Review Of Fotolia Stock Photography Resource + Giveaway

Fotolia is one of the better known names amongst stock photography websites. It is a repository of royalty-free photos, videos, vector graphics and illustrations allowing photographers to maintain micro-stocks and make money by selling the photographs online. Fotolia, like other stock photography websites offers a common ground to the photographers and designers to buy and sell their artwork.

The stock photography websites allows the members to upload the images free of cost and pays the commission for the sale of the images uploaded by them. Fotolia also follows the same model and offers the commission ranging from 15% to 45% depending on various parameters like file size, type of license and photographer’s rank.

Fotolia’s interface is easy and simple to use. It hosts a secondary menu to provide access to the relevant information just beneath the search box. This panel simplifies access for updating profile, maintaining files and keeping an eye on the subscription plans. Even its mechanism for uploading and downloading the images is user-friendly. To start making money as a Fotolia contributor, you have to:

• Sign up for a free account and go through the training module (provided in your toolbox).
• Upload and index your images (by providing appropriate keywords and tags for your images, to thus make it easy for the searchers to find the relevant images). Of course you need to follow the rules and guidelines for uploading the images. The minimum resolution required for images is 4MP.
• Set the license for your images. Fotolia pays commission on the basis of license used for the image.
• Benefit from the Fotolia’s ranking system. Fotolia’s ranking system implies that the photographer with a higher rank will become a premium Fotolia seller (and thus make more money). Fotolia ranks the photographers based on the number of files sold by the photographer.

Fotolia has comprehensive search options to make it easy to search through categories, galleries, on the basis of country, from the best sellers and latest uploads or on the basis of tags. It also offers free images under various resolutions and licenses. For downloading the images, you need to sign in, select the images, add them to your shopping cart. Choose the resolution and license for purchasing the images and take your pick from payment options. You can make payment on pay-per-image basis or follow the subscription model. When purchasing the images it is better to cross-check the prices with other stock agencies offering similar / same images. By far, Fotolia offers the affordable prices but you may find the same image on the other stock agency with lower quotation.

Fotolia Giveaway For APN Readers

Leave a comment here and win a one month Fotolia subscription. Winners to be announced next week.

Fotolia is giving away a 1 month limited subscription for image downloads. To enter the contest, leave a comment on this post along with your valid e-mail address (so that we can acknowledge you in case you win; we respect your privacy). The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on 4th August.

Have you tried Fotolia? What do you like about it?

We are pleased to announce Elisa as the winner of this giveaway. Elisa has been notified through a personal email. The contest stands closed. Comments are still welcome.