Many free online photo storage and photo album websites offer users the opportunity to select from various templates and designs before creating an online scrapbook. If this is the case for your online photo album, why not consider printing some of the templates you find? Wouldn’t it be neat to have a digitally remastered photograph and paste it in your existing scrapbook surrounded by the same artistic details you always use?

Embracing the usefulness, safety, and the practicality of an online photo album and online scrap-booking center will ensure that your photographs stay safe and preserved forever. Electing to create an online scrapbook is no reason to give up your scrap-booking hobby. Your goal should be to use your online scrapbook as a supplement for your existing copy, as well as a tool to improve upon your work. You can get ideas from different pages in different albums you find on your site. If you locate an album that you find particularly enjoyable, as well as creative, consider using some of the same ideas not just online but on paper as well. With a little practice, it won’t be hard to create some of the most beautiful scrapbooks you’ve ever completed.

Online photo albums are great way to supplement any photo collection. With the mass amounts of storage space available, any photographer can store hundreds of photos online without taking an added space at home. With the touch of a button any photograph can be recalled instantly and used in a variety of different ways, including a scrapbook.

Digital photo printers and new digital imagery ensures that any photo that printed from an online source looks as authentic as any photo developed in a lab. Because we’ve come so far in our photographic technology it’s becoming easier and easier to use photography, scrapbooking, and a host of other photographic developments as creative outlets for pent-up energy.

Scanning is also a great way to take advantage of this growing trend. You can gather your old photos together and scan them in one at a time. Take a few days to do it – in fact, saving those old precious photos is well worth taking a few weeks of time to accomplish this very important task.

If you’ve never considered an online photo album, but you have a passion for photography, today may be the best day yet. Consider performing an online search to help you in your quest for finding the best free online photo album website. You’ve heard that old adage that states the best things in life are free… well that couldn’t be more true than in the case of the online photo album! So if you’ve got that creative itch, today’s the day to scratch it. What are you waiting for? Get out there and see for yourself!

This of course has created a situation where the demand for digital images is far exceeding the supply. It is not just web designers that are after digital images. It is also banks, insurance companies, teachers, magazine editors, entrepreneurs, eBay sellers, scrap bookers, lawyers, realtors, illustrators, business people, affiliate marketers, online vendors, marketers, professors, students, chefs, administrators, travel agents, graphic artists, clergy, merchants, writers, advertisers, executives, retailers and, and, and I think you get the idea.

This demand for images has created a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a digital camera (both professional and amateur) to create a secondary income stream by selling digital photos to online stock photography sites (also known as microstock photography sites)

The question that arises of course is what type of pictures should a photographer take in order to generate the most sales? The following paragraphs will point you in the direction of some sure fire winners.

People on stock photo sites usually buy photos of electronics, businessmen and women, money and other photos that may be beneficial to their websites or businesses. The great thing about stock photo sites is that there is no limit to the amount of photos you can upload. The more you shoot and upload the more money you will make.

In the Electronics category you are looking at things like computer monitors and keyboards, pc mice, DVD players, speakers, televisions, computer printers, car audio, cameras, mp3 players and other electronic equipment. These photos can be spruced up (for instance removing the background to make them generic and therefore useable in more instances) with some simple photo editing software.

In the business category pictures of businessmen holding money, briefcases or pictures where businessman are in communication with each other sell like hot cakes. Be creative: take shots in various environments i.e. office shots, pictures of your subject walking, talking on the stairs outside a building and pictures of people brainstorming. You can easily slip one of your friends or family members into a business suit and have them model for you. The key requirement of course is that they look professional.

Additionally photos with blank signs or pictures where your customers can easily edit or customise the pictures are also great online sellers.

There is also a massive market for good nature shots. It is important that there is an element of uniqueness and it is quite often best to edit your nature shots in some type of photo editor. It is more difficult to describe the types of nature shots that sell well in words, than it is describe the other categories that are listed.

Of course it needs to be said that the best means of researching what types of images are popular is by using your own eyes. It is rare for someone nowadays not to spend a good portion of their day in front of a computer screen, and through your web browsing you can begin to discern themes coming through as certain types of images that appear again and again.

