So maybe you don’t have the big budget to hire a world-famous photographer to take pictures for your brochure. Maybe you don’t even have the budget to hire a local photographer. Maybe you’d like to put some simple illustrations in your brochure but you can’t afford (or can’t find) anyone who draws better than your 5-year-old daughter (and she’s too busy writing computer programs to help you out).
You don’t need to spend a fortune for original art—there are vast collections of professional photos and illustrations made just for you, called stock photography and clip art. Though some professional designers and art directors may turn up their noses at using stock photos or illustrations, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, if you know what you’re doing, you can get excellent results using these great resources.
Stock photos and clip art have been around for many, many years, long before computers.
Stock photos get their name from the days when photographers would sell off their stock of unused pictures to photo agencies who would then resell them. Clip art gets its name from the sheets of illustrations and art (mostly black-and-white line art) that were printed in several sizes and sent to designers and ad agencies. These illustrations were cut out (or clipped) from the paper and pasted into position in ads or brochures. Today both photographers and illustrators create artwork specifically for the stock photo and clip art market.
Although stock photos and clip art are nothing new, what is new is how these images are chosen and distributed. In the really old days (maybe 20 years ago) a stock photo company would mail out a huge book of sample photographs for art directors and designers to leaf through. The art director would then choose a photograph, call up the company, have a slide of the image delivered a few days later, and then send that slide out for separations that would be “stripped” into the production film. Whew.
This stock photo from Photospin.com has no identifying marks on the camera or watch. It’s a totally generic image.
A clip art company would mail out huge sheets (about the size of a large newspaper page) of art to subscribers who cut out and pasted the art into mechanicals (layouts on drawing boards).
Today stock photos and clip art are distributed electronically, either on CDs or over the Internet. In fact, if you’re working late at night and realize you need a photo, it’s possible to find, purchase, and download artwork even at 3 A.M!
Stock photos and clip art are available on Web sites. My favorite site for inexpensive photos and illustrations is iStockphoto.com. There’s also PhotoSpin.com, which lets you pay an annual subscription fee and then download as many images as you want with no extra charges. A terrific source for vector clip art is ClipArtLab.com which sells both collections and individual graphics.
The best thing about these sites is that they have fantastic search engines. You can input a specific image request and get hundreds of options back. So if you are looking for a red pencil on a yellow notepad, you can find it!
You can also buy CDs of clip art or stock photos through computer software catalogs. These CDs usually have some sort of “browser” software that makes it easy to find specific images.
Stock photo companies usually let you download a free version of the image at 72 PPI and usually include the company’s imprint. These are called comp images (“comp” is a traditional designer’s term, short for “comprehensive layout”). You can use a comp image in a layout to show a client to see if the client likes the image enough to want to buy it, in which case you’ll get the high resolution file, but you’re not supposed to use the comp photo in a finished project. You might be tempted to crop out or hide the imprint of the stock photo company—don’t do it. It’s not only unethical, it’s illegal. And besides, at 72 PPI it will look awful if you print it.
These two comp photos, from PhotoSpin.com and iStockphoto.com, both contain the company’s imprint.
Different stock photo companies provide their images in different file formats (see Chapter 8 on file formats). Some companies use TIFF images while others use JPEG at the lowest compression. Whatever the format, there are some things you should look for when purchasing stock photos.
Many stock photo houses have different prices depending on the pixel dimensions of the image. So you pay less for small images that might only be used on a Web site or screen presentation and more for images that are large enough to print in magazines or advertising.
How many formats are supplied is not as important as what is the largest size supplied. If the largest size is only 5 × 7 inches at 300 PPI, you’re not going to be able to use it to cover a full 8½-×-11-inch page.
Almost all high-quality stock photos are RGB images. If you plan to use the photos in a four-color project (CMYK; Chapter 9), first use the RGB files to retouch, color correct, combine with other images, and apply special effects. Then convert them into CMYK images for final output.
Stock photos are flattened images. This means that an image on a white background can’t be layered on top of another photo or a colored background. That’s why I always look for images that include paths.
With a path included in a stock photo, you have a way to select one portion of an image to isolate it from its background. Instead of spending hours tracing around the edge of an image you can select the clipping path in a program such as Adobe Photoshop. You can then use the path to silhouette the image onto a transparent background. This gives you ultimate flexibility in your page layout program.
The stock photo of the New Zealand flag on the left included a path that outlined the flag. I used the path to select the flag and create a transparent background for the middle image. This transparent flag was then added to a new background of the geothermal springs in Rotorua.
The term clip art refers to drawings and illustrations rather than photography. These might be cartoons, logos, emblems, symbols, flags, maps, and so on—anything that isn’t a photographic image. Just as you can buy professional stock photos, so can you buy professionally drawn clip art.
There are two types of clip art:
Clip art in an EPS format is composed of vector objects (see Chapter 7 for details and examples). You can open the art using any vector program, such as CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator, and modify or alter the artwork in any way you want. This is the most versatile type of clip art because you can easily change colors, move objects around, or combine objects together.
Art in a TIFF or JPEG format is a raster illustration (see Chapter 6). This type of art is much less versatile. The illustration can be edited only in an image retouching program such as Adobe Photoshop. Look carefully before you purchase this type of clip art to make sure you won’t need to edit it.
