Best way to monetize a photoshop resource site

I have collected alot of photoshop brushes/vectors that I plan to share on my website. (~10.000 images)

What do you think the most profitable way to run a site like this?

Should I charge for my product or give it away and focus more on building traffic and make money on affiliate links and ads?

alt 1: The classic - Pay a few dollars to download a brush set. Subscribing is optional.

alt 2: Getting subscribers - All downloads are free (if visitors sign up for newsletter.)

alt 3: Crowdsourcing - Users get access to all downloads in return for a favour (like linking to my site)

So what is the best alternative in the long run?

If you have lots of downloads, putting an adsense block next to the download button can be very effective, especially if you can code it so the download button doesnt appear for 10 seconds or so.

Linking would be pretty impossible to enforce.
I would do some keyword research, see which stuff people want the most. Release a few sets for free to get visitors to your site, one free set after subscription to get people on your list, and the rest in a membership type thing a la GoMedia.

I've thought about giving away parts of each set - to drive traffic (and links) to my product landing pages. At least with the products I know will be popular. I will probably give away most of the other content for free to subscribers.

A membership site would also be an alternative, but it would probably be hard make people stay when they've downloaded everything the first month.

just put a ************** gateway so visitors should complete an offer to download each set
i use this technique and it's work well on a plr/mrr site i own.

I'm not sure I understand you boussena...what you mean with completing an offer and what is a ******* gateway?

personally i would create a membership site - very few people will click your adsense ads so that wont create alot of revenue

i would recommend you take a look at joomla aec and alphapoints

basically this is what i would do:

create a membership site using joomla

make access to downloads using a point system ie joomla plugin alphapoints - get so many points for each month you pay... alternatively pay for more points to exchange for more downloads, or offer more points by referring people, user interaction, etc

offer bonuses and free stuff to help stimulate growth of site...

use joomla plugin AEC for your subscription/payment handling

there are plugins to handle downloads too for alphapoints i believe... will have to check

sorry this is hurried but gotta dash!

hth

i think bhw block this network name to appear but to see it on action just go to tos.cc , try to download a product and you understand what i mean.

Ok I see what you mean with surveys now. How much do you make when a visitor writes a survey? I'm not sure how my visitors would react to it though, I don't want to site to seem spammy in anyway since I will use it to show my own work later.

The point system sounds interesting, but I've designed my site in wordpress and I couldn't find any plugins with this function. I tried wishlist but it can only give members access to a new level after a set time.