“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.”
― Ruth Reichl
Have you ever though about contributing your photos to stock libraries?
If you have ever thought about contributing your own photographs to stock libraries, then you will certainly be interested in this page.
Here I will provide you with some of my own knowledge, gained from experience, regarding the stock library market, and getting started.
My aim is to:
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help you understand the market better,
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give you an idea of the quality of images required,
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speak about the different libraries that sell stock,
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speak about workflow and editing,
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provide basic information on the best way to enter tags and titles,
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share with you all the helpful tools which I use to get the job done.
A) Introduction to Microstock
1) The micro stock photography market:
According to the Shutterstock’s 2015 Contributor Earnings Report
Contributors in 150 countries submit photos, vectors, illustrations, and videos for their 1.2 million customers. They have more than 500 million all-time downloads, and in 2014 they paid
$83 605 000.00 to contributors.
In my experience, Shutterstock is currently the top library as far as sales are concerned. But there are many other libraries out there, and many of them are extremely competitive in the micro stock market.
2) Which libraries
There are hundreds of libraries out there. Some of them cater only for one or other of the many stock products, but most of them are starting to diversify to include photos, clip art, video, sound, websites and more. To get and idea of the different types of libraries, have a look at the future library on my home page.
My top libraries, as far as sales are concerned, are:
1) Shutterstock,
2) I Stock,
3) Fotolia,
4) Big Stock (owned by Shutterstock),
5) Dreamstime,
6) Deposit Photos,
7) 123 RF,
8) Canva,
This is only as far as my personal sales are concerned, and only for the time of writing. Obviously in a dynamic market such as this things can change and will change over time. Different contributors will also show different statistics as style, subject matter, and quantity will differ from person to person.
B) Expected Quality
All libraries set their own individual quality standards, and not one is the same as the next.
Basically you can say that the libraries that sell best tend to have higher standards for the photographs the select. In the end it is important to remember that the selection process is still done by humans (thank goodness), and that there will always be a degree of personal interpretation when your photographs are selected. Quite often an image of mine will be selected by one library, but declined by another library with the same standards. The point which I would like to make is that you can not take the rejection too seriously considering the amounts of images they have to verify on a daily basis.
Almost every library has a selection process for new photographers who would like to join their company. This process consists most of the time out of two tests.
1) Portfolio
First they will ask you to submit a certain amount of images, anything from three to ten, which they will judge. Again, standards differ, some libraries also judge your style of photography and decide if it will fit with their library. Make sure that you always hand in your best photos all of different subject matter and never similar images. With these images it is also important to select photos that do not crop the subject matter, and which are shot with maximum depth of field. Any image with subject matter (even if it is not the centre of interest) that is not in sharp focus, will not get accepted.
These images are your most important images, they must be of the best possible standard technically, and they must not be too creative.
Technical standards include:
a) Sharpness: The centre of interest must be pin point sharp while everything surrounding the centre of interest must also be sharp (lots of depth of fields).
Absolutely no camera shake is acceptable, all images are viewed and judged on 100% enlargement, so make sure you check your images on at least 100% enlargement as well.
Do not over sharpen your photos while editing, preferably you should not sharpen your photos at all, this is left for the client to do once they had a chance to play with the image. Too many people sharpening an image at different stages plays havoc with an image.
b) Exposure: Your photograph must be correctly exposed from the start. Exposure can be adjusted while editing, but this usually leads to other problems such as background noise (especially in the shadow areas).
Noise can be reduced on the editing program, but this comes at the cost of sharpness, only the tiniest amount of noise reduction will be accepted.
c) Contrast: Your images should not have too wide a range of contrast; the final printed product (such as in a magazine) almost always lead to a reduction of quality, especially as far as contrast is concerned. A magazine print can not handle contrast as well as your computer screen does. This does not mean that you must hand in flat images, just do not go too wild with the contrast. it is still very important to show images with good lighting technique. (keep it interesting).
d) Copyright: your images must have signed model releases or property releases attached if required. each and every library provide releases for you to download. It is important to download and look at these releases as they could be very different to the releases that you are used to. If you sign up to more than one library you will also have to take the most complete release and edit it so that it shows no company or photo library name. This way you will be able to use one release for all the libraries.
2) Test
Except for handing in a portfolio of your best photos to be judged, most libraries also provide you with comprehensive information on their expectations which you have to study, and then, when you are ready, you need to complete an online test with them. To pass you usually need to get around 90 percent of the answers right, so it is important to take your time and go through the information.
