Online classes for Photoshop

If you are interested or are selling your outdoor and nature photography, there are important factors to creating images the markets will want. It is not always clear on what exactly what makes for a successful image, but there are some ideas inherent in many successful images that are proven time and again.

Successful stock photos earn money over and over. While it is nice to license an image once or twice, it’s even better when an image licenses many times.

While there are many nature images that appear to sell simply because they are beautiful images, there is usually an underlying reason the image is succeeding beyond its simple beauty.

That beauty in itself often tells a story about the photograph and its location by evoking an emotion. As an example, people buy calendars, gift or note cards, for the pictures. The picture evokes an emotion that prompted a purchase because the buyer gets joy from observing the picture(s).

People often buy products based more on the pictures than the text indicating that the photograph was successful by prompting the impulse to buy.

Here are 5 characteristics of successful selling images:

Technical Perfection

• This is a no brainer! Sharpness, correct exposure, great lighting, no artifacts, low noise. These are often required for an image to be successful.

Believability

• In today’s digital world, believability has become a characteristic that can make or break an images appeal within the market. With the ability to Photoshop just about anything conceived, photographers should take note about what they do in the digital darkroom.
• From sunset skies that are darker than the foreground, to unrealistic saturation and HDR, the need to explore the markets and see what is published should be the definitive guide to how much image processing makes for a marketable image.
  For those shooting people, a parka from 1979 with colors not available anymore to an orange tent in a campsite can result in images that don’t stand a chance in the market. The need to research what is published today should guide your approach.

While I have had my fun with grungy HDR, I have not seen myself, much if any commercial licensing of images using this technique.