I made a brush out of my fingerprint scan that I use for certain areas of the painting. I also hide my signature in multiple places on my digital art. They'll have to play Where's Waldo to edit all that out.

From comments of buyers that I read under digitals, I understood that vast majority of peole buy digital art because: 1) they have SPENDERS personality and they love to buy goods 2) they understand that that option is the cheapest 3) they buy many digital paintings instead of one, and often spend even more money 4) after they buy, a lot of buyers are even never use drawings. They just have them in their computer.

Thank you so very much fir your videos. I have seen so far quite a bit of other people's stuff and I must say I really appreciate your straightforwardness and that you abstain from "state of the art" camera cut jumping, just looking straight into the camera and give us your thoughts. So thank you very much indeed.

Oh,dear,i feel that you about to make mistake and you mistaken the idea of Passive income. 1st.If you want passive income from your art(connect your Etsy shop to Printful or other print-on demand platform) this way you do not give file to single customer.2nd.If you want to offer digital art and keep rights IT CALL LICENING: you have to have contract of how people will use it and how many copy they can make. You do not sell digital file to single customer.I am surprised about this video.As i comment before: People who wants to stole:they can buy your print and copy it over and over again. People who works legally(like me) will contact artist for licensing.Ellen,i can give you more legal info,contact via my FB:facebook.com/MashaByMasha/ ro via Etsy(we have conversation about print on fabric before)

Thank you Ellen and hope you’ll be feeling better real soon.

Just found your Channel! Thank you so much for all your business advices, they are enormous helpful! ♡♡♡

I agree with Jo's comment below - it does seem to be a race to the bottom in pricing. Where does it end? Its real thorn in the side of artists who value their work and care deeply about delivering high quality prints. Just my two cents here... Your work is fantastic, protect it. I would be SHOCKED if there are not hoards of shady people out there buying up high-res files for next to nothing and finding their way to revenue with them. Personally, I'm not jumping on. I think it devalues the work, and if to survive on a platform requires me to devalue mine to that extent, then I know I'm fishing in the wrong pond. Hope you're feeling better!

Hi. So how it went? It´s being more than a year now. I didn't see a video update on your channel after this one for this topic. Could you make a video updating your thoughts on this based on your experience with it during this time?. Thank you

Thanks for encouraging me to take the leap!

This is a great video! Best wishes for your health. 👍

Happy New Year Ellen. Hope you feel better soon. Thanks for the video, it is definitely food for thought. I've been looking for an idea for passive earnings alongside my other work but not quite sure what yet. Look forward to seeing how your experiment works. Good luck :)

Good video 💞thank you for sharing and Happy NewYear 🎆

Hi ellen, hope you feel better soon. Happy new year!xx

Thank you. Very imformative

I've been doing downloadable bookmarks for readers. I love reading and came up with this idea, at first i wanted to print it myself and ship them to the customer, but I have a fear of shipping things in the mail, so when i discovered etsy's digital products I was happy that I can fulfill that idea that I've been wanting to try. I have been only doing fan art though, for these bookmarks. I'm also scared of putting my hard work into it for, like you said, someone to just download it and sell it as their own. which is why I do fan art. I feel a bit guilty about doing this. I am one of those people you mentioned at the beginning that I strive to make passive income. I really want to be a full time artist but haven't planned out the way to go yet. I'm also working full time so doesn't leave me much time to really create art. I want to start creating bigger digital prints, like song lyrics with a little design or symbol or something like that.

I've pulled all of my art off of the print/demand sites, focusing instead on my FB art page and my website. It has not hurt me and it gives me peace of mind to have more control over my online presence. I may change my mind again one day, but for now I am content. I am wondering though, if there is an online 'gallery' which only sells originals to which artists my join?

Great video Ellen and also sending best wishes for better health! For those who have also posted similar concerns as replies, you can mitigate some of the quality and up front cost issues by using print-on-demand (POD) for gallery prints, framed or not and other products carrying your art. I would recommend against Sociery6 or Redbubble as I've heard they may use your customer traffic to push their own products. Try Shopify with POD vendor integration.

Nice video thank you

but my problem is the cost of printing my digital work. i would sell it so cheap but i can't go under that price. than i'd be losing money!!!

I offer them for my coloring pages. I haven't thought about doing prints that way.

I have never heard of this. I have work on the print on demand sites. But prices for original art are so low now it seems to be a race to the bottom. I have not changed my prices but I have added other art revenue sources. I hope you are better soon. We can't wait for good health but it is a struggle when you have so much you want to accomplish and your body will not cooperate.

Hi Ellen.... good video and I enjoyed your thoughts on the subject. I plan to offer digital prints but still doing the printing and mailing myself. I'm afraid that someone would buy a digital print, download it and then print a horrible copy on their printer and accuse me of bad art. They may turn around and say that the digital download was bad. If I control the printing process and the shipping myself I know I will be sending a quality print that looks like what it is suppose to. Presently I'm still doing the freelance book covers and children's books, but I would like to supplement my income with sales from some of my art. I've been considering Ebay, only because I'm been on it forever and I know a lot of artists use it. I'm also considering a KZfaq channel like you to present my work. But like everything else, there never seems to be enough content available for either so I'm still working at it. By the way, you still look great for being sick for a while, not to worry! Happy New Year to you and yours.

