Best free sites for selling photos ?

[annamaria]

Hey everyone what are the best free sites for selling photos online? Just want to make some extra cash. What do you all think of Microstocks? I know one can make .25 cents and up from what I have heard. So let me know your thoughts.

 

[KmH]

Photography Forum
General Shop Talk
Commercial/Product photography

Microstock agencies have image quality standards. You submit your photos for approval.
The agency licenses your photo to their clients that want to use your photo.
You don't make any money until someone pays to license one of your photos.
Stock Photography Search Royalty Free Images Photos - iStock

Most of the microstock agencies have all the landscape, flowers, nature, wildlife, art, etc photos they want.
If your photos have people in them the microstock agencies will require you have valid model releases on file.

If your photos are accepted then you are in competition with the hundreds, if not thousands, of other photographers that have had photos accepted at each respective microstock agency.

You could probably make way more money, and way quicker, collecting aluminum cans from the roadside.

 

[annamaria]

Photography Forum
General Shop Talk
Commercial/Product photography

Microstock agencies have image quality standards. You submit your photos for approval.
The agency licenses your photo to their clients that want to use your photo.
You don't make any money until someone pays for to license one of your photos.

Most of the microstock agencies have all the landscape, flowers, nature, wildlife, art, etc photos they want.
If your photos have people in them the microstock agencies will require you have valid model releases on file.

If your photos are accepted then you are in competition with the hundreds, if not thousands, ofother photographers that have had photos accepted at each respective microstock agency.

Thanks for the links and great info. Yes I figured there's lots of competition out there. Won't lose anything by trying right? I appreciate your input. You're always quite knowledgeable.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Read the Terms & Conditions. They are usually not favorable to site users. Usually the company will obtain rights to use the photos (and re-use, and sublicense, etc. etc. over and over from now til - well, forever) and the person using the site will get a one time low payment.

Most of these sites seem to take advantage of people not knowing and not reading Terms. I have yet to find one I'd use and agree to the Terms. The companies make money, I wouldn't count on making much it's so undervalued. Not worth the time.

 

[annamaria]

Read the Terms & Conditions. They are usually not favorable to site users. Usually the company will obtain rights to use the photos (and re-use, and sublicense, etc. etc. over and over from now til - well, forever) and the person using the site will get a one time low payment.

Most of these sites seem to take advantage of people not knowing and not reading Terms. I have yet to find one I'd use and agree to the Terms. The companies make money, I wouldn't count on making much it's so undervalued. Not worth the time.

Thanks so much vintagesnaps. So basically not a good idea. I wonder then would the best thing to do would be to sell a photo as a one time usage? Or possibly build a simple website which I've never done and sell them that way? Any other suggestions?

 

[KmH]

There are 2 kinds of stock photo use licensing - Royalty-Free (RF) and Rights-Managed (RM).

Microstock agencies pretty much only do RF licensing.
An RF license is not free. The buyer pays a 1 time fee instead of paying a royalty for multiple uses.
Most microstock RF use licenses allow several hundred thousand editorial impressions in perpetuity but do not allow commercial usage.

iStock doesn't pay until you have amassed a total account balance of $100 or more.
non-exclusive contributors get paid $0.28 per license so iStock customers would have to pay for 358 licenses before you would get a check from iStock.

RM licensing is generally a single use license that limits the media used, the length of time the image can be used, the geographical extent of the usage, and other terms.
RM licensing costs the customer a lot more than RF licensing does, and the photographer gets paid a lot more too.

A long time ago, before Getty Images and Corbis started buying up independent stock photo agencies, photographers could make real money from stock photographs.
The Internet, the digital camera explosion, Getty, Corbis (started by Bill Gates) and social networking killed stock photography as a way a working photographer could make some extra cash.

 

[annamaria]

There are 2 kinds of stock photo use licensing - Royalty-Free (RF) and Rights-Managed (RM).

Microstock agencies pretty much only do RF licensing.
An RF license is not free. The buyer pays a 1 time fee instead of paying a royalty for multiple uses.
Most microstock RF use licenses allow several hundred thousand editorial impressions in perpetuity but do not allow commercial usage.

iStock doesn't pay until you have amassed a total account balance of $100 or more.
non-exclusive contributors get paid $0.28 per license so iStock customers would have to pay for 358 licenses before you would get a check from iStock.

RM licensing is generally a single use license that limits the media used, the length of time the image can be used, the geographical extent of the usage, and other terms.
RM licensing costs the customer a lot more than RF licensing does, and the photographer gets paid a lot more too.

A long time ago, before Getty Images and Corbis started buying up independent stock photo agencies, photographers could make real money from stock photographs.
The Internet, the digital camera explosion, Getty, Corbis (started by Bill Gates) and social networking killed stock photography as a way a working photographer could make some extra cash.

Thanks kmh for clarifying and explaining the RF, RM licensing. Looks like it's almost impossible to make some decent money these days, unless of course one gets involved doing portraits or weddings.

I was doing a quick google search and clicked on this link:

A beginner s guide to selling your photographs online - The Next Web

What do you think about it?