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Lets talk about making a living from photoshop


eliascreate

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Hello.

Photoshop is a great and powerful tool. You can create any picture with a creative ability. A lot of effects and possibilities. Today with the internet it is possible to make a living through the internet. Lets talk a little bit about how one can make a living from creating pictures with photoshop. And what is the most fun also. The point in my opinion to make a living through internet is to be free/relaxed and have fun compared to a static 9-5 job (which can be fun) but it is very strict and often limited.

Making a living through the internet makes you extremely mobile, you can be anywhere in the world and reach every single human who also has internet. With photoshop you can also express your creativity. So to make it a living would be optimal to use it as an expression of your creativity and also be able to make a living.

The options available are to
1. Create your own pictures and sell them for people to use in various ways.
2. Create pictures on peoples demands and wantings.

In my opinion choice number one is more fun because you get to be completely creative within yourself. You can start create anything anytime and later think about how you are going to sell the creation. Money does not have to be in mind in this case which is good. I think money should come as a byproduct.

So how would people go about to sell their own creations? Is it good to sell it on various sites or build up a following of people or get featured or sell it on only one site. What are your thoughts on this topic?
 

IamSam

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Hello and welcome to PSG.

eliascreate said:
What are your thoughts on this topic?
Here's my honest opinion. Success is a process with definitive steps that must be followed. Most persons want to skip these steps and go straight to the "pay me" stage. It never works that way.

Before I would add any more to this conversation, I think you should examine yourself for the very first step in the process and that is do you have the underlying natural skills to make a living with Photoshop.

Only about 1 in 15 persons actually have the artistic and creative skills needed to be successful with art based career fields. The next question is how do these natural skills translate to the chosen medium, in your case "pictures created with Photoshop" that you want to sell for people to use in various ways.

The best starting point is to see if you actually have the chops to make a living using Photoshop. Post some of your work and let us take a look.
 

Tom Mann

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To add a quick comment to Sam's excellent reply, many people are very creative and want to do the same thing as you.

Unfortunately, to earn a living in this field, you need not only the appropriate knowledge and skills (...and at a level superior to your competitors who are all groveling to make a living), BUT, you also need a very strong background and personality for business matters. If you don't have both, you will fail. I have seen it happen many, many times. If I had more time, I could recount many sad stories of promising careers that couldn't find success because of a lack of knowledge, enthusiasm and personality for the business end of things.

Sorry - got to run.

Tom M
 

eliascreate

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Hello and welcome to PSG.


Here's my honest opinion. Success is a process with definitive steps that must be followed. Most persons want to skip these steps and go straight to the "pay me" stage. It never works that way.

Before I would add any more to this conversation, I think you should examine yourself for the very first step in the process and that is do you have the underlying natural skills to make a living with Photoshop.

Only about 1 in 15 persons actually have the artistic and creative skills needed to be successful with art based career fields. The next question is how do these natural skills translate to the chosen medium, in your case "pictures created with Photoshop" that you want to sell for people to use in various ways.

The best starting point is to see if you actually have the chops to make a living using Photoshop. Post some of your work and let us take a look.

This is not about what you are saying. In my post i wrote "Money does not have to be in mind in this case which is good. I think money should come as a byproduct." This is important and should be underlined. The point I'm trying to make is, what are the possibilites out there for people who have experienced this. I'm not saying I'm a master at photoshop, I'm not, what I'm talking about now is the possibilities for all people who are thinking about this topic.
 

eliascreate

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To add a quick comment to Sam's excellent reply, many people are very creative and want to do the same thing as you.

Unfortunately, to earn a living in this field, you need not only the appropriate knowledge and skills (...and at a level superior to your competitors who are all groveling to make a living), BUT, you also need a very strong background and personality for business matters. If you don't have both, you will fail. I have seen it happen many, many times. If I had more time, I could recount many sad stories of promising careers that couldn't find success because of a lack of knowledge, enthusiasm and personality for the business end of things.

Sorry - got to run.