This is where the money is. This is what you should shoot.

One way to do this is to ” rel=”external nofollow” target=”_blank” href=”http://www.squidoo.com/get-paid-to-take-pictures”>submit your pictures on stock photography sites that would pay for your photographs some pay as much as $50 and they would own your pictures as well as the royalties for it. But there are those that would allow for residual income because they would give you royalties every time your picture is bought or used. This is much better than the first one but might take a while for the profit to be cashed in.

Exposing your work online would help you on your actual offline work as well. If you become relatively known to local companies that need actual photo shoots to be done by a professional.

Being able to know that kind of pictures to take and upload will be essential for you to get the revenue that you want from the pictures that you take. Variety is still a must.

Even after you have placed some of your photographs on stock photography sites you can also target clients by means of putting up your own site that can be affiliated to the sites that you frequent. People love photographs as they are still very quaint reminders of the past.

It is highly recommended to join as many as stock photo sites as you can. Also learning which photos get sold or downloaded more is crucial if you want to earn more money taking photos.

There are many amateur photographers who are making a pretty side income simply by taking and uploading photos online. So why not join in the bandwagon?

What You Can Sell

For those people, who have no idea about photography, a photo is just a photo, but for people who are familiar with photography and arts in general, there are separate distinct groups of photos. The most obvious distinction of photos is based on their content, but for the purposes of selling photos, this distinction is not as important as what the photo can be used for.

The two major uses of photos are for the Web and in print. Web photos tend to be low resolution and lower quality is acceptable for them, while print photos generally are high resolution and low quality is unacceptable. As a beginner photographer, you will most likely target the Web market first because the entry barrier there is not as high as with the printing market. Additionally, if your camera is not a high-end one, your skills in photo processing will hardly be able to compensate for this, so in this case, print photos are not an option for you because of technical reasons. This shouldn’t discourage you because the Web market is vast and there is a lot of space for beginners.

The main buyers on the Web market are Web designers, who make sites for their clients. For many Web designers it is much easier and cheaper to buy ready-made photos than to take the pictures themselves. A solo Web designer can make 10 or even more middle-sized sites a month, which means that he or she will need at least 200-300 photos and illustrations. This does not mean that you will be able to sell 200-300 photos a month to each Web designer you contact, but even if you manage to sell him or her 10-20 photos a month, or more realistically a batch of several hundred photos for him or her to use in the next year, then you can make a lot of money.

Similar to other arts, photography also has genres. Not surprisingly, photos of people, nature and cities sell best. Another category, which is especially popular with designers, is objects of different kinds. You can shoot a light bulb, a pen, some pills, or whatever object you choose, and this may be enough. Add some unobtrusive background to it and you get a cool photo for a Web site. But be careful with copyrights because not all manufacturers will be happy if you shoot their products and make money from this. Try shooting generic products, which have no visible branding.

Similar copyright issues apply to people. If you want to shoot people and you want to be on the safe side, ask them to sign a model contract, which clarifies all the issues in regard to copyrights and sales. Very often you won’t have to hire professional models and you can shoot your friends and relatives instead. Your models don’t have to be extremely beautiful because pictures of ordinary people also sell well. Shooting friends and relatives has one more advantage – they work cheaply or free.

Nature and urban photos are always in demand, but avoid photos which look as if they were taken by tourists because they simply look too unprofessional to be sold. Abstractions are also popular, so if you are creative with PhotoShop or another image processing program you can wake up the Picasso in you.

Where You Can Sell

The type of photos you have is one of the major factors in choosing your sales channels. Basically, the options to sell your photos are the following:

1. Stock photo sites. Stock photo sites are the most popular sales channel. Stock photos are photos you have already taken, i.e. you have in stock. You open an account with a stock photo site, upload your images and every time somebody downloads your photo, you earn a commission. Different sites have different policies, but it’s not unusual to earn $40 per photo each time it is downloaded.

