Photo Checklist

The checklist of considerations and questions below are important to think about when you found an image online and want to use it for whatever creative or editorial reason. Here is a checklist of things to ask yourself when licensing and using an image:

Ask yourself, how am I using the image exactly?

If the image is going to be used on a t-shirt design, within a mobile app, on a road-side billboard, for an e-device, on your client’s homepage or within a college textbook just to name a few, you will want to make sure that the license covers your particular usage. If you don’t know if you are covered, then don’t assume. You can always call up the photographer or stock photo agency to ask if your specific usage is covered by the license they offer. Better to be safe then to assume.

I need to be able to use an image forever. Will the license I buy ever expire?

This is very important. Start by asking yourself, “how long do I want to use a particular image for any project?” Check if the photo license expires in the future or grants you rights to use the image ‘in perpetuity’, which is just legal jargon that means the license doesn’t expire. Always check to make sure there isn’t a time restriction on your usage. Royalty free licenses are almost always ‘in perpetuity’ and won’t expire. Rights managed licenses have restrictions and limitations on how long you can use an image. Make sure you record if the license expires on a certain date and save that information along with the image. If someone created a website for you make sure that the images they selected for you don’t expire. The last thing you want is an unexpected bill or an email from an angry photographer or agency questioning why you are still using an image, whose license has expired.

Does the amount of times I print the image matter?

This is a good time to double-check how many times you want to print, reproduce or otherwise use an image. This is sometimes called “print run.” For example if you are going to print an image 10,000 times on a poster or use the image for a book cover that will be printed over 250,000 times, you want to make sure that the license doesn’t have a “print run restriction” that might require you to pay extra for any excess prints you make over the allotted amount. If you know your usage will exceed the number of times you can print it according to the license, you can purchase an additional license exemption in some cases called an extended license so you increase your print run to unlimited.

Am I licensing Royalty Free images or Rights Managed images?

Knowing the difference between these two license types is extremely important and will affect how your able to use the image. Clicking the checkout button and paying for the image doesn’t mean that you can use it anyway you like. You need to know the rights you are obtaining through the license.

If I use a subscription service to license images am I still allowed to use the images I downloaded after my subscription ends?

No, unless you used a specific image for a project during the time of your subscription. In that case, you can re-use the image but if you do not use the image during the time of your subscription and then use it after your subscription ends you are in violation of your licensing agreement and subscription sites will send a team of lawyers after you. You have to be very careful of subscription sites and their license. A person who cancels their stock subscription can not stockpile, download, or otherwise store images not used within a few months of the expiration of their subscription. This means you can not use any image which was downloaded but not used in a personal project or clients project during the time of your subscription. All subscription sites have a provision that limits how you can use images you downloaded during the subscription period that have not been used in a project. This is called image warehousing.

Ask yourself, Are there recognizable people, famous landmarks or artistic works (such as paintings or sculptures) in the image?

For commercial use, you need to double-check that your supplier holds the appropriate model or property release for that image. A simple email asking the photographer or agency for confirmation that they hold the releases is a good start.

Does the photographer or stock agency offer legal protection with the image license?

You will want to find out who assumes the liability and costs if a claim arises and you have to go to court. Does the license that you are considering buying cover you from these types of claims? Ask yourself and check the license to determine what kinds of claims are covered by the legal protection.

Where is a good place to ask for advice if you are not sure?

Stock Photo License is a good place to start for information and you should bookmark the resource and link to it from your site to help others. You can email them at team@stockphotolicense.com or ask them a question on Twitter by using @stockphotousage. Next, you could contact the photographer or stock agency. However, the best advice is to contact your legal counsel if you have specific questions.

What is royalty free?

If you are looking for amazing royalty free photos and vectors please visit Cutcaster.com.

Here are a few of our newest lightboxes created by our creative team.

Traveling by Air. Let these pictures from above lift you above the earth and get you that aerial pictures from high above the ground of cities, bodies of water, buildings or New York City aerials pictures. While you are up there, if you need pictures of globes or Mother Earth, Cutcaster has a wide selection. If you dont like air travel, then drive off with these automobile pictures that will get your creative engines purring like a lion from the moment you start browsing.

Or browse a few of the selected picture collections below.

It’s almost Mother’s day. Don’t forget

This lightbox is full of modern day Health Workers.

Love these cute and funny animal pictures

If you need outstanding 3D illustrations, we’ve got plenty.

Different parts of a body, that even we didn’t know existed. Check out these Facial Expressions after some folks saw them

Everybody loves a Party or even better the Dance-move pictures from the after-party.

Cutcaster has all your Health and Medicine Pictures.

Find Nuclear Energy and Radiation photos and clipart.

Are you happy with your image agency?

What features or services do image buyers like and want from photographers or stock agencies? What gets them coming back to your portfolio or the agency that reps your images?

