How to source great images for your project
This Tips and Tricks post covers:
What is image research?
Bespoke photography
Licensing and copyright
Model release
Free image resources
Paid image resources
Good practice.
What does an image researcher do?
One of the services I offer is image research. I’ve trained with the Publishing Training Centre which offers courses in how to find images and the legal side too.
It’s a useful skill to have. Even if I’m not undertaking full image research, I can help advise on projects if I spot something that may need a quick check. These are the areas that I can help with and areas you may want to think about when you’re working on your next project - whether that’s print, social media or web… in short, anything that involves an image!
Finding images for print and digital
Buying or advising on the necessary licence
Editing images in Photoshop
Generate ideas for picture and video content across social media
Building a bank of image stock to work with branding
Sourcing credits for images
Advising on legal image use
Cultural considerations
Save you time, it’s really easy to go down rabbit holes looking for photos
Work to your brief and budget
Provide images for book covers from libraries
Finding photographers.
How does it work?
I’ll take my client’s brief (which maybe part of a bigger project like a book or branding) and advise on budget if they don’t already have one and timescale. I will check on any concerns about culture, ethnicity and license use. Then I’ll create selection boards of images from appropriate libraries and ask the client to select. Once the images are sourced, I’ll buy then under the client license for the appropriate use and supply credit or acknowledgments.
What happens if an image is used without permission?
Anyone who has had their work used without permission has the legal right under the UK law to instigate legal proceedings. They may write to ask to remove the image, ask a solicitor to take action or even go to court. Illegal use of images can include:
Using work that doesn’t belong to the creator in their own material
Downloading images from the internet without asking the source for permission
Not buying the correct copyright. This often happens in book publishing when the author or publisher may forget they also need to buy marketing rights to an image if they’re intending to use a book cover image in promotions
Not buying the correct copyright in relation to countries or print run. Some image libraries ask for details on distribution and volume to determine the price of an image
Using an image created by a designer or illustrator without checking the contract of work includes copyright clearance
Using work that has been created whilst in employment when the employer hasn’t given permission to do so.
How can you avoid any copyright problems?
Your own in-house photography is an investment It’s always going to be original, on brand and guarantees it’s yours to use as you wish. Marketing Experiments ran a survey in 2011 which found a 35% increase in website conversions where there was a photo of the business owner.
It promotes trust and familiarity, and you own it.
What’s licensing and how does that affect copyright?
3 billion images are shared online every day. 85% of them get stolen. (Copytrack, 2019)
The internet doesn’t mean public domain and free to use. Someone took the photo which means it’s their copyright. Photographers and creators of work license images and grant photo usage rights. Agencies may license images if the photographer has contractually allowed them to be granted such as Getty or Shutterstock.
The most common license use of images are editorial use, commercial use (e.g. on products) and use for promotional purposes, or by size of file.
DACS is a good resource to check up-to-date copyright advice and laws.
What’s a Royalty Free license?
The term royalty-free is confusing as these images are liable to licensing requirements and chargable.
Royalty-Free licenses (RF licenses) refers to a term for a license model under which images according to the photo usage rights can be acquired at flat-rate fees. All RF images are subject to non-exclusive rights of use.
A royalty is a fee paid to the author or creator of a work each time a copy of that work is used or sold. Generally, this fee comes in the form of a royalty.
What does Rights Managed mean?
Rights managed images require a single charge only; this does mean that you can only use the image once. For example, if you use a rights managed image for your website, but want to also use it for a brochure, a new licensing agreement will be required for the use of the same image for the brochure.
Rights managed images allows you to purchase the image with either an exclusive or non-exclusive copyright agreement.
Pros and cons
Rights managed stock has high quality images and a wider variety of images, meaning that you are not obligated to filter through pages of poor quality images in order to get to the better quality ones.
Rights managed stock also has tracking, which protects the image from re-use.
Rights managed stock is generally more expensive.
Royalty free images have only one, fixed cost, which allows unlimited use of the image. The price varies depending on image size required. Web images that are 72dpi will cost less than print images of 300dpi.
Due to the non-exclusivity of royalty free images, chances are your content won’t be the only one with that image.
Creative Comms
Creative Commons is a way of licensing images for free. It’s often termed as free of cost which can be interpreted as unrestricted use - which it’s not!
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that provides creators with ready-made license agreements for the purpose of sharing legally-protected content. Creative Commons itself is neither a publisher of content nor a contracting party. Creative Commons licenses are used by the authors at their own discretion to regulate how their content can be use.
There are six types of license which cover different uses from Attribution which allows editing of images and commercial use through to Attribution, No Commercial Use and No Editing. You’ll see this a lot on Flickr.
If you use a person in your image, have they given permission?
For any image to be available for commercial use a release is required for any recognisable people or property in the image.
A release is a written permission from an individual or property owner allowing the use of that person's likeness or property (for example, a private home, a place of business, a copyrighted work of art, or in some cases, an animal) in an image for commercial purposes. (Generally speaking, commercial use means a use that is intended to sell a product, raise money or promote or endorse something.)
Right-to-privacy, right-to-publicity (in the case of celebrities), trademark, and copyright laws require that you have releases if the images are to be used for commercial purposes.
Free image resources
Sites with restricted or specialist uploads
Focastock by Jeff Betts
Points to note about some free sites
Heavily used and not exclusive so you may find that your competitor is also using the same images
Not always loaded by photographer so you may still have copyright issues
Be aware of landmarks, for example The Eiffiel Tower which has very specific conditions attached to the photography and Picadilly Circus which contains logos of companies that may have permissions attached such as Disney or Coco Cola
Model’s permission isn’t always guaranteed.
Paid image resources
https://bapla.org.uk/image-suppliers/
For paid images I make use of my association with BAPLA. This body represents image licensors. It is the UK trade association for picture libraries, researchers and agencies. Lots of specialist photographers use it including the Science Photo Library, British Library and National Trust.
Other resources
Adobe Stock – photos, templates, 3D and editorial images
Deposit – 80m photos on a subscription model
EyeEm – pay per image and subscription models
Getty – pay per image
Pixel rockstar.com – copyright cleared WordPress plug-in
Shutterstock – 219m images on a subscription model.
Finding an image
Images are tagged with meta data. A red telephone box is a broad term, narrow it down by thinking of the context
Use the filters to help with colours, people, age and ethnicity.
Do you need copy space? You can use this as a search term in most paid image libraries.
Be aware of the type of image. Vector is editable, illustrations may not be, and photos are usually unlayered JPG files.
Web images are a small resolution at 72dpi and print is 300dpi. Buy the right one!
Check the image permissions to see what you can edit.
If you’re going down rabbit holes and it’s taken you hours, ask if it’s best use of your time. If not, ask me and I’ll get the selections created for you against your brief. All you have to do is pick one.
Top tips on best practice
Credit the creator when you have been granted permission, it’s nice to be recognised
Be aware of your own data. Social networking sites may update privacy settings and it is important to check that you do not unwittingly make publicly available photographs you originally intended to keep private
Use the right license for the image use
If in doubt, look elsewhere or ask permission from the photographer
Invest to go bespoke, and get out your camera or phone
Using content without permission constitutes copyright infringement and can lead to lawsuits and fines. It also robs artists and creators of fair compensation.
Photo by Noah Windler on Unsplash