In a world where the future is technology, it is impossible to go wrong with a handy skill like expertise with Photoshop tools.
Photoshop has become a standard software under all designers and publishers.
This graphic editor is in use since 1990. That’s over 30 years.
So there is adequately big “infrastructure” created around this tool, and this is where the opportunities are created.
To make money with Photoshop, you need first improve your Photoshop skills. Of course 🙂 This will open many opportunities to earn like selling Photoshop art, offering your skills as a freelancer, web design, selling your fonts, doing photo restorations, or even entering Photoshop contests.
In this article, I will show you eleven credible strategies to earn with this wonderful tool.
All of them are proven and profitable ways to turn your skill into a business.
Can You Make Money with Photoshop?
Yes, you can make money with photoshop.
Demand for this hard skill is increasing more than ever, and you can have your fair share of the national cake. Here is a good example.
Infographics is a marketing strategy that uses visual elements and verbal contexts to create more appealing adverts for buyers. Statistics show that 67 percent of marketers employ infographics, and the input of a Photoshop artist is required for it.
That is just one field. Photoshop has much more to offer.
How to Make Money Using Photoshop
To make money using photoshop, you need a good Desktop PC or Laptop and of course, Photoshop software. Assuming you have acquired the skills to make you stand out, here are some gigs that pay well:
1. Sell Photoshop Art
Are you creative? Do you have clear pictures that you want the world to see? People need Photoshop art for all sorts of reasons.
Photoshop art can be used for a variety of marketing, decorative and promoting materials.
The cover of an ebook, for instance, can be seen as a kind of Photoshop art.
You can also design art for business advertising, and they will be more attractive when you employ different photoshop tools.
Some websites where you can sell your Photoshop art include Creativemarket.com, Artmo.com, and Artweb.com.
These websites allow you to upload digital art without commission charges, and some even encourage viewers to tip you in Bitcoin.
Furthermore, NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens are pretty welcoming of Photoshop art. In fact, it is highly encouraged, but there is a caveat. You must create the digital artwork on a minting platform to earn money from NFTs.
The upside is you can earn lots of money and promote your art!
Average Salary
This varies, but you can make between $20 to 20,000, depending on your selling platform.
Required Skillset
Color theory and photo editing.
2. Freelancing
Freelancing allows you to explore your photoshopping skills. You can do various jobs for clients and companies, from graphics, designing, logo creation, and branding.
Many legitimate freelancing platforms will connect you with buyers of your service.
Upwork and Fiverr are two of the highest-paying options, but there is reasonably tough competition. However, you only need to land your first gig, and more will find their way to you.
You can watch YouTube tutorials on boosting a freelancing account to get ahead of the competition. It is also great if you start small – don’t apply for the higher-paying jobs just yet. Additionally, drafting an eye-catching “gig” advert will increase your chances of getting a contract.
You can offer pretty much any photoshopping service on a freelancing platform. On Upwork, an advanced Photoshop artist can earn as much as $50 per hour. Sign up and see.
Average Salary
Photoshop experts can make between $28 and $50 per hour.
Required Skillset
Vector tracing, photo editing, color theory, sketching, layout, and branding.
3. Sell online courses
Online courses are one of the fastest ways you could potentially turn your Photoshop skills in money.
As the demand for skilled people in this field grows, many photoshop beginners are looking for help to speed up their learning processes.
This is where you come in.
Even if you have only basic skills, you can start teaching online. There are a lot of people who are not on your level, and so you can teach them basics.
Other, more focused way would open new opportunities to grow your audience, such as Photoshop for Graphic Design or Photoshop for Product Design.
To sell online courses, you need to choose the right platform, like Teachable.
Teachable offers you all-in-one course builder with advanced design and marketing tools.
You can try the free version to test all the features before you buy it.
Average Salary
It is hard to say how much an average online course seller earns. But if you have engaging, high quality educational content, and you build this up, you can earn over $10’000 per month.
Required Skillset
Basic video editing and good rhetorical skills are the base for this business.
4. Sell Fonts
You don’t need to be an expert graphic designer to make and sell fonts. If you already have a great handwriting, creating your custom-made font won’t be a hassle.
Once you become an excellent font designer, you can go to websites like elements.envato.com, Sellfy, MyFonts, and creativemarket, which are legitimate platforms where you can sell your work to clients and companies for a significant fee.
You can showcase your skills passively when people click on and download your work.
However, most mediums you can earn will charge a commission for their services. For instance, MyFonts charges a commission of 50 percent, but the pay is still decent.
