Photography Licensing

Get great photographs and graphics for your marketing material through image licensing

When you come across a photograph or graphic you want to use for your materials, be sure to obtain image licensing to avoid any copyright violations. Licensing photos is often more cost effective and definitely more convenient than creating customized ad creatives. One good source for images and photos is a stock photo site that provides its own photo licensing agreement. Most agreements grant nonexclusive, nontransferable right to copy, reproduce, transmit and display images as many times as you need for various media.

Many stock image agencies have millions of high-resolution jpegs and other types of image files for advertisements, brochures and other marketing materials, some of which are royalty-free. Many of these sites offer subscription service as well. Get great graphics and photos by doing the following:

1. Compare sites that provide photographic licensing from publishers offering hi-res photos and images to use in your marketing materials.

2. Consider royalty-free images as an alternative.

3. Subscribe to a photographic license site to get discounted prices on graphics.

 

Get photography licensing from sites that offer stock photos for your marketing needs

Many stock image sites provide photography licensing from top stock image publishers. Find a site with an extensive library of rights-managed images so you have more options to choose from. Also consider photo galleries that might not have as many images but offer more customized shots.
Try: Fotosearch offers photographer licensing for thousands of stock photos provided by top stock image publishers. You have the option of signing an agreement with any publisher that lets you license images you can then change, manipulate or transmit. Note that many publishers will not allow you to sub-license the images. Individual photo galleries like Moore Photography & Design also offer stock images you can license.

Consider downloading royalty-free images as an alternative to getting a photography license

Find royalty-free images as an alternative to photo licensing. All you do is pay a flat fee, then download any image you can use for a lifetime.
Try: iStockphoto offers thousand of royalty-free photos, illustrations and flash you can download for as little as $1. Get lo-res, med-res and hi-res images, depending on your particular needs. Corbis offers featured collections of royalty-free images as well as royalty-free CDs.

Subscribe to a photographic license site for discounted rates

Subscriptions to stock image sites allow you several downloads per day or month for monthly or annual fees. Some offer licenses for more commercial uses and even some merchandising use.
Try: Shutterstock offers subscription rates for one month, three months, six months and a year. A subscription can save you hundreds of dollars for 25 downloads per day. The standard license provides limited merchandising, and an enhanced license allows unlimited merchandising use and high-viewership commercial uses. A subscription with Photos To Go gives you access to thousands of royalty-free images from around the world, although all of the images are 2MB.

 

• If you just need a generic photo for very limited use, browse sites that offer free stock images online instead of paying a fee.

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