What is EyeEm?

EyeEm is a cool photo app and website that combines a social network with a stock photo marketplace.  EyeEm  is basically a social network for photographers that offers editing tools, a live photo community and a platform to sell their work.

The site started in 2011 by offering  online editing and sharing tools for photographers. Its social media tools have steadily grown more sophisticated, as have its editing filters.

 
Recently added editing tools, for example, include an "Open Edit" feature that helps people learn about photography by allowing them to see changes that have been made to individual images.  The site offers about two dozen free photo filters.

EyeEm Opens Stock Photography Market

While it was mainly a photo sharing community for several years, EyeEm recently made a major move into stock photography. The Germany-based company started a beta trial of an online marketplace in 2014 and finally opened it to the public in the United States in March 2015, allowing people to buy and sell images.

Photographers can now offer their images for sale, but they have to pay a hefty commission to EyeEm -- 50 percent of the sale price is kept by the marketplace, with the other half going to the photographer.

The standard licensing price for a photo is $20, and extended rights (for use on TV, on product packaging and in print publication with over 250,000 copies) are available for $250 on some images.

Another way photographers can earn money is through a deal EyeEm has with Getty Images.

It allows a select number of images posted to EyeEm to be included in Getty's subscription database. When subscribers to Getty's  image archive buy a photo from EyeEm, some of the money goes to EyeEm and some to the photographer who shot the image.

EyeEm, the photo sharing and editing app, is available for both iOS and Android devices.

• Visit the EyeEm website.