Today, Cutcaster is releasing the comments that some images buyers told us during last year’s survey. We took 10 of the most popular comments and arranged them below in a random order to show you what features or services they like an agency to offer. The question was actually a two-part question and was “What do you like most/least about the stock photo sites that you work with?” Later this week, we will share the things they didn’t like about their current stock image agency. The survey was completed by 344 image users who had used Cutcaster or were working on the stock image business and were mostly from the US or Canada.

Top 10 things image buyers said they liked which their stock agency provided.

1. Current and wide selection of images from international sources at reasonable prices.

2. Special picture collection pricing for royalty free or rights managed photos.

3. Stock agency websites that can show an entire photo purchase history with a simple click to avoid duplicate image purchases.

4. With current rates that image researchers get, we need to work FAST. The most important features for a stock site are direct downloading and embedded metadata. If you do not offer these two things, you are a 2nd tier vendor.

5. Picture pop-up windows to review images instead of having to use “back” button.

6. Advanced features like search filters when we need to give restrictions.

7. Love seeing Creative Inspiration.

8. Great sales help when a user encounters a problem. (From Cutcaster: Most image buyers didn’t say they needed a specific sales representative to help them use an agency)

9. High resolution comp images with metadata embedded.

10. Agencies with multicultural, disabilities, youth, and well executed food shots most cited image needs.

Overall, most image buyers stressed that they needed the highest quality images, fast / accurate search results and lower pricing which is understandable in the current economic environment.

If you are an image buyer, what features would you like to see a stock agency adopt to make your life easier?

Over the next two weeks, Cutcaster will be releasing a large amount of data from our picture buyer survey to help those interested in the stock photography market or using Cutcaster. If you use this information please link back to Cutcaster (http://cutcaster.com or this blog post). The survey was completed by 344 image users mostly in the US and Canada who use royalty free or rights managed images. The following results were collected from their responses. Note: Click on the thumbnail images to see the survey results in a larger window.

What category best describes the type of company or organization for which you work

The above shows what type of individuals, companies or industries are buying images at Cutcaster.

When purchasing digital images and illustrations, which of the following activities do you perform?

The above chart shows what role the image buyer plays in their organization’s decision making process for searching, obtaining pricing, purchasing and approval process for using Cutcaster. It will give you an idea for what type of decision makers are coming to Cutcaster to find images and download them on behalf of themselves or their firm.

How many people work at your company?

The above chart shows the average size of the firm that a buyer works for.

How frequently do you purchase stock photography in a typical year?

How frequently are image researchers or buyers downloading royalty free images or clipart per year. We can see that a very large percentage of responders said they license more than 50 images a year.

Image buyers annual budget

Check out how much a typical picture buyer spends on a single image or clipart download from a stock agency. The above chart shows image buyers spend per single image. Remember that this includes both royalty free and rights managed licensing (as well as free).

Next week, Cutcaster will release more information regarding what decisions go into choosing an agency / image library, what picture buyers like most and least about their stock agencies they work with currently and what things image buyers want to see an agency do but aren’t at the moment.

Using our search engine is so easy that it doesn’t need instructions. However we wanted to add some tips and tricks that will get you searching like a professional no matter who you are. It’s finally time to spend less time searching and more time creating.

In addition, we created a new feature just for our image buyers. It’s called “Grouping” and allows you to instantly see if there are more similar images like a particular one you like in a search results page.

Let us be your extra set of eyes. We know our collection and our contributors better than anyone, and we will work tirelessly to deliver the useful and striking images you’re looking for. If we have it, we will find it for you.  Our researchers are more than happy to integrate into your team environment or unique work process. Let’s brainstorm together and uncover eye-popping imagery for your brief.

Save time and money by leveraging Cutcaster to assist you in finding your next image.

* GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is ‘lossless’ in that the compression process does not involve sacrificing quality. GIF graphics are limited to 256 colours, which is fine for computer graphics with hard edges and block colours, but not so good for photos. They can also have a transparent background, which can be useful if you want to display your images in anything other than a simple rectangular arrangement.

* PNG (Portable Network Graphics) – pronounced ‘ping’ – is another ‘lossless’ format but is not restricted in colour rendition, making it a superior format to GIF. PNGs are ideal for computer-generated graphics such as buttons, logos, diagrams and maps, but are less suited to photographs, where the resulting file size is likely to be excessive. Be a little careful, because not all online applications – or corporate forewalls – support PNG.

So Google has changed up their website and now displays a background image on their white homepage. Want to get a great images for your Google background? Find amazing background images, photos and illustrations for Google. Spice up your Google homepage with one of our background images. Search over 600,000 royalty free images and illustrations which we have organizes below for you. Select a background image for your Google homepage from more than 10,000 free images and illustrations as well. Change your Google background image with a Cutcaster image. If you need help on how to add one of our images to your background please just email webmaster AT cutcaster.com.

