EZ Royalty Free

If you haven’t noticed yet, we live in a digital world, and with that said, everyone is a photographer, taking their own photos and developing images. All you need is a 6.0 megapexil digital camera and you’re in, you’re a pro! Well, not exactly. It’s amazing how many times a professional loses an assignment due to the fact that somewhere, someone has a digital camera and was able to take the pictures. Unfortunately, since we’re living in a free marketplace and the technology age no one can stop this from happening. However, it does take more than charging someone for photos to be a real professional. In reality, in order to take high quality photos and create professional stock images, it takes a lot more than having a camera that can give you a pretty good resolution and good exposures.

An experienced professional not only has to have good equipment and mastery of it, but must also possess the instinct and the know how of why a certain photograph is being taken. There are so much to be taken in consideration why a picture should be shot. I was in photojournalism for 6 years as part of my 25 years experience in the field, and did worked for a newspaper.

Let’s start out with instinct and being patient. I was covering a college football match between Ohio State vs Wisconsin. I wanted to get a shot of a QB getting sacked at a certain angle as to where the defenders are facing me going for that sack. As the game progresses, and since the ultimate shot of the day for me has to be the QB getting sacked from a planned angle, I positioned myself in the end zone where I’m facing the defenders and was using a large lens. I was ready with great anticipation for the shot to happen play after play. I also knew that I have no room for errors or else I’ll miss that 2 seconds peek of the moment. The shot finally happened in the 4th qtr. when there was only eight minutes left in the ballgame and I got my shot. Spectacular image that made it in the front page of the sports section.

Without great instinct and endless patience that certainly apply when you’re a photojournalist, you’ll never be able to capture the award winning shots. It truly takes many years of experience, aside from the few that are truly gifted, to be able to truly know how to get the shot. Even with many years of experience, every shoot based upon the nature of it, presents a new challenge every time. The years of experience represents a filing cabinet, if you will, where you can go for ideas and information from compilation of experiences, on how you would approach the solution to each challenge…available to you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Knowing how and when a room should be lit, knowing how to direct a certain talent or talents, having the instinct and anticipation when shooting news stories, knowing the right focal length lens and lens speed needed, and most important… seeing the shot in your head is the advantage of a committed professional.

We are currently shooting our “Real Estate” collection, but before I go further, note that the sample images are posted at the lowest resolution possible. We are gathering exterior photos, interior photos and design element images. Here is an example of one of the images already taken.

All aspects of the images are being considered from angles to lighting, what dimension would compliment certain shots whether standard horizontal and vertical, or square or panoramic. Certain object that lends itself as design elements are carefully being looked at and photographed as well. Below is an example of a design element. Note that as we photograph these homes, interior and exterior, we shoot numerous design elements as we see them, all for the purpose of giving our design community more to work with. All that could be used for design purposes aside from the general wide angle shots of the property. We figured the more design elements and angles we can provide the designers the better. Knowing that to accomplish a great design, it starts out with a bright creative mind plus all the necessary tools and design elements that are needed to be able to execute to the fullest.

As EZ Royalty Free Photos produces these products, we assure the design community that every step of the way, with the highest level of professionalism, we have you in mind. We want to make a difference in the market place and would like to be your resource for high quality professional images.

Of course, we will look to distribute in a way that may be a little different than the others, more on that in the days to come.

I wanted to document our first pictures taken, so using my own camera and novice picture taking capabilities, I snapped off a couple of pictures of Jesse taking the first photos for our Royalty-Free collection. Please note, these are pictures of the guy creating the stock photos, I am not the photographer, as the quality of my pictures will suggest.

A thing to note, for novice photographers like me, LIGHTING is one of the key elements in professional stock photography creation. Obviously, image quality is also important, but an amateur with enough money can spend >$3,000 for a professional quality camera then another $3,000 on lenses. Even with the best camera, though, without the proper lighting equipment and the knowledge on how to set it up properly, an amateur will never be able to produce the same images as a professional.

The above image is one I took with my Canon EOS SLR 6Megapixel Camera… it is a very nice camera, but obviously, I did not optimize the lighting. If I was really trying, I probably could have taken a better picture, but I am using this image to demonstrate a point regarding professional stock images. Below is a picture that Jesse took of essentially the same thing using his camera, lighting, and of course, knowledge and wisdom as a professional photographer.

Both of the images were scaled down to 400px height for web use. The real differences are in the “framing” of the image and the lighting. Jesse will be providing more detail about some of the critical areas of creating stock images in his blog we will be creating on this site very soon.

While I further investigate the licensing problem that currently exists, I want to start gathering information on what type of images are currently needed by template designers. My partner is a photographer and we are investigating offering a new type of product, royalty free images distributed in sets of 150 or so that are free to distribute on templates.

