Friday, June 29, 2007

How To Sell Photos Online

So you'd like to know how to sell photos online.

In fact it doesn't matter if you are a professional photo shooter or an amateur who just has
bought his first digital camera. If you would like to sell photos online you need only three things.

- A digital camera. (Too expensive? find a cheap one on ebay)

- A connection to the internet ( I bet you have already a connection)

- Resources (That's why you must read on).

In the next few paragraphs you will discover three places where you can sell your photos online.

At the end I will give you four tips how you can sell your photos online for a bigger profit.

photo stock sites.

Online photo stock sites are simple to use.

Online photo stock sites are places where you can buy and sell your digital photos.

There are a lot of photo stock sites and before you signup make sure you read their terms of service.

You can easily find the photo stock sites with google search for keywords like.

"photo stock sites"

"online photo stock sites"

"sell photos online"

If you do a search you will find dozens of sites.

The most important sites where you can sell your pictures online are.

- Shutterstock.com

- Bigstockphoto.com

- stockphoto.net

It's simple the more photos you submit the more money you will make.

I know some people who are making thousands per month just with selling their photos online.

Break.com

Break.com is not really a site where people will buy your photos however you can make some
money with sharing your funny pictures.
It simple upload your original pictures to break and if your picture appears in the Break gallery you earn $25.

What if you submit only 4 pictures a day?

You don't have funny pictures to share?

Call some friends and visit a local festival or carnival procession.

Your own site

Another great way to sell your photos online is trough your own site.

If you have received some buyer trough the online photo stock sites it is time to make your own site.
It won't cost you a lot of money for 7$ or less you have already your own domain name.
Take some time to research a few hosting companies and you can find a professional one for under 5$ a month.

How to sell photos online – 5 additional tips.

1) Make sure your photos don't have any watermark, trademark or brands on them.

2) If you submit photos with people on it you must have their agreement to do it.

3) Take several pictures from one object but in different views.

4) Take some time to browse around in the photo stock sites.
Have you seen a category that is more popular than the others.
Spend some time to take pictures for this category and see an increment in your earnings.

5) Try to find some direct clients who are looking for your photos on elance.com.

Do a search for photos and enjoy the results.

I hope you have learned from this article about how to sell photos online.

You have no excuse not trying it yourself.

Remember with a few hours of work you can make thousand of dollars.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Did You Know Allowing Right Clicks Promotes Stealing?

Every minute of the day some website somewhere is the victim of digital content theft. This content could be the content of a review, a news story, an article, or even sales copy that a website owner slaved over for weeks or even paid for. Lets not forget the graphics on the website either. Graphics are the most common digital theft of all.

The sad thing is it is so easy for the digital thieves to get the digital content. All they have to do is highlight, right click, select copy, and there you go the content from your website is now in their possession to do what they want with it.

Webmasters all over the world are starved for content on their websites. While it may be true that article directories such as this one have helped, but did you know these digital thieves even steal content from the article directories as well? They sure do.

Now there are even a few programs that can download a whole website and with just a few clicks convert the downloaded content to appear to be original content on another website. So what can we do about it?

There are several scripts a webmaster can use that will block the use of right clicking on a web page. Most of these are JavaScript or cgi scripts that do disable the right click process. Some will even display a predefined popup stating that right clicking has been disabled.

Well that's great but what about the dishonest webmaster that just goes to his View source menu option within his browser? There is no simple answer to this problem. Some webmasters use escape encoding after they have coded their html before uploading to their websites. This is not failsafe as there are utilities that will also decode and unescape the garbled mess that they see in view source. Still it at least it thwarts most of the copy and paste digital thieves.

Developers in web 2.0 technologies proclaim to making advances in stopping digital theft, but the techniques are still way early in development and not stable enough for the plethora of web browsers in use today.

So for now the best we as webmasters can do is to use one of available JavaScript and even go so far as to escape encode for added protection. Hopefully in the near future this problem will be history as the web developers of today put their heads together and diligently work to solve the problem.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What is Contemporary Landscape Photography?

Contemporary Landscaping Photography is the art of taking landscape photographs whose center of focus is of objects of contemporary life such as waste dumps, abandoned automobiles, graffiti-covered trains and contemporary building structures, either new or decaying.

