How do I prepare photographs to sell for stcck where are the best tutorials?

[Amaranthpink]

Please can someone direct me to the best tutorials on preparing all types of photographs in Photoshop to sell as stock photographs?

[Test Screen Name]

You need to start by being a great photographer with commercial experience. Is that your starting point? You cannot use Photoshop to overcome poor composition or equipment.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Start with a well composed, technically perfect image (i.e. well exposed, no unintentional camera shake, focus on the intended point, low unintentional noise...etc).

Make sure you have the all the rights to the image (and signed releases if recognisable people, private property or logos feature in the image).

Use Photoshop to develop (from Raw) and crop and clean up any final small imperfections - e.g. spot healing.

Add key Exif information in File Info.

Save as jpeg with a high quality setting and always convert the colour profile to sRGB and Embed the colour profile with the image. The image size requirements should be set by your intended Stock library.

Submit only your best images.

https://contributor.stock.adobe.com/

Dave

[c.pfaffenbichler]

»Save as jpeg with a high quality setting«

And keep the layered image as a psd, tif or psb. 

[davescm]

Spot on c.pfaffenbichler. I should have said - Save a copy as jpeg..

Dave

[barbara_a]

Try submitting some photos to a stock agency. If they are rejected, the agency will list the reasons why. You can then take their advice, improve your photos accordingly, and re-submit.

[Norman Sanders]

In addition to the vital element of technical excellence addressed previously, I suggest that you consider each image from the position of the stock house. Stock images, you can assume, are not sold for display in the home, but rather for business use in ads, catalogs, and other commercial applications.

The subject matter should be generic enough to be considered for appearance across a broad spectrum of products or services so that the stock house could anticipate multiple sales. Still, it should be different enough to separate it from the countless other images of the same subject. With a common object or setting, and marketability in mind for example, have you presented a unique vantage point and/or lighting? Unusual choice of lens focal length? Adaptability to vertical and/or horizontal cropping? These and other considerations, in addition to technical excellence, weigh heavily on the potential resale of each image, and of your success in this crowded market.   

[Leslie Moak Murray]

To add to the great advice already given, another step is to do a search on Adobe Stock for the subject matter you intend to submit. If you're doing puppies in a basket and you find 34 pages of them on the site, be aware that some agencies will reject an image if they already have too many of that category.

Other than that, they want technically flawless photos, which means no digital noise, blown highlights, incorrect exposure, poor cropping (do not have your horizon line smack in the center) etc.