on a pro DSLR. I started about 12-15 years ago and the sales were good, typically $400 per sale.
I kept on adding each year and carefully key wording to get good search hits. However a couple of years ago the sales fell off a cliff. ie. very few and low value. Also Alamy keep increasing their commission. I donā€™t bother with it now but still get the occasional payout from them. The best sales are corporate use. My best was use in a corporate mag. @ $800 for one image. Thatā€™s never happened since. Typical sales now are less than $20. Less commission and exchange rate!
The best sale I ever heard of on Alamy was $12000!!
Good luck all. Itā€™s a numbers game now. You need thousands of great quality and well key worded images to make a decent return.

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59

Thanks Steve :+1:

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60

Yeah, $400 sales were the norm years ago. As you said itā€™s a lot lower now, though one of my recent sales was $200, a M2P stitched pano image taken in the Scottish Borders.