What is Composition and How Does It Relate to Contemporary Landscape Photography?

Great landscape photographs are dependent on being able to portray a scene, to arrange its elements, and to present it in a way that evokes an emotional response and allows the viewer to experience not only a beautiful scene, but also an awe-inspiring one.

To get such a feeling, it is not enough to have an interesting subject, or to maintain sharp focus, or to calculate the perfect exposure - the photographer must also be able to see a composition within a scene, to visualize it, and be able to convey his or her own inspiration to the viewer. That is the essence of landscape photography - training the eye to recognize elements in a scene that can combine to produce an emotional reaction, and then capturing your own vision in a photograph.

To lend a feeling of interest and excitement to your photographs, the center of interest should not be placed dead-center in your photographs, but off-center. You can use the rule of thirds as a guide in the off-center placement of your subjects. Before you snap the picture, imagine your picture area divided into thirds both horizontally and vertically. The intersections of these imaginary lines suggest four options for placing the center of interest for good composition. The option you select depends upon the subject and how you would like that subject to be presented.

The Importance of Lighting in Your Landscape Photographs.

Pay attention to the lighting as well, it can give your picture just the right touch or ruin the entire shot.
Since reflected light is what the camera uses to create images, lighting is clearly a key element in all kinds of photography. Besides Natural or Artificial sources of light, the photographer should be aware of the direction of light and what effects it can render to a landscape scene. Light is classified into four types: front, back, side and overhead. Each brings their own specific effects to the subject.

What Type of Filters Do You Need When Taking Landscape Photographs?

There is a large number of filters available for use in landscape photography, but the two most used are the UV and the Polaroid. The UV filter is used to remove the haze that is usually present in landscape photos, and the polarizing filter used to reduce or remove reflections both in the sky and in the composition. There are many types of lenses, both for color and black and white photographs, too many to list here, but of which the photographer should be aware.

The Most Important Part of Contemporary Landscape Photography.

Know your abilities, strengths and weaknesses. These three things determine what you are capable of. And practice, practice and practice some more. Rome was not built in a day, but it was built Learn from your mistakes. But have fun. Enjoy the process.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Does Your "Old" Site Work on the "New" Web?

Well, apparently there IS something new under the sun…..and it's happening all over the web. New technologies, new applications, and new features are making all kinds of web sites more useful than ever before, including business web sites. You may have heard it described as "web 2.0," the "interactive web," or the "content-driven web," but all of these terms reinforce the same basic idea – the web has changed!

It used to be that small businesses could simply use their existing brochures and product sheets as content for their web sites, add a few keywords, and maybe add a contact form to create a pretty good small business web site. But now, there's a new web environment for business that's based on multimedia, interactivity, and creative presentation techniques that make these old-school web tactics seem positively outdated.

So what's a small business to do?

Content Delivery

For starters, you're going to have to actively communicate with your site visitors, not just provide them with a static "brochure-site" that they can read. For instance, what can your visitors expect to gain by visiting your site? Can they sign up for an e-newsletter? Do you have downloadable reports or e-books to offer them? Does your content offer them actual useful information, or is it just page after page of sales pitch? You may need to rethink the way in which you deliver your web content, and determine better ways to provide value to your visitors.

Meet New Expectations

You may also want to pay attention to the new technologies available on today's web sites, because users are quickly becoming accustomed to them. Visitors often expect to see technologies such as RSS feeds, blogs, and podcasts available from business sites, as well as video "ads," interviews, and tutorials. Even adding simple features can make a big difference for a web site. For example, adding an interactive calendar of events to your site (especially if you allow visitors to submit events for publication) can send a strong signal to your users that you are able to meet their expectations both on your web site and in your business, making you a natural choice over your competitors!

Make the Right Impression

If you're a small business, the temptation might be to think that these new expectations don't really apply to your business, or that your customers don't really care about how sophisticated your web site is (or isn't). Well, that's simply not the case. Studies have shown over and over again that customers make decisions based on emotional "gut feelings," often based on their impression of your business. If you present them with an old-fashioned, outdated web site, what do you think they will remember (if they remember you at all)?

