Given today’s economy we are all looking for ways to earn extra income and stock photography is a viable option for photography enthusiasts. Getting involved in stock photography gives people the opportunity of having their photos reviewed and potentially purchased by a variety of global consumers. While this field is incredibly lucrative there is also a high probability of failure. There are a variety of reasons photos are rejected and understanding what the pitfalls are give you the opportunity to avoid them and become successful. Read on to find out how you can become successful at this lucrative trade.

Quality is key. Every stock photography site has a reputation of quality to maintain and therefore will only accept photos of the highest quality. To avoid immediate rejection you should only submit photos that are high quality and crystal clear. While you don’t need the best professional camera on the market you do need one that can give quality results. I recommend using a minimum of 5 mega pixels and that you set your camera to maximum resolution, this should give you the quality you need to have your photos accepted. In order to make money you need to have the potential customers be able to see your photos, therefore they must make it past the submission phase.

Another way people get rejected is by submitting, or uploading, their entire portfolio at one time. Most don’t know that the higher the number of photos that you submit at one time, the higher your chances of having them thrown by the photo selector; this calls for absolute rejection! When starting out I recommend that you pick no more than three of your best photographs for submission. Once these have been approved and if you are extremely confident in the quality of your work you can try to send a larger batch; however, always remember the potential for absolute rejection. One further factor for rejection is submitting duplicates of your work. This is a common problem due to changing file names. So, to avoid this problem, don’t rename your photos until have you have uploaded them. Once this is done you can rename them, using appropriate keywords to help consumers find your photos.

Appeal is another factor for success. It’s tempting to use photo editing software programs to accentuate the photos appeal and refine its quality. What you may be unaware of is that each time you open and edit a photo you are reducing overall quality. Your best bet, take a quality photo from the outset. If you must alter it remember that each time you save your photo you are reducing its quality. Several free photo editing programs reduce quality more than average so it is recommended that you use a program such as Photoshop which will minimize damage.

Another foremost step is to coin your pictures with potential keywords so that it gains a better visibility in the search engines. However, overt usage of keywords in your picture would lead it to a spam. Hence, use around 4-5 key words in the picture to make it more visible and turn it into an effective means of marketing.

Quality, correct key words and appealing presentation are the ways to avoid your digital photograph from being rejected. Make all ends meet to produce a unique picture so as to outshine from your flourishing competitor.