What does photo stock photography mean
Shortly, photo stock agency photography is the exact opposite of the classic photography, where the photographer gets paid to take a picture of a certain person or object, and for that only. Stock photography means a whole inventory of photographs, ready to be bought.
Photo stock agencies collect lots of pictures by different photographers in digital archives. Customers can now just search certain terms on the agencies homepage and get a variety of matching photos offered immediately. Therefore a photo stock agency offers cheaper photographs than your average photographer. The only downside would be that the agency only sells rights of use, while the copyright remains with the photographer.
For who is interested in buying istock photos they could check istockphoto promo code from here.
What does Microstock and Macrostock mean?
A microstock agency focusses rather on the quantitiy and not so much on the quality of the pictures they´re selling.
Therefore they pretty much hawk photographs for 5 bucks each.
If you´re actually planning on making some money need to either turn in tons and tons of pictures, or nothing. Making good money with microstock agencies is almost impossible.
Photographs which are a subject to licence conditions (RM, Rights-Managed,
subject to licence conditions)
In this case the way the customer wants to use your picture is what the price depends on. Given that the customer buys the right of use for one time only, whether it be for a magazine, a book, advertising in general, for flyers…The price depends on:
- the size of the picture
- where it´s being placed (On the actual cover or within the inner section)
- the print run
- the distribution (tiny village, country district, nationwide, Europe, wolrdwide)
- and the time of use
The licence-free/royalty-free photograph (RF - Royalty Free – licence-free)
In this case the price for which the picture is being sold depends on it´s size, which means that none of the criteria concerning pictures which are subject to licence conditions apply here. Further, that means that the client pay one time only, which gives him the right to use the photograph worldwide and for any purpose.
Self-promotion?
Can I still use my photographs after they´ve been accepted by an agency?
The answer is: You are still allowed to use your work for the purpose of self-promotion. Examples would be your website, for catalogues, book covers etc. Other than that you can still present your work within art exhibitions, regardless of you being represented by a photo stock agency.
However you should still call your agencies to be sure. They ususally expect you to sent them a brief email giving them all the important data and how the photograph is being used.
Just to give you a quick example: When I needed one of my pictures which is being represented by one of my agencies, for the book cover of “The dark room” which is available on Amazon, they demanded a quick email telling them how I´d put that photograph to use. Since it is one of my pictures I obviously didn´t have to pay, however I might not be able to sell that as an object to licence conditions.
What does High-Res and Low-Res mean?
High-Res or Low-Res are abbreviations for high and low resolution.
TIP: Low-Res are the files you turn in on approval. They usually come with a resolution of 72 DPI while the longer side of the photograph shouldn´t cross 800 or 1000 pixels.
Therefore the file usually has a size of 1 to 2 megabytes which it should in no way exceed. If t does, whoever´s looking through your work will be forced to scroll up and down in order to see the entire photograph.
High-Res files are camera RAW-files, which will later be converted into TIF´s and at the same time the highest resolution photograph a digital camera can save. Since immediate converting would take up to much space on your memory chip, you don´t need to convert your pictures before an agency has accepted a picture.
Photo stock agencies collect lots of pictures by different photographers in digital archives. Customers can now just search certain terms on the agencies homepage and get a variety of matching photos offered immediately. Therefore a photo stock agency offers cheaper photographs than your average photographer. The only downside would be that the agency only sells rights of use, while the copyright remains with the photographer.
For who is interested in buying istock photos they could check istockphoto promo code from here.
What does Microstock and Macrostock mean?
A microstock agency focusses rather on the quantitiy and not so much on the quality of the pictures they´re selling.
Therefore they pretty much hawk photographs for 5 bucks each.
If you´re actually planning on making some money need to either turn in tons and tons of pictures, or nothing. Making good money with microstock agencies is almost impossible.
Photographs which are a subject to licence conditions (RM, Rights-Managed,
subject to licence conditions)
In this case the way the customer wants to use your picture is what the price depends on. Given that the customer buys the right of use for one time only, whether it be for a magazine, a book, advertising in general, for flyers…The price depends on:
- the size of the picture
- where it´s being placed (On the actual cover or within the inner section)
- the print run
- the distribution (tiny village, country district, nationwide, Europe, wolrdwide)
- and the time of use
The licence-free/royalty-free photograph (RF - Royalty Free – licence-free)
In this case the price for which the picture is being sold depends on it´s size, which means that none of the criteria concerning pictures which are subject to licence conditions apply here. Further, that means that the client pay one time only, which gives him the right to use the photograph worldwide and for any purpose.
Self-promotion?
Can I still use my photographs after they´ve been accepted by an agency?
The answer is: You are still allowed to use your work for the purpose of self-promotion. Examples would be your website, for catalogues, book covers etc. Other than that you can still present your work within art exhibitions, regardless of you being represented by a photo stock agency.
However you should still call your agencies to be sure. They ususally expect you to sent them a brief email giving them all the important data and how the photograph is being used.
Just to give you a quick example: When I needed one of my pictures which is being represented by one of my agencies, for the book cover of “The dark room” which is available on Amazon, they demanded a quick email telling them how I´d put that photograph to use. Since it is one of my pictures I obviously didn´t have to pay, however I might not be able to sell that as an object to licence conditions.
What does High-Res and Low-Res mean?
High-Res or Low-Res are abbreviations for high and low resolution.
TIP: Low-Res are the files you turn in on approval. They usually come with a resolution of 72 DPI while the longer side of the photograph shouldn´t cross 800 or 1000 pixels.
Therefore the file usually has a size of 1 to 2 megabytes which it should in no way exceed. If t does, whoever´s looking through your work will be forced to scroll up and down in order to see the entire photograph.
High-Res files are camera RAW-files, which will later be converted into TIF´s and at the same time the highest resolution photograph a digital camera can save. Since immediate converting would take up to much space on your memory chip, you don´t need to convert your pictures before an agency has accepted a picture.