If your photos are popular, it is not impossible to reach dozens of downloads per week. One of the prerequisites for success is to submit sought after photos and to use the right keywords in the descriptions of your photos. The best stock photo site I have found is Shutterpoint. They provide photographers an e-commerce store-front for selling photos, handle advertising and promotion, handle all purchase transactions, provide customer service, and securely deliver images to buyers. All of these features are provided for a very reasonable fee, and in addition, other members often provide valuable feedback on your photos. This is a great way to begin your career as a professional photographer.

2. Stock agencies. Stock agencies are similar to stock photo sites, but in addition to listing your photos, they consult buyers and handle all the legal and logistical matters. Stock agencies usually deal with professional photographers mainly but there are stock agencies, which are beginner-friendly. As with stock photo sites, you usually have to decide (if you have the choice of course) whether you want to sell exclusive rights or only per use rights.

3. Sell directly to newspapers and magazines. Although this is hardly the easiest way to sell your photographs, it is worth trying. Newspapers and magazines are a very tough market to get into but can be a very high paying one. For a start, you can try your local or community media.

4. eBay and similar auctions. Auction sites, such as eBay, are one more sales outlet you can try. Yes you really can earn decent income from selling photos on eBay. This is a good alternative if you sell other products in addition to photos, but even if photos are the only thing you sell, eBay and the other auction sites can do a lot for you. Make sure to avoid small and dark photos. Listings should be created which are descriptive and include realistic prices. Check the Completed Listings option when searching to see examples of photos which have sold.

5. Freelance sites. Unlike the other options listed up to here, freelance sites are generally a place for work for hire projects. This means that usually a buyer comes and asks you to make some photos especially for him or her, but very often there are buyers who offer to purchase your already made (or stock) photos as well.

6. Your own website. Even if the other options work great for you, having your own website is a valuable sales channel. You can offer everything you like – i.e. low resolution mockups for free, paid downloads, etc. The downside is that you need to market your site, otherwise you will hardly get much traffic and, respectively, sales. Search engine optimization is a must and if you are really serious about selling your photos via your website, you can even consider starting an affiliate program.

7. Free samples. These days advertisements are something one can hardly sell without. Instead of launching an expensive campaign, you can give photos away for free but keep your logo on them. This is a kind of advertisement and it will bring you new customers.

Whilst this opportunity was always available to professional photographers, there are no longer any barriers preventing amateur photographers from taking and selling their digital photos as well.

As with any incoming producing opportunity the old maxims still prevail: what you get out is somewhat equal to what you put in,or translated for the purposes of this article: the more photos you sell the more money you will make.

The explosive growth of the Internet has seen that the demand for digital images is large (and growing) and the fact that that there is a readymade marketplace (in the form of microstock photography sites) has really expanded the size of the money making opportunity. Think about all the print ads, wall posters, magazines and websites that you see. Someone had to take those photos. Would it surprise you that many of those of pictures are taken by everyday photographers who by no means consider themselves to be professional?

For some, selling digital photos allows them to make an extra few hundred dollars a month which is a handy second income whilst others are able to earn in excess of $100,000 per annum.

The amount you are paid for each photo is negotiable and big name photographers are in a position to ask more for their images than is a photographer without a brand name. Whilst the actual price for an image is whatever the market will bear the following shows an average range of different sources which will be close to the following:

Web Images $10.00 – $40.00
Postcard Shots $30.00 – $80.00
Magazine Images $50.00 – $400.00
Book Illustrations $7000.00 – $12,000.00
Advertising Photos $1000.00 – $14,000.00
Stock Photo Site Rates 10c – $10.00

There is the option with photographs to sell the entire rights or just first print rights and then sell it again at a later time. A good photograph (and by good I mean in demand rather than artistic) can produce a passive income stream for many months to come. It is not uncommon for an image that pays you 20 cents each time it is downloaded, to be downloaded over 50,000 times!

As indicated by the price ranges mentioned above, the opportunity is by no means limited to stock photo sites but that is certainly the best place for a budding freelance

The photos represent the first impression of your home and it will either be positive, enticing the buyer to continue reading, or negative, possibly turning them away. Once you’ve attracted their attention, the photos need to do the talking for you. Here are some tips that will help create flattering shots of your home.

