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One of the biggest misconceptions about rights managed vs. royalty-free stock photos is that essentially the same imagery is being sold, being used in essentially the same ways -- with the only difference being the price structure.
Not so, and savvy designers who make it their business to really understand the ways to most effectively use these somewhat differing image “tools” have been doing some amazing things.
It's a little like apples and oranges: Yes, they're both fruit, and, accordingly, share all kinds of similar characteristics. But they're also different in certain crucial respects. The best way to approach this is to first understand the ways rights managed and royalty-free stock photos are similar, and then delve into how they are -- importantly -- different.
So let's do that...
If you think only in terms of the subject matter depicted, royalty-free stock photos are rapidly catching up to rights managed. That wasn't the case a few years ago: back then, when royalty-free was relatively new and the "pool" of available images was small, there were many, many subjects that were not yet available as royalty-free, so if your project called for one of those subjects you had no real choice but to go to rights managed to find it.
These days (and increasingly so every day) the royalty-free pool does contain at least some material on almost any subject you can think of.
In that sense, the “overlap” between rights managed and royalty-free stock photos, in terms of purely the subject matter depicted, is almost complete. For almost any given subject area that you might be interested in, you can buy either rights managed or royalty-free.
So, yes, that's where the two are quite similar, but that's far from the whole story...
Believe it or not, the way those subjects are treated, photographically, can often differ dramatically between rights managed and royalty-free -- because of the differing pricing structure between the two.
That is, in a surprising but powerful way, the economics of the situation is actually influencing the type of imagery that predominates on each side of that fence. One is not necessarily “better” than the other, but they are different because the way they are often used is different because of the economics.
How so?
Simplistically stated, it is this: Rights managed stock photos are relative expensive and therefore tend to be used for major "storytelling power", and as the primary visual around which all else is built.
Royalty-free stock photos can be used that way, certainly, and often are, but, since they can be purchased for far less than rights managed, they are also used in ways that rights managed stock photos could never be used because the expense would prohibit it.
Put another way:
Suppose you were doing, let's say, an annual report cover and, needless to say, you want to create a great visual for it. If you go with a rights managed image, you will be looking (probably) for one, or at most two highly “intrusive” and attention-grabbing images, and you will pay a significant “annual report cover” price for them.
But suppose you had in mind something different, something in which you would use many pictures in unique and arresting ways, in a design that you would create yourself. If you started doing that with rights managed stock photos, having to purchase each one separately and negotiate a specific fee for each, pretty soon your budget would be completely torpedoed.
BUT, if you have access to a collection of royalty-free stock photos, perhaps from purchasing several disc volumes or a subscription, you would be free to let your imagination run wild, using as many images as you'd like, not being encumbered by the notion that it makes no sense to pay big money for a rights managed image that you might be using very small, or in conjunction with many others, and so on.
That is, since royalty-free stock photos can be purchased in bulk and relatively cheaply, far different uses of imagery in general are now opened up.
Great designers are tapping into this in a big way, literally changing the face of graphic design as it relates to the use of imagery.
RIGHTS MANAGED STOCK PHOTOS are intended to be used intact, shot to communicate a powerful message, to “tell a story”. Sure, good stock photos are always composed to give you flexibility for type, cropping and re-sizing, but, in general, they represent a “complete” composition with all elements of that composition designed to support a central theme or idea-- a "story".
They are often extremely expensive to produce and represent the best creative work of some of the world's foremost professional photographers working at the top of their form. Make no mistake about it: The “competition” that has applied pressure to the rights managed arena by virtue of the availability of royalty-free stock photos is propelling rights managed shooters to great new heights. They know that they must produce real “value added” image power to justify the additional expense of a rights managed image, and that is exactly what they are doing.
You will find, more and more, that images sold in the rights managed model will be designed to be your “major visual”, highly stylized, unique and creative, even more so than they have been in the past. They will be “pushing the envelope” and imagery that you might have never thought possible to be purchase as “stock photos” will become available, and already is...
This is a good thing.
At the same time, and to a degree because of this, these rights managed stock photos will become more and more expensive. The “distancing” between rights managed and royalty-free will become even greater, as rights managed heads way up the stylistic ladder, and royalty-free takes over more and more of the “middle ground”.
ROYALTY-FREE STOCK PHOTOS, on the other hand, will be (and are) also great images, but they often have a different “mission”: adaptability. Agencies who sell royalty-free stock photos (and the photographers who produce them), are aware that more than anything else they need to give you “tools” and “elements” to work with. Sure, many royalty-free stock photos are indeed used in ways similar to rights managed: as the major visual in the piece, either standing alone or with at most one or two other images.
But the attractive economics of purchasing royalty-free image collections also opens up a huge array of other ways to use the imagery, limited only by your own imagination, not by your budget.
Arguably, good royalty-free stock photos are a direct result of the way computerized graphic design has vastly expanded -- in essence liberated -- graphic design from traditional strictures. You are out there doing marvelous, creative things with these new tools, and constantly finding fresh ways to incorporate photography into what you do.
This, too, is a good thing.
What is the impact of all this on the graphic design community? Given the vast reservoir of creative talent (that would be you) that has been tapping into the creative possibilities generated by the availability of royalty-free stock photos, the impact is huge, literally changing the face of graphic design.
Believe us, it's fun for us to watch what you're doing with our imagery.
How important is it, how far will it go?
Well, that's going to be left to the devices and ingenuity of the graphic design community. There might be a clue, however, in a classical music analogy, which we provide next...
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