Photography

7 Tips to Set Up Your Own Photo Studio

Photo-Studio

Companies (or writers for that matter) with physical products nowadays sell online. It requires basic product photography so customers can see product traits. However, image quality first matters! Good photos create a mood. Within that mood, an emotion occurs, and this drives potential customers to become customers. Turning your business into a recognizable brand is one of the biggest reasons why photography is so important.

Being able to set up a home photography studio is not only convenient but breaks down any barrier holding you back from showcasing your products with your audience.  Setting up your own content studio can be relatively cheap — even an iPhone camera can get you started.
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Here are some essentials for starters:

  • Any camera phone or entry-level camera will do!
  • Camera tripod or Flexible Cell Phone Tripod
  • Lighting: natural light is more than enough, but if you’re looking for something extra, LED Ring Light 10″ with Tripod Stand & Phone Holder
  • Backdrops: You can use household items like bedsheets, curtains, etc.
  • A stand, chair or table to set your products on
  • Props: Succulents, small mirrors, decorative household items, etc. will also help in bringing your items to life!

For the pros:

  • Primary camera: Sony A7III (28-70mm Lens)
  • A camera tripod: like this one from GEEKOTO Camera Tripod – with a multi-angle center column will come extra in handy if you like the flat-lay photo style.
  • Lighting: ESDII Softbox Lighting Kit
  • Extra memory cards: SanDisk 64GB Extreme Pro SDXC
  • Backdrops: Studio-98 Photography 10′ Wide x 7′ FT High Background Stand + SAVAGE 107IN X 36FT Backdrop wi.
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Now you’re ready to set up your own DIY photo studio!
If this is your first step into taking product shots at home, remember you can make the process as simple or as complex as you like.  Don’t worry if all you are working with is just an iPhone and great natural light — you will still get some perfect results!
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TIP: I took many photos of books and other items outside my cottage in the bright winter sun – when it is shining in a lower angle onto the objects.  If I had to shoot in summer, I did that before 8 am or after 7 pm outside. Natural light is better than any lighting inside a room!  Here are more home photography studio tips:

 

Find the Best Natural Light in Your Space
Every home or apartment will be different, but try to find a room or area with the best natural light! It may be a corner of your bedroom, living room, even your kitchen table — anywhere with great organic light will be ideal for setting up a studio space.

Design Your “Set”
Once you have found out an area with good lighting, you will need to designate a certain amount of small space for your “set”.  A blank wall could be handy here, but if you don’t have one, don’t worry.  You can also use a kitchen/bathroom counter, a stool in the middle of a room, etc.  Your image choice reflects the brand colors in the Instagram Stories highlights.

Use Light-Reflectors
Reflectors or reflecting paper or plastic sheets or a mirror are available at dollar stores. Set them opposite to a window or a light source to bring more dept and avoid split-lighting. It will add some fill lighting to your items.

More Lighting Tips in these Videos:

THREE Point Lighting Tutorial

Master CINEMATIC LIGHTING

CINEMATIC LIGHTING with no lights!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eseAi73RA5Q

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Comparison: Photo Hosting on Flickr and Instagram

Free-Photo-sites

 

“Flickr was one of the early hosting sites for serious photo work. Instagram started out as something for people with phone cams to apply eye-bleeding filters to make lousy images ‘art’ – before being gradually adopted even by serious photographers seeking publicity.”

Flickr
This social media site for pro photographers has been around for two decades and compared to Instagram it is a professional senior.  It is one of the first and best-known photo-sharing services, and their users have collectively uploaded 12.4 Billion photos.  Flickr offers 1TeraBite of free storage with no limits on image resolution.  This makes for a great place to store photos due to the high amount of storage available for free.

Flickr has cultivated a dedicated and talented user base.  Scrolling through the photostream for Flickr you will see these beautiful images which have been edited and labored over for hours before being posted up because the people who use it love photography.

Flickr has an app on Windows, OSX, iOS, and Android called Flickr Uploadr that can automatically upload images to Flickr.  It can even pull images from external drives and other cloud storage services such as iCloud.

Flickr is a place where photographers, even amateur ones, are encouraged to learn the art of editing to make their images stand out from the crowd.  Flickr has been bought in April 2018 by the independent image-hosting firm SmugMug, as Verizon begins the breakup of Yahoo.

Instagram
Instagram, on the other hand, is filled to the rafters of people taking pictures of their food or screenshots of some obscure, pseudo-intellectual quote from the note-taking app on the user’s smartphone.  The number of users who are out there to promote products is ever increasing.  Photos shot in Instagram must be in a square format. Uploaded photos must be cropped to be square-shaped.  Instagram is extremely popular with middle school and high school kids.