Use the daylight. When shooting exterior shots, do so in the middle of a sunny day, and if you have a blue sky, that’s even better.

For interior shots, open the curtains, turn on the lights and use the flash to minimize shadows and make the room look brighter.

Don’t skimp on the number of photos. Provide as many photos, interior and exterior, that you can. It’s just too easy to lose interest in a home ad that leaves too much to the imagination by not providing enough photos. Give the potential buyers a really good look at the living room, kitchen, dining room, family room, master bedroom/bathroom and the backyard. Take extra shots of any scenic view as well. Make sure to emphasize your home’s best features, such as a garden or other landscaping feature.

If you’re selling a condo, apartment or vacation home, include pictures of the gym, pool area or scenic areas such as a beach that may be close by.

If the site you’re advertising on limits the number of photos, provide links to exterior free photo sites such as Shutterfly, Snapfish or Picasa.

Get a clear picture. Prospective buyers don’t need to see tables covered in clutter, family pictures, fridge magnets, appliances, dirty dishes or other distractions. Make the counters and tables clean and sleek, giving the rooms a fresh, unlived in look. It amazes me when viewing real estate shots at the number of pictures that include household clutter. Some don’t even bother to close the lid on the toilet seat!

For exterior shots, remove the car from the driveway, and hide the trash cans, toys or other objects. Try not to get telephone poles, hydro lines or nearby homes in the shot.

Screen the shots. If your agent is taking the shots, make certain you screen them before they’re published. Find out if they’ll be using a professional photographer, it may be worth the extra money.

Take quality pictures. Place your camera on a steady surface or tripod to minimize movement and obtain the clearest shot. Set your camera on the highest resolution and you’ll be able to use the shots for print or web. You may have to decrease the size for online photos, but never use less than 72 dots per inch.

Edit. Improve the final shots with photo-editing software by removing any unnecessary obstructions or adjusting the brightness and contrast.

Devastating.

Okay so you are glad to be alive, to have gotten your family and pets out safely, you can be thankful to God for this, but this is a situation that you never thought you would find yourself in. Doesn’t this just happen to other people?

Yes this does happen to other people, in the wake of the recent tragic Australian bus fires that swept through Victoria and at a pace so ferocious that caused the destruction of over 700 homes and claimed almost 200 lives. It is something that is happening more and more as our planet’s temperature continues to rise.

Listening to some of the survivors stories, you hear over and over again how many of them lost their treasured family memories, that were taken away in the flash of the flames. Pictures of ancestors from past generations, those dear sweet photos of the grand children and the precious moments when your own children were young, your own wedding day – all gone.

One thing that stood out as a major contributing factor in the high numbers of lives lost in these fires was the speed at which properties and people were caught by the flames rapid onset. Being able to get everyone out including the last dash back to the house to get the photos albums was not a privilege afford by many, in fact some reports indicate that this one act may have contributed to the loss of some peoples lives.

Tragic.

So How Do We Get Better Prepared For Such Events?

3 Ways to Protect Your Family Treasures

Method One – Back Up Your Photos To CD or DVD

The first way to ensure that your family photos are safe in the event of a fire or hurricane, or tornado is to have them backed up and stored off site.

You can have your photos scanned on to your home computer if they are original prints, then saved to a CD or DVD and stored with a relative.

This method is fairly inexpensive to do but the downside is you need to be vigilant in remembering to do the scan or save to your computer from your digital camera and then on to the removable media CD or DVD for storage.

This method is the most time consuming.

The Second Way Photo Backup the Free Method

The second method is to use a free photo sharing service such as Flickr or Picasaweb to store your photos online. The advantage with using such a service you can get into the habit of uploading all your photos to online web albums that you can easily with friends and relatives.

Your friends are able to download your photos and have prints made for themselves, which in itself is another level of extra insurance that your photos are going to survive come what may.

