Stock Photography websites are the place you should look when creating a new design. They are a great place for inspiration and for buying affordable photographs and vector files. Besides buying from stock sites about two years ago I also started selling on them.

These days there are a lot of stock photo providers out there and the market has become rather crowded. This also has effect on payouts and sales.

Think Big

After two years it appears that my best selling image is not the prettiest one, but the one that holds the biggest message. I took my goldfish to the forest and photographed it in front of a lake. As the title explains “Think Big” it has a funny message to it and can be used in many metaphorical ways.

These are some of the websites I use for buying and selling stock photography. They are reviewed from a sellers point of view.

Crestock

Crestock is at high end part of the stock photography market. They are very picky in what images they sell and also more expensive than most of the stock websites out there. Because of their pickyness the image library is really great though and full of great looking model and fashion photos.

Istock

Istock is one of the first agency’s opening up the stock photography market. They where the first in making stock photos affordable for a larger audience. It was also the first website I signed with to start selling my photographs. They have a pretty tight approval system. You need to take a small test and all your uploaded photos carefully inspected by the Istock team.

Dreamstime

Dreamstime looks a lot like Istock but their policy on photo submissions is a bit more flexible. On a side note you also get paid less for your photos. I noticed that a lot of Istock submitters also post their portfolio on Dreamstime.

Bigstockphoto

Bigstockphoto is the smallest one in the industry. They are very flexible in accepting new photos and they also have a verry open usage policy. Buyers can use photos in templates and other products for resale, so you need to check out carefully what you want sell on Bigstockphoto.

For now I must say that Istock is the one I am most happy with. They do a lot for the user community and they also are very active in creating new market opportunities, competitions and newsletter updates. Istock’s Steel Cage is also a great initiative where you can watch other designers battle each other for becoming the best designer out there.

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