Hey everybody,

until now my approach to stock has been more on quantity than on quality. Although I had some good results, most of my photos have never been sold :-(

So I started looking at the bestseller shots on the different sites to learn from them and I noticed that most of them have a kind of "glossy magazine" look. Now I do not know how to exactly explain this, but my photos usually have a very "digital" look and are either blurry or sharp. The bestsellers on the microstock websites have a more traditional film look, with what seems a mix of (glamour) glow, soft focus and often slight desaturation.

I wonder if there is any photoshop filter or trick that allows to achieve such a look?

Thank you very much!

Hello everybody,

most of my stock photos are city ones (facades, skyscrapers, landmarks, holiday destinations...) and I often get very inconsistent rejections because of trademark reasons... For example a photo of a skyscraper will get accepted but a totally similar one of another skyscraper will get rejected, even if I cloned out all company names and stuff. Or the same photo gets accepted on one website but not on other ones...

How do I know if there is a trademark on a building I am photographing? And what about a statue or some kind of art work that is visible on a street?

And, even more important, what happens if a photo with a trademark on it does get sold? Can I get in trouble (eg. if the trademark owner sees that)?

Thanks a lot for your help, this issue is really confusing me!