Domain Name Search Engine Ranking

A good domain name for your photography or art website is a must. If you are a solo artist or solo photographer you can simply just use your name for your website. Search engine ranking is achieved with proper keywording. Try to create keywords that are closely related to the most common words yet at the same time unique in itself. For instance take the word artist. This is a top level keyword in which likely will be somewhat difficult to take first rankings in the search engines. If you add your name and or a descriptive word about the type of art or photos you offer will be much more successful at finding a better search engine placement. Use as unique descriptions as possible for best results. Submit to artist and art directories. This is also important in establishing relevant links to your website that are similiar in topics. Be choosy who you link to and who also links back to you. You dont want to be caught up in a bad neighborhood of useless and potentially harmful links. If you submit to general directories be sure to submit your art site or photography website to the proper category because quite often many directory administrators will not correct this for you or they will simply just delete your site for improper category placement among many other directory submission errors. Be sure to use accurate spelling and avoid keyword stuffing when submitting to these directories. Well established and high ranking directories will not be easy to get placement as some of the directory owners can be quite choosy. Keep your description simple and straight to the point as to who you are and what you have to offer. Use the proper official name of your website if requested rather than loosely strung keywords. It also looks much more professional when using proper titles and accurate descriptions. Be sure to read all the rules, terms and conditions when submitting to a website directory.

Home Based Photo Studio Lab

Many artists and photographers prefer to sell only prints, cards and other stationary items from their images instead of licensing their original images for commercial use. Many thirds party print on demand websites offer services that will help with the production of the prints and cards themselves. There are free options but usually there is always a catch and limitations. Paid services allow for room but overall it will still cost plus commission. Retain all your earnings by setting up a home photo studio lab. This will require some time and investment but then the artist or photographer will have complete control with everything including all control of costs.
 One can get started on a low budget by purchasing a good quality photo printer to produce smaller and sellable 4x6 or 5x7 prints or perhaps spend a few dollars more and purchase a level entry professional wide format photo printer that is capable of larger sizes and more features. Suitable printers can be found for a thousand dollars or much cheaper if one is really lucky to come across a good deal over the internet. Canon and Epson offer high quality photo printers that produce excellent results.
 The problem with using third party print on demand websites is not knowing what your photos will look like before they get to your customers. You can always order your prints before hand from the third party being used to be sure that your prints will be sellable. This normally requires purchasing your own prints sometimes with a discount but can be inconvenient because of a waiting period for shipping. It could also be very expensive if you have a lot of images you would like to sell. In many cases when it comes to the photography and art industry there is simply just very few cheap cuts when it comes down to selling your images as prints. However, all is not lost. One can invest in a high quality wide format photo printer for much less in the long run. Photo printers in this price range are capable of printing fairly large images and creation of greeting cards if so desired. If you decide you would like to sell your images as posters then this would require a much more expensive printer because of the poster size itself. Remember the larger the image the more costly it will be to produce which in turn affects the retail price of the print itself. One must consider the cost of ink and type of photo paper that is to be used when producing the images to print.
 The advantages of owning your own photo printer is that you will be able to judge what your images look like before selling and if changes are needed to improve the image itself before putting to market. This in turn makes the whole process much easier, faster, simpler and much less expensive. You will also appreciate having total control over the printing production of your photographs and art in the comfort of your own space.   