Make sure your web site is an accurate reflection of your business, and give your visitors a reason to "click around" and get to know your company. Offer them a variety of interesting material that's presented appropriately for today's web users. Meet their expectations on your web site, and they will be less likely to move on to the next site (a.k.a. your competition!) and more likely to do business with you.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Tips to a Better Site Design

A website is a portal that people visit should they wish to make any activity whether business or otherwise on the Internet. As such, it is mandatory for site to have a pleasing design and informative contents on it should you want it to be visibly liked by these people. More visitors would mean more traffic, and more traffic would mean high ranking. With such a prize to earn with having a well-designed site, who would not invest a lot in creating and designing it? After all, it is every site owner's desire to have all these.

- Choose the right hue and the right scheme. Websites should be made under the impression of virtual graphical aesthetics. Therefore, perfectly choosing the right color schemes should be a consideration. Balancing the color combinations with the background and text should be carefully seen; otherwise, it can ruin just everything about the site design.

- Choose the appropriate background for the site page. Heard about people complaining not able to read and view the text on the site because the background is just so powerful in color that it overshadowed all site texts? Well, this is just one scenario of inappropriately placing the background on the site.

- Choose the right pictures and graphical embedding. Pictures are supposed to be embedded on a site to support your information for a better appreciation and understanding. Now, if after putting the pictures on the site, it ruined the entire context of the site, then, I would say that the pictures were not just the right ones

Friday, June 8, 2007

How To Choose A Web Designer-Developer

Requirements

The best way to decide on which kind of site you need is pretty simple, your site needs to be clean, well structured and most importantly SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly.

Questions to ask?

Most importantly get a list of the current websites the developer has created, check this out and see if they look professional or suited towards your companies look and feel.

Ask about there SEO skills, do they have any example of any sites they have created doing well on the search engines! This is very important as a badly created site will do nothing more than sit there not generating any traffic or leads!

Price. This can be hardest of the 3 questions to decide on. Basically even the most complex page should create no more than a days work, and you can often create many simple pages in a day. If you have requirement for a database to store you company information online then the costs will increase for the developer for the hosting. Hosting and Domains are also easy todo yourself and you can supply the logins to the developer so you have full control over the site.

I have the recommended hosting companies that I use listed at my website and also a great place to register your domains, these I have come across while web developing for over 10 years and are the best I have found.

My websites start from 500 euros and this includes domain and hosting, and I am more than happy to quote you for any type of website and recommend the best design for you company.

But this article is not just for me to praise myself, there are many web designers and I may not be the right one for you but I hope this article give you an idea of how to go about finding one that will create for you a website you will be proud of.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) for the Layman

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are another way for web designers to tell the web browser how the website should look. HTML does this already but CSS has greater advantages.

With HTMl you would normally describe a paragraph with the ‹font› tag followed by the specifiers such as color, size, face, et ct. If you wanted other changes to the font, they aren't logically a font tag specifier. They would have their own tag such as ‹b› for bold or ‹i› for italics.

CSS defeats the poor logic behind the original design of the people who created HTML. In CSS you could describe font for a paragraph by using something like the following:

p{
color:black;
text-align:center;
font-size:large;
font-family:arial;
font-weight:bold;
}

As you can see, we defined the paragraph tag with the "p" before the "{," described what the text should look like then how the font should be manipulated and closed everything with "}." This is more logical being that the look of the writing was described by "text" specifiers--text being defined as the written word and therefore its look--and the typesetting and size manipulated by "font" specifiers--font being defined as a complete set of type of one size and face.

Now let's dissect the above. To start a CSS entry, we must tell the web browser what we are defining. This would normally be an HTML tag. The one above defines the paragraph tag "p" but you could also do the span tag "span" or any table tag such as "td." After telling what we are defining, we must open the script dialog. We do this by putting "{." We may then enter our definitions.

HTML is very limited in definitions. One may only specify bold, size, and color. With CSS we may define not just bold but how bold. We may define not just size in terms of pitch but also, percentages, pixels, width, height, et ct. We may also define the what the text does such as letter spacing or even blinking.

