Thursday, July 28, 2011

Fotolia.com--Info, Review, and Giveaway!

I've been given the opportunity to have a 30 day membership to fotolia.com.   I am having so much fun with it.  I've been searching for photos to use here on my blog, in my squidoo lenses, and in my gather posts.  I'm searching for words such as sewing, quilting, crocheting, and different colors.
Here are just a few of the great photos I've gotten for future use:
Here is the news about fotolia:
  • Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and most affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print.
  • So far, there are 13,716,167 images, vectors and HD videos available at Fotolia.
  • There are over 2,631,260 Fotolia members around the world.
  • It was started by Oleg Tscheltzoff, Patrick Chassany and Thibaud Elziere in November 2005.
  • 135,718 video clips in .mov, .avi, .wmv and flv formats.
  • Fotolia also displays images from the most well known agencies in the world. Those exceptional images are available in the Infinite Collection.
  • With the introduction of the Infinite Collection, Fotolia became the first worldwide microstock organization to offer both crowd-sourced and professional images on one site.
  • Fotolia spans the globe with websites in 12 languages and offices in 14 countries.
  • Free photos and vectors are offered daily to Facebook fans.
  • Fotolia's headquarters are in New York city and offices in Seattle, Washington and Paris, France.
  • Fotolia Plug-In instantly adds high-resolution photos, videos and illustrations to your Microsoft Office PowerPoint or Word documents.
  • Fotolia Desktop Widget is the new way to search for stock images, vector and videos on your desktop with slick and intuitive drag and drop interface.
  • More information can be found at www.fotolia.com or Wikipedia
  • All images offered on Fotolia are Royalty free, they can be used for all kinds of professional documents with no limit on time or copies:
  • Creation of advertising media
  • Creation of professional documents
  • Illustration of press articles
  • Illustration of websites, blogs, newsletters, web banners...
  • Illustration multimedia documents
  • Illustration / Decorations on TV shows or movies
  • Creation of derivative products (Extended license)
  
8 reasons for fotolia microstock:
1. Time Savings
Fotolia services will save you time, as you are much more likely to find what you need quickly. A savings in time translates into saving money.
2. Clear Licensing Agreement
One hazard of being a designer is learning about copyright laws, restrictions and licenses. On the free photo sites, you have to read the fine print for each and every photo you use. Some photographs come with no restrictions, some are only for non-commercial use and some require the name of the photographer. You don’t have to deal with this headache on Fotolia. The licensing agreement will be the same for all photos in the license category you select, which is typically a standard royalty-free license.
3. Availability of Vector Art and Illustrations
Fotolia offers a wide variety of vector art and illustrations. Illustrated graphics can give a course a completely unique look and feel. Vector art refers to graphics that are hand drawn in a tool like Adobe Illustrator. Because they exist as mathