It Can’t Hurt To Ask

I’ve previously discussed requesting an image on iStockphoto, either because you can’t find it in the haystack that is 5 million plus images, or because it just isn’t there yet.  Or perhaps you need a different angle of something.  I thought today, I would give a few “success” stories of requests I’ve answered that turned out well.

Almond Biscotti

In this thread, the poster was looking for a variety of food related subjects to use on a candle website:

Hi everyone! I am in Independent Distributor with Scent-Sations Inc. I have a personal site, http://www.JennyKing.com which has links to my distributor site. I’d like to link images that correspond to the Candle Fragrances.

Originally, the thread was titled “Need Almond Biscotti Pics” or something to that effect, as the initial set of requests included that coffee treat.  I had some studio non-people shots I was going to do that day, so I made a point to hit the supermarket before my studio time to gather some props – the biscotti, almonds, chocolate, etc.  I don’t normally do food photography, so I thought this would be a fun diversion.  And it was.  My favorite image is below (and this was licensed by the buyer) :

Now, I try to stay low carb in the morning, so I have a box of wrapped biscotti still.  Anyone hungry?  As a buyer, sometimes, a contributor will have some extra time to help out.

Video Game Kid

In this thread, the designer needed an image of a teen playing video games, on white, full body.

I am working on a teen (aged 11-16) internet/online safety project and I am desparate for a pictures of an online gamer. I have one from another stock photo site, but it only shows the child from the waist up.

Co-incidentally, I had a shoot planned for the next day with a teen, so I offered to get the image she wanted.  Turned out, I had forgotten the model was 10, and not in the requested age range, but I posed the model appropriately, and it turned out that it worked for their needs.  So, sometimes, as a requester, you get lucky, and schedules just work out.

Lease to Own

Here’s a request where the buyer wasn’t clear enough in his description as to what he was looking for.  Once he elaborated a bit, I was able to offer up a possible image that could be edited to his needs.

I was hoping to find a yard sign photo that said “Rent to Own” or “Lease Option”. I can google images for those words but they are not too good.

With a little Photoshop editing, this, or another from the series, could fulfill his needs.

3d House

Along the same lines, this poster was looking for a 3d render of a home:

HELP! Looking for a 3d arial cutout view of a home similar to this. Does anyone know of one? I have searched with no luck. Thanks for any help.

I was able to show something similar from my portfolio from a few years back, and even spent some time to refresh the design of the render from scratch.  I don’t know if it ended up meeting his needs, but I think it will prove useful enough to others, that it pays back the time investment.

I will usually take the time to fulfill requests like this if I think they are generic enough to sell a few times in the future.

Different Angle

Lastly, you could always contact a contributor directly with a request.  However, requests like this should be easy to accomodate, such as a different angle from an existing shoot, or an idea for a future shoot that is not too specific.  Trying to get a custom series shot by a contributor that no one else will ever want is just not really good form.

I received a site mail request below:

I need a wider crop on image #7848217 (couples massage – Portrait). The Girl in the foreground is too cut off. Would you be able to post a revised one?

The best I could do in this case was a wider cropped image from a lower angle.  It still has not been downloaded, and I haven’t heard back from the poster, so I don’t know if this met the need or not.

… which brings me to a conclusion …

Conclusion

We iStock contributors want you buyers to find what you are looking for.  We want you to be happy.  We want to provide you with the content you need.  However, keep in mind that we do spend time, effort and money to supply this content.

If you make a request, please be sure to follow through, either with a reason it didn’t work, or a purchase.  In addition, keep your forum thread updated, so others do not duplicate effort.  Also, in my opinion, a larger image licensed than you might perhaps need, shows appreciation for the special effort made to fill your needs.

We work together, and everyone is happy.

Portfolio Update

Well, the last of this years Christmas themed stock imagery at iStockphoto.com is working its way through the queue.  I think the below two series really came out well and can be used for a variety of different holiday related advertising.

The first was created specifically for the iStockphoto Vetta collection, and the editors agreed with that goal on most of the images (so that means there’s some bargain pricing on the rest ).  I spent hours cutting holes and poking Christmas lights through a red velvet background.  I hired local artist Tamara Tungate to do hair and makeup for this series and she did a great job.  I think it turned out really well, with lots of copyspace for designers.

The next Santa Elf series is more “fun” and these images can be used to accompany, say, newspaper ads with a white background.  Or as borders above a website.   We’ve got themes like, “running out of time”, “stacks of gifts” and “money”.  This 20 something year old model does great expressions and really adds energy to this kind of imagery.