Abstract backgrounds – abstracts are great for presentations, backgrounds and wallpaper.

Baby stock photo - We love babies at Cutcaster.

Banking and Finance Images – We keep our eyes on the news!

Baseball photos – If it’s spring it’s baseball season!

Sunny Day at the Beach photos – It’s about time to play on the beach.

Businessmen, Businesswomen and Business Team Photos – One of the top searches. Our business people are tops.

2011 Calendar vector illustrations- Our 2011 calendars are tops.

Car and Automotive photos – Automotive topics are in the news and in demand.

Cell Phone, Telephones and Telecomunication- Check out these fantastic images of people on the phone.

Children and Kids Stock Photos- We love kids too!!!

Computer and Technology stock photos - Computer and laptop images in high demand.

Concept- This is a light box of Law Concepts. Search Concept for all of our light boxes with special themes.

Cooking and Eating photos – Healthy cooking and eating images in high demand.

Dog and Canine Stock Photos- Pooch portraits are on the rise.

Drinking and Celebrating Stock Photos - It’s happy hour! Search light boxes for Beverages for all our drink light boxes.

Flowers stock photos - Still one of the most searched words. Check out our premium box.

Food and Eating photos - We have some of the finest food photographers in the business at Cutcaster. Search on food for light boxes of food collections.

Fruit and Vegatable photos - Beautiful, seasonal, fresh.

Stock Photo Furniture - Isolated or in place, furniture shots have a lot of uses.

Garden and Gardening Photos - Gardens, gardening, and outdoor living are hot topics.

Golf stock photos - Fore!! We are looking for the greenest greens.

Health Spa stock photos – Spa topics are sought after at Cutcaster.

Illustration – Illustrations like web icons, illustration silhouettes, concepts are in demand.

Medical stock images- Medicine and health care images are in high demand. We would love to see hospital and doctor’s offices.

Money- Currency, financial, trading, and thrift concepts.

Office Team stock photo- Office people in groups, interacting with each other.

People family stock photos- Families acting naturally together in demand!

Stock photo real estate – Front page news, real estate concepts are needed now.

Sky and Weather stock photo- Something as simple as the sky, or as complex as weather are searched for now.

Soccer images – We are looking for sports of all kinds.

Spiritual – Religion topics, we need many more of these themes.

Wine stock photo – Connoisseurs love our wine images.

How to add a background image

Sign in to your Google Account in the top right corner of the Google homepage.
Click Change background image in the bottom left corner of the Google homepage.
Choose where to select your background image:
From my computer: Select the image download from Cutcaster saved on your computer’s desktop.
Once you’ve chosen your image, click Select at the bottom of the window. It may take a moment before your new Google homepage background appears.

How do I remove Google Image background?
You can remove your background image at any time by clicking Remove background image in the bottom left corner of the homepage.

Only select images that you have confirmed that you have the license to use. You can obtain a royalty free license for any of the images you find at www.cutcaster.com.

Cutcaster images may be applied to the following uses (in most cases limited to 500,000 copies under our Standard License):

• You can use any images in advertising posters and brochure design for use in promoting the sale of other products.

• Within editorial or advertising copy in newspapers, magazines, books, book covers, school textbooks, editorials and directories.

• In coordination with opt-in marketing.

• For product packaging.

• On letterhead and business cards, brochures, pamphlets, catalogs and on pop-up and/or panel displays for use in trade shows or at conventions.

• In multimedia presentations and incorporated into film and video for distribution and/or sale in the home video market OR for broadcast and/or theatrical display..

• Use as a background image or splash screen within software .

• On cover art and/or artwork used on in CD or DVD .

• In eBooks for any e-device reader, including multi-seat license electronic textbooks.

Please note, certain restrictions apply depending on whether you’re purchasing the images under a Standard Licensing contract or if you are purchasing an Extended License (EL). You can learn more about the differences between licenses by clicking on this link to our legal page.

Are there ways I CANNOT use Cutcaster images?

There are some use cases, in which you are prohibited from using an image purchased from Cutcaster under our Standard License. These include:

• Print runs exceeding 500,000 copies unless an Extended License is purchased which would give you an unlimited print run.

• Print on demand (POD) projects such as wallpaper, postcards, mousepads, mugs, t-shirts, posters, giclee prints, artwork and other items.

• Any unbecoming or derogatory depiction of the model or persons pictured in an image, including use of models in pornographic material, political endorsements and alcohol, drug, or tobacco campaigns.

You also cannot:

• Resell or share Cutcaster content.

• Use any Cutcaster image as part of a trademark, service mark, or company logo.

• Try to depict that the image was created by you or anyone other than the copyright holder of that image.

Please always read the contract first before you buy any images form Cutcaster and consult your legal team if you have specific questions. We are here to help but are not a substitute for your specific usage. Feel free to contact us at webmaster AT cutcaster DOT com.