Since the introduction of photo-editing software, most lens filters have become obsolete. Filters, such as warming and cooling filters, are not required with post-processing software. Because photo-editing software cannot change how light is captured, a few filters are still required.
When researching for lenses to purchase, look at what filter size the lenses are; two popular sizes are 72mm and 77mm. Because filters can degrade image quality, high-quality filters are recommended to minimize degradation; high-quality filters cost around $100. Lenses with the same filter size will save money from purchasing several of the same filters.
Circular polarizing (CPL) filters deflect light as light passes through the filter. This will result in photographs that have little to no reflection of metallic surfaces, such as metal and water. In addition to eliminating reflections, CPL filters add saturation to photographs, famously giving outdoor images tremendously blue skies. Circular polarizing filters rotate, allowing the photographer to adjust the strength of the polarization.
Photographers use neutral density (ND) filters to reduce light. To facilitate motion blur, even with the lowest ISO and smallest aperture, photographers still may need to reduce light. Neutral density filters solely reduce light, leaving the image’s color unchanged. Frequent applications include pictures involving moving objects, such as rivers, oceans, and automobile traffic. Filters are designed by how many stops of light they block, ranging from .3-stop to 13-stops. The more stops on an ND filter, the more light that will be blocked, creating smoother motion blur from a longer shutter speed. Neutral Density filters are also used when a photographer wants to shoot with a wide aperture setting (f/2.8 for example) and there is simple too much light on the scene to accommodate the desired shutter speed.
A graduated neutral density (GND) filter reduces light for half of the filter. The filter is split between neutral density and clear sides, with a hard or soft edge separating them. When shooting against the sun, the photographer exposes for the sky or ground, but not both. The image will result in the ground properly exposed but the sky blown-out, or vice-versa. When using a GND filter, the photographer can expose for both: expose for the ground and use the neutral density half of the filter to darken the sky, resulting in a properly exposed image.
Photographers use ultraviolet (UV) filters to protect their lenses’ front elements; rarely do contemporary photographers purchase these filters to reduce UV radiation. Adding a UV filter can protect the front element in case of a collision. Ultraviolet filters, however, are not required because they are not used for aesthetics. Unlike other filters, which are only used in certain situations, UV filters can become expensive because most photographers purchase one filter per lens because the photographers always want their lenses to be protected. Any addition of glass between the scene and the camera sensor reduces quality. The advantage of protecting your lens VS a reduction in image quality is a heated topic among photographers.
As a microstock photographer, efficiency is the name of the game. There are many steps in getting your images from shoot to upload – and waiting for Photoshop shouldn’t be one of them. Here are a few simple steps to speed up Photoshop.
Edit > Preferences > Performance
The majority of speed settings are tucked away in Edit > Preferences > Performance.
Once you reach the performance settings, check out the following options.
Scratch Disk
If you have more than one drive on your computer, make sure your scratch disk (where Photoshop stores temporary files) isn’t on your main C: drive (where Photoshop probably runs from). If you have several drives, make sure your cache is also not on the drive where your images are stored. What I have done is purchase a small SSD drive and dedicate it as a temporary work drive (cache). I have set it as the cache drive for a number of programs – making the cache read and write speeds extra speedy. I also use this drive for temporary storage of miscellaneous files.
History States
The history states setting determines how many clicks and button presses Photoshop will remember. If you can handle not being able to ‘step backwards’ (ctrl+alt+z) very far, you can reduce your history states. 25-50 history states is probably enough for most people. If you are having a lot of speed problems, you could reduce this to 10 at the risk of loosing some undo power.
Cache Levels
The best cache level depends on your computer. If you have a fast computer, set the cache level to a high amount. As long as your computer can handle the setting, Photoshop will redraw the image (while editing) or create live previews quicker. If your computer has a problem keeping up with your edits, pull the cache levels down. Photoshop may draw slower by default, but you’re computer will be able to keep up to what Photoshop is asking it to do.
Cache Tile Size
CS5: If you are working on large images with few layers, put the tile size to a high amount, small images with many layers, use a low tile size amount. This setting determines how big of a ‘chunk’ Photoshop tries to work with at a time. CS4 and earlier: You won’t have this setting. Instead you have to head to Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Plug-Ins/Extensions/Bigger Tiles Inside that folder you should see the Bigger Tiles Plug-in with a ‘~’ in front of the file name. Enable the plug-in by taking out the ‘~’
RAM
The RAM setting is fairly easy to understand. Move the slider to the right and give Photoshop control of more RAM. Don’t move it all the way to the right though, the rest of your computer needs some RAM too. Leave at least 1GB for Windows and other programs to use.
