Many people use the phrases “royalty free” and “stock” interchangeably when talking about photography however there’s a difference, and it’s necessary to understand the difference when planning a design project.

History

It used to be that if you needed a photo, you hired a professional photographer who created a customized shot for you. There are still many occasions when a custom shot is the only real possibility—to take a photograph of your new product, your facility, your staff, etc.

Nonetheless, there are occasions when a photograph is used more to convey a mood or set a scene. For instance, a financial planning company shows a retired couple walking and laughing along the beach. This suggests a carefree retirement achieved by way of careful investments. These types of images, typically called lifestyle shots, are sometimes generic enough that a financial planner in Maine, an insurance agent in Minnesota and a stockbroker in Florida might all use the same picture of their promotional materials.

Sooner or later, photographers realized they had a stock of beforehand shot, unused photos. Possibly they were extras from a customized shoot, or images whose usage rights had elapsed. Then again, quite a bit designers, marketers and ad businesses realized they didn’t have a the funds to fly to the Caribbean, pay a professional photographer and his assistants, and set up a custom shoot. So stock photos turned a new product. Initially they were largely purchased directly from photographers, but then stock companies compiled them together to make the research faster for designers and to assist photographers with their marketing.

Stock photography

Stock images is generally priced the identical way a custom shoot is—the price is predicated on usage. Obviously with stock images, there are not any direct prices of getting the shot made. The fee is decided on where the picture will be used and for a way long. For example, it could possibly be running on the entrance cover of a catalog that’s distributed throughout the U.S. during one vacation season. Or, it may very well be running inside a book at postage-stamp measurement on an educational flyer distributed only in the State of New York. Whenever you purchase a stock photo, you are only supposed to make use of it for that utilization, so if you happen to love the front cover of your catalog and decide to use the same image in your web site and your other marketing materials, you could negotiate and pay for more utilization rights.

Royalty free photography

By contrast, royalty-free images permits you to pay one flat price and you can use the image as much as you like. Usually, there are totally different costs depending on the decision of an image. A low-res file that might only work as a small web site image prices less than a big-scale, high decision image that may very well be utilized in each print and web. If you are thinking about building a marketing campaign round a key photograph, it is appealing to just pay one fee. When you’ve paid for it, you should utilize an image in any new circumstance that arises. However, there’s a downside to royalty-free images.

Exclusivity

Another distinction between royalty-free and stock photographs is that royalty-free images may be purchased again and again by people everywhere. The photograph you’ve chosen for the entrance page of your web site stands out as the exact picture your competitors have chosen for their web site. As a designer, I’ve definitely see images I’ve worked with, used in other places.

Traditionally, with stock pictures, because to procure a photo for a certain utilization, the stock agency could inform you who else was utilizing the image. They would also let you know if there have been restrictions. For instance, an insurance company in Maine may purchase the rights to a stock image in a way that does not allow some other insurance companies in New England to use the image.