Now that you are taking pictures and hopefully thinking about various compositions that might make good stock photography it's time to get them off of your camera and into an environment where you can develop them and store them. This is a critical point in your mission depending on how serious you want to take it.
I am assuming you have a laptop or desktop computer. I have Apple equipment. But Windows based equipment works too. You are going to need some sort of photo handling software. At the very least you will have something from the camera manufacturer. The more you can streamline your process the less time you will spend handling your photos. In a perfect world you want to handle them once for a variety of needs in the future. This is part of computing. You put in the effort at the beginning and reap the rewards of "automation" in the future. I actually download all of my photo and video files to external drives. Plural. I do this for two reasons; my computer hard drive is not that big and I want to save more than one copy directly coming off the camera. One copy will be my working files. The other copy just gets put away for safe keeping in its original format off the camera. For external drives, get the fastest, biggest ones you can afford. At this writing I would not go any smaller than 3TB. That might sound massive but you will be surprised this time next year as you follow along here! You could save them on the memory cards your camera uses but that will become more expensive over time. Instead I have several cards that I keep in rotation as well as when I travel to hold all the photos until I get home to download
You might already have your own tools and workflow but this part is for those who don't
There are plenty of other photo developing softwares out there. But there are only a few that develop and organize. Lightroom is one of them. It is a subscription based product. It has very powerful editing tools when you shoot in RAW format instead of .jpg format. There is a check box in the download process to make a second original backup separate file. There is a version for iPad users but I haven't tried it. It is probably the most widely used professional software.
As soon as I download I make a quick pass through the photos and remove blurry and unusable photos
Now it's time to rate photos for editing. For me, usually about half of the photos I take get at least 1-star. I two-star ones that really catch my eye. Now is the time to add your copyright information and keywords to the starred photos. The functionality is built into Lightroom. I didn't do this at first. Big Mistake! Do it now and they always have that info tattooed to them wherever you take them. Some stock houses still require you to create keywords in their system but others are able to take the meta feed from the photo files.
Yay! Time to develop photos. I will usually work on the two-star photos first. This can be a long process (I've worked on one photo for hours) but normally only takes a few minutes to process your finished photo. There also tons of presets and plugins that can be used to automate processing styles. I am "old school" so I move on to a final stage in Photoshop which I understand can be pretty well handled by Lightroom, entirely, these days.
Finally, I export the Lightroom file to Photoshop. First, I might remove dust spots or other distractions in a photo with the powerful Photoshop tools. Then I add my watermark. At this point I export a low-res, ready to use for the web, with my watermark, version, to a folder. Then I remove the watermark and export a high-res version that is 2000 pixels on the long side to a folder. Finally I export a high-res, full size version of the photo to another file. This gives me one I can share socially with a watermark. I also have two sizes of high res to use for sale for web use or for print use.
There are a remarkable amount of tools to keep yourself organized both within a program like Lightroom or externally. Being organized is important right off the bat. It makes sense to map out where you are and where you want to go to figure out a filing system that will serve you for years.
With stock photography, people search for what they are looking for. When your photo matches what they want you make a sale. So, start by grouping your photos in themed folders that will make it easier for you to transition them to their home(s) on the internet
The date the photo was taken may or may not be important. But where the photo was taken will probably be important info in many instances. Having a signed model release form from any people you take pictures of needs to be readily available.
You need to create your own system on how you know where each photo is in the process of distribution. I am not putting my photos in just one place. I'm not putting them all in all places either. We will get to all that later. I want to be free to use where and when I want. I'm OS with a side of ADHD ok? Here is what I do: I have a theme folder (puppies) in that folder I start with one folder I call - "Not Uploaded". When I upload them, I move them to a folder called "uploaded to xxx." When it comes time for some or all of those to get uploaded somewhere else, I do so. Then I create a new folder, "Uploaded to xxx" and so on. 3 months later I have another puppy shoot and in they go to the "not uploaded" file as they come out of photoshop. This works for me. You might have something that works for you better. Plan ahead for an empire!
This feels like a great place to stop for now! Depending on where you are at, you are either right there with me or you have a lot to think about and do. We are very early on in this journey. This being the second post about creating a Stock Photography enterprise. You can read the opening chapter if you missed it right here!
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