Types of Stock Photography

Many businesses use stock photography for their marketing and advertising needs. Whether it's web, print or broadcast, licensed stock photography can be used to forward your business objectives by giving you high-quality images and graphic elements that will make your finished project look professional. There are two main categories of stock photography: rights managed and royalty free.

Rights managed photography licenses are negotiated upon a number of criteria, which includes the duration of use, how it will be used, image size and quality and exclusivity. These licenses are generally more expensive than royalty free licenses, but allow for broader usage. Typically, rights managed stock photographs can be used by your company exclusively, meaning that other companies or agencies will be able to use the same image for the duration of your license.

Royalty free licenses allow for mass use of photographs for a set fee. This means a photographer can license an image to be used multiple times. Some of these images are licensed to be used thousands of times, meaning you can print or distribute thousands of copies of your marketing or advertising materials with the same photograph. Higher usages of an image may require an additional payment. Royalty free stock photography licenses are not exclusive, so any other company or firm may use the same image in their materials at the same time.

There are restrictions for stock photography licenses, both royalty free and rights managed. These restrictions will ensure that the photographs and images are not used in an illegal or defamatory way. The use of stock photography images in resale products, such as shirts, mugs, hats and other for-sale merchandise is not allowed.

Furthermore, any stock photograph that contains a person or people will require a model release. The release states that the model or models used in the photograph have given the photographer permission to sell their likeness. Any stock image that will be used for commercial purposes must have the appropriate model release.

Stock photography that is classified as editorial is not to be used in commercial applications. These images can be used for educational or for news reporting purposes. The most common uses of editorial stock photography are found in newspapers, magazines and textbooks.

There are many places for you to obtain stock photographs and images. You can buy photographs directly from the photographer or have them licensed to you through stock image firms. These firms contain huge libraries of images and exclusive photo collections. You can choose between higher quality firms, or microstock firms that are cheaper.

Microstock firms offer stock photography through the Internet and contain images that are usually taken by amateurs. The images may not be as good as the more expensive, larger firms. However, they may be worth a look if you have a strict budget to which you need to adhere. Small businesses usually use microstock firms for licensed photography.

Source : Ezinearticles