Joy Of Code - Web Design Training and Consulting
Joy Gems Newsletter

Image Depots - Where To License Royalty Free Images

By Bud Kraus
bud@joyofcode.com
Joy Of Code
Creator And Instructor

Originally Published: 2005

If you're not a graphic artist, like me, or even if you are you can license royalty free images for use on the web in a number of ways. I choose to use Corbis and Getty which I'll explain in a minute.

Both of these are large commercial services that make it easy to license images for your sites (and for other media as well). The key here is "license" because you can't own the images as you would when you hire a graphic artist to create images under a "work for hire" situation.

Some other day we'll delve into copyright issues or if there's an Intellectual Property attorney among us (or if you know one) who'd like to guest write a Joy Gems issue so much the better.

After you set up an account (at no cost) you browse or search through large catalogues of images. When you find images that you're interested in you collect them in a lightbox which is very cool and gives you the feeling as if you were at an ad agency or an image stock house. You can share the lightbox with others (and even make comments next to any image), such as a client, so they can see the images that you're thinking of using for a site.

Once you've decided on an image to license you choose the size of the image, the image dimension and the resolution of your image. Here' s a chart of the choices:

Typical Price Chart For A Royalty Free License For One Image From Corbis
Image Size Price (USD) Dimension Output Size Resolution Availability
640 KB 60.00 480px x 480px 6in. x 6in. 72 ppi Immediate
2 MB 90.00 1024px x 1024px 3in. x 3in. 300 ppi Immediate
14 MB 200.00 2100px x 2100px 7in. x 7in . 300 ppi Immediate
32 MB 260.00 3450px x 3450px 11in. x 11in. 300 ppi Immediate

The format, I believe, that they offer for most of their images is .gif or .jpg.

If you know that the only reason you'd ever use an image is on the web then your choice is very likely to be the first one that features 72 points per inch resolution. Anything over 72ppi on a monitor is a waste.

As I mentioned there are other services but I really like Corbis and Getty. Do you have a favorite that you'd like others to know about? Tell us.

What about stock photos? Foto Search Stock Photos allows users to search from more than 90 quality stock photography publishers at one site. You can also find clipart pictures, royalty-free illustrations, royalty-free motion stock video clips, royalty free vector maps, and background clip art imagery.

Webmasters and clients alike will be interested in the graphics that Foto Search Stock Photos has to offer. Webmasters need images for sites as much as code, and it is especially helpful to hard-core programmers to have a design source they can rely on for finding top-quality images.