Tom M

Yes this is a hurdle for sure, the entreprenurial side of it. It is one thing doing what you love, then if you don't realize it, there is a business side of the thing if you want to earn money out of it and especially if you want to make a living out of it for sure. I guess my topic is "how can you manage the entrepreneurial part of your creativity" something like this, but that can be fun also, but you need to see that it is another world that is not close related to the creative side of the project
 

IamSam

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This is not about what you are saying. In my post i wrote "Money does not have to be in mind in this case which is good. I think money should come as a byproduct." This is important and should be underlined. The point I'm trying to make is, what are the possibilites out there for people who have experienced this. I'm not saying I'm a master at photoshop, I'm not, what I'm talking about now is the possibilities for all people who are thinking about this topic.

Sorry, I thought with the title, "Let's talk about making a living from Photoshop", you were actually wanting to know about how to make money. My point still stands for those who are "thinking about the topic". Either way you have to have the skills, so why do you dismiss my comments?
 

Tom Mann

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Unless you have parents, a spouse, or an inheritance that will support you, you are dead wrong that money does not have to be kept foremost in mind because you will simply run out of money and find yourself forced to work at a conventional job to put food on the table for your family, pay the bills, keep a car running, etc.. At that point, your creative endeavors have essentially become a hobby.

Business / entrepreneurship is a mindset that all too rarely is found in the same person as a creative.

My advice is if you feel you have the creative chops, then read everything you can find about starting a one person artistic business. God knows -- there certainly is enough written on this subject.

You can even explore the business / marketing / bookkeeping / etc. techniques of well defined conventional creative fields such as wedding or portrait photographers and see if they might carry over to fine art or whatever you would like to do.

Tom M
 

Hoogle

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being realistic and from someone who had a large digital store selling my items it is near enough impossible to make a living on just selling random digital artwork. Why would someone buy something when there is so many cool images on google if you just want a wallpaper or a print out.

selling your work on multiple sites !! look into this you will see that if you sell through Envato or any of the big names it states your material is exclusive to them you cant sell it else where.

As for making money which is entirely possible your best approach is template work , custom brushes, layer styles, Gradients and Actions seel plenty of them for little money and every month it builds up.

other option would be to set up twitch or youtube get popular doing your work in speedart form or tutorials on there and people will commission you for work.

Average Joe PS users do not tend to make steady money to even cover CC subscription, but if you are in the top 5% then you can make very good money.


This excludes being paid for photo touchups etc or even if you are approached as a Graphic Designer etc.
 

eliascreate

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Yes this conversation is starting to get interesting. You can do it if you put in the dedication and it will be a learning experience. I think the best way to do it is to separate it into different fields. Thinking that the drawing part is one and the getting money part is of another project. So it will be divided into the creative and the entrepreneurial parts. This way you can combind it into other areas as well. The entreprenurial part will be a network of different sites for example and connecting with different people. The creative part can be anything you want to do.

That is how you would go about thinking if you want to do this. I didn't really have to start this topic but I do it because I want a useful discussion going on and maybe you others will realize what I'm talking about.

Do your thing, drawing or whatever and then have your "startup / entrepreneurial" project going also. It's as simple as that. You can do it if you want to be your own boss and develop your own income full time.

Thread over if you don't supply useful comments
 
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IamSam

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Thread over if you don't supply useful comments

All comments are welcome and appreciated. No one here will be ending this thread based on your comments or their level of usefulness.

eliascreate said:
Do your thing, drawing or whatever and then have your "startup / entrepreneurial" project going also. It's as simple as that. You can do it if you want to be your own boss and develop your own income full time.
No.........it's not this simple. This is very misleading.
 

sernatsalot

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actually im pretty confused with all the comments. it seems that getting a leg in is pretty tough as yes, google is full of images that can be picked up at random by just about anyone. so what makes my work unique and worth paying for? having a kickass portfolio is just one thing, ive seen so many awesome collections up online, even on private websites, so you know a lot of work went into the process. but only a handful make a really successful career out of it.
so whats the deal? i mean i highly doubt theres a fool proof formula for this.
 

IamSam

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Hello and welcome tho PSG.

