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The rights managed business model is the way stock photography has been produced and sold for many years; as such, there are tens of thousands of photographers who contribute to that “pool”, which is actually an “ocean” of images comprising many millions of images available from photo agencies throughout the world.
The royalty free business model is a newer concept, and there are fewer images, therefore, available in that “pool”.
But that is changing very, very rapidly. Many top echelon photographers, working with their agencies, are producing great new images for the royalty free photo arena every day. Since these images will tend to be new, freshly shot photos, the stylistic aspects of the royalty free photo selections can sometimes be even fresher and more au courant than the material you might find in rights managed. Sometimes...
In other words: If you go back a few years, one of the reasons to opt for rights managed over royalty free was simply that you had a lot more images to choose from in rights managed. That aspect is becoming a non-issue, more so every day.
Therefore, your decision as to which “pool” to look through first should be determined by other factors, the ones discussed elsewhere in this document. Those issues include: pricing, the hassle factor, competing use issues, and the nature and purpose of the imagery.
If, for example, you have determined that the smartest purchase for your project is a royalty free image, obviously, begin your search in that pool. If you don't find it, then check the rights managed pool.
Or the reverse if you've determined you prefer rights managed, if you can find it.
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: Here at Jupiterimages, we make it extremely easy for you to do that. You can use a keyword search (or any of our other search methods) and easily toggle back and forth between the royalty free images we have on that subject and the rights managed images.
The significant aspect of this is that these days you are probably making a mistake if you “assume” an image is not likely to exist in the royalty free pool. It might not today, but it will, soon..
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