Photo Retouching

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One thing you should always keep in mind when publishing photographs to stock photography platforms in the aim of creating a source of income is the value for clients. Post-production frequently plays a significant part in the universal appeal of an image and even influences clients to favor particular photographs over others.

You should try to satisfy both niche and in-demand subjects from the initial planning stage to the final one of posting photographs to stocks. Additionally, it is crucial to approach post-production carefully, especially if your goal is to make money with stocks. Selling images are diverse and real, but they also don't go through a lot of post-production. In this article, you'll learn the top photo editing advice for websites that sell stock photos.

5 Top stock photo editing suggestions

1. Reducing the size of an image to suit various needs

When publishing photos to stock photography websites, you should try to offer a variety of images that are connected and share a common topic. Although many photographers believe they are the ones who best predict which photos will be in demand with clients, the truth is a little bit different. Customers of stock photography choose photographs for their projects based on the versatility of the images, depending on the objective, and strangely, their choice isn't always predictable in advance. Due to this, it is best for each photographer to provide a collection of related photographs.

The simplest method, besides playing with angles and viewpoints, is to crop the photos as they are being edited. You have a few options for cropping a picture of a man working from home.

The rectangular image at the bottom can be used for banners or headers, the square image can be utilized for social media posts, and the timeless image of a laptop with hands will properly depict a theme-related article in both print and digital magazines. In summary, employing a crop tool is one of the best picture editing tricks because it saves time and enables you to offer potential customers a wide range of similar photos.

Remember that excessive cropping definitely yields lower-quality results, so you should always strike a balance between the compositional decisions you make during the shoot and the cropping you make in post-production. You ought to incorporate both into your process.

2. Failing to use vignettes

The use of vignettes has long been a topic of discussion in the photographic community. Others see no problem in gently darkening that or another area of the photograph for the purpose of contrast and focusing on the main subject, while some pros despise and avoid them.

The answer is categorically no vignettes if you want your stock photos submissions to be successful. The first and most crucial justification for this is that vignetting gives your picture an old-fashioned appearance. When Instagram first came out in 2010, this effect became very popular, but as time went on and more cutting-edge devices and editing software appeared, vignettes lost their appeal.

Vignetting is no longer acceptable with stock photographs unless you intend to use it artistically. Professional photographers will frown upon them and inform you that the photograph was taken by a novice who is still figuring out the fundamentals of composition.

It is up to you whether to edit away or leave natural vignetting that results from the characteristics of your lens. However, avoid the temptation to add a vignette to your shot when it comes to editing an image in post-production.

3. Being cautious when filtering and retouching

In many ways, photo editing for stock photography is similar to editing photos for other purposes. Basic color and light balancing requires adjusting the contrast, brightness, and saturation. However, when it comes to retouching, you should exercise caution and not let your love of photography trump good judgment.

As we've already mentioned, when sending stock photographs, have in mind your customer. For instance, you shouldn't retouch pictures the same way you would if you were working on a fashion photography project if you've chosen to specialize in one of the underserved markets in stock photography like medicine, daily life, or sicknesses and diseases.

Additionally, it's critical to keep in mind the ethical aspects of photo editing in order to offer stock photos that are on-trend.

Overly-retouched photographs are obsolete because they are in style. Customers on stock photography websites are looking for real, unposed images that best speak to today's audiences. They could decide to alter or edit images to conform to the image, style, message, or brand of their company. Additionally, this explains why post-production extreme filtration of photographs is not the best course of action.

4. Reducing noise

Any portal that sells stock photography will show you that photographs are available for purchase in several sizes, ranging from S to EL. While some may need to print a photo or use it as a website hero image for a landing page, others may need to utilize it for social media postings or to illustrate articles. In the latter scenario, a client can decide against using your work for their project because even the slightest amount of photo noise will be noticeable.

Try to capture your photo at a lower ISO level at first to reduce noise, and always shoot in RAW if possible. It is a factor that affects the overall image quality but also enables better image adjustment during the Photoshop or Lightroom post-processing stage.

Image noise is unavoidable if you want to add a few nighttime photos to your stock photography portfolio. However, you'll discover the ideal settings that enable you to achieve the highest image quality with your shots through trial and error.

5. Utilizing presets

Using presets is another easy-to-follow yet valuable photo editing advice. Photographers who wish to save some time as well as those who are attempting to build their own artistic vision and style may find this handy.

It will take a few hours or days to create a preset or collection of presets that are appropriate for various lighting situations. But over time, using presets to post-process photographs taken in the same location and under the same lighting conditions will help you save a ton of time. Of course, there are instances when you'll need to make manual tweaks to a rendered image, but this won't take as long as separately editing each image.

Utilizing defaults will also help you connect your portfolio as a whole. Being consistent with post-processing may help you develop a pool of regular clients that value your photographic style, as the majority of stock photography platforms feature a search filter based on image authorship.

These photo editing pointers are the core fundamentals that assist stock photographers in streamlining their post-production workflow. By editing photographs, you may make your creations stand out from the feed and, over time, increase the amount of passive revenue you receive. Additionally, you need to stop paying attention to industry trends. You might learn a lot from our yearly Visual Trends 2020 project by looking at what is current in photography, design, and marketing.

What separates editing from retouching?

Although it has recently been a major topic of debate, a definition of picture retouching still needs to be provided. People who are new to photography or who have never had to retouch images could mistakenly believe that editing and retouching are interchangeable terms. Despite the fact that they both fall under the category of post-processing, these ideas actually don't have anything in common.

The initial post-processing stage, known as editing, is frequently when the original image is enhanced or changed slightly. The brightness, contrast, crop, resize, warmth, white balance, and other color adjustments are all things that photographers can do. Depending on the initial objective, a photographer may modify an image to a certain degree.

The final stage of post-processing is photo retouching. Before displaying an image to clients, publishing it, or printing it, it is implied that any faults should be fixed. The most frequent modifications, for instance, involve wiping away fingerprints or scratches that a product picked up during the filming.

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