How Can You Edit Stock Photography to Drive Sales?

If you are into the business of selling products, it is important to be conscientious about the images you are portraying. Hence, the aid of stock photography. Because no matter how professional you are as a camera person, you can’t get all the shots just perfect.

However, if you are planning to submit your images for stock photography, you might have to go through a post-processing stage as they are fundamentally used to promote products or services. Remember, with great effort comes great results.

Tried and Tested Rules to Submit Images for Stock Photography

Getting the perfect image format gets quite challenging when it comes to stock images. At some point, you might as well lose hope and feel overwhelmed. But, if you are a person of patience, this can be a true way to income in bulk. To help you in this process, we have penned down a few tried and tested guidelines that can help you get through this process.

1. Leaving White Space

As mentioned earlier, stock photos are primarily used for promotional purposes; it can be anticipated that the buyer of the image might want the combination of an image and text. Hence, if you can keep some space in the picture for writing promotional content, your image is most likely to be chosen.

2. Relevance of Optimization

Do you think your image is good enough and buyers would choose your images over other options? Sure! But, for that, you need to reach the buyer first. Until you can add relevant keywords, it is a false hope. Imagine you have clicked an image of a red panda, and your title is ‘look what I found,’ not a single possible buyer would know what you found out. Keep it simple and relevant. If you want to add an image title, go with ‘red panda animal’; as easy it can be.

3. Noise Reduction

For every stock photography website, the images run through a filter (naturally done by professionals in the field). To get your images approved, make sure your subject is in focus and there is no extra noise in the image. Sometimes a few pictures are soothing to the eye. But while submitting images for stock photography, technicality comes first. Is your image technically fit? Ask yourself.

4. Crisp and Clear

Reducing noise does not indicate the image has to be a blur. It should be clear enough so that when a person zooms the photo to 100%, it does not pixelate. This is one of the major rules of filtration before approving images on any stock photo website.

5. Styling the Image

People long for variety. If you can provide images of the same subject with multiple angles and styles, the chances are at least any one from the stock will be chosen by the buyers. You can also play with the size; some can be vertical, while some can be horizontal. Keep clicking until you get 6 to 7 undeniable images of the same subject.

The journey does not end here. Before submitting the image to make sure it looks A-amazing, a bit of touch-up is necessary. Hence, stock photo editing. Here we have mentioned a few stock photo retouching tips that add extra attention to the images and minimize rejection.

How to Edit Stock Photos?

Stock photo editing is just like editing any other images in photo editing software. Withal, there are factors that matter the most are:

1. The Exposure

No matter how much you have spent buying your dream camera, it is highly possible you will end up having images with low light or overly exposed images. Hence, adjust the lighting. If the light of an image is not set right, it looks like a poor-quality image.

2. The HSL Adjustment

By now, you must have already come across what HSL is. For the sake of clarity, it is the hue, saturation, and luminance of an image. To adjust the colors of an image with the mood, photo editing software offers HSL modification. To explain in-depth, the hue adjusts the color tint of the image; the saturation helps to enhance (or reduce) the colors of the image, and luminance modifies the amount of light reflecting from the elements in the image.

3. Crop and Resize

At times while clicking images, we overlook a thing or two. While putting them on the big screen (the laptop screen), we realize we have added a few elements that weren’t required. For such situations, crop your images and discard the elements that are not necessary.

4. Spot Healing and Blemish Fixing

Sometimes a few images get rejected by the stock photo companies, and we do not even understand the reason behind it. But the truth is, the person judging the images is in charge of evaluating if the image is going to be hit in the market or not. So be sure if you have fixed all the spots and blemishes in the image. The images should be dust-free before submitting.

The Main Key to Sell Your Stock Photos

Think like a buyer. Ask yourself, if you had to buy the image you are selling, is there anything you are compromising? If you are, what is it? Because the possibility is, if you are not willing to buy your product, nobody will. So, what are the areas that need modification? Start working on them. Or do you think the image in itself is not worthy? Don’t lose hope; take the camera and start your journey. After all, not every famous photographer became famous on their first voyage, did they?

Conclusion

Expectantly, the pointers mentioned helping you to channel your energy on creating breathtaking photos and kickstart your stock photo sales. However, if it is taking much of your time, or do you think your editing skills are not up to par? Don’t worry; send your classic shots stock photo retouching services and relax at ease. With an experienced editor, your stock photos will soon start making a huge market.