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10 Ways to Make Money with Photoshop

Don't Work Another Day is reader-supported. We may receive compensation from the products and services mentioned in this story, but the opinions are the author's own.
  By Forrest McCall | Last Updated:  December 23, 2020

If you're looking for a great way to make money in the comfort of your own home, using photo editing tools like Photoshop can be a great option.

There are hundreds of uses for photo editing tools and many different ways you can make money using them.

From creating Photoshop templates or becoming a freelance photo editor, it can be easy to make money with Photoshop. While learning the technicalities of the software can be somewhat difficult, it can be extremely worthwhile.

In this article, I'm going to explore what Photoshop is, a few alternatives to Photoshop, and how to use Photoshop to make money. Let's get started!

What is Photoshop?

Photoshop is a digital tool that allows digital content creators to create breathtaking visuals.

In my experience, Photoshop holds vast potential in the online industry. Visual elements speak louder than verbal contexts, and it's why Photoshop is one of the highly sought out skills in the market.

From photo-editing to digital photo creations, it has grown in usage & popularity.

The software is expensive; yet, the learning curve of the software is very steep. If you want to master the art of photo-editing and digital creations, you must unite your passion and determination.

It's not just technical proficiency where you need to master yourself; you have to express creativity.

Photoshop Alternatives

While Photoshop is the most common photo editing tools, there are some other options to get started. Photoshop can be costly, making lower cost alternatives attractive to those just getting started.

GIMP

One of the most popular photoshop alternatives is GIMP. It's available for both Mac and PC and offers many of the same features as it's more expensive counterpart.

PhotoWorks

If you're using a PC, Photoworks is another great Photoshop alternative to help you make money without spending a fortune on software.

Canva

Sometimes you won't need the most advanced software to make money. Canva can be an excellent service to make graphics for small businesses and more.

How to Make Money with Photoshop

Below are some of my favorite methods to make money with Photoshop. Some of these ideas can be extremely easy to get started while others may require a little more time or effort.

Start a Photo-Editing Agency

Imagine you take a snapshot of yourself with your friend, but it didn't come out the way you expected it to be! The lines are blurry, the sharpness, the saturation, and the color hues don't fit perfectly.

In short, your image is completely distorted.

You may wonder if only you had some Photo-editing skills to fix the image, right?

The art of fixing distorted images or making them well optimized for publishing is called photo-editing. And believe it or not, the market has quite the requirement for this particular skill set.

Thousands of individuals regularly are searching for photo-editing services. They want highly talented and well-experienced individuals who have a keen eye for detailing.

Whether you want to introduce a new person into a photograph or remove an unwanted person/object from the image, “photo doctors” can do it for you. They can fix the contrast of the photos, remove red-eye effects from images, set the black and white shades, adjust sizes & perform contrast adjustments.

Become a photo doctor by adopting Photoshop skills. Start with your own photo-editing agency as it can be one of the best ways to make money using Photoshop.

Create Photoshop Tutorials

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One of the best ways to cash up on your Photoshop skills is writing and selling tutorials on different websites. Thousands of other websites allow you to publish articles within online directories and guest posting websites, ranging from $10 – $100 and even more. I personally have seen websites that offer a good price of at least $500 and even more for just a 1,000-word blog. Create and sell a step-by-step tutorial to educate the audience on effects/manipulations, contemporary web layout designs, adding special effects, creating filter effects, and much more. Use a multitude of screenshots to make the learning process much better.

If you are not in the mood to sell your knowledge on other platforms, you can always start out with your own blog. Gaining loyal followers can be highly rewarding, especially in the long run.

Create Video Tutorials & Post them on Video Platforms

How many times do you visit YouTube or Dailymotion daily?

My guess is a lot! Well, imagine if someone like you is also seeking solutions to their Photoshop problems? In that case, nothing serves the purpose more accurately for creating videos & sharing them on the following platforms. YouTube & Dailymotion are the two most well-recognized video watching platforms on the Internet. You can use any screen-recording software such as FreeCam or Ezvid to record your expertise. Now publish them on sites like YouTube & Dailymotion to educate the audience.

