Microstock Photography Forum - General > General Photography Discussion

How to improve pictures to make them acceptable?

(1/4) > >>

thenatureguy:
When I started getting interested in photography 20 years ago I was doing a lot of foreign travel for my job, which took me to some awesome places where I could capture images of unusual things.   The problem was, back then digital camera technology was still in it's infancy and I was not rich enough to buy the best stuff on the market. I bought what was considered great equipment in it's day and it cost a pretty penny, but by today's standards, it is would severely lacking.  But it was what I had, and I was able to take a lot of nice pictures with it.  Many of these images are so rare, nobody in micro stock or macro stock has them for sale.  My problem is, due to technical issues, most of them cannot get approved for sale. 

What I am looking for is creative ways to get them to pass.  Let me give you an example.   Here is a picture I would very much get approved of a Rooster-tail Cicada (fulgorid planthopper).  There are not pictures of a real fulgorid planthopper on the micro stock websites I have checked.  That search brings of a Pyrops candelaria, which is a completely different class of insect.

These shots have been rejected by every micro stock site I have tried, except for Deamstime, which I think, just accepts everything.  They have been rejected by shutterstock, 123RF, and adobe stock.  These are truly unique and I think it is worth trying to improve it them I can find a way to do it.  I am just not that good at advanced photos editing tricks.

cascoly:
nice pix of a weird beastie

what's the resolution off the actual pix?  I had an early digital camera that produced excellent results, but wrote to floppy disks @ 640 x 480, so I have several years worth of images I cant sell thru agencies

if the images are of low resolution you might combine 4 or 6 images into one array, but otherwise there's not much you can do

Jo Ann Snover:
If you have small but decent (sharp, well lit, little noise) images, making a collage/array/group is a reasonable option (I've done that with a number of things and they can sell).

Dreamstime is largely useless as it sells so little these days that it would help you to have the images there.

However, I do think you should give some consideration to the marketability of your images before investing time in processing them for upload anywhere. Having a rare image is only important if anyone wants to buy the image.

Stock images have to be useful to designers and sometimes things are rare in an agency collection because no one buys that sort of thing. There might be a few biology text books that would purchase a few insect images, but what else could you use it for?

Often, with stock images, it's the usual image, not the unusual one that will become a big seller.

ravens:
Interesting pictures! Aside biology books they could sell for newspapers and magazines, just think of climate change, more and more of species becoming endangered...

Whatever you do, keep the colors as natural as possible. These insects are rare so I would treat these images like editorial in post production. Resize them, if there are problems with sharpness. Meticulous keywording and writing a killer caption would probably be your best weapon. If you have many shots don't crop all as close ups, it would be good to see the environment these bugs live in.

Have you tried Bigstock? They accept smaller images and sell pretty nicely.

thenatureguy:
I think what you are saying is correct Jo Ann.  I had though about those points. A niche market is great, as long as there is a market.

You are also correct about the usual things being good sellers.  Some of my most popular sellers are if prickly pear cactus and yucca plants.  For the life of me, I don't know who would buy them and for what.  And I guess that is kind of my hope with these exclusive insect pictures I have.  Maybe there is a market out there I don't know about.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page