Instagram appeals to such a large group because it is easy to use and regular people who enjoy taking photos can put filters on their own photos and share them with the world. Instagram’s adjustable filters can completely change the way a photo looks.
Unlike Flickr, it doesn’t have a professional edge, and Instagram is becoming more of an extension of Facebook.

Instagram is very user-friendly, the introduction of hashtags that also transfer to Twitter and Tumblr makes sharing and photo popularity more appealing.  Editing on Instagram is nowhere as complex as on Flickr.  Read the interesting insider guide for using Instagram, and find tricks on how to get followers and high engagement.

Instagram needs to realize their photographic potential and move away from being the place where people post pictures of cats, vacations, and food in order to monetize.

More photo platforms and insights for serious photographers are discussed in Andy Hutchinson’s blog: 
Which is the Best Online Platform for Photographers
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Books by Doris-Maria Heilmann:

Audiobooks for Success
Valuable guide book for authors, audiobook publishers, narrators, voice-over artists, and audiobook listeners. Learn how to create, produce, publish, and market your audiobooks.

https://books2read.com/u/bPRRyJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W81MN2Z

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos:
How to Plan, Create, Upload and Market Videos
https://www.books2read.com/u/3GYnpa

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

111 Tips To Make Money With Writing
The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing –
An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer
https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664187

111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free:
Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success
https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY

111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews:
Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews
plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY/

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer
How to Create, Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CHWX6X2/

Book Marketing on a Shoestring:
How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664225


Hello Friends, visit my Author Page here too:

https://books2read.com/ap/n4EYY8/Doris-Maria-Heilmann

 

 

How to Make Money From Your Photographs

Sell-Photos


As a writer, you might have already taken lots of images in the process of your book research – not only if you are a travel writer.  Images are often a better thing to remember places, situations, and feelings.

Photography enthusiasts who are at the proficiency level could make income from their hobby without becoming a full-time professional.

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Start Selling Pictures via the Internet
Once you start selling your best photographs via the internet, there is the possibility to take it a level further and to become a photo professional – or at least to offset the cost for your photo equipment.  It’s not a recipe to become rich, rather a way to have a small income on the site.  Earning a living from photos requires more than a hobby knowledge – and you need to treat this as your full-time job.

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Requirements of Selling on the Internet
Stock photography is not the only possibility, there are other options such as selling your images via your own website, using a “turn-key” digital sales provider.  However, you need to be able to produce photographs that will not be considered a “snapshot”.  Many stock photo companies don’t require very high resolution (typically the minimum is 4-6 MB) but your pictures must be clean, sharp, correctly exposed and not having much “noise”, which means a “clear” photo.  If you use any digital camera always shoot in RAW format and never in JPEG.

Copyrighted objects cannot be the primary subject of the picture without a property release (people for example). Photos of artwork (paintings, sculptures, etc) are unacceptable – unless you are the creator. 
  Learn about the technical requirements and about copyright issues on microstock websites.

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Subjects in Demand
A  picture with a clear message will sell better than a generic one. Positive messages will sell better than negative. People and objects isolated on white background sell very well, as do industrial pictures. Take images especially for stock.  Your photographs should have a message or illustrate a concept. 
Browse a lot through stock photo websites to get ideas.  They often list image types on demand. Recognizable people in your pictures must sign a model release.  Otherwise, stock photo companies will not accept the image.  These type of photos are selling best:

  • Photos of people
  • Photos of work situations (office, carpenter, steward, etc.)
  • Photos of cities and travel
  • Close-up photos (e.g. medication, signs, computers, tools)
  • Photos of nature and animals

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Keywords/Tags Are Very Important!
When you upload a picture to a stock site you have to provide the title, the description, the keywords, and category. It’s crucial to provide as many as possible correct keywords. This is your only (and really useful) marketing tool on the stock photo sites, so learn to use it effectively.

Searching for similar photos of other photographers to see what keywords they use helps too. But don’t blatantly copy them!
You can also use a free service by Arcurs.  Just enter a few keywords, then the site will find stock pictures matching these words. Select images similar to yours and you can see the summary of all keywords used to describe these pictures.

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Pro’s and Con’s of Selling From Your Website
The greatest benefit of selling directly is certainly monetary: You will get 100% minus the small fee your e-commerce provider charges.
However, the downside is you have to get your name out to media companies, webmasters, book cover designers, and major bloggers.  Thousands (better ten-thousands) of followers on a variety of social media sites certainly helps.  Social networks, guest posting about photography and getting active in photography forums can all help to sell your work.
E-commerce shops take a small fee every month. Some like Ecwid, for example, is free if you have less than ten images to offer.
E-Junkie provides a shopping cart and “buy now” buttons to let you sell book downloads.
The very best option, however, is Gumroad, a company who charges just 5% + 25¢ per transaction. Working with them means: there are no hosting fees, no monthly fees, no bandwidth fees, no refund fee. You just give a link to your website to potential customers and all the transaction goes through their website – but you will get and keep all your customer’s data.

