Hi Everyone,

Two keys to succeeding in microstock photography are creating the correct images and making many of them. You want to create images that businesses want to purchase, such as lifestyle, food and drinks. But you also need to make a large number of images. This can take a lot of time, but there is a way to make images faster, and that’s to create an image, and then make numerous versions of it.

Following are two examples that I have done.

This image is a light string. I shot it in a Foldio https://orangemonkie.com/pages/photo-studios . I tied fishing line across the inside top, then used close pins to attach the lights to the fishing line.

After taking the photo I brought the image into ON1 Photo RAW https://on1.sjv.io/15Mjdz where I removed the clothes pins, reduced noise, sharpened the image and adjusted the exposure.

Then I used various overlays that you get free from ON1 and made numerous alterations to the image. Sometimes I also use LUTS to change the look. I made at least twelve variations of each light string image. So, take one photo and wind up with twelve in just a few minutes. That’s a great time saver.

Another piece of software I use to do this is Smart Photo Editor https://www.anthropics.com/smartphotoeditor . It’s about $30.   

This is really an amazing piece of software. You can manipulate an image in many ways, and then you can save that manipulation for future use. You can also upload your manipulation so that others using Smart Photo Editor can use it. Many users do this, so every time you log in, there are more manipulations you can use on your images. And, if you use someone else’s manipulation, you can also make changes to it and save that manipulation.

I found this leaf on the sidewalk, shot it in my Foldio, then used ON1 to erase the clamp on the stem, sharpened it, removed the noise and adjusted the exposure. Then I brought it into Smart Photo Editor and made many changes. Here are a couple of them.

Save time and energy by using these software programs to make one image into many, so you can more easily have more images to upload to microstock.

I processed these images with ON1 Photo Raw. Check it out at https://on1.sjv.io/15Mjdz and use my 20% discount code, colburn20 for ON1 Photo RAW, or its plugins.

Check out my photography and writing ebooks at www.jeffcolburn.com/jeffs-ebooks

You can buy many of my photos on T-shirts, mugs and many other products at my TeePublic shop here https://www.teepublic.com/user/jeff-colburn-photography

Have Fun,
Jeff