Commercial Image Providers</

For a good article by Stefan Petrucha on the differences, advantages and disadvantages of licensed, royalty free and public domain images see the March 2001 issue of AV Video Multimedia Producer.

Memberships Sites:
ArtToday (5) Highly recommended. This site has weekly ($7.95) to yearly ($153.40) membership plans. In the August 2001 issue, PC World included ArtToday as one of today's hottest sites: "The Web is bursting with free clip art. So why are we recommending a fee-based site? Quantity and usability. ArtToday has thousands of illustrations, photos, and Web animations. Keyword searching simplifies finding the art you seek--be it a cartoon kangaroo or a portrait of Einstein." Harry McCracken.

ImageBlitz From Dynamic Graphics, Inc in the liquid library they offer royalty free photos, clip art, and video clips. "65,000 plus photos" The quality of photos looks ok, clip art cheesy.

Stock Photo Agencies:
Commercial stock photos are typically acquired in 2 ways, through licensing, or through royalty-free purchases. Licensed materials usually involve a fee for each use and can designate how, where, and how the materials can be used. In contrast, for the price of a single purchase, royalty free stock footage can be used as often and how the purchaser chooses.

iStockphoto Purchased by Getty in February, 2006 iStockphoto offers images at very affordable prices.
See the June, 2006 issue of Wired for more about iStockphoto in article by Jeff Howe about "The Rise of Crowdsourcing."

Two of the biggest players today are Corbis, a company owned by Bill Gates, and Getty Images, a company founded by Mark Getty. Through buyouts the two have bought themselves into dominance. (Helman and Post)

Corbis Corbis is owned by Bill Gates. Corbis focuses on the consumer markets and print media, more on real people and historic events, rather than conceptual stock photos. Its collection includes 30 years of UPI photos. (Helman and Post) A variety of single images and photo CD collections. Also has a series of limited edition prints and Ansel Adams images for sale. In contrast to Getty, it owns its archival assets.

gettyimages
Founded by Mark Getty, grandson of J. Paul. Getty Images sells mainly to the advertising and editorial markets.Getty usually manages usage rights and pays photographers rather than owning stock images outright. The images may be famous, but not of famous people.(Helman and Post) Here you can search multiple sites, for llicensed and/or royalty- free images. Getty is a huge. It encompasses Allsport, Artville, Bridgeman Art Library, Energy Film, Eyewire, Food Pix, FPG, Hulton/Archive, Illustration Works, The Image Bank, The Image Bank Film, The National Geographic Image Collections, Photodisc, and Stone.

Picturequest.com "All of your favorite image collections in one place." This is an aggregator for the a bunch of royalty free stock photo companies.

Artville Royalty-free CD collections. Nice page. Big easily searchable collection. Contains illustrations rather than photos (see Getty Images and Eyewire)

Brandxpictures Some members of the New Media Center said that they have found BrandX Pictures to be very useful, and that they have quality pictures with a good license agreement

Dynamic Graphics Group Single image, CD collections as well as map graphics, illustrations, special effects, publications ... and more.

Eyewire This has a bunch of resources in it. Other sites are listed too. It seems to have its own products, but also acts as a one stop shop with others sites. Their clipart looks to be superior. They publish an award winning catalog too. Now part of Getty Images. "EyeWire, for those of you who may not know, is a company that uses a slick monthly catalog and its Web site to sell a plethora of content and tools to the "creative professional." That includes us, whether we re a presentation designer, presentation-deliverer, handout virtuoso, print slave or all of the above." Creswell, Mary (Sept. 1999)Get and eyeful of creativity."Presentations," Minneapolis Site includes photography, illustration,footage, type,software, audio, and books. (a) Image Club club has stock photos (b) Object Photography has photos of objects (c) Circa Art Illustrations by Eyewire

Footage.net "the one source for the best footage available anywhere: the only place ad, film, TV and digital video pros can instantly search for FREE the footage trade's best stock, archival and news footage databases all at once." Aimed at commercial producers, the materials are probably too expensive for educators.

FOTOSEARCH "...search over 50 stock photography, illustration, and video footage publishers at one site..."

Hulton/Archive Historical stock footage and photos - includes movie stars, sports stars and astronauts. (see Getty above)

Image Farm Contemporary, royalty-free images.The Image Farm photo collection features a diverse selection of images including objects, visual concepts and backgrounds.

Photospin.com A graphic designer at CSU (thanks C.F.) pointed out a webpage with their bargain prices EDUCATORS check this out.

PHOTOVAULT These folks have discounted pricing for educational/ institutional web sites, $75.00/year for an image, available in 418 x 282 pixels or 60 x89 pixels. "PHOTOVAULT (tm) is a library of images specializing in that intangible and warm quality known as "the human touch". Our images have emphasis on such diverse categories as business and technology, people and children, nature and vacations, etc. And covers diverse subject matter from Aerospace to Zimbabwe."

Public Domain Images
Public domain photos. Some freebies but the site is largely promotes a book and search services. (from Knight (1998).
Unprofessional web site design.

The Stock Solution A variety of single images and photo CD collections. Represents 100 photographers/200,000 images

Stockbyte My impression is that its images are aimed more at business and perhaps not as suitable for education, as are many other of the sites on this page..

Visual Language "A unique resource for rare and beautiful imagery" aesthetic antique maps and illustrations

1stopstock.com offers a "Multi-Search" through 10 major online stock databases. Search using 1ss.com, then purchase images directly through each agency."

Other Fee Based Providers
Image Club Clip Art from Eyewire. It includes 4 resource books like Clip Art Resource Book 1 for $9.95. These look like something very useful for folks who use and need a lot of professional clipart.

Google A Google search is free for stock photos, but it provides a list of potential vendors for stock photos.

TimePix According to the Librarian's Index to the Internet, lii.org, "Time, Inc. is putting online hundreds of thousands of photographs from its collection of more than 20 million photos taken since the 1930s for its publications, including Time, Life, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Time-Life Books. In addition, they've added more than a million historical images (prints, illustrations, and photographs) from the London Mansell Collection. An excellent search engine and help files. Registration (free) required."

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