Make Money with Digital Camera:Fotolia Review

Fotolia is another microstock agency which helps you to make money by selling photographs. The advantage with fotolia is that they are reasonably good with accepting photographs. They do not reject many photographs as dreamstime or istockphoto. For beginners, Fotolia is a good place to start.

What do you need to sign up for Fotolia?

Nothing much. Oh, yes a free account with Paypal or Moneybookers, so that fotolia will pay your money. You need a valid credit card to signup for Paypal or Moneybookers.

Signup for PayPal

Signup for Moneybookers

And more importantly, Signup for Fotolia

Once you signed up with fotolia, you can straight away submit your images. In other stock agencies, you need to submit 3 or 5 images for review, then only you will be accepted.

• Fotolia prefers photos with atleast 2000 x 3000 pixels.
• Do not interpolate or upsize your images on photo editing programs.
• Do not apply any sharpening (you may use it selectively).
• All files should be 8 bit RGB Jpeg files with minimal compression.
• All digital cameras store in this format, so you need not worry.
• Images with sRGB color profiles are preferred.
• If you can, do it with any photo editing program.
• If your camera allows to shoot in RAW format, then choose that and convert to JPEG later with photo editor.

Before you submit your photos, look at your photos at the 1:1 zoom, in 'Actual Size'. Make sure that it doesn't contain noise or dirt like artefacts. Clean your lens with a moist lens cleaner cloth and set your camera settings to shoot very high quality or fine compression.

Signup for Fotolia

One way to find out about 'what sells most' is to visit the Fotolia High Selling Photos page and look at them.

Another way is to browse through the "Photo Requests" (Orders from customers) and shoot to fill their needs.

Some most-wanted images are from these categories:

• Health and medical field - pictures of nurses, doctors, surgeons, medical equipments
• Business related photos - people conducting business, business environment, equipment, style, design, symbols, attributes ect.
• People in activities - Pictures of people doing something like dancing, working, playing sports, laughing, eating, driving, building, are very popular.
• Controversial issues - general politics, women, gender, sexuality, crime, religion, education, family, war, race, environment, poverty, wealth.
• Religious faith - symbols, activities, locations, actions, traditions, and food.
• Technology photos - lasers, fiber optics, equipment, digital chips, clean rooms,
• Different occupations - Delivery person, florist, dentist, doctor, nurse, construction worker, plumber, electrician, machinist, pilot, photographer, teacher, banker, salesman, receptionist, policeman, judge,
• Objects - everyday or strange objects depicting an idea or symbolic of an activity. Objects like sun glasses, keys, money, sticky notes, baseball, or engine piston. These items should be captured on plain white or black seamless backgrounds.
• Close up shots - macro or close up shots of objects or people.
• Under water photos - photos of underwater sea creatures, ocean topography, scuba diving, snorkeling

Signup for Fotolia

• You can get 50% commission from each sale.
• Get paid by PayPal or MoneyBookers. No minimum payout limits.
• No review procedure, straight submission of photos
• Lenient review procedure. Please ensure you submit vey high quality images.

Signup for Fotolia

You can download a FREE e-book "How to Make Real Money with a Digital Camera" (2 Mb) that teaches how to create a cash flow with stock photography. It is based on my own experience on making money with stock photography sites. Right-click and select 'Save Target as' to download the .pdf file.