Because there is a massive audience of people using visual editing software, creating Photoshop tutorials can be a great way to earn money with your skills.

You'll need to spend some time learning how to craft your tutorials so they are easy to comprehend and implement for users but once you get the hang of it you can start growing your audience.

In time, you can also monetize your tutorials and start earning through advertisements running on your videos.

Now isn't that the most beautiful idea to make money with Photoshop skills?

Create Stock Photos & Earn Through Them

Do you have a knack for taking photographs? At the same time, you're also good with Photoshop skills? Then how about you capitalize on both. You can quickly kill two birds using a single stone.

The easiest way to make quick bucks is to sell your stock images on third-party microstock websites such as Dreamstime, GettyImages, Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, etc. Dreamsite is one such platform for freelancers where they can easily earn as much as 20% to 65% on every sale.

When was the last time you took out your camera and took some amazing clicks? Now might just be the time. Take amazing images and use your Photoshop skills to polish them up and sell them online.

Best of all, making money with stock photography can be extremely affordable for beginners. You'll need to invest in a professional camera and a few lenses to get started but it can provide great sums of passive income for your future. Stock photography can be one of the best ways to make money for beginners.

Make Money with Photoshop Templates

Create and Sell Photo Mockup Templates for Products/Services

There are plenty of products and services in the digital landscape.

Sooner or later, every brand in the market requires a mockup template to display what they are selling to their desired audiences. Mockup work as product presentations and for other promotional purposes. For example, if you're planning to create stationary and other collaterals for a certain brand, such as T-shirts, mugs, pens, etc., a mockup can help you organize everything in a template.

In this way, your client can have a better grasp of what you're working on. 

It will give a better insight into your client on how the product will appear to their customers.

You can charge an hourly rate to the client based on your efforts, resources, and time consumed. The average going rate per hour for a freelance designer is approximately up to $30/hour.

Any small business could benefit from your product photo mockups or templates making it a great option to boost your earnings.

To find clients, you could reach out to various small businesses who sell products but may not be able to create professional photos themselves.

Work as a Full-Time Photo Editing Freelancer

Another incredible way of earning with your Photoshop skills is through freelancing.

Back in the days, there were only a few handfuls of freelancing platforms. Fast forward to the future, and you will find hundreds of different platforms where thousands of jobs are posted regularly.

To name a few, we have Upwork, Freelancers, PeoplePerHour, Fiverr, Toptal, and the list goes on. 

Just visit one, and you will find plenty of people searching for web designers, graphic designers, and adobe experts. Find an excellent rated gig and start working with them to start earning money.

By doing so, you will end up creating a portfolio for yourself.

So what's holding you back! Find jobs in the online market and start bidding.

Create Custom Fonts to Sell in the Website World

How fancy is your handwriting? Is it fancy enough to sell online? Well, that's where custom font selling comes in. Do you know that designers can create fonts online and sell them as well?

If you're wondering how much you can earn from selling fonts online, the going licensing commission rate starts as low as 50% average when you choose font retailers such as MyFonts to sell. If you're going for foundries like Fontspring, the going rate can extend as much as up to 70%.

One way or the other, search for a font foundry where you can get the best royalty rate.

But that's not the only way how you can earn. If you don't wish to sell your custom fonts on digital foundries yourself, then you can always find a reseller who can sell your fonts, keeping a certain percentage for themselves. If you're not much of a fan of keeping anyone in the loop, then you should go for creating your own website and sell your fonts through them accordingly.

When you create and sell fonts, you will earn money passively, making it a great method to earn money while working a full time job.

Make Money with Photoshop Colors

Create Graphics Using Photoshop & Then Sell Them Online

Adobe Photoshop isn’t limited to just editing photographs, but it goes well beyond that.

With Adobe Photoshop, you can easily create an additional stream of passive income for yourself. Can you create breathtaking visuals? If you can, then you can always make different visual elements.

Master the art and start selling them on various platforms.

Before you know it, you will start generating a good amount of income from their sales.