So, that will probably do it for new Christmas imagery this year.  I am shooting a big Christmas set up this weekend, but I’m going to be tucking that away for next August .  You can find the above images in the search linked below.  Thanks!

 

Using Photoshop Masking to Save Money

Hanukkah is coming up, and part of the holiday is lighting candles in a menorah for eight nights, starting with the helper candle and a single candle to the side, and ending with a total of 9 on the last night.  Stock photographically speaking, I could upload 8 different images to represent the holiday, each with another lit candle, but here’s a different tact, giving a little more flexibility to the buyer.

I’ve actually uploaded two images.  One with just the helper, and another with the helper and all 8 candles.  In Photoshop, you can make any number of nights you wish.  Check it out.  (By the way, these images will be here and here on iStockphoto.com when active in a day or two.)

So, to do this magic, we start with the two open images, as above.  Select the “move” tool in Photoshop (hotkey: v) Click on the tab of the lower image to make it active.  Hold down the shift key (this will lock it into the same location in the upper image) and click on the lower image itself and draaaaag it into the top image.  Now, since you have both versions in the same workspace, you can close the lower one.   Open your layer editor to see that you have both versions in the same file (hotkey: F7).

You’ve got “Layer 1″ selected (if you don’t, click on it).  Now, create a mask for it.  A mask is an “image” attached to that layer that tells Photoshop which part of the layer is opaque (solid) and which is transparent (see through).  White represents opaque and black means transparent.  Just click on the grey square with the white circle inside at the bottom of the layer editor.  It will make a white rectangle next to the thumnail of “Layer 1″, indicating the entire image is opaque.

Also, notice the extra black border around the white rectangle?  That means it is selected, and any painting we do now will go into that “image” to define opacity for the full menorah.  You can only paint in this layer in black and white, because you only need black, white and grey to define opacity.

What we will do is use the selection tool to draw a selection around the candles that we want to get rid of.  For example, we want an image representing 4 nights of Hanukkah (be sure to remove the ones from the left because you put candles in from right to left as the nights go on).   So, draw a box around the leftmost 4 candles.

Now, all you have to do, is fill (hotkey: Shift F5) the area with black to reveal the empty menorah that is stacked below the full one in the layer editor.

You can see we now have a perfect image representing four nights of Hanukkah.  In the layer editor, you can also see the black area in the opacity mask which reveals the empty menorah below.  So, basically, you get nine images for the price of two, for a few minutes of work.

Opacity masks are used all the time in Photoshop, but this is a very specialized example.  Hope this was useful to you.

Top 5 iStockphoto Articles

Along the path to where it is today, iStockphoto found, that by educating buyers and contributors on topics related to design and photography, they could increase both the quality of the content offered, and the knowledge of the buyers to use and appreciate said content.  There are a lot of good articles in their database, but here are a couple of my favorites.

1. Tips on Lighting And Isolated Shots – One of the classic articles, oft pointed to in the forums when discussing how to do the infamous “isolated on white” shot.  Good for designers because it gives a basic overview on what “white” means to a camera
2. Know Your Type – A good primer on typography, written by an outside company.  Good illustrative graphics accompany the text.
3. A Very Important Message For Everyone at iStockphoto – Founder Bruce Livingstone announces the sale of iStockphoto to Getty Images.
4. “K” is for Tags? – Buyers often run into roadblocks when searching the image database.  This article explains how the controlled vocabulary system works.
5. I Resolve to be More Resolute – Answers the hows and whys of dpi.  Why pixel resolution is what really matters on the front end and the final use is what you make from that.  A definite “must read” for newbie buyers.
6. Evolving Intellectual Property Standards at iStockphoto, pt. 2 – This series addressed concerns of what content is safe to portray in commercial royalty free imagery for sale.  This article was heavily read because it addressed some popular topics – NASA imagery, autos and especially the use of model releases.
7. Any of the “Points and Paths” articles about vector creation.  I’m just a beginner when it comes to illustrations, and these how-to’s can benefit everyone, from creators to integrators.  Like “RGB CMYK Q&A“, “Layout, Cutout, Knockout” and “Develop a Personal Palette“.  Even if you don’t use the software, it’s neat to see how the magic is done.
8. Top 5 License Faux Pas – This article echos a lot of what I’ve written in my blog about safe and correct ways for the buyer to use their licensed files, but it’s nice to get it straight from the officials.

Ok, that was 8.  Not 5.  But a catchy title does not an exact list make… There’s a lot more in the article morgue, so page back and check them out.  Some from a few years back are timeless, and some are tired, but there’s probably a little something about everything you didn’t know in there.

Get iStockphoto Keywords Tool

Last week, a buyer posted on the iStockphoto forums about the trouble he was having easily getting a list of keywords for an iStock download.

