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Selecting
Good Stock Photography in the Age of Digital
The
business of stock photography has drastically changed over the last
few years. Ten years ago, selecting photographs for your brochure
or newsletter meant spending hours pouring over stock photography
catalogs and ordering photo research to find the exact image. When
the order came in a giant overnight package, designers would spread
transparencies out on the light table, squinting through a magnifying
loop to check every detail.
Enter
the digital age.
High
speed Internet connections. CD’s. Searchable Archives. Royalty-free
stock. These elements have changed the face of communication design
forever. The quality, quantity, affordability and accessibility
of stock imagery have made it the resource of choice for many organizations.
The
advantages of instantaneous access to searchable archives of good
images are numerous.
- Speed
:: We can never have enough of it. Search. Download. Import.
It’s remarkable.
- Choice
:: Searching "stock photography" on Google delivers
1,470,000 results. You can find pretty much anything out there.
- Price
:: While there are free resources, unless you are doing a
school report, you may need something slightly more exclusive.
Also, many of the free images are only good enough for online
display and the selection is very limited. Royalty-free images
are reasonably priced, you pay for only the size you’ll use
and images can be used as needed with no extra charges.
- Flexibility
:: Image selections can be grouped, saved and emailed to others
in the review cycle. People in different locations can simultaneously
review ideas.
- Archiving
:: Some companies even keep a record of your buys that you
can re-download whenever you need them. To use this resource effectively,
there are a few things you need to keep in mind.
- Plan
ahead :: Will you ever need the picture to be printed? The
low cost of "low resolution" images can lure you into
costly mistakes. Images need to be 300 dpi (dots per inch) at
the size they will be printed.
- Low-cost
tradeoff :: Pictures are now so affordable, everyone’s
buying them. That means your image could show up in your competitor’s
brochure. Some projects call for more exclusive imagery.
- Image-enhancement
:: When you need something totally unique, such as your product
in the shot, it may be more economical to hire a photographer
than to have your designer spend countless hours in Photoshop
trying to get it just right.
- Availability
:: Good images still cost money. While many firms have images
on file, don’t expect your designer to have a database full
of images right for your project.
When
searching on the web, search for "stock photography" rather
than doing an image search in Google or another search engine. Google
returns all images from the web -- including those that are the
property of others and not legally usable.
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