Type all the specifiers you'd like in the form shown above. Name of the specifier and the specification separated by a colon then ended with a semicolon. Each entry should be on a separate line and all closed off with a "}." For a list of available CSS specifiers please visit W3School's CSS Reference Page

Sometimes one could not just define HTML tags but can set up generic descriptions. For example you want all font to be a certain size and color but you want headers to have a different color and to be bold. You would do this by the use of "selectors." You would define one as follows:

.header{
font-size:larger;
font-weight:bolder;
}

Note specifically that there is a period in front of a word. The word is clearly not a tag. You may use any word you wish. The period tells the browser to look for HTML tags with the word embedded inside the "class" specifier. When it finds the word it uses that design instead of the default.

Besides advanced design capability, there are other practical purposes for CSS. When you write HTML it will take up space. Of course web page will have a file size, right? Well, as people look at your site they download the information and it takes up "bandwidth" and certain webhosts may limit this. Not only that but even if you host your site with your own server then you would worry about bandwidth because it increases employment expenses as well as many other problems. CSS helps because it reduces the many HTML tags defining the same basic design into just defined once. Also, because of that it reduces the many web pages file size saving bandwidth. On top of that, web visitors can download the CSS file once to view all pages. Lastly, the separate CSS file can be set to define all web pages on your site. That means you make one change on a single document and your whole web site will look different. Now that's fantastic!

To recap, with CSS one can describe how many things should look. HTML can only describe one thing at a time. CSS can be embedded anywhere inside a webpage. HTML must be embedded right next to what it describes. CSS can not only describe many things but on many number of pages; HTML cannot. You could create a single document with the extension ".css" which will control all your web pages on your site; HTML cannot. If you need to make changes to your site, it will only take one change with CSS in one place but many on all pages with HTML.

Friday, June 1, 2007

The Memory Card - What Can You Do With Old Photo Gear?

Digital camera manufacturers are constantly improving their equipment. Suddenly your old equipment, so recently the latest and greatest, is now yesterday's news. Often the upgrades are so dramatic as to encourage, if not force, you to replace the cameras or lenses you've been using. So what can you do with your old equipment?

The easiest solution is to sell it to a local dealer, who'll give you a low price and resell it for a hefty profit. A better alternative is to sell it online. We've used four online marketplaces, e-bay, Craig's List, Photo.Net, and Fred Miranda's site.

E-Bay (www.ebay.com) reaches the largest audience, but only a small fraction is made up of potential purchasers of professional or semi-professional camera gear. In addition, their system is complex, and there are fees involved. But if you want to give it a try, eBay for Dummies, by Marsha Collier (Peachpit Press, 2006, $21.99), or eBay: The Missing Manual, by Nancy Conner (Pogue Press/O'Reilly, 2005, $24.95) will lead you through the steps and around the pitfalls. Or turn the sale over to a TA (Trading Assistant), someone who sells on eBay for others, typically for 20 to 25 percent of the selling price plus eBay and PayPal fees.

Another option is Craig's List, a free location-based online marketplace. Instead of trying to market nationwide, you're presenting your wares in your own community. Go to www.craigslist.org and click on your city name. If it's not on the list, click on your state and—unless your community is extremely small—it'll be there. No shipping hassles or charges, and payment is usually in cash, eliminating any uncertainty or risk in the transaction.

Another other free option is www.photo.net (click on "classified ads," then on "new topic"). Just describe what you want to sell and state your asking price. Many who respond will offer less than that. We've often been successful by saying we can't reduce the price, but that we'll pay shipping and insurance. You'll probably be dealing with serious photographers, so fraud is unlikely. However we always insist on a certified check from their bank, or a postal money order, and promise to ship the same day we receive it (with a stop at the bank first).

Finally, you might want to consider www.fredmiranda.com. There's no charge for buyers, but to post items for sale you have to be a subscriber ($25 per year). If you're selling high end or specialized equipment, however, it can be worth it. For more typical items, however, our favorites are Craig's List and photo.net.

How much should you ask for used camera gear? For equipment in excellent equipment, in the original boxes (always save those boxes!) we check the current price at www.bhphotovideo.com and take 20 to 30 percent off of that. Then, to make sure we're in the ballpark, we check what others are asking and use that as a guideline.