royalty free

If adding photos to a presentation they are most likely “royalty-free” photos. The term is used a lot, so here is a quick overview of what it really means.

Royalty free photographs are offered for a one-time fee. When you purchase a rolyalty free image you can use the image as many times as you want, in as many projects as you want. As opposed to a fee for a specified number of times the photo is permitted to be used (which was the dominant business model 10+ years ago).

Royalty free also means the image is purchased for use in a product, not for resale as a stock image or as an image alone. Every royalty free company has slightly different guidelines, so be sure to review before use. The last tip is to check the image size (although with PowerPoint/multimedia this is not as critical as print design).

– Troy @ TLC

Years ago when I specialized in print design and royalty free/stock photography was a bit more expensive (think $300-500 for a CD with 20-50 images) and much harder to find just the right image (it is much easier and more economical to be a designer now!).

Another great resource I have been making use of recently is “Big Stock Photo. This online stock photography site has a very good library of images with lots of diversity of topics. The cost is incredible at just a couple of dollars each.

Add this one to your resources – “Big Stock Photo“

– Troy @ TLC