How could I easily get (copy through clipboard) keywords for bought images?

When I go to image detail, there is for example “Vector, Men, Child, Little Girls, Family, Illustration and Painting, Human Hand, Love, Human Hair, Blue, Red …more”, so I cannot copy all keywords easily. When I click “more”, the table with keywords is much more unfriendly for getting keywords.

I need these keywords for cataloguing my images.

So, apparently, this buyer downloads an image, and wants a keyword list to insert into the image in some form so that he can search his hard drive later for that image.  Makes sense.  However, with a recent re-design of the image details page, the keyword list comes up in a fairly uncopyable format.  You first need to pop up the keyword layer by hitting “more” and then if you try and copy and paste that list, it will be full of white space and have to be edited.

I had some spare time this week, so I scripted a little tool on my iStockTool page to return a list of keywords when given a list of iStock image numbers.  For example, entering 10855173 here: http://digitalplanetdesign.com/index.php?page=istocktools gives you this back:

Description: Royalty Free Stock Photo, Over the Shoulder Christmas Smile, copyright Sean Locke, iStockphoto LP
Keywords: Adults Only, Young Adult, Only Women, female1, Female, Women, Adult, People, Long Hair, Beauty, Beautiful, 20s, 30s, Caucasian, Studio Shot, Holiday, Cheerful, Smiling, Happiness, Red, Red Background, Defocused, Selective Focus, Focus On Foreground, Head And Shoulders, Hope, Dress, Copy Space, Shiny, One Woman Only, Toothy Smile, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Palm, Hands Cupped, Human Hand, Holding, Waist Up, Portrait, Looking Down, Christmas Present, Gift, Wrapped, Horizontal, Looking Over Shoulder, Rear View, stock images, royalty free images, stock photography, stock photos, inexpensive, istockphoto

It’s basically a php grab of the meta data in the html page, but could be very useful in a situation like this.  Note, that this list of meta data is the disambiguated keyword list.  ie., I had entered “blur” as a keyword, but this list includes the official controlled vocabulary keyword “defocused”.

Also note, if you have “Grease Monkey” for Firefox installed, user theasis offered this up:

you could install this script: http://www.theasis.co.uk/iStock/show_keywords.user.js

Hope you find this useful.  Have a good week!

Vimeo Rights Update

Way back in March of this year, it was noticed that the video sharing site Vimeo had what seemed to be veeery flexible language in their terms of service.  I still get a lot of blog hits on “vimeo terms” or “vimeo rights grab”, so I thought I’d go back again to see if they had tweaked their terms as promised.  Last time I checked, no luck, but today I found they’ve added some new bolded wording to their  page.  Here’s the old terms:

By submitting your Submission to VIMEO, you hereby grant VIMEO and its affiliates, successors and assigns a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license (with a right to create derivative works) to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, modify, incorporate into other works, publicly perform and display your Submission or any portion thereof, in or through any medium, whether now known or hereafter created. VIMEO shall be entitled to unrestricted use of any Submission for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the submitter.

Well, I’m happy report that they seem to have finally made some changes to their wording, restricting the usage (commercial or otherwise) of your videos to the Vimeo site:

By submitting your video(s), you hereby grant VIMEO and its affiliates, successors and assigns a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license (with a right to create derivative works to the extent necessary to make video content compatible with any Vimeo Services), revocable upon removing the video from Vimeo, to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, modify, incorporate into other works, publicly perform and display your videos or any portion thereof, in or through any medium, whether now known or hereafter created. VIMEO shall also be entitled to use clips of any video that has not been designated “private” for the purpose of promoting the Vimeo Site or Services, without compensation to the submitter; however, Vimeo will not use your videos for any other commercial purposes without obtaining your prior approval.

So, check it out.  They are including language that states the license is revocable by you upon removal of said video, and, more importantly, a statement that they will not use your videos for any commercial use (aside from promotion of their site) without checking with you first.  Any commercial purpose.   Nice.

I think they made a good attempt at the next part:

You also grant each user (or specified users, if a video is designated “private”) of the Vimeo Site or Services a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal and non-commercial license to access and view your video through the Vimeo Site or any other access point authorized by you and/or VIMEO. This right to access and view your video shall include, solely to the extent necessary, the right to copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, publicly perform, create derivative works of, and display your video.

This part is a bit confusing.  The first sentence makes sense.  You’re allowing the user to access and view the video.  The second sentence should say something like:

Included in Vimeo’s royalty free license of your work is the right to copy, transmit … etc… and display your video, solely to the extent necessary to allow the user to access and view your video.