Average Salary
Undisclosed; the average amount you can make from selling fonts online is not stipulated because people who engage in this business haven’t given a direct response to the amount they earn.
But if you can reel in a good company, you will make significant gains.
Required Skillset
Typography, free-hand drawing, sketching, vector tracing, and layout.
5. Make YouTube Tutorials
Did you know that a YouTuber makes an average of $3 to $5 on every 1,000 views? You have the knowledge to join this passive income stream; you need a good camera, clear background, and great lighting.
You can teach people the challenging parts of being a Photoshop artist. This is just an angle, not many YouTube tutors have come from.
Viewers are looking for something engaging, eye-catching, but most important they need to get the value from it.
The best thing about it is, you don’t even need to be an expert. You can simply learn beginners on how to start using Photoshop.
Video editing is a very usable skill a Photoshop expert can have. And you can apply yours to your YouTube videos to increase the chances of high viewership.
You can explore color theory, typography, vector tracing, branding, and layout.
It is as simple as taking a complicated subject and teaching it like you would teach it to an eighth grader.
Average Salary
$3 to $5 for every 1,000 views.
Required Skillset
Knowledge about video and photo editing, sketching, branding, color theory, typography, or vector tracing.
6. Photo Restorations
Everyone loves to hold on to good memories. And most of us will pay the price to restore a happy memory, even if it is on paper or in the Cloud.
A good Photoshop artist can bring life to an old photograph, even from the 90s.
A recent trend on social media occurred, where someone was retouching old photos of Tupac Shakur, long gone, but his photos appeared like he was alive just yesterday!
This is where your skills as a photoshop expert come in. With your knowledge of color theory and photo editing, you can earn as much as $250 to $500 on each photo you restore.
You can take an old picture and make it look like you just took it. Some people want you to take things further by removing or adding pictorial details.
You only need a burn tool, smart brush, spot healing brush, clone stamp, and the right tutorial video, and learning photo restoration with Photoshop will be a breeze.
Average Salary
You can earn up to $500 on each photo restored.
Required Skillset
Expert knowledge of how to use Photoshop tools.
7. Create Business Cards
People resonate more with personalized messages and graphics, and you can use your knowledge of Photoshop to give them that experience.
A business card with real-time photos and well-presented captions will spend a long time in someone’s custody than one designed so impersonally.
For instance, you can take a picture of an item that depicts the content your client wants to upload, or it can even be a real-time photo of their business ware.
The more realistic and natural the card appears, the more it appeals to the desired audience.
You can find clients on Freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. Your clients will place bulk orders of business cards, and you will design and send them the virtual copy.
Average Salary
It depends on how much you want to charge for designing business cards for people. However, the platform you use will largely influence the rate you earn.
Required Skillset
Photography, branding, photo editing, typography, and graphics designing.
8. Print on Demand (POD)
By 2030, it is estimated that the size of the world’s print-on-demand market would be USD 39.40 billion, and you can earn your fair share too.
Printing on demand entails bringing creative ideas to life through your Photoshop skills.
You can create artwork that your client or the company you work for will print on book covers, shirts, or whatever they demand. This is your opportunity to propagate your art, so don’t sleep on it.
Some of the other things you can print are magazines, yearbooks, pamphlets, business cards, and text-based productions that can be ordered in mass when needed.
Print on Demand is the process of producing texts on demand, as the name states. You and the person you work for have a relationship driven by their customer’s demand for the product.
Average Salary
$4,614 monthly.
Required Skillset
Photo editing, color theory, layout, branding, free-hand drawing, typography, and graphics design.
9. Photoshop Contests
Photoshop contests for money are organized from time to time on the internet to spur photoshop experts into showcasing their skills.
There may also be a prize for the top participants, and the competition is usually light-hearted.
Sometimes, a Photoshop guru will challenge you to edit or manipulate a video or picture. The contests may involve introducing special effects to a photo or video, adding a character to an image, removing them, or even changing the color scheme to a monochrome setting.
These challenges are a way to hone your photoshop skills, and it doesn’t hurt that you get to win something in the process. Photoshop contests are also a way to put your work out there; who knows who is looking to hire?
Average Salary
A prize which the organizer will decide.
Required Skillset
Video and photo editing, color theory, and vector tracing.
10. Web Design
A website’s appearance or interface determines whether people stay and return. You need to make the layout catchy and well-structured or organized, and your knowledge of Photoshop tools can help.
Coupled with your coding skills, you can create websites for sale. This is called full-stack programming or web design, and there is quite high earning potential.
Here, you will develop the website and use your photoshop skills, especially branding and graphic design, to improve the appearance or layout of the website.