All the information is relevant and will only serve to improve your understanding of what is expected of you. Each library does not have the same test, so make sure that you study the information provided to you by each library before you write their test.
Most libraries will allow you to immediately submit new images if they did not accept your portfolio, but not Shutterstock. With Shutterstock you will have to wait two months before you can try again.
My advice is for you not to apply to Shutterstock for at least two months of regularly uploading images to some other libraries as this will give you a time to become familiar with all the ins and outs as far as image quality is concerned.
The last library to apply to before Shutterstock is (in my opinion) Fotolia as they have almost the same standards.
A good library to start with is probably Deposit Photo, not that they are without standards, but, because they have a well designed website that is user friendly for contributors. With Deposit photos you still have to make sure that all the metadata you supply is correct and comprehensive, so it gives you a good overview on how most libraries function.
C) Once Accepted
1) Quantity:
Once the library has excepted you, you can start uploading your images. some libraries have a limit to the amount of images you can submit per week or per day, while others will allow you to upload as much as 5000 images a day.
Some libraries might penalise you by reducing the number of photos you may submit per given period if too many of your images are declined.
A lot of work goes in to uploading images and you do not have to hand in thousands of photograps every day, week or month in order to be successful. It is more important to concentrate on quality as per above, and on consistency as per below.
2) Consistency:
The most important thing for success is consistency, I make sure that I upload at least twenty photos per week. You might want to upload something every day if that works for you. As I mentioned before; The consistency is more important than the quantity.
In order to achieve good consistency it will definitely help if you have build up a supply of photographs before you start submitting. I was fortunate to have done a few overlanding trips as a photographer tour guide before I started submitting to the photo libraries. The photographs I took during that time are still in my “to be uploaded” folders which I stagger on a weekly basis. It is almost a year later.
3) Specialise or Not?
There are arguments for both whether you should specialise in on field, or weather you should build a broad base of different subject matters. I personally am to interested in all forms of photography to specialise only in one field.
A brought base of different subject matters does provide security, but I am the first to admit that my photos may never be as good as those of the people who obsess over one specific subject matter.
Other advantages of specialising is the fact that you get known for your field of photography, as well as the fact that you get to build up specialised equipment for that field. Studio equipment is expensive and if you specialise in wildlife photography you can invest that money in more appropriate equipment and tools.
Fortunately, if you are still to curious about all the different types of photography, and not ready to choose a direction, it does not matter with stock photography. You can always start specialising once you find your passion.
4) “All In” or Stagger?
I have noticed that some photographers will submit to the photo library all the photographs of a specific shoot at once. I have given it some thought as to the benefits to such an approach but still I am not convinced.
All libraries allow the buyer to search for their theme under “Most Popular” images, “Recent Images” and sometimes also “Random” or “Unnoticed” images. Remember that the amount of images uploaded on a daily basis is staggering. For any given theme there are millions of photos. An image uploaded today is lost among the masses very soon.
Now this is important because:
Most libraries also allow you to link your similar images with each other under your own chosen theme. For example, all my photographs of Lilly the golden retriever are linked with each other and also with the photographs of Blokkies the labrador pup under the theme “Pets” as soon as the photos has been accepted. This way, when I upload an image of Lilly today, it is likely for that image to appear on page one under “New Images” for a short while at least. If a buyer click on that image of Lilly the golden retriever, the website will also show the buyer all the linked images somewhere on the same page. This way a buyer will still be able to easily access all my images of Lilly, even the ones on page 9,999,999… which I uploaded months ago.
To stagger the shoots of similar images helps you to keep your images alive for longer. You also stand a better chance of having similar images accepted to the library if you stagger them on a weekly or monthly basis than if you upload them all at once.
So far the only advantage I can see in uploading all your similar images at once is the fact that they will be noticed on the “Recent Images” page while they are still in the top three pages, simply because there are so many of them. If this increases total sales of any specific image it will lead to that image going to the top of “Popular Images” which is exactly where you want to be. My problem with that theory is that with sixty similar images spread over three pages, buyers are unlikely to all choose to buy just one specific image among all of them.
I am still of opinion that staggering is the way to go. As a matter of fact, I hold the opinion, together with several of my colloquies, That the two most important things you can do to have success with stock photography is consistency and staggering and linking your images.
D) Tools:
The most important tools which I use on a daily basis are:
1) Camera Gear:
a) The best camera body I can afford.
b) More importantly; The best lenses I can afford.
c) A good tripod that is steady and stable.
2) Lighting system:
I use very old second hand Elinchrom studio lights - the quality of the light they give to me is still equal to what it was when they were brand new, and most likely equal to any brand new lights on the market today.
