Testing Shutterstock's Mini Gallery

Okay. So Shutterstock have a section whereby stock photographers can promote their images on their own websites. Sounds good. I really should be doing this sort of promotion as there's so much competition in stock and images not in the first few search pages can easily get lost.

So I'm going to try 'Mini-Gallery' which, if successful, will display both my latest images and my best-sellers in a box for potential buyers to click. I've already downloaded a whole heap of html code which it says to paste into my website.

So here goes:

My latest images for sale at Shutterstock:

My most popular images for sale at Shutterstock:

Did it work? All I can see on Blogger is about 20 lines of gobbledegook. I'll assume I've done something wrong and try it again:

My latest images for sale at Shutterstock:

My most popular images for sale at Shutterstock:

There. Is that better? Are there lots of lovely stock photos which you can't resist clicking on and purchasing? Thought not.

Hold on. I've got an idea. I'm going to publish the post in Blogger, rather than just preview it. Perhaps that'll work. If not it's back to the drawing board.

Get on! We have a result. Now I need to work out how to draw a smily face in html...

iStock Partner Program Finally Working!

For some reason none of the images I uploaded to iStock since August 2009 had been selling on their Partner sites. I've written countless messages and kept getting the 'they will be picked up on the next sweep' reply. Well, I'm pleased to say they have finally looked into it and some of my images are now appearing, in fact I've already made 55 sales in a very short period of time.

This image, for example, has made 14 sales alone. Compare that to only 17 on the main iStock site since May 2008 and it becomes clear how popular the likes of Thinkstock is.

I know the amount is lower but if I'm able to increase my portfolio I'm confident that the iStock Partner Program will reap a fair reward.

I (heart) stock

Okay. So I decided to do a little bit of illustration work to see how it sells on the various stock sites I submit photos to. I've always enjoyed illustration (studied it at college in fact) but of the hand-dawn variety, rather than computer generated. Still, I thought I'd have a go with Adobe Illustrator and here's my first real effort which I'm glad to say has been accepted on most sites. I wonder where the first sale (if any) will come from? My guess is Shutterstock.

Shutterstock's reCAPTCHA Conundrum

Although Shutterstock is my best-selling site, it doesn't want to remember my log-in details, which is rather annoying as it means I have to key my details in on every visit. That's bad enough, but the reCAPTCHA section is a serious piece of nonsense. As proved here...

I couldn't even guess what the second word here is...

Here's another... this time upside down! Do I put 'ploj' as the second word or should it be 'fold'?

Tilt-Shift Photoshop Experiment

I love tilt-shift photography. Perhaps it reminds me of all those Airfix models I used to make as a kid. Whatever it is I thought I'd have a go at creating some in Photoshop. Here's my first effort.

Swimming pool at Pueto de Mogan, Gran Canaria

What I did... (It's quite easy actually)...

1. Opened image in Photoshop CS2
2. Selected Quick Mask Mode
3. Selected Gradient Tool with Reflected Gradient option
4. Drew gradient from approx. person in pool straight down to pool edge
5. Returned to Standard Edit Mode so that I could see the selection edges
6. Used Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and experimented until I was happy with the result
7. Upped the Contrast and Saturation
8. That's it! Job done.
9. Told all my friends it's a scale model which took me four years to complete...

Here's another...

Chew Valley, Somerset, England

Tezzstock's Top Selling Stock Image

Pictured above is 'Digital Camera' my my top selling stock image across all sites. It has made well over 2000 sales and appeared a few times in both Fotolia and Shutterstock's top seller lists.

It seems that buyer's like the fact that they can add their own image within the camera's screen and as I included a clipping path they can use it on different backgrounds.

It was taken in the studio on a Nikon D300 using flash lighting. I had to Photoshop out the camera manufacturer's logo but other than that it required very little post-production.

The image received a surge in sales after featuring in 43rd place on the Shutterstock top 50 sellers list.

You can view or purchase this image at the following stock sites:

Dreamstime
Fotolia