Quality is key. Every stock photography site has a reputation of quality to maintain and therefore will only accept photos of the highest quality. To avoid immediate rejection you should only submit photos that are high quality and crystal clear. While you don’t need the best professional camera on the market you do need one that can give quality results. I recommend using a minimum of 5 mega pixels and that you set your camera to maximum resolution, this should give you the quality you need to have your photos accepted. In order to make money you need to have the potential customers be able to see your photos, therefore they must make it past the submission phase.

The second thing to remember is that you don’t want to burden the web site administrator by submitting 30-40 pictures at a time. The higher number of photos that you submit at one time, the higher your changes of having them ignored by the photo selector; this calls for absolute rejection! In the beginning I recommend you choose no more than three of your best photographs for selection. If you are extremely confident of your photos quality you might want to risk sending a larger batch but remember the potential for absolute rejection. Another thing to remember is to not change your photos file names since uploading duplicate photos will also ensure rejection. Once you have uploaded your photos you can rename them, using appropriate keywords to help consumers find your photos.

After the camera has done its job of clicking the picture, it is your turn to accentuate its appeal. To produce a ten on ten picture, make sure that no part of it is blurred or out of focus. Set the lighting in a way that every part in the picture looks enhanced and appealing. And to acquire a balanced lighting effect in the picture Adobe Photoshop is a reliable tool.

To get your photos noticed you want to sure potential buyers can find them and here is where keywords come into play. Visibility is key and if your image shows up early in the search you are increasing your opportunity for sales. However, if you use too many keywords you are risking rejection as well as it can be considered spam. Therefore, use a maximum of 10 keywords to make it visible.

Quality photos, correct keywords and a creative take on an ordinary item are how you can avoid your digital photograph from being rejected. Following these tips will not only help you succeed in this field but outshine your competitors.

In my experience I have found that successful commercial photography comes down to 30% photography and 70% marketing. In fact, it is my sincere belief that an amateur photographer with the right marketing nous can outgun a professional photographer in certain markets in terms of pictures sold.

One of the most crucial things to get right when selling your digital photos is to make sure that you position your work correctly with your customer.

IT IS ALL ABOUT PERCEIVED VALUE

How do we measure the intrinsic value of something? We cannot: what is valuable to me may not necessarily be valuable to you. The value of a thing cannot be separated from the person who is doing the valuing.

This is a very important concept to take heed of when you go into the marketplace to sell your digital photos.

Now the fact of the matter is that one of your digital photos may have cost you exactly nothing to take. Does that mean it is worth nothing? No. Your humble photo may be the central image on a web page that generates thousands of dollars each month in sales.

You may already have an inkling of this but it is very important not to forget it whilst you are in the midst of the sales process. Specifically, DO NOT go out and underbid your competitors in order to win business. Why? Because you are immediately creating a perception in the mind of your customer that your work is inferior to that of your competitors.

What you need to do is not have the lowest bid but to clearly define exactly why it is that your bid is of value to the customer. You can do this by showing proofs and documentation of previous work and by being professional in the way you go about the bid. Take these steps and you are more than likely to win the job over lower bidders.

Another way to approach this is to adopt the mindset of your potential customer. Would you want to be in a position whereby you accepted the lowest bid and received back shoddy work, thereby forcing you to go back to one of the higher bidders and get the work done again, compromising your deadlines and forcing you to pay more than was originally necessary? I would imagine the answer is no. This is the potential worry that your customer has when looking at bidders. You can put his mind at ease by assuring him that your price is both fair based on market research and a guarantee of quality.

In certain field such as wedding photos and portrait shots it is nearly all about perceived value. After all, everyone knows how to take a photo so why would they pay anyone at all? Because they feel that paying someone else will give them control over the final product and that because that someone else is a professional ,will deliver work to an acceptable standard.

Deliver work that is to standard your customer has in mind and you will have a happy customer who will be a repeat buyer and a referral agent.