The only downside to the free method of online photo backup is that you can never be sure that your photos will not be removed or lost from their servers. In fact many stories can be found of people who have used free photo back up or sharing sites as their only source of their photos, and had all their memories swiped.

Some of us may be familiar with the process here, when we are uploading our photos from our cameras memory we are asked if we want to delete the originals or keep them. Don’t know about you but I always click to delete. Now this method is okay if you them stored on your home computer as well as your photo sharing back up website service but some people for want of space saving have deleted their home copies.

Another problem associated with most things free on the web these days is advertising. If you don’t want your photos sharing their web space along side of annoying advertising then you may need to consider my suggestion of the third way of ensuring your photos survive.

The last and perhaps the most prevalent and offensive an issue you will no doubt come up against on the free photo sharing sites is the presence of pornographic images and advertisements that people upload. In fact when doing my research for this article I was confronted by an overwhelming amount of sexually explicit materials both video and still images, that left my stomach churning with disgust.

As they say, like all things in life, “you get what you pay for” and in this case not paying you get more than you bargained for. And it stands to reason that these free sites just don’t have the staff or resource to ensure the porn is kept out as they only make money from their ads.

The Third Way To Safe Back Up Photos – Paid Photo Storage

It may come as no surprise that the third way to achieve safe, secure and guaranteed backup of your treasured family photos is to use a photo storage website that charges a small fee, of around $40 per year is the same as about .10c a day. Not bad insurance for your life most treasured memories.

All the advantages of online easy to upload storage that in some cases is unlimited, as the free websites usually limit your photos storage amounts so you eventually run out, but not on the paid service websites, it is usually all you upload you can store.

Of course there are no annoying advertisements, the pornography is strictly excluded by the vigilant staff, so you can rest assured that the photos of your daughters 5 birthday party you send to your aunt in Sassquandicha are not going to be presented alongside an ad for an adult xxxx rated website.

There are many of the paid services to choose from but from my research the very best at this point in time would have to be Smug Mug. They have the best and easiest to use service I have found. They even come with a free 14 day trial that allows you to upload a few photos to test them out and see if they are as good as they claim to be.

I don’t’ know about you but if you are anything like me you are pretty tired of paying for things on the Internet that don’t work out. I know I am so the fact of being able to safely test the service before I pay, is paramount to me trying anything these days.

Free Trial and No Credit Card Required

Another good thing with the free trial is you don’t need to give any credit card details, just sign up and upload your photos.

So if safe, secure photo back up Is what will help you sleep better at night is what you are after then I can thoroughly recommend you check out the paid online photo sites for total peace of mind.

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Many video and photo sites are immediately accessible by just keying the right words. Once there, the teenagers are required to sign up and log in to the members areas. From there, these teens can now navigate and maneuver on the site and do whatever they want. Of course, exploring the site and using the tools are within the site’s terms and policies.

What attracts the teenagers to use video and picture sites is the ease in sharing their memorable pictures and videos with the capability of enhancing, distorting and manipulating these videos and pictures. Through the tools, the resulting effects will make these pictures and videos funnier, more interactive and more captivating. The texts could also be changed and backgrounds can be added. What a way of blasting your memories across the globe! Some sites would allow the users to use multiple pages until they will run out of ideas and creativity. These video and photo sites will definitely be photo albums or lockers in the web. What’s more, most sites are free to use, if others ask for a fee, they are so cheap.

Video and phot0 sharing through the internet is the best answer to the hassles of sending photos and video clips to friends and relatives anywhere in the planet. Previously, one has to pay postal service providers at high costs just to let others see these pictures. The distance involved and the length of delivery time would sometimes erode excitement. Usually, when the package arrives at their destinations, its worth had already been overataken by current developments. Through the internet, sharing becomes so cheap and easy, and you can do so daily or more times a day. Send your photos, and in a few minutes, you will receive photos from your friends. Another good point is that when videos and photos are placed on line, they can stay there as long as the account remains active. Since they use the space provided by the site, it will definitely free the space of the computers where these pictures are originally uploaded.