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Where to Sell Your Photos
In our guide book: 
111 Tips to Make Money with Writing

– which is not only about content-writing – we are also describing ways to supplement writers income, for example, from selling images.  In this chapter, we list the most important stock photo companies with direct links and the royalties they pay for your images.
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Photography is big business these days.  Webmasters and businesses need images for their websites and marketing materials.  People purchase artwork for their homes.  All of these photos need to come from somewhere.  As a freelance photographer – or a talented photo-shooter – you have numerous options to sell your photos online.  This can be a great way to create passive income that earns while you’re working on other things.

 

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Find New Free & Royalty-free Photo Sites

Free-Photo-sites

 

It’s quite a while – actually more than three years – that I posted a list of FREE photo sites on the internet.  To keep you updated, here are more websites added, which offer free, professionally taken and Photoshop-enhanced images, together with everyday shots.  Carefully choose the resolution that you need, especially if the the image is for print of a high-quality book cover.  Some of these photo sites require registration (free), but it’s more than worth it.  Each stock site will give you the guidelines when you search for an image as to how you can use that image.
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Get Our Latest Free Stock Photos Directly in Your Inbox

https://www.negativespace.co/

https://unsplash.com/

http://www.lifeofpix.com/

https://www.pexels.com/

http://isorepublic.com/

https://pixabay.com/
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Royalty Free Sites:

https://www.shutterstock.com/home

http://depositphotos.com/

http://www.istockphoto.com/

https://us.fotolia.com/
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Improve SEO Through Your Photos
There is more to it, than just placing attractive photos on your blog or website.  Here are some tips how you can optimize your photos to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to get more traffic to your website or blog.
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Reduce the File Size of Your Photos
NOT the dimensions of the image, but the pixel size.  When you re-size a photo manually in WordPress (for example) you only change the dimensions, and the amount of pixel stays almost the same.  A file size of 1.8 MB can be easily reduced to 300 Kb without compromising the quality for the viewer.  Adobe Photoshop or Adobe “Lightroom” software can be used to re-size the photo’s pixels – not the dimension!  Important: Make a copy of your original photo BEFORE you re-size.  Otherwise it would be lost forever and you would keep only the lower pixel version. There is no way back!
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Name your Photos
File593730.jpg or DSC_8405037.jpg is not helpful for Search Engine Optimization and is totally meaningless to search engines. Keywords in the photos name should be separated by hyphens, NOT underscores, and shouldn’t be squeezed into a single word, e.g. Antique-Leica-Camera.jpg.
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Always Use ALT Tags
Wordpress makes it easy for you when adding photos to your text.  The fields for Title, Description, ALT and caption are build-in, so you can fill them out easily.  Search engines can’t “see” photos, but “read” keywords, that describes your image. Keywords that you use on your web page should work together with the keywords you use for your images.
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Royalty-Free Image Sites
Sometimes you just can’t find what you want at the free image sites, so it’s always a good idea to play-it-safe and pick up an image from one of these Royalty-Free image sites.  It will save you a lot of hassle with copyright infringement down the road.
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Get more tips how to use photos for the internet:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/how-to-use-photos-on-the-internet/

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7 Free Photo Sources For Authors

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Snow-Shoes

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In former blog posts we wrote already about free photo sources. To keep you updated, here
are seven websites added, which offer free, professionally taken and Photoshop-enhanced
images, together with everyday shots. Carefully choose the resolution that you need,
especially if the the image is for print of a high-quality book cover. Some of these photo sites
require registration (free), but it’s more than worth it.

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Microsoft Image Gallery
Did you know: Microsoft has a superb online photographic resource – all free, and every
photograph is of high quality. Great for book covers.

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Kozzi Free Photo Library
One of the most popular stock photo libraries on the net. Photographs have been
professionally shot for the most part, and dramatically enhanced in photoshop.

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Stock.xchnge
The first and largest free stock-photo site online. Easy to navigate with over 350,000 images,
contributed by 30,000 photographers. This photograph is typical of the high impact imagery
available at no cost:

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Dreamstime Free
Professional quality photographs. This is the free section of the Dreamstime paid site. The
photographs are of superb quality and great for cover backgrounds.