I was breaking down your post to offer answers and I realized I was just repeating what has already been stated in this thread. So I focused on your actual questions.

sernatsalot said:
so what makes my work unique and worth paying for?
First and most importantly, you have to have the chops. You make you artwork unique and everyone else decides whether it's worth paying for. No matter how impressive your work might be, it's up to the clientele to decide if your work will meet their needs. You can never please everyone. The most unique skill you should have will be your ability to step up and meet the needs of the clients.

sernatsalot said:
having a kickass portfolio is just one thing, ive seen so many awesome collections up online, even on private websites, so you know a lot of work went into the process.
There's no doubt that there are tons of talented people on the net with impressive portfolios. Remember, opinions on work is subjective, what you think is awesome may not appeal to others. Have you ever watched any of the "Idol" type reality shows?

sernatsalot said:
but only a handful make a really successful career out of it. so whats the deal? i mean i highly doubt theres a fool proof formula for this.
This could be a long conversation. Most of the bullet points were covered by Tom Mann in his earlier posts. It's all in the marketing.

Let me say this.........All of the incredibly successful illustrators/graphic artist/designers/Photographers that I personally know DID NOT become successful using the internet. I'm certainly not saying it can't be done, I just think it's unlikely.
 

Tom Mann

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...Let me say this.........All of the incredibly successful illustrators/graphic artist/designers/Photographers that I personally know DID NOT become successful using the internet. I'm certainly not saying it can't be done, I just think it's unlikely.

I just realized that Sam's observation (above) is true in my experience, as well. The successful people I know in these areas became successful by slowly building up a cadre of devoted clientele by finding organizations and individuals who were already well aware that they *really* needed these types of services, not by trying to mass market themselves to people & organizations who haven't yet come to this conclusion, and who probably will never come to this conclusion (ie, the occasional / one-of / impulse buying segment of the market for artistic products and services). IMHO, much of what I see on FB and other social media falls into this category of weakly effective shotgun marketing. Some shotgun marketing is, of course, necessary as one is first starting out, but my recommendation is that if you find a client with the potential for a long term relationship, do everything you can to foster that relationship.

Some of these artists, myself included, have only a handful of clients, but these clients (often corporations or other organizations) will stick with the artist faithfully for years, assuming that the technical, business, interpersonal, and other abilities of the artist continues to be satisfactory. Perhaps the needs of these buyers are more for craftsmen than visionary artists, but for many people, this puts food on their tables.

Just my $0.02,


Tom M
 
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Oh goodness. I had to stop crying before I could respond to this.

As long as there are people willing to do work "for free," on demand, it will always be incredibly difficult (as Hoogle said) to make a living of digital art.

It's like acting. The actors you see in Hollywood movies represent about 1% of the "actors" in LA. The rest are waiting tables or washing dishes to make a living. Those artists you see making money on digital art represent probably one tenth of 1% of the artists out there trying to sell their stuff.
 

CPR

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Interesting thread. Not sure why the conflicts.
The business side is standard business stuff but the part about making money with Photoshop is something I have tried. What I found was that there was some work locally kinda catch as catch can BUT once the internet became involved the competition from the India/Pakistan area was unbeatable.They were quoting work at very, very low prices.
Some I estimated at 2 or 3 dollars per hour.
 

IamSam

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What I found was that there was some work locally kinda catch as catch can BUT once the internet became involved the competition from the India/Pakistan area was unbeatable.They were quoting work at very, very low prices. Some I estimated at 2 or 3 dollars per hour.
I was going to mention this as well. Thanks for bringing it up.
 

IamSam

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As long as there are people willing to do work "for free," on demand, it will always be incredibly difficult (as Hoogle said) to make a living of digital art.
I think Hoogle was referring to those who make decent art for fun and don't charge. Like people who make wallpaper and post it for all to download. Internet images are so easily obtained anymore and copyright is a dying concept, that I see his point, you can't compete with free.

agentmoeller said:
It's like acting. The actors you see in Hollywood movies represent about 1% of the "actors" in LA. The rest are waiting tables or washing dishes to make a living. Those artists you see making money on digital art represent probably one tenth of 1% of the artists out there trying to sell their stuff.
Great comparison!
 

sernatsalot

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ouch! ok thats the thing here,everyone is using the internet for this stuff. honestly the design teams at most companies arent even really teams, more like one person who does the outsourcing through sites like freelancer or upwork.
this is the primary reason why im constantly second guessing about this as a career. i mean you can love doing something but it might not be viable for a paying job.
 

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