Even if you do not use studio lights, the important issue is knowing what your system is, and being familiar with how it works, and what are the limitations.
All equipment have limitations; studio equipment are extremely limiting out in the field, and almost impossible to manage unless you have at least one assistant. The point is that what ever your system is, even if it is only natural light, there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you understand it, and know how to work with it.
Remember - it is all about light, even in the digital era, that simple basic essence of photography has not yet changed.
3) Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop:
From the start, create a folder system that works and that works for you in Lightroom. You should always be able to find a photograph when you need to.
Although you can survive for a while with only a basic editing program you still remain a fool to try. You now can download Lightroom and Photoshop together for only $9.99 per month. It is very important to avoid monthly instalments when you start off in a new venture that takes several months to start becoming profitable, but this is one you should not skimp on.
Finally, always complete all your metadata in Lightroom before you export your files.
The best possible time saving thing to do is to complete all the metadata for all similar files at once after importing them. Once you have important your files you select them all under “Libraries: and then you click on “Sync Files” A new tab will open with hundreds of options of information categories which you can enter. The important ones are Title, creator, copyright name, and copyright status. Finally, right at the bottom of the screen is Keyword Tags - this is the most important one to sync as it will save you three lifetimes of time should you do it this way instead of individually.
4) Internet:
Get fast internet, and unlimited internet as you will surely get your value for money from the word “go”. I would argue that “unlimited” internet will take priority over speed if you have to check the budget.
5) pickworkflow.com
Pickworkflow is a program on the internet which allows you to upload all your images to an interface on the internet. This interface allows you to, once again, look at all your file metadata and allows you to fix any problems regarding the heading and description as well as the tags you entered for each image.
Once you have done that you go to a page which will show you all your uploaded images from top to bottom against all the libraries which you belong to from left to right in a grid system. You pre-connect to your chosen libraries before hand with FTP connection (FTP stands for Fan Tastickly Phast upload).
Now you simply click which photo should go to which (if not all) stock library, and Pickworkflow sends all them at the same time to the chosen libraries at the cost of $0.01 cent per image per library.
You can alternatively use the File Zilla FTP uploader which is completely free, but you need to upload individually for each library.
If you submit to ten or twenty libraries the amount of time saved with Pickworkflow is well worth every cent spent.
You can also extend the keeping of your files on Pickworkflow at the cost of $0.01 cent per three months per image, so if you only start submitting for a new library with in a couple of months, all you have to do is click the buttons.
Also note that you can connect PickWorkflow to Lightroom so that you export from Lightroom directly to Pickworkflow.
Once you are using Pickworkflow, go to the “research” button, and try out the “Stock Photo Research Tool”
6) Wikipedia:
I often use Wikipedia to assist me with keyword ideas. As a matter of fact, I have used Wikipedia so much lately that I have even decided to make donations to the site as they are totally dependant on donations to do the amazing thing they do. My donations are still small, but for understandable reasons.
7) Spreadsheet:
I was first not sure if it is worth keeping track of my sales, but I am extremely glad that I did do so from the start. Many a time when I was despondent did I only have to go and have a look at the figures for me to realise that things are going forward, and at a much better rate than what I am imagining. I keep track of my sales per week per library which I then easily can transfer to monthly and total sales per library.
I also keep track of quantity of sales per subject matter as that gives me valuable information regarding to which of my photographs sell the best, and therefore I know what I should spend more time on.
E) Conclusion
So this is my practical advice for any person who is interested in joining the stock library market. The goal was to:
a) help you start submitting images to some libraries, by being successful in your applications to those libraries.
b) Provide you with the knowledge of a system of working to be most effective, regarding the sales of your images.
c) provide you with the knowledge of the most important tools I use to continue submitting effectively.
I am very sure that I would have missed out on some important information which I would have liked to have given to you, but I will continue refining things as well as adding new stuff where required.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any specific questions that I might be able to help with.
For more information, of which there is plenty of, go to Wikipedia to search Stock libraries, they give great information on the recent history of the industry. Also search for “Royalty Free” while you are there.
Oh yes - do not forget to search FTP on Wikipedia to find out what it stands for and how it works.
Finally; it takes time. Do not expect to make a living wage for at least the first six month to one year, but if you are dedicated you will start seeing worthwhile results within the first three months, and from there on it will only be upwards, as you watch the income increasing.
If you are ready, just click on the library tabs below, and you will be taken directly to the relevant pages for new contributors.
Regards
Jacques Jacobsz