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Free Range Stock
Most images on this site are color improved by professional photographers. Not quite as
large a collection as other sites, but mostly high-quality images.

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RGB Free Stock Photos
RGB Free Stock has an extremely user-friendly interface. A huge number of dynamic
photographs, most at a highly professional level.

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MorgueFile Free Photos
Once more our favorite, we mentioned it in earlier blogs:  Morguefile is a gorgeous photo library full of sumptuous images – all contributed by creatives, for use by creatives. The library offers a huge number of photographs, most of high resolution. Use several terms / keywords to search for particular photos.
These images are all free to use. A fantastic offer for authors – including freelance writers and bloggers!
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What About Google Images?
Avoid using any images taken directly from “Google Images” search. Almost all belong to someone and you would infringe copyright. If you definitely want to use an image from
Google Images, track down the owner and ask for permission, and pay if required.

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 970 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

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http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Tagged: file size, free photos, Google Image Search, how to organize photo archives, image caption, inexpensive photos, name your photos, royalty free photos, royalty-free, SEO

How to Make the Most Out of Photos

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First of All: Where to Find Inexpensive or even Free Photos?
You might be an avid photographer, just like me, taking often several hundred images a month. However, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises, and the question is, where to turn to for inexpensive images for a blog or a web site? A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you.

How to Use Photos on Your Online Articles
Improve SEO through your photos: There is more to it, than just placing attractive photos on your blog or website. Here are some tips how you can optimize your photos to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to get more traffic to your website or blog.

Post LARGER Photos!
Use LARGER photos on Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. (Facebook shows them prominently in the Newsfeed). People love to share photos and you can now use #hashtags on Google+ and on Facebook. See also 11 Tips How to Create Web Content Without Writing
Getting more visual in your book marketing pays!

Find websites in these articles that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones. If you don’t know the difference between royalty-free and free photos, take the time to read these articles below thoroughly.
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Stealing Images Online VS Using Images Fairly

by Imgembed.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.
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Where to find free photos and illustrations?

Part II of Free Image Sources

Part III of Free Image Sources

Part IV Free – Inexpensive Photo Sources

Why Steal When You Can Get it for Free ?

5 Laws Writers Should Know to Avoid Getting Sued

10 Rules of USA Copyright Infringement

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Our largest visitor stream we ever got on any blog was via Google Image Search. People were looking for a certain image on Google and found our website. The photo had the right size, motive and it was named with the right keywords. Images are an important part of the web presence!

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Tagged: file size, free photos, Google Image Search, how to organize photo archives, image caption, inexpensive photos, Morguefile, name your photos, royalty free photos, royalty-free, SEO

Where Can You Find FREE Photos and Illustrations?

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Photographer

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Even though I am an avid photographer, taking often several hundred images a month, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises.  The question was, where can I find inexpensive photographs?  A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you. Maybe you need a certain image for your website, your blog or your book.  Please see some websites below that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones.

But what is the difference between free, royalty-free and rights-managed?

Free images can be downloaded without any rules or agreement and are in the public domain. The creator offers his work public and free, there are no legal rights or restrictions for his or her work and it can be duplicated.  Images which have been copyrighted can still be considered as free when they are explicitly announced by the artist to be used, copied, distributed or modified.

Royalty-free images are given the right to use. There is an agreement that the licensee can use the photo without paying additional royalty charges, but it does not mean that the licensee can use the image for what ever he/she wants.

Rights Managed images means a contract between the licencor and licensee, regarding licensing the rights to use photographs, specifying to use the content in a certain way. This can include the length of time, the medium, the size, the format and the location of use. Unlike images under royalty-free licenses, the licencor is in control or has history of the rights granted involving the image.
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FREE IMAGE SOURCES

I am only on page 15 of about 3,000 pages of free photos and have downloaded dozens of beautiful images that I can use for websites, books and yes, also for this blog. This is the best of all websites I found so far:

http://www.morguefile.com

An amazing hidden treasure on the internet, ten, no hundred thousands of free images (almost 300,000) and you are allowed to copy, distribute, transmit and to adapt the work. No “accounts” necessary as on other websites, just go to “free photos”, choose an image and download it.
Some of the photos are in such a high resolution that you can use them for your book cover image.
A real treasure trove!

http://www.Flickr.com

http://www.Freedigitalphotos.net

http://www.deviantArt.com

http://www.istockphoto.com

http://www.dreamstime.com

http://www.shutterstock.com

http://www.fotosearch.com/

http://www.photogen.com

http://www.imageafter.com/images.php

http://www.stockvault.net/

http://www.sxc.hu/

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As you browse, pull any images that catch your eye. Don’t assume you’ll be able to return to that page later. Chances are, you’ll never find it again. (most sites are constantly rotating, to show new images) – save the ones you like and cull them later. 

