microstock

Or why does microstock exists?

Lis Sowerbutts from travel for over 30s asked in a comment to this post :

“… Why do people pay for images when you can use so many for free and legally using sites such as flickr’s creative commons images?…”

Like always there is more then one answer to the question

The most common reasons are a) image quality b) the need for properly released images c) volume of images needed. From back to front:

c) volume of images needed

If you are a professional web designer or magazine editor you need a high volume of quality images fast –dead lines are looming and time is money, no way too waste time –and money- in going to search painfully for each image/ subject on free sites. You want it now and the few dollars, that in case of a web designer, gets passed anyway to the customer, are completely unimportant.

b) the need for properly released images

Imagine you have a successful site/ business and out of the blue somebody sues you because you have used their image/ likeness without the proper release/ agreement. Not good!

a) image quality

Every site checks the images for technical quality before allowing them on line, by buying from these sites you avoid loosing time in downloading images that look great at thumbnail size but are unusable at larger size.

Other reason: You need images to put them on re-sale products like cafepress or the like, this requires normally a special license as your about to make directly money from the image.

Some time ago I put together this Free Image Guide, a bit wordy but perhaps it is useful to one of my readers ;-).