There are different types of categories (real estate, medical, animals, etc.) that could be needed, plus different types of dimensions (standard, panoramic, horizontal, square, etc.). I am looking for feedback as to what different users might need. Please comment to let us know what you are looking for. If someone else already said it, comment and say it again, this way we can see what has the most demand.

In a recent discussion with a website template builder, I learned that many looking to build and sell website templates are having trouble with Royalty-Free licenses that do not allow them to incorporate images into a design that is for resale. For this use, the images are not royalty free and require a special license. Figuring there may be a niche market for template builders that need to redistribute images as part of a template or design, some investigation into the royalty free market is warranted.

I did a Google search for “Royalty Free Photos” today in an effort to find out who is providing royalty free images and what exactly they are selling as “royalty free”. The entire first page was filled with companies undoubtedly trying their best to be #1 so they can profit the most from selling these royalty free photos, so we know that royalty free certainly does not mean free as in no money.

Here is a snapshot of what I learned about what is being sold as Royalty Free and what license requirements come with the royalty free tag. Note, the results are from a Google search that was conducted on 2/20/2008:

#1 - Jupiter Images

On the Jupiterimages website they state “you have access to a huge variety of royalty-free images from big name providers to small, eclectic boutique shops. Whether you’re looking for a single royalty-free image to license or you want to stock up on royalty-free images on CDs, this is the place to start your search.”

OK, sounds good… let’s look at the license to see what their version of “Royalty-free” really is. There are two sections in particular that are critical for discussion, E) Permitted Uses and F) Prohibited Uses.

To sum it up quickly, what you are allowed to do is back up the images on a single server, use the images in print, editorial, advertising, product packaging, book covers, calendars, consumer merchandise, etc. – “provided such use is not intended to allow the re-distribution or re-use of the Image(s)”, modify as necessary for your use, use the images as décor, use the images as design elements in video, film, or television broadcasts and use the images in connection with your business or entity. This is a pretty open license, except for the re-distribution and re-use part, more on that in a moment.

What you can not do is “sublicense, distribute, transfer or assign the Image(s) or rights to the Image(s)”, reverse engineer, reproduce, remove any copyright, display in any digital format at a resolution greater than 72 dpi, use as part of a trademark or logo, use the images in a way that would make them obscene or pornographic or use the images to compete with JUPITERIMAGES. The next one is a biggie, you may NOT “Use the Images(s) in any downloadable format intended for multiple distribution including, without limitation, templates, Web site templates, software products, e-greetings, etc.” You will need to contact them for a special license for that use.

There are other terms and restrictions, but the key item I was looking for has presented itself. Royalty-free images, as described by JUPITERIMAGES, does not grant a website or template developer the right to include the images in a template for resale. This, obviously, presents a problem for template developers as they need a special license, probably one that costs more among other things, in order to redistribute the images as part of a template. In fact, it almost appears as if there may be a Royalty FEE (not free) for this use. So, it appears that for template developers, JUPITERIMAGES is NOT ROYALTY-FREE.

#2 FreeDigitalPhotos.Net

The first thing that popped out to me here is the fact that they have Ads by Google on the top right of the home page. Interesting to note that this company has given up prime real estate on their home page to provide uncontrolled links to their competitors. Perhaps there is a reason for this.

Terms: “If you use a free image on a website, you must place a text hyperlink on that website to FreeDigitalPhotos.net. This includes forums, blogs and networking sites such as MySpace.” The images may not be offered for sale or distribution or used for greeting cards which will be sold. Needless to say, these limitations are not friendly for template designers to say the least.

#3 BigStockPhoto.com

The tag line at the top of the website reads “truly royalty-free stock photos”. Perhaps they have the answer. Well, if they do, their answer is just as bad for template developers as the other. In their prohibited uses, they state that without a Special License you may not “print the photo or image as a poster, postcard, greeting card, on a mug, shirt, hat, mouse pad, art print, painting, calendar, book, or gallery or use the image in screensavers, e-card software, web page builders or other systems where the image is shared or distributed to a number of users.” OK, so truly Royalty-Free still means template developers are limited at BigStockPhoto.com

#4 iStockPhoto.com “you may not use the Content in design template applications intended for resale”

#5 123rf.com “NOT in connection with any Web site template or software product for distribution or use by others”

OK, this is starting to look like a pattern… I will continue to investigate to see if anyone is providing images that are royalty free for template designers. A few of the companies do offer an email address to inquire about a license to use the images in this manner. Basically, it appears there is a set, or variable, fee to purchase photos with this type of license. If none of the companies target website template builders, there may indeed be a niche market for this type of royalty free images.