Talking about passive income freaks me out. How on earth it is passive if you have to keep your shop up at all times. As soon as you stop bringing new clients and feeding new work to support your account at whatever platform, in a few months it is dead. Some people undervalue their fine work, some produce tons of art trash - all for the sake of mythical passive income. 'Spend all your time to grow your Instagram account and then you get passive income', 'Put all your photos with us for free, no copyright, and then you get passive income', now we have 'Give away your hi-res files and then you get passive income'... No! No such thing, passive income. The other very wrong idea is, you'd earn more if your prices go down. If you have any name in what you do, how do you think your loyal clients feel if they have purchased your work for say $1000 and after a few months they come back for more and see a $500 price tag, then $200, then $50? Do you really think people are happy to buy more from you cheaper than before? No, they feel bad because they have already paid more for something that costs less and less. Or they have not bought it then but if your prices go down anyway why not sit on a fence for a while? The hard truth is, if I cannot figure out how and why my work sells for MORE rather than less, I probably need to think of art as a hobby.

Thank you for covering this topic. Is there a way to watermark or something like that to protect our work for the digital selling?

Hi Ellen, You are as beautiful as ever. I hope you feel much better soon. I've worried about this too, but a few people I follow have mentioned that if someone is determined enough they will find a way to steal your work (will know how to remove protective features like watermarks, right click prevention, etc.), as you have discovered unfortunately. It also occurred to me that someone could scan a print they have purchased and proceed to make prints/products to sell anyway. It would not be as good as using a high resolution file scanned from the original . . . but, it would certainly be possible to steal by using a print they purchase from you. So, keeping this in mind - and because I've decided I want to create a passive income business, I've decided to offer digital downloads of my work in addition to partnering with Printed Mint to offer a variety of products (practical art). I'm building my website now and once set up, when someone orders a print or product (like coasters, mousepads, etc.), I will be able to send the order to Printed Mint to fulfill (print my work on the product and ship to the customer). My profit will be the difference between what I charge the customer and what it costs for Printed Mint to fulfill the order. I also have my work available right now on Redbubble. However, there are hundreds of thousands of people uploading things there, so you have to drive traffic there yourself for the most part.. . . which is why I started researching Pinterest . . . and discovered pretty quickly that you need your own website (or perhaps an Etsy store) in order to take advantage of its most powerful features . . . which is why I'm building my website now instead of when I retire in a year or so. Whew! Passive income . . . as you mentioned, is not entirely passive . . . Here is a KZfaq video you can check out as an introduction: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ecx-aN2qlrS1fYU.html&index=4 She has some great information on her KZfaq channel and also has some free courses. kzfaq.info/love/iYlFZMYIHwZKd65EU8uWsg Well, I need to get back to working on my website. Hope this helps you feel better about your decision to venture into digital downloads, Crystal

Thanks for this, just a correction tho, Digital Art is a visual art form (ex: making collage with your photography using photoshop), what you're speaking of is a digital download OF an art piece not digital art.

I'd suggest going with a online area that does digital files with copyright agreements and where the buyer pays for specific uses...ie stock photo type sites... Stock, alamy etc. I'm not sure the ins and outs of digital content on Etsy but if think it's much less strict.

Ellen I was just contacted on Etsy (yet again) requesting digital art downloads. Like you I have had art stolen many times and it frustrates me that people "expect" that it should be available digitally. My question is what do you think is a fair price for a download? Like the prices range on etsy from $1.99 to 50 or more.I do all my own fine art printing and shipping so I am essentially undercutting myself by offering it. However I do sell my art on many print on demand sites and quite honestly they have saved me on passive income over the years because of etsy being oversaturated with cheap stuff.

I want to do that. So, I don't have to worry about shipping and packagings.

hello maam .., please can you tell us what papers do you use ..what brand paper sheets do you use .on which you paint ..and then sell them ...what paper sheets should we use .if we are planning to sell it ..maam please reply

cause i ain't got a prayer sellin' my art. so may as well try.

I have only done this with commissioned work, like pet portraits. It’s not likely that someone will want to sell pictures of their pets to other people. I wouldn’t do it for other artwork though. Mine takes about 15 to 25 hours, so I’m not going to send anybody a digital file of that! I’ve been thinking about using fine Art America, where they print on demand. This is a good topic, I didn’t even know people were doing this.

One more question...On Etsy..are customers going to pay through Paypal? I guess I would need to go ahead and have a bank acct set up first to have the Etsy sales to go to.

For me I dont mind if somebody will use my work without paying for it, because, eventually, searching sistems will show to people the similar images, between which gonna be the original ones. Maybe, better to consider that as an advertisement of your product.

ok Ellen, so what if i sell my digital stuff for like 2 bucks a pop?

I hide my initials in the art in at least two places, and some programs like krita will embed your name and the tags in the the file.

Mam I want to know about how remove background in ultrahd any website

I'm torn as well. Do you spend more time fussing with troubleshooting, potentially making more money, because afterall we live in a digital world, hence easier for people to give away your images. Or do you sell less by only offering actual prints, then only handleing the few orders that might have issues?

Ellen, what are your thoughts on " computer generated art"..? people who cant draw a straight line but can do creativity on a screen ..

I sell digital downloads and original art and it always gets stolen even more now than ever. My stuff is always being sold on fake websites :(

Yeah, the sin of theft is unfortunately far-too-common.