Layer Thumbnail Previews
Photoshop shows you a little thumbnail preview of the layers you are working on. These take processing power to create and update. If you make the thumbnail shown smaller, or non shown at all, you will speed up Photoshop. You can adjust the thumbnail size by going to the layers pallet (press F7 if it isn’t showing), then click on the little arrow (menu) button, and select “Panel Options”
Restart Photoshop
That’s it. Now restart Photoshop and your speed settings should take effect.
Adobe has also written a fairly long guide to speeding up Photoshop which you can check out here. A long read, but worthwhile checking out if you are serious about getting the most out of the program.
Alternatively, if you like video tutorials more than text tutorials, you can check out a tutorial I created for TutorVid on Speeding up Photoshop.
Pixmac Microstock Photography Launches Two New Exclusive Collections
Pixmac Microstock Photography has launched two new exclusive collections to the marketplace. The first collection, by well- known illustrator Camxip is a collection of childlike inspired illustrations designed to evoke memories of yesteryear and of the simpler times of early life.
A representative of Camxip, a highly-reclusive illustrator who resides in the mountains in Montana, says that “Camxip decided to release his illustrations into the microstock marketplace, after a fan of his art for many years suggested that they would be useful for commercial work”. Camxip was unavailable for comment as he spends much of his time tending to his herd of miniature Shetland ponies.
The second collection by photographer Roloc, showcases vector illustrations of solid colors. Roloc himself, who resides in San Francisco, stated “My family has been involved in inventing colors for many years. My Dad was a prominent color illustrator in the 1950s, having worked for the Color Institute at Berkeley, and invented many of the colors we see today”.
Pixmac is expecting both collections to sell well from the onset and have signed exclusive rights for the next 5 years.
Info about Pixmac:
Pixmac is a leading microstock photography site offering millions of images at budget prices. Photos from $1 with the ability to source, download and buy an image in less than 3 minutes, with no registration process. Pixmac offers a fast, time-saving site with great customer service.
I’ve had a copy of Microstock Money Shots sitting on my desk for a while now. Ellen sent the book for a review, I gave it a read, and while I have recommended it a couple of times I haven’t gotten around to giving it it’s own review post. Here it (finally) is…
Background Check… Who is Ellen Boughn?
For those who are new to the industry, which includes a large majority of the microstock contributer base, Ellen Boughn may not be familiar name… yet. Those who were involved in the stock photography industry when stamps, film and cd’s roamed the earth, however, need no introduction to Ellen.
For the newbies: Ellen has been involved in the stock industry in one way or another for the past 30 years. She has founded an agency (After-Image) which was later sold to Getty, held executive positions at numerous other agencies throughout her career and within the microstock marketplace, she ran a very well received blog series on Dreamstime, and has most recently been blogging for Crestock. Ellen is one of the few people who has been able to ‘get’ or understand both sides (micro and traditional) of the stock industry.
Microstock Money Shots does a great job of giving the reader inspiration and direction for shooting, without stifling creativity or freedom. Ellen doesn’t give you hand holding directions through the microstock process, but instead gives you ideas, thoughts, and inspiration on how to use your own creativity to create sale-able stock. The chapters in the book cover Microstock topics relevant for both the absolute beginner and intermediate shooter. If you are seasoned microstock shooter, many of the pages will be repetition of what you already know, but there is still a lot of information and inspiration to be gleaned from the chapters on choosing subjects to shoot (3 chapters), keywording and choosing models.
The book is written in a laid back, easy to read style and filled with top notch microstock shots. If you weren’t sure what a great microstock image looked like before you read the book, you will once you are finished. Again, the images are not given as a template to copy, but as inspiration and a style which should inspire you and get you on your way to identifying and creating illustrative images.
Should I Buy the Book?
This book is an easy read with lots of images to give your eyes a break and let your mind wonder. If you are looking for inspiration on how to create better stock, tips and direction on what to shoot – buy the book. If you are totally new to microstock and still wondering if microstock is for you – buy the book and you’ll find out. If you are already making $100,000/year from micro, this book will have less value, but you may be surprised at what it does offer and you may be encouraged to push your style or explore a new niche. When you are done reading it, you can give it away to one of those many people who have no understanding about what you do for a living.
Have you read the book? What did you think?
Book Details
Title
Microstock Money Shots – Turning Downloads into Dollars with Microstock Photography
Last January MicrostockGroup organized a survey for everyone contributing content to the Microstock marketplace. Here is the First Look of the results from the survey. You can also find the ‘disclaimer’ in that post if you are interested . The survey is still live, and will be for the next few weeks. If you haven’t contributed your stats, you still have the chance. To date there are 606 people who have answered the survey.
