Make Money from Your Photos: The Top Four Stock Photography Sites

Fotolia (www.fotolia.com)

Fotolia is my favorite stock photography uploading site. It is very easy to go around and get used to it and it has over 600,000 members. They don't ask much from you except that the pictures have to be at least 4MP (to determine to size of your pictures, multiply the width by the height, for example 3200 by 2400), images should be uploaded with normal proportions and files must be less than 20 megabytes. There are various ways how to upload your pictures and the best way is by FTP. Filezilla is a good FTP Client for Fotolia. The forum on this site is a great place to learn new techniques and get criticism from other users before you submit a picture. The reviewing time is usually short and they ask you to upload an ID for you to be able to get the payments.

Bigstockphoto (www.bigstockphoto.com)

Bigstockphoto is another great site. The site is even easier than Fotolia to get used to, but the reviewing time can be a bit longer. Another thing that is on this site is that sometimes they disable the uploads so that the reviewers won't have a lot to do and therefore take less time to review what you have uploaded. They are very picky on what to choose but if your pictures pass the review then you are in for some good money. There are various ways to upload and they accept FTP too.

Dreamstime (www.dreamstime.com)

Another great site which probably has the best selling profits. Again, reviewing might take a long time but it is worth the wait. As you a new member you can upload 100 images a day but that will vary according to how many images you get declined or accepted. The more images you have declined the less you can upload. You can upload using an FTP but make sure that it is set to passive. You can choose various licenses for your images but I suggest choosing them all to maximize your profits. The management area is very simple to use and helps you keep track on what you uploaded, what was accepted/declined, what you sold and more. Dreamstime also has the best referral program in which you can also make good money.

Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com)