I think we know what they meant, and just got tripped up a bit in the wording.  We don’t want to imply the user has the rights to make derivitive works or distribute the video, but that’s kind of how it reads.

So, I think they made an honest attempt to limit their terms of use a bit.  I wouldn’t have a problem uploading to Vimeo now.

iStockphoto to Warranty all Content

In various forum posts around the net, people have posted that their company will not buy content from iStockphoto.com because they do not offer a warranty against legal action, like some of the larger stock houses.  Times, they are a changin’.

Today, iStockphoto.com has announced the “iStock Legal Guarantee”.  From the forum post:

Beginning Wednesday, iStockphoto promises that files purchased and used in accordance with the iStock license, will not breach any trademark, copyright or other intellectual property rights or rights of privacy. We’re calling it the iStock Legal Guarantee and if a customer does get a claim, iStock will cover the customer’s legal costs and direct damages to a combined total of $10,000. Here’s the best part: it’s on us. Starting Wednesday, every iStockphoto file automatically comes with a free Legal Guarantee.

This is truly a first for the big names in micro.  A smaller company was offering such a warranty, but I don’t believe they made it out of Beta.

Amazingly, this announcement come of the heels of my blog posting yesterday “Keep an Eye on your Content Sources“.  Now, you can feel perfectly safe, and legally covered (up to $10,000) when sourcing iStockphoto.com for your content.

In addition, there is an extended licensing option for more legal protection, up to $250,000, available for 100 credits.  I haven’t yet determined why you might purchase this option.  Maybe, for a huge national campaign with lots of visibility.  Anyways, the option is there.

Why shop for image, video, audio or flash content anywhere else?

Keep an Eye on your Content Sources

There was an article in the LA Times yesterday on “Controlling Illegal use of Copyrighted Material on the Web“.  The article is basically about the penalty cost that Getty Images will fine someone if they discover that someone using unlicensed copyrighted Getty material on their website.  It doesn’t really contain any new information – Getty has been doing this for 3-4 years now.

Basically, Getty uses an online service called PicScout to scan the web for images that match the content in its vaults.  When it finds a match, somehow, it compares the site owner/registrar to it’s history of licenses sold for that content.  If it doesn’t find the image was legally licensed, it sends its legal dogs out to fine the owner and get the work removed.

Too Much?

The question the article brings up is “Are the fines too excessive for the crime?”.   The point of a fine or punishment is not only to dissuade the person receiving it from committing the act again, but to also scare off others from doing the same, out of fear they will be caught as well.  I think you can see this in the RIAA lawsuits that occurred over music sharing.  The general outcome that I see is that normal people who might have thought music sharing was ok, got really freaked out about being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and turned to legal sources, like iTunes, which is selling 25% of the music in the USA.  Of course, there will always be people who will do their best to step around the rules, but your everyday, average Joe MusicGuy probably will turn to iTunes or some other legal source, for their music needs.  I know I do.

Now, it certainly wouldn’t have made sense just to fine illegal music users the cost of the song on iTunes.  You might as well just continue to keep downloading on the off chance that someday, you might have to pony up a few cents for the downloads you did.  The cost of the risk taken (morality aside) would seem to justify continued downloading.  ie., low risk and a low cost if caught = keep on doing it.  However, through the media reports, we saw that a large number of people were actually tracked down, and the fines were very high: high risk + high cost = STOP NOW!

How Much?

Looking at that scenario, for one thing, it wouldn’t make sense for Getty to just fine people the actual cost of the license.   It would be like catching a shoplifter.  “We caught you, but just pay for the item and we’ll let you go.”  The person would just try again next time.   There needs to be a punishment factor.   The second thing coming into play is that there is a real cost to protecting the rights of the Getty submitters.  PicScout certainly isn’t free:

If you’re goal is to monetize the images found (either by licensing or unauthorized use claims), we charge based on a percentage of the recovered revenues.

So, Getty has some negotiated cost with PicScout they need to meet to use the service.  Then, you have Getty’s law team that goes into action once the infringement is found.  We all know lawyers aren’t cheap.  So, there is a per image cost to pursuing an infringement claim.  We just don’t know how much it is.  There is the notion in the article that it is based on the licensing cost of the image for the found use:

“When we’re made aware of an infringement, we seek an amount that’s in line with the cost of licensing the image,” said Claire Keeley, senior corporate counsel for Corbis. In many cases, she said, that can mean damages of as much as 10 times the original licensing cost. In other words, a photo that costs $50 to license could result in damages of $500 if the copyright is violated.