Video and photo sites are also giving another benefit. Placing videos and photos online will give the teens the opportunity to be noticed. The way the pictures are presented might earn an invitation to a paid online job. This is not only giving satisfaction to the teenagers of the site by having their photos and videos being shared, but will accomplish a budding photographer’s dream of getting noticed and earn a few bucks.

The teens want to register in an online video and photo sharing sites and can earn more benefits than one can imagine. It did not only allow the teenagers to know more about their friends, they will also be able to improve their computer skills, photography skills and learn tips on improving their skills better. With over 240 sites that can be tapped online, the teenagers can have a wide range of choices before they will make their picks.

For her
Firstly, Stocking Fillers are all about presentation for the ladies. Handing over presents in a plastic carrier bag just won’t cut it – so impress her from the start with a beautiful vintage Christmas stocking! Then get to the small matter of filling it… If she never quite achieved goodie two-shoes prefect status at school, remind her she’s the boss nowadays with the ‘perfect’ pin badge – or indulge her princess persona with her own personal tiara! You could also try appealing to her sweet side – and showing her how much you care – with the silver ‘love heart’ or ‘my last Rolo’, both of which come in a sweet presentation box… just point out that they’re beautiful silver plate, before she attempts to eat them.

For him
Instead of being forced to listen to him blathering on about the latest band or album, pop this little ‘music to check out’ notepad in his Christmas sock. That way he can indulge his geeky record spotting side whilst looking cool! For extra bonus points, why not wrap it in some raunchy wrapping paper… Featuring scantily clad models, this is one sheet of gift-wrap that won’t be going anywhere near the recycling bin. You could also encourage his latest culinary genius with the egg cup and timer kit, to reassure you he won’t starve when you nip out for an evening with the girls…. or pretend you really do believe he’s a budding ’survival expert’ and give him the corkscrew key-ring, for the ultimate in emergency survival gear. After all that ‘off-road’ activity he’ll be demonstrating (opening wine bottles in the garden shed), keep him clean and remind him of those childhood glory days with the ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ soap on a rope! You will have fixed his stocking fillers anyway, that’s for sure!

For teenagers
For teenage stocking fillers, think quirky technology…and try the puppy mo-pod! Voted gift of the year, this cute little mobile phone accessory lights up and dances when a call comes in! Even moody teenagers will be tempted to answer calls from the family when they see the dinky little dog boogying away. And knowing how teenagers appreciate a crisp tenner or two, have a crafty laugh (and get them to work for their money for a change) with the ingenious money maze! Hide the cold hard cash or vouchers inside, and watch your favourite teenager grapple with the fiendishly tricky maze puzzle to get to it… Instant fun for the whole family guaranteed!

For kids
Stocking fillers for kids can be slightly obscure. Budding Mr and Miss Bumps will find their scrapes are eased with the rather fantastic ‘pirate’ or ‘bacon and egg’ bandages! You might want to keep them handy after giving the juggling set – put the dog somewhere safely out the way, as your budding jugglers hurl bean-filled balls around chaotically in the name of festive fun. Or avoid arguing over who owns which stocking filler by trying a personalised gift – the cute little Christmas bear has a space on his red jumper for a special personalised message (try: ‘Stop fighting with your brother and tidy your room please. Xmas ‘09′.) Or encourage them to develop some ‘gardening’ skills with the Mr Grasshead ‘grow your own’ kit!

For grandparents
The older generation will love the thought and care behind their little stocking fillers, so treat them to the ultimate festive token – the ‘Merry Christmas’ glass keepsake. Chic and stylish, this cute little keepsake comes in a presentation box and will guarantee a smile. It’ll also be something else for them to show off about down at the Bingo Hall. You could also try the Christmas Pudding photo album, ready to fill with all the photos of your happy Christmas holiday… just don’t let Grandma near your fancy digital camera after she’s been at the Sherry…

All in all, with a bit of forethought, creativity and some clever purchases, you really will be the star of Christmas with your lovely selection of festive stocking fillers! In fact, why not treat yourself into the bargain – after all, why shouldn’t you have some fun too! Happy holidays!