Alternatively, you can work on the front-end aspect, which entails designing the outlook of the website. You need adequate knowledge of colors, typography, layout, and sketching.
Average Salary
$61 to $80 per hour. Or between $2,000 to $75,000 if you use a platform like Upwork.
Required Skillset
Coding skills, UX/UI, photo editing, color theory, branding, layout, and graphics designing.
11. Package Design
Another fantastic way to put your Photoshop skills to use is through package design. Here, you are in charge of the graphics required to prepare a product for sale.
You may be responsible for taking the photo of the product to be used. You will set up the background and create content that will appeal to buyers.
The appeal is one of the biggest sale converters, so you will combine your Photoshop and graphic designing skills to create a product.
You may also be responsible for creating the captions accompanying your work, which is where typography skills will come in handy. Moreover, you can do this with your mobile phone and some cardboard paper.
Average Salary
$80 to $54,000.
Required Skillset
Photo editing, color theory, graphics designing, layout, and branding.
How Much Do Photoshop Professionals Make?
Want a rundown of what to expect as you climb higher in the world of Photoshop artistry?
| Experience | Salary |
| Beginner | $21,000 |
| Intermediate | $55,000 |
| Senior Level | $109,000 |
The average salary of a Photoshop expert in the United States is $59,908.
Five Tips for Making Money with Photoshop
The Photoshop industry is worth a lot, and with the following tips, you can finally make money with your expertise:
1. Choose the Right Platform
You need to choose the right platform if you want to make sales and put your work out there. Many sites promise to help you make a lot of money from Photoshop, but signing up is often a rigorous process.
Therefore, your best bets remain renowned and straightforward platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, which bring buyers and sellers of freelancing services together.
2. Build a Portfolio
Your potential clients want to see what you can do before they take a chance on you. So, you should build a portfolio that expertly showcases your skills in practice and on paper.
It is also good to showcase your creativity; display what makes you stand out and, therefore, worth hiring.
If you want to specialize in a particular niche, build your portfolio around it.
State the skills you bring to the table and provide images and links to support your claims.
3. Sharpen Your Skills
Ninety percent of creatives use Photoshop. That means there is a lot of competition in this field, but you can also make a name for yourself.
By honing your skills, you will naturally stand out. And you should not be afraid to indicate what makes you unique.
If there is nothing, now is the best time to change that. Learn something in Photoshop that many people don’t know yet or are not inclined to acquire knowledge about.
4. Target Small Businesses
You have better chances of reeling in gigs from small businesses than the larger clients and companies. So, target the startups.
Besides, they are also many, as new businesses are created regularly. The one thing they will always need to boost sales is an expert at Photoshop.
Quality images are great eye-catchers, and you can sell yourself to small businesses on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer. You can also create an appealing portfolio and submit your offer to upcoming websites or website designers.
5. Make Some Connections
To go far in any field, you need to make friends with the important guys. For Photoshop, your way into the industry can be facilitated when you get noticed during Photoshop contests or by clients and companies that you have worked for and recognize your worth.
When you put in your best in Photoshop contests or gigs assigned to you, clients will come back, and the organizers of the contests may recommend or hire you for Photoshop projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some questions that may bother you, with the answers already provided:
Are Photoshop skills in demand?
Yes, now more than ever. The number of Americans editing pictures and video content on their mobile phones is rising, and currently, almost fifty percent of residents of the US apply this skill.
Furthermore, more companies are looking to improve advertising through infographics, which requires Photoshop skills.
Do you have to pay for Photoshop?
Yes, you have to pay for the software. The Adobe Photoshop software costs $20.99 monthly or $239.88 annually, billed at once.
There are other alternatives for photoshop available on mobile phones or websites. Some of them are free, while others aren’t. For instance, Canva is a great place to play around with art and creativity, and you won’t pay a dime.
On the other hand, GIMP is another Photoshop software you can use to learn, but you must subscribe to the service.
How long does it take to master Adobe Photoshop?
The timeframe it will take you to master Adobe Photoshop depends on what you are learning. It is a broad field that encompasses many areas, and you may require up to three months to learn the hang of it.
Nevertheless, you will have fun in the process because there are many tools to play around with.
Conclusion
Making money has never been easier; with your photoshop expertise, you can build a brand and name for yourself in the world of creatives.
If you are more professional with Procreate, you can also read my article on How to make money with Procreate.
Although acquiring the skill may not be straightforward, there is an increase in the demand for Photoshop experts, so you will undoubtedly make some money at the end of the day.
