Become a Shutterstock Contributor to Sell Photos Online [2023 Beginners Guide Tutorial]

In this beginners guide tutorial, we show how to become a Shutterstock contributor to sell photos online to make money. We go over tips and strategies we personally use to score higher approval rates for our stock images. We also share our experience how we improved our photography and Photoshop skills.

Stock photography is a business that can provide a passive income stream and financial freedom in 2023. However, it is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes a lot of time, patience and experience to produce a large portfolio of stock content to earn a living.

My wife and I have been doing stock photography as a full-time business since 2015. It took us almost 7 years to have 40,000+ images and 6,000+ videos to earn a living. Our biggest advice is to be patient and keep on submitting!

You can read our blog post on this topic at: https://blokhinfilms.com/2023/03/26/h...
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Shutterstock is the best place to sell photos online. To become a Shutterstock Contributor:
► Step 1: Sign up link: https://submit.shutterstock.com/?rid=....
Provide your name/email/address.
► Step 2: Fill our the required tax and payment information
► Step 3: Submit your first stock media files
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To succeed as a stock photographer, there are certain skills that you need to master:

► Skill #1: See Creatively. You need know how to compose and properly expose your photos. We personally read books by Bryan Peterson, who is a successful photographer, runs his own photography school and published many books since 1988. My all-time favorites by Bryan are:
"Learning to See Creatively": https://amzn.to/3AbxN0M
"Understanding Exposure": https://amzn.to/43Yk1wj
"Understanding Composition": https://amzn.to/3KHIOeU
"Understanding Close-Up Photography": https://amzn.to/3GUw2bS
All books by Bryan Peterson: https://amzn.to/3mUzRqK

► Skill #2: Master Photo Editing. You will need to learn to edit photos. We use Adobe Photoshop/Camera Raw/Bridge to edit/manage our photos. You can use free trial for Adobe Photoshop at: https://prf.hn/l/n0lLLel (link to Adobe Photoshop)

We watched classes by CreativeLive at https://creativelive.com to boost our Photoshop skills. Our favorite classes are:
"Adobe Photoshop: The Complete Guide Bootcamp" by Ben Willmore: https://tidd.ly/3ZG5oKn
"Fundamentals of Photography" by John Greengo: https://tidd.ly/3nIISDw

► Skill #3: Properly Title, Keyword Content. These are very important for discovery of your photos. We made a comprehensive beginners guide at:    • Tips to Better Keyword, Title Stock P...  

You will also need to supply your keywords, title/description to stock photo platforms. Do not copy and paste this data manually. We made tutorials how to do so efficiently with the free ExifTool program. Other methods are Adobe Bridge and upload CSV metadata. Here are the tutorials on this topic:
► Embed Metadata in Adobe Bridge:    • Save Time on Tagging Stock Photos in ...  
► Embed Metadata with ExifTool:
MacOS:    • [Apple MacOS] Automate Embedding Keyw...  
Windows:    • [Windows PC] Instantly Embed Keywords...  
► Use Upload CSV Metadata file:    • How To Save Time in Stock Photography...  
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The common Shutterstock rejection reasons: (1) Focus, (2) Noise, (3) Exposure. To deal with it, we use Photoshop plugins that noticeably improve our approval rates on stock photo platforms. We use Topaz Labs products:
► Topaz Sharpen AI: https://www.topazlabs.com/sharpen-ai/...
► Topaz Denoise AI: https://www.topazlabs.com/denoise-ai/...

We also use DxO Nik Collection to give a color punch to our photos: https://tidd.ly/3n8f96z (30-day free trial included).
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Other Resources:
► Give number names/track your images in spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
► Upload content with free FileZilla: https://filezilla-project.org/
► Easy Release to manage releases: https://applicationgap.com/
► Our video on cons of stock photography:    • Cons of Doing Stock Photography [Stil...  
► Our video on pros of stock photography:    • Can You Make Money With Stock Photogr...  

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:41 - Shutterstock Contributor Sign up
01:23 - How to Deal With Rejections (noise, sharpness, exposure)
08:11 - Title, Keyword Images
10:57 - Upload, Submit, Resubmit
14:02 - Shutterstock Contributor Earnings
15:53 - See Creatively, Photoshop
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Subscribe to our channel ‪@BlokhinFilms‬ to learn how to succeed in stock photography.

#stockphotography #stockphotographer #stockphotos

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