Graphics exist in different formats. But the most common type of graphics which easily gets sold in the market are,

●     Icons

●     Desktop/Mobile Wallpapers

●     Shapes

●     Textures

●     Stamps

●     Logos

●     Decorative Images

●     Stock Illustrations

And I am sure you can let your creative mind brainstorm the rest.

Do you know that designer Zlatko Najdenovski has made well over $5,000 during his initial year by selling just one type of graphics? He made that amount by selling icons alone at PixelBazaar. If he can make that kind of revenue by selling simple icons, why can’t you do something similar?

Use Photoshop to Create a Print on Demand Business

Do you want to create shoes with artistically written content that you have designed on Adobe? Or maybe it’s a t-shirt with a punch line stating, “Never Give Up,” written in caveat font? From customized keychains to mugs and so much more, using print on demand and your exceptional photoshop skills, you can sell products to thousands of different people across the globe to start a thriving business and grow your income.

With Photoshop, you can create unique graphic elements that you can emboss on different stationary items, wearables, and accessories. May it be cups, t-shirts, book covers, wall-art, or something else! Photoshop allows you to create stunning images that you can emboss on them. All you have to do is find a good place, such as eBay, Amazon, or maybe even your own website to sell them.

If you’re in the interest of creating top-dollars, print on demand business doesn’t sound like a bad choice at all.

One of my favorite things about starting a print on demand business is the unlimited income potential. As long as your business can continue to fulfill orders, it can continue to profit and make you money.

Create Social Media Graphics for Other Businesses

So what if you don’t have a business of your own…

You can always contribute to helping other businesses using the ultimate power of social media. Social media graphics create powerful, highly engaging, and firmly converting social media graphics that can attract audiences. There are three different stages of social media; awareness, consideration & conversion. And in all three areas, graphic design can come in real handy for businesses and it can be a good way to boost your earnings.

Strong visual elements have the power to captivate the mind of the audience.

As a social media graphic expert, you won’t only create uniquely stunning visuals. Still, you will also create revenue streams for businesses to quickly climb the stairs of success.

How Much Money Can One Make with Photoshop?

It doesn’t take you to be a Photoshop genius to make money with your design skills.

Based on which area you wish to explore, you can easily create a steady income source for yourself. For example, if you choose to create simple mockup images, you can go around selling them on different platforms and create a passive income source of somewhere around $500 – $3000 per month or more.

And that’s just an average of what a skilled designer can easily make.

But if you want to calculate your worth, then ask yourself the following questions:

●     How much have you invested in polishing up your skills?

●     How long have you worked on polishing up those skills?

●     Are you flexible with providing tasks when the chips are down?

●     Above everything else, how well do you communicate?

These are the four questions that you need to ask before estimating what you can make with Photoshop. For those who are more skilled, they can make a lot more than mere thousands of dollars.

Tips to Make More Money with Photoshop

  • Find platforms where you can easily search up clients to offer you work. There are several freelancing platforms where you can find countless people searching for people with Photoshop skills.
  • Create a portfolio on Behance or some other similar portfolio website. It will help you to easily showcase your work to the clients.
  • Sell your graphics on different online graphic stores. This will help to expose your work to a larger audience and diversify your earnings.
  • Do some personal branding. Talk about your skills or display your knowledge in different design discussion forums & social media outlets.
  • Get better at design. Because the money you make will ultimately be tied to the complexity and creativity in your designs, becoming a better graphic designer is one of the best ways to make more money with your skills. You might consider enrolling in a design class or reading some books that explain various design principles.

Final Thoughts on Making Money with Photoshop

With your proficiency in Photoshop, you can create a variety of different revenue streams.

It’s not just limited to web design, creating photoshop tutorials, or making templates to sell. The extent of Photoshop skills goes well beyond that with a massive potential to make money part time.

With so many potential revenue streams, using photoshop or graphic design software can be an excellent way to make money in just one month or less.

Forrest is a personal finance, entrepreneurship, and investing expert dedicated to helping others obtain life long wealth. He has a Bachelor's degree in business and has been featured in many popular publications including Forbes, Business Insider, Bankrate, CNET Money, and many others. To learn more about Forrest, visit the About Us Page for more info.
Download My FREE Income Ideas Cheat Sheet!
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