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Stock Photography: Cropping. The lesser the cropping, the better. There is only one online agency (that comes to mind) that will most likely accept the artsy cropped images. I'm not saying that your cropped images will not be accepted. I'm just saying that it can make them less marketable. Less marketable means less money for you. Equipment. I have purchased two different Fuji models and while they seemed to have been the best, they still were not adequate. I bought two different Olympus models and they were awful! Almost every image had purple fringing and noise. In fact, there was a lot of noise. One camera didn't have a name brand. I figured that it would be a bad purchase, but I just had to see how bad. This was dumbness. Absolute dumbness. I bought a lomography camera and it was see-through, but that was its only highlight. I don't think that I had a single lomograph, accepted. I have seen good Kodak images, but I didn't take too many decent ones with either of the two models that I tried. I bought one of them from CompUSA and when I returned it, I had to accept store credit as opposed to the cash outlay that I employed to get the camera with. Eeesh. I ended up with a one hundred dollar thumb drive (how much do those things go for these days?). Well, not a hundred bucks I can tell ya. Not even. The last digital attempt came via the newest Polaroid digital. It was expensive and awful. Nice. The Wal-Mart guy was snotty when I returned that one. Also, nice. As of March 21, 2007, I have just purchased the Fuji S9100. I gave the camera a weekend to impress me and that simply didn't happen. Every image (at optimal quality setting) had noise and those bothersome artifact's. Fortunately, I bought the camera from a reputable EBayer and can return it. I am hoping that the camera (brand new when I got it) was a defect. As of August, 2007, I am shooting with a Nikon D40 and a Nikon speed flash. I have also purchased a red camera armor, which showed up this weekend, in the handles on the casket that I was requested to shoot. Very unprofessional. I totally had to crop those out. Man, this stock business can be a real challenge. But, alas, it is totally worth the payoff! You just about have to enjoy it, as their is real work involved, not to mention the time that you'll spend working the images with Photoshop, then, uploading to all of those agencies (waiting for them to upload, giving them titles, keywording). Forums. No matter which web site you sign up with, you will want to be active in their forums and never say anything (even slightly negative about the site (or site personnel, or anything), for which you are posting. It is bad form, amongst other things. One one web site in particular, I noticed that I had more downloads, the more that I posted to the forums. When you have a few minutes, you will want to study the forums. Look at the most downloaded image. Read the questions. Answer as you are able. Money. If you have a passion for capturing a moment in time and want to make money with photography, stock is a great way to go! And, at the same time, it is not to be taken for granted. You are free to sign up with as many web sites as you can keep up with (as long as you don't sign up exclusively with one agency) and make money with every download that they sell on your behalf, which you may convert for download credits and/or store credit, depending on the agency. The size of the image and number of downloads per image and status (exclusive or non-exclusive for example) are common pay factors, starting at $0.25 per download (depending on the web site). It's a pretty neat deal if you were going to be shooting anyway and I have been shooting like a mad woman, ever since I bought my second digital camera - and even long before that (waaay long before that). I have purchased 12 cameras (count them - TWELVE) and none of them were good enough to be seen next to, much less using or trying to pass the ensuing product off as stock of any value at all. Photoshop. Get to know the program. Know it well. Take a seminar, read a book, sign up for a class. Do a combination of these. But, get to know the program. It is possible to sell stock without Photoshop. It is possible that you could learn/use another program, but, when you measure all that Photoshop does, you won't allow yourself the frustration of a lesser program. Photoshop does have this annoying registration issue that will stop you from putting it on your hard drive when it crashes, or you purchase another computer. You may install it for awhile, but then, you will not be able to. I have purchased this software at least twice that I can think of right now and it isn't cheap. The cheapest place to buy it is on ebay. You might even consider buying an older version (6.0 for example) and then, buying the upgrade. Never check off, "auto contrast, auto color or auto levels." Always see for yourself. If you're looking for speed, you might consider PS Bridge software for batch processing. If you shoot in the RAW format (if you have the time, you will be shooting RAW), this will slow your roll a little bit, but the quality is superior to any other format. The darker the image, the better the quality, right? Well, no. Not so much. There are those who swear by Nikon's Capture NX, instead of using any other image software, including Photoshop and while I never used it, their passion for it makes it worthy of mention. My Portfolio @: big stock photo | canstockphoto feature pics | fotolia | image catalog | lucky oliver | shutterstock This page was last edited in September of 2007.