Assuming Getty has the same thought process, the problem here (for Getty, not for the user), is that Getty prices for web usage/size, at least, have dropped noticeably in the past few years, to the point now, where a blog sized image can be licensed for $5.  Obviously, a multiple of $5 fine is not going to pay any of the overhead bills for the action, so there must be some minimum to cover costs, as well as to scare off future offenders.   Despite the image fees dropping, the fines seem to have stayed stable at $1000 or so per infraction since the start of the program.  So, it would seem that around a thousand dollars is the place Getty wants to be.  They must walk the line between recovering costs for protecting their artists, dissuading others from infracting and not annoying people so much that they lose too much market share from people vowing to stay away from Getty Images for all eternity.

Whose Fault?

The article brings up the question of where the fault lies for these infringing uses.  Does it fall to the web designer who procured the imagery/content, or to the end buyer of the site design, who commissioned and approved of the site?  I would say that this depends, of course, on the contract between the two, and things like indemnification clauses and work for hire and such.  What I think that we can take out of this, though is that the choice of a designer goes back, again, to a cost/risk analysis.  Do you hire the college student or neighbor with no references or knowledge of copyright for a low price, or do you pay more for someone or a company with a history of web design knowledge and experience?

From a survey conducted last year:

A recent study of more than 1,000 people conducted by KRC Research and iStockphoto, the world’s royalty-free multimedia sales leader, revealed that 33 percent of Americans are using downloaded digital content, but nearly 30 percent are unaware that permission may be required for its use. This lack of awareness spikes to 38 percent among Americans in both the 18-24 and 65 and older age groups.

This is not to say that these more expensive companies are immune from mistakes, but when finishing a project, hopefully a buyer has negotiated or included the right to take a look at the designer’s receipts for image/content licensing to best insure legality.

End Thoughts

Of course, at this point, I’m going to say that those commissioning designers should insist on those designers using a reputable image/content site as their purchase source, and should also require receipts or other proof for said licensing.  Avoiding free sites, or public domain image sources, where there is no oversight to the content available, is just common sense.  There are loads of people, mostly in Asia/Eastern Europe, who delight in procuring large numbers of stock images from various sites and putting them up for free downloads.  Some sites, such as Flickr, may even strip internal image information, making it difficult to determine image source, even if the image is offered with a proper license.   These free sources of content may be extremely attractive to designers looking to cut costs, but they may not be the best solution to the person commissioning the designer.  You must be vigilant in checking the source of the content you are responsible for.

Toward that end, I will, of course , suggest using iStockphoto.com as a source for content.  Regular buyers are able to view and screenshot a list of licensed content.  A record of a purchase, even for a prior project of the designer, ensures proper licensing, since, with iStock’s Royalty Free licensing, the designer can use the content in perpetuity (forever).  Even better, a corporate account user can:

Get full reporting on financial activity within your network. Keep track of who downloads what for each project. Stay organized with customizable reporting tools that output to a CSV file.

By the way, here’s a good iStock article on incorrect content usage: http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=616 .

Here’s to staying out of trouble!

Saving Your Search Settings

There have been some discussions on iStockphoto.com lately from buyers who wish not to see the results of the new premium Vetta stock image collection in their search return.  A perfectly valid request, but they find they need to take the same steps over and over again.  However, you don’t have to…

In the “Advanced Search” settings drop down box (link at the top right of the iStock page), you can set all kinds of interesting things to help you search.  Including a filter to deal with Vetta: “include, exclude or only”.

Most people, myself included many times, will just set that Vetta setting and then go down to the bottom right of the settings area to click “Search”.

Then, next time they revisit the site, Vetta will reappear in the search results.

Instead, or as part of your workflow, click the “Save” button, underneath “Save these settings”.  Then, all your settings will be applied when you do a regular search from the search box in the upper left of any page.

Don’t forget it’s there though, lest you are wondering why you can’t find images with people, because you checked off the people filter yesterday, or all your returns are horizontal images.

Have a great weekend!  Portfolio update coming Monday…

Seasonal Reminder

With our favorite fall holidays coming up, I just wanted to remind everyone about the Seasonal Search page at iStockphoto.

It offers quite a few main holiday images, and each links to a subset of searches for that holiday.

Keep in mind, though, that these are merely searches of the main collection, and not edited lightboxes or anything like that.  So the above link for “Witches and Vampires” is a regular search on:

(witches or vampires) and halloween

This is ok for most cases, but in some it gets a little tricky, with the iStockphoto controlled vocabulary and all.  So, I’d suggest using this as a starting point, and then drilling down by adding your own keywords to “search within” or to create your own seasonal search.

Don’t forget though, that you can also search through member created and edited lightboxes for specific themes as well to aid you in your buying.

Only 127 days until Christmas!