The quality of clip art depends on how it was created. One thing to look for is that the art is composed of complete objects, which means that all the parts of the illustration are complete, even if they’re behind other objects. For instance, you might have an illustration of someone wearing a hat. In your vector drawing program, you might want to remove the hat. If you took the hat off of a complete object, you’d see the top of the head; on an incomplete object, the head would have a big hole in it.
Another thing to look for is intelligent or nested groups. A nested group makes it easy to select an entire element within a drawing. For instance, in the example below, the camera below is composed of dozens of individual objects (as explained on page 102). Without nested groups, you have to individually select each of the objects in an element if you want to move or modify it. With nested groups, a single click can select just the one object.
This clip art came with nested groups which made it easy for me to separate the art into individual units. Notice that even the tabs in the book were grouped together. Extra credit: Can you find which elements appear elsewhere in this book? What page? What program might I have used to make the modifications? Can you tell what I did?
Just because you downloaded an image doesn’t mean you have the right to use that image any way you want. There are still some legal things you should keep in mind.
You don’t actually buy the stock photo or clip art—you buy the license to use it. There are two types of license agreements: royalty free and rights protected.
Royalty free means that once you have paid for the image or the entire CD of clip art, you can use the images as many times as you like, for as many different layouts, and for as many different products. Watch out, though—some license agreements require an extra fee if you use the image as part of products that are then resold. For instance, you can use an image in a brochure advertising your line of greeting cards, but you can’t put the image on the greeting card itself and sell it. Remember, you don’t really own the image.
Rights protected means you are buying the right to use this image for a specific project. You enter into a contract with the stock photo agency and specify exactly how you will be using the image: in a magazine ad, for how many issues, for what area of the country, and so on. This may seem like a hassle, but you get an important benefit in return: The photo or art you use is controlled from being used by a competitor. This means you won’t have to worry about seeing your biggest competitor use the exact same photo for their own ad or brochure. (There is a great story about the two political parties in Canada that used the exact same image on their separate brochures. Talk about no differences in Canadian politics!)
Any photograph of a “recognizable” person must be accompanied by a model release, a signed form from that person giving their permission to use the photograph in a certain way. For instance, if you have a crowd shot with lots of people who are out of focus, those people are not considered recognizable. But if you have a clear shot of a person looking directly at the camera, that person is recognizable. A good stock photo agency will have signed model releases for all the necessary images. (Some bargain-basement stock photo companies use photographs from foreign countries hoping that the lack of model releases won’t affect usage here in the United States.)
However, just because there is a signed release doesn’t mean you have a right to use the image in any way you want. You can’t use an image in a way that would defame or libel the model. For instance, if you are advertising birth control devices, you had better think twice before you put a stock photo in your brochure—the model in the image may feel you have defamed her if you say she uses your product.
Some people use the Web as one big free stock photo house. As easy as it is to find images using a Google search, you’re not allowed to just grab a file and use it for your own layouts. Seriously! It’s the same as when you’re scanning images—you’re not allowed to steal other’s artwork as your own.
So what if you do find an image on a company’s Web site that you’d like to use in your brochure? Perhaps you would like to show how that company is doing something good. Look on the Web site for a contact person, usually someone in their public relations office, and ask that person for permission to use the photo in your project. Most likely you will get permission. In fact, they may even send you a high-resolution version of the file.
If you are designing for a non-profit agency, you can also try contacting photographers and artists for samples of their work to use in your projects. Photographers and artists love doing something good—especially if you give them credit in the brochure.
Here are some projects that will help you gain a feel for working with online stock photo and clip art houses. Most of these projects can be completed without spending any money. However, the last two projects do require some cash. So don’t worry if you can’t finish those projects. They are not required.
Visit the following Web sites: iStockphoto.com, Shutterstock.com, PhotoSpin.com, Fotosearch.com, Gettyimages.com, Corbis.com, BigStockPhoto.com, ClipArtLab.com, and 123RF.com. Get a feel for how each site works, and what kinds of art it provides. Look to see if they have free samples. If so, download them.
Don’t leave each site till you have gone through the rest of the project assignments.
Make up some phrases (such as red pencil yellow notepad) and see what results you get from each site. Do some sites have more results than others?
Look at the types of artwork available. Notice that there are both photos and illustrations. Does the company offer a way to limit your search to just one?
Can you find any of those sites that sell movies and sound files? Would you use those for a print project? What kinds of jobs would you use them for?
Download some comp images from the search. Use an image editing program to find their size and resolution. Notice the imprint on the image.
Look at the pricing for photos. Does the site charge more for higher-resolution images? Do you think this is right?
Look at the pricing for vector illustrations. Does the site have different prices for different sizes of the vector art? Why not? (Answer at the end of this project list.)
If you can afford it, purchase one or two photos from one of the sites. Are the photos JPEG or TIFF? If JPEG, is there a lot of compression?
If you can afford it, purchase one or two pieces of clip art from one of the sites. What programs do you have that can modify the files? If you can, open the file and see what changes you can make.
Vector files are not priced according to size because they are resolution independent (see Chapter 7). This means you can scale vector images up as large as you want. So one price fits all.
Answer to the extra credit question on page 195
The art of the camera and the CD-ROM are found on page 158. Both were modified in Adobe Illustrator. The camera was modified by taking out most of the objects that created the image and just leaving a few outlines. The CD-ROM was changed by applying one of the Illustrator brushes to the outside of the circle.