What is your favored website for free photos?

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

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Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following our social media sites:

@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Hyper Smash

Pingates

How to Use Photos on the Internet

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Antique Rolleiflex Camera

Antique Rolleiflex Camera

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My largest visitor stream I ever got on any blog was via Google Image Search. People were looking for a certain image on Google and found my website. The photo had the right size, motive and it was named with the right keywords.
.
Improve SEO through your photos
There is more to it, than just placing attractive photos on your blog or website. Here are some tips how you can optimize your photos to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to get more traffic to your website or blog.
.

Reduce the file size of your photos
NOT the dimensions of the image, but the pixel size. When you re-size a photo manually in WordPress (for example) you only change the dimensions, and the amount of pixel stays almost the same. A file size of 1.8 MB can be easily reduced to 300 Kb without compromising the quality for the viewer. Adobe Photoshop or Adobe “Lightroom” software can be used to re-size the photo’s pixels – not the dimension! Important: Make a copy of your original photo BEFORE you re-size. Otherwise it would be lost forever and you would keep only the lower pixel version. There is no way back!
.

Name your photos
File593730.jpg or DSC_8405037.jpg is not helpful to you and totally meaningless to search engines. Keywords in the photos name should be separated by hyphens, NOT underscores, and shouldn’t be squeezed into a single word, e.g. Antique-Leica-Camera.jpg.
.

Always use ALT tags
Wordpress makes it easy for you when adding photos to your text. The fields for Title, Description, ALT and caption are build-in, so you can fill them out easily. Search engines can’t “see” photos, but “read” keywords, that describes your image. Keywords that you use on your web page should work together with the keywords you use for your images.
.

Where to find inexpensive photos?
You might be an avid photographer, just like me, taking often several hundred images a month. However, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises, and the question is, where to turn to for inexpensive images for a blog or a web site? A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you.
.

Find websites in these articles that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones. If you don’t know the difference between royalty-free and free photos, take the time to read these articles thoroughly.
.

Where to find free photos and illustrations?

Part II of Free Image Sources

Part III of Free Image Sources

Part IV Free – Inexpensive Photo Sources

Why Steal When You Can Get it for Free ?

5 Laws Writers Should Know to Avoid Getting Sued

10 Rules of USA Copyright Infringement

.

<><><><><>

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 800 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

Don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks

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Pingates

How to Market your Book on Photo Sites

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You know Flickr as a photo storing and sharing site, but did you know you can use it to market your book there? Not to advertise, this would be against their terms of use and would block your account. But there is a subtle way to introduce your book on photo sharing sites, comparable to showing your book – including inside-illustrations – on Pinterest.

  • Start by commenting regularly on Flickr and telling people what you like about their images. Be encouraging and invite people to the Flickr groups you joined.
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  • Embed links to your Flickr site in photos you use on blogs, share it on social media sites such as Twitter, Google+, FB, Tumblr, StumpleUpon and Chime.in. Doing this draws visitors on third-party sites to your Flickr page. Pinterest for sample has recently made a feature that allows sharing from Flickr, automatically showing proper credit and a link back to the original photographer. No copyright and fair use problems anymore.
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  • Tagging and grouping photos: You can use up to 75 tags to describe your photo of the book cover, way more than on Amazon or any other page for that matter. 75 tags are a lot of possibilities to let people know about your book! Organize your work into collections on your profile page. Group them based on common themes, formats or any other elements. Don’t forget to add notes to explain or comment right on your photo, e.g. mentioning your book.
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  • If you want to see your images gaining a wider audience, start offering a few of them for fair use – especially your book cover photo or snippets of the cover image. Blogs and sharing sites are always on the lookout for royalty free images they can use.
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  • For only about $25 you can have a professional account from Flickr, an official icon showing that you are a pro user, which actually adds more credibility in the community. You also get enhanced features, such as unlimited photos, video or HD video capabilities. Having a professional account on Flickr allows you to post a photo in up to 60 user group pools, unlike a free account that only allows you to put each photo in ten user groups.
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  • Flickr is not the only site where you can show images of your book and its topics. Find a list of the best photo sharing sites on Social Times or on Wickipedia where you can even find the number of registered members and their Alexa Web Ranking.
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Flickr is popular, both for personal and professional use. For the average photographer, it has limitless potential for self promotion and sharing. Photos are easy to embed with links and author names, and can be found on WikiMedia Commons for example, they always have a lot of Flickr images shown there. Start increasing your own authors visibility and these of your books through photo posting on Flickr.
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Thanks, Doris

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