Don't Sell Your Photos For Next To Nothing

There are a variety of ways one can sell their art and photography. The trick is to watch that you don't allow usage or sell your art and photographs at a mere pittance of their actual worth. In other words don't settle for just pennies. You deserve much more than this for the images you create. Why should someone else be the one to profit more than you off your creations? Print on demand photo sites such as Red Bubble, Imagekind, Deviant Art and similar sites offer prints for sale using your images. There are pros and cons to this approach. It is easy to get started using a free account, uploading photos and hopefully to make a few bucks or cents when someone buys a print of your image. The downside of this is the amount of money you receive is virtually next to nothing unless you are very lucky to sell an awful lot of prints of your images. This is also goes for greeting cards, posters and any media where your art and photos are used as the basis of the product. Quite often many of these print on demand sites want exclusive royalty free rights to your photos. In other words you will have to agree to their terms not to sell your images in the same fashion from another print on demand site. This also holds true for stock photography sites. In my opinion this is totally unethical and is totally a disadvantage to the rightful copywriter owner of the image itself. Therefore it is very important for an artist or photographer to read the fine print, terms and conditions before signing up with a print on demand photo website or stock photo website. Do research on the sites and read user reviews by googling everything you can find out about how such sites work. It would be well worth the time before its too late and the artist falls into great disappointment. It is just not worth it otherwise to jump into a sticky situation in hopes of making a few measly bucks from your hard work. Yes, creating art and obtaining that perfect photo shot can be time consuming. Don't just give it away. Artists and photographers have to put bread on the table too! This is especially true when one is new to this type of business. The newcomer of an artist or photographer can be easily duped into an uncomfortable situation because someone wants your images for very little or at worst free maybe in return for a simple credit. Don't fall for it. This will not pay the bills nor be good for your self esteem. However, there are those individuals who don't mind these technicalities of selling images from print on demand and stock photo sites. Much all depends on the person's desired niche if they wish to sell their photographs and artwork as cards, prints, posters, mugs, keychains, etc. Remember that the company or person with the printing business will prosper more than the artist who allows usage of their images for very little in return. A decent premium home printer with premium printing paper can do the same thing. This way the artist can print as needed when someone requests a print. Even greeting cards can be created from home with a home printer. The only limitations of a home printer is photo sizes. Posters for example would require a commercial sized printer which can run in the thousands of dollars which is probably not feasible for those on budget. Another and probably the best alternative is to sell your art and photos from your own domain and website as digital art downloads and photo downloads. This way one can set their own license terms, prices and have complete control over the images. That way if another company or individual wishes to use one of your images for mass production of products such as posters, mousepads, postcards, etc, the artist or photographer can state his or her usage license and fee for the usage of the photo. This way a much higher price can be asked for the photo art or photograph requested according to quality, style, popularity, size and type of usage (non-commercial or commercial) of the image itself.  

Transform Your Photos To Art

Photography itself is a wonderful art form in itself.  Amazing images can also be transformed to photo art using graphics software. This can produce some very unusual and interesting photos which in turn provide more pictures for your photo album or online gallery. Photoshop and its cheaper alternative the Gimp provide many fine tools and filters that can turn a plain photographic image to a fine piece of art. For example why not add some digital painting effects to that boring old landscape image to produce a museum like painting. Perhaps that common photo of everyday trees and flowers could become an abstract art form with added colors and distortions. Why not just simply turn a photo to a black and white image with added grain for that old fashioned look. The possibilities are endless. One single photograph can be taken to produce a photo art series collection if the objects in the photo itself allow it. From experience some photographic images simply produce better photo art images than others. Its all a matter of testing colors, filters etc to produce that one of a kind photo. The important thing is too have fun and only keep the best of photo art pictures for publication and selling. Study the image closely. If it doesn't look quite right it probably isn't. Usually one will know in an instant if a photograph is suitable for a photo art piece after applying a few effects. Most photographic images are useable for photo art creations. More experienced Photoshop users will likely find it much easier than novice users. Novice Photoshop users can simply experiment with the various filters till they see something that catches their eye. That is okay too because some of the best photo art is created at random.

Photoshop Versus the Gimp

Every digital and graphic artist knows about Photoshop. There is also the open source bitmap editor, the Gimp which is completely free to use for personal and commercial use. It is just a matter of preference. Here we will discuss the benefits and downfalls of both graphics programs.
Photoshop is commercial and very expensive. It is almost always considered the standard for a professional artist or photographer. The upgrades are not free and thus adds another cost in keeping up  with the latest Photoshop updates. The benefits outweigh the cost if one can afford it. Photoshop has many excellent photo editing tools but also has a steep learning curve. The good news is that there are many free tutorials to be found on the intenet on using Photoshop to its fullest potential. The Gimp, on the other hand also has many tools and filters that is totally free to use. Updates are always free and thus is the most economical graphics editor for the casual artist to the professional. 

The Gimp however lacks a shape tool that is similar to Photoshop. One can make very basic shapes in the Gimp. Photoshop, however has a much more advanced shape creator which is a very important tool for artists especially graphic artists. This is probably one of the major differences in Photoshop and the Gimp. Other than that both programs are both excellent for digital imaging and photo retouching.  It is just a matter of how much one wants to spend on graphics software. If one is just starting their out new, the Gimp is the way to go. Another alternative would be to find an older version of Photoshop which would be cheaper. This can be done by searching on Ebay or Amazon. This is not easy to do these days because those rare older copies of Photoshop still maintain their value. People are hanging on to their prized possessions and when they do appear they are snatched up as fast as they are listed.