Making a Photo 'Stock Ready'

One of the things that can be time consuming to a photographer that is venturing into the world of Stock Photography is the required genericness of their work. What I mean by this is that most stock photo agencies will not accept photos that have identifiable logos, artwork, names, etc. in them. The photos need to be generic.

Take today's capture for example. I shot this picture of my daughter exhibiting her best snotty adolescent face with a bass guitar in her lap. In order to add this image to my iStock Portfolio and offer it for sale I needed to remove the stickers from the guitar since they are someone else's trademarked artwork. To accomplish the removal I used the Clone Tool in Photoshop. Here is the modified image:

Sometimes removing logos is quick & easy and sometimes it is difficult & tedious. For example, last month I created a stock image of a cowboy revolver and holster in a rustic setting. When composing the shot I was careful to not show logos and names - or so I thought. When it came time to edit the photograph I realized that the manufacturer's name was visible on nearly all of the ammunition in the gunbelt. I then had to painstakingly remove the writing on the numerous rounds of ammo.

The easiest way to remove the infringing name/logo is to simply not have it in the shot in the first place. The more stock work I shoot, the more I attempt to save editing time by avoiding the inclusion of trademarked info. While it is frequently unavoidable, many times a few seconds of rearranging when shooting can save vast amounts of time editing.