Stock Images Tell The Story

In blogging it is important that you use images in the mind as well as those on paper to tell the story. The expression a Picture is Worth A Thousand Words is so true. Sometimes you can find just the perfect shot

to convey your thoughts and sometimes you cannot. One of the tools that you can find to convey a thought or an idea is stock images or photos if you do not have a particular photograph or video of your own.

What are Stock Images ?

Stock Images are large collections of photos in various sizes and styles that have been compiled by providers to satisfy the market need for photographs of all settings. An important feature of web-based stock photography collections is that the images have been embedded with meta-data, therefore making the images searchable by using keywords. This allows us to find exactly what were are looking for quickly. Some galleries provide royaty-free photos where you pay for the images and others provide a wide variety of licensing arrangements where you pay for the use of the photos and credit the photographers.

Herre is an excellent definition of those arrangements from Wikipedia.:

Royalty-free (RF)

“Free” in this context means “free of royalties (paying each time you use an image)”. It does not mean the image is free to use without purchasing a license or that the image is in the public domain.

• Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
• No time limit on when the buyer can use an image.
• No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he or she wants).
• A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called theprint run. The buyer is required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents, for additional prints. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.

Rights-managed (RM)

(sometimes called “licensed images”)

• The value of a license is determined by the use of the image, which is generally broken down along these lines;
  • Usage: (e.g. Advertising – “Above the Line”, Corporate – “Below the Line” or Editorial – “News Media”)
  • Specific Use: (e.g. Billboard, Annual Report, Newspaper article)
  • Duration: (e.g. 1 month, 2 months, 1 Year, 2 Years etc.)
  • Print Run: (e.g. up to 10,000, up to 1m)
  • Territory: (e.g.; USA, Europe, UK, Germany, or whatever combination of territories are required)
  • Size: (how big is the image to be used – 1/4 page, 1/2 page, full page, or double page spread)
  • Industry: (Industry type – e.g. Consumer Electronics, Marine Engineering, Financial Services etc.)
  • Exclusivity: (Exclusive, or Non Exclusive)
• The terms of the license are clearly defined and negotiated so that the purchaser receives maximum value, and is protected in their purchase by a certain level of exclusivity.
• Rights-managed licenses provide assurance that an image will not be used by someone else in a conflicting manner. The agreement can include exclusivity, and usually recognises that this represents added value. Not all Rights-managed licenses are exclusive, that must be stipulated in the agreement.
• A Rights-managed image usually allows a much larger print run per image than a Royalty-free license.
• Editorial is a form of rights-managed license when there are no releases for the subjects. Since there are no releases the images cannot be used for advertising or to depict controversial subjects, only for news or educational purposes.

Companies that sell rights images include Getty Images, Corbis, and Istockphoto which is owned by Getty Images.  One of the most popular microstock photo galleries is Fotolia

The above image was downloaded by me from Fotolia as an example of an image on a marketing site discussing the whys and hows of marketing. You can find photographs and images like above or vector diagrams such as the images of hard drives and cloud computing below.

Not only are stock images available in vector and still images but you can find short video clips on Fotalia.org as well to provide just the extra oomph that you may want.  There extensive searchable collection is available by purchasing credits or subscriptions using paypal. You are also helping the budding designers and creators of the images to sustain their work and earn an income.

Stock Images and Integration Plugins

There are several new Fotolia offerings that allow you to use the stock digital images yourself and or integrate them with art or other design work in tools like Adobe’s Photoshop.CS6â„¢

Here are some of the innovations in stock digital images that Fotolia has in their offerings.

Adobe and Microsoft Plugins

The Adobe plugin allows you to browse, manage and incorporate Fotolia images inside any Adobe CS5 or greater application. Whether your favorite program is InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator, you get instant access to over 16 million stock images and vectors directly within the application. Your workflow will increase more than ever with time-saving features like light-boxes, galleries and spec tracking if you have these tools.

The tool is free and can be downloaded at www.fotolia.com/adobeplugin

You can also find tools that integrate the images directly into Microsoft Office™ programs like Powerpoint and Word. Go to the Fotolia site for details and download.

Digital Stock Images and Art

Fotalia has also sponsored the TEN COLLECTION

What’s the TEN Collection? Simply put, TEN Collection is 10 artists – 10 themes -10 months – 10 PSDs
They have presented some amazing digital artists to share their unique know-how and talent with you since last fall. As I write they have already presented 5 artists. The works are Free on the day they come out and then are charged for after Each artist will walks you through the process of turning basic images into an intricate digital PSD creation.

Visit the TEN website to follow along to see his work unfold, step-by-step. Don’t miss out, on the FREE PSD file download – only only the day released ! You’ll gain great insight to all the materials, elements and special tools he used so you can see how each individual graphic component played a part in creating his final image. This is like a free masterclass for you.

Here is a little video with English subtitles of how you can learn if you are a designer or blogger and want to use Fotalia images and art in your work.

TEN Collection by FOTOLIA – Trust In Elements (US) from Teaser Fotolia TEN Collection on Vimeo.