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Why technically flawed photos will never sell
It’s a great scene, it’s a great light, it’s a great place. You are there, you have your camera, you make the shot. You got it! Really? No. Unless you’ve shot a very unique scene (like the arrival of marsians), your photos have to be technically flawless. No matter how nice the subject, only good photos will sell.
You are reading this article ’cause you want to sell your photography. If you already checked which photos your favorite photo agency offers, and you’ve took a closer look, then you will have noticed how technically flawless photos look like. You have to create such technically flawless photos by yourself in order to make sales.
It’s easy to recognize technical flaws, and they are avoidable. You just have to know about their existence.
Main Technical Flaws Depending on the Photographer
Do not submit technically flawed photos to your stock photo agency. Just check for these issues before submitting:
- unsharp photos
- overexposed photos
- underexposed photos
Unsharp Photos
Sharpness is crucial for producing salable images. Sharpness can be selective – properly set sharpness makes photographs interesting and unique. Just make sure *you* select the sharpness instead of your camera. There are different kinds of “unsharpness”. Photos can appear unsharp because of a wrongly set focus point, because of blurring or because of a bad balance between sharp and unsharp areas. You don’t need to submit unsharp photos to your photo agency, so make sure you check them before uploading. Checking is easy:
Just view your photos in 100% magnification on your screen. Don’t try to judge sharpness at stamp-size. Looking at your image at 100% magnification, you will see every pixel. You don’t need to be over-critical, but you have to keep in mind that you want to sell your photo to people who pay.
Overexposed Photos
In general, overexposed photos have to be deleted. Severe overexposure results in completely blown out highlights with no image information left. The human eye does not tolerate strong overexposure – underexposed photos are accepted more likely. Take a close look at 100% magnification. If you don’t see any details in the white areas of your image, it is severely overexposed. If you are in the process of selecting photos for submitting to your stock agency, sort out overexposed photos.
Underexposed Photos
Contrary to overexposed photos, underexposure results in loss of details in the darker areas of your photos. While checking your photo selection for sumbitting it to your stock photo agency, keep an eye on such photos. Most of the times, underexposure is occuring in naturally darker areas of subjects. It’s no dealbreaker when underexposure apllies to some smaller areas, or even bigger ones, if the subject fits. If you’ve captured a wonderful sunset with black silhouettes against the setting sun, underexposure can be even perfect. Just avoid an overall underexposure of your photos.
You can read more about Main Technical Flaws Depending on Equipment here.
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