If you are new to microstock photography, you may be confused by the terms license and copyright. As a beginner, you may think that when the buyers purchase your photographs which you uploaded to microstock sites, your will transfer your copyright to the buyers.

However, it is not actually the case. When we are talking about selling photographs on microstock sites, we are actually selling licenses to others. In another word, the buyers pay for the licenses for their use, and you still own the copyright to your photos.

Generally, the licensing model of microstock photography is Royalty Free (RF) Model. That means you sell your photographs with a license that doesn’t specify how many times they can be used in any design and media, with just a few restrictions.

The microstock sites may provide extended license, which is an extension to the standard license allowing buyers to use your photographs on things such as t-shirts, calendars, PC screensavers, e-cards, powerpoint presentations, and so on. As a photographer you normally need to opt-in to selling extended license images.

In the old days, it was difficulty for a common person to make money as a photographer, as it is a long way to become a professional photographer and got accepted by those traditional stock photography agencies. However, over the latest years, a smart group of people have been making a serious residual income through uploading their digital photography to the microstock sites.

Anyone (not only professional photographers) can apply to become a photographer on those microstock sites. You will become one of their members quickly, although some of them may need you to pass a very simple test or ask you to upload several photos first for their review.

Then you can upload your photographs to the microstock websites and choose some keywords for your photos. Each photograph you upload to the website will be reviewed before you can sell it. Your photos may be rejected by some reasons. This is inevitable even you are very good at photography.

After your photographs are accepted by the website, they are finally ready to be sold. How much money you can make from microstock photography depends on many different factors. And will have a new post to explain this issue.

We know we are living in an image-intensive world. Books, magazines, and websites are filled with different images with different sizes, so there is a large demand for images of every kind.
In the early days, if someone maybe a publisher, a designer or other one needs to use a photograph, he need to go to a traditional stock image libraries and spend pay a very high price to get a licensed photograph.
The first microstock website was founded by Bruce Livingstone in Spring 2000, called iStockphoto, which remains one of the leading microstock libraries today. And some of the leading microstock sites are Dreamstime, Shutterstock and Fotolia.
These Microstock photography sites source their images from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies, including a willingness to accept images from amateurs and hobbyists, and sell their images at a very low price for a royalty-free image. This gives non-professional photographers great opportunities to sell their photographs and make money from them.