Full Time Microstock Artists Analyzed
Of the 606 artists who answered the survey, 150 of these consider their microstock income as their ‘Primary Income’. A much larger representation than last year’s 76 full time artists, giving us much better data to look at. In the survey, the question asked if microstock contributed to more than 50% of their total income. This analysis is going to look at these 150 artists, those I would consider to be ‘full time’ microstockers. Full time, in this sense has to be used rather loosely as a stay at home mom who has microstock as her only income isn’t working at microstock ‘full time’ yet may have micro as 100% of her income. Similarly someone who has been laid off from their office job and is job hunting and doing microstock on the side will again earn 100% from microstock yet not technically be working full time in microstock.
Average Time Spent per Week
Average: 27.5 hours Median: 25 hours Maximum: 100 hours Minimum: 1 hour
Number of people who spend more than 20 hours / week: 113 People
When putting the info into a bar graph, it becomes clear that the majority of those who have microstock as their primary income are spending an significant portion on microstock.
Show Me the Money!
The question everyone wants an answer to, how much are full time microstock photographers earning?
Here are the gross earning stats for the 150 ‘full time’ microstockers Average: $35,487 Median: $15,000 Maximum: $450,000 Minimum: $10
The median is considerably lower than the average which means there are a few microstock artists who are pulling the average up. How many, and what is the breakdown? This requires another graph
I have put all 150 photographers onto this graph. I have capped the top of the graph at $225,000 as the one artist earning $450,000 was out on his own. When chopping off the highest earner, the graph follows a pretty smooth, albeit steep, curve. There is also an interesting jump in earnings at $50,000. I find this display of earnings quite encouraging actually. It isn’t one or two artists who are collecting all the money, it is indeed a small group of artists, but a group large enough that anyone should be able to be a part of it with a little talent and focus.
Percentage of Total Income
The survey also asked how much microstock earnings contributed to the respondents total income. Amongst the full time artists, the results are as follows:
Average: 83%
Median: 90%
Artists earnings 100% of their income from Microstock: 39 (26%)
39 artists earning 100% of their total income from microstock doesn’t sound like a very high number but it represents 6.4% of the total respondents which is quite a few people. I expect that is a good number of the total full time artists in the entire industry. Many, if not most artists have at least a little secondary income (from private clients or something else) they diversify their income with. Speaking from experience however, it is extremely liberating to work entirely within microstock and drop the hassle of clients
Exclusive or Non-Exclusive
The survey had an over representation of iStock exclusive contributers. 22.94% of the total 606 respondents were exclusive compared to the 14.63% of the total microstock population iStock Charts claims are exclusive. Within the full time segment, the exclusive representation is higher. A total of 27% of full time artists were exclusive.
Full Time Microstock Artists Exclusive Status
Exclusive Artists: 27%
Non Exclusive: 73%
Media Types Submitted
I think there is a lot of interesting data that could be looked at in regards to media types and earnings. To start us off however, here is a simple look at the media types full time microstockers are submitting
Photography: 122 people
Illustration: 63 people
Video: 29 people
Audio: 6 people
Photography is still by far the most popular media type, however illustration certainly has decent representation. I expect video and audio will increase over the next few years as artists try to diversify and new artists who specialize in video or audio discover the microstock market.
What Else?
There is no end to data that could be pulled from the survey results. What are you interested in seeing in regards to full time artists? What other break down segmentation are you interested in?
Circular Polarizing Filter
Graduated Neutral Density Filter
Ultraviolet Filter
If you have more than one drive on your computer, make sure your scratch disk (where Photoshop stores temporary files) isn’t on your main C: drive (where Photoshop probably runs from). If you have several drives, make sure your cache is also not on the drive where your images are stored. What I have done is 
The history states setting determines how many clicks and button presses Photoshop will remember. If you can handle not being able to ‘step backwards’ (ctrl+alt+z) very far, you can reduce your history states. 25-50 history states is probably enough for most people. If you are having a lot of speed problems, you could reduce this to 10 at the risk of loosing some undo power.
Photoshop shows you a little thumbnail preview of the layers you are working on. These take processing power to create and update. If you make the thumbnail shown smaller, or non shown at all, you will speed up Photoshop. You can adjust the thumbnail size by going to the layers pallet (press F7 if it isn’t showing),
. The survey is still live, and will be for the next few weeks. If you haven’t contributed your stats, you 
