Stock Photo Libraries With so many different types of graphic design now, the number of stock photo libraries has increased dramatically.  When someone is looking for a picture of a cake for an advertising flyer, they can either take a picture themselves or buy the rights to one from a stock photo library.  Stock photo libraries are albums of photos that someone else has taken; this makes it easy to find the exact picture that you want to use.

	Benefits Of Stock Photo Libraries Most online stock photo libraries are searchable, and some microstock photo libraries are as inexpensive as $1 a photo.  When you purchase a photo through a stock photo library, you are purchasing the rights to use this photo in any of your marketing materials, including your website, logo, flyers, and signs.  Since these pictures include pictures of people and places, you can find just about any photo to suit your needs by going to a stock photo library.  It is possible to find free stock photo libraries.  These libraries have fewer choices, and the images are lower resolution, but these images are free for anyone to use. Though some people might say that you lose your creative control when you use a stock photo, this is only if you don’t find the exact photo that you are searching for.  Though this may happen occasionally, stock photo libraries can save you time and money.  You don’t need to hire a photographer to take the picture that you want, or you don’t need to try to take the picture yourself.  In addition to the low resolution stock photo libraries, there are two other types of stock photo libraries.  There are the “royalty-free” stock photo libraries, where you purchase the photo once for an unlimited number of uses.  You can use the same photo on your website and your advertisements for a specified time.  The other types of stock photo libraries are the “rights managed” libraries.  With a rights managed stock photo library, you purchase the use of the photo each time you use the photo.  You would be purchasing the rights to use the photo for your website.  If you later decided to use the photo on an advertisement, you would need to purchase the rights to use the photo for that advertisement.  Since you are purchasing the rights each time you use the photo, it can be less expensive to use a rights managed stock photo library if you are only going to use the photo one time.  If you are going to use the photo many times, you may decide that it’s less expensive to use a royalty-free stock photo library. Using Photos From Stock Photo Libraries Using pictures from stock photo libraries is simple.  Once you find the picture that you want to use, you purchase the rights to use the photo through the shopping cart associated with that particular stock photo library.  Once your purchase has been completed, you will either be redirected to the page with the chosen stock photo so you can download it to your computer, or you will receive an email with the photo as an attachment, allowing you to save the photo to your computer.  The digital version of the photo is available for immediate download once you purchase the rights to use the photo.  This means the photo will be in the format that you need to use in your design software like Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, or even Paint Shop Pro. Stock Photo Libraries And Exclusive Rights It is possible to purchase the exclusive rights to a photo through a stock photo library.  This would mean that no one else would be able to purchase the rights to use the photo.  Though this would be more expensive than simply purchasing the rights to use the photo, this would assure that none of your competitors could use the photo in their advertising, and possibly confuse your customers with a similar advertisement.  Additionally, if you are purchasing a stock photo for a book cover, you may want to make sure that no other books could use the same photo for their cover, minimizing confusion between even dissimilar books.  If you found your stock photo through one of the free stock photo libraries, it may be more difficult to purchase the exclusive rights for the photograph.  It would depend on whether the owners of the website keep track of the photograph’s owner.  Since many free websites do not list the owner of the photograph, you would need to contact the website owner to find out if they are able to give you the name and contact information for the person who uploaded the picture to their website.  The History Of Stock Photo Libraries At one time, stock photo libraries were books sent out from photograph and marketing agencies.  Many times, these pictures were taken by the on-staff photographer, but the photos were not used for their intended purpose for one reason or another.  Before the Internet, these photos were printed into a book and sent out to advertising agencies and magazine companies, offering these companies a chance to purchase the rights to the photographs for their use.  With the advent of the Internet, the use of stock photography became more widespread.  Anyone could purchase the use of these pictures, allowing them to make their website or self-published book look professional for less money than it would cost them to hire a photographer to take the pictures they needed.  This allowed smaller companies to compete with larger ones in terms of the quality of their advertisements and other marketing material.  Because this gave everyone a level playing field for the quality of the advertisements, stock photography became more and more popular.  The increasing popularity of stock photography was noticed, and more websites devoted to selling stock photography were started.  Each of these websites offered something different to the photographer.  In some cases, the same photographer would put their photographs on several different websites.  Since the websites pay differently based on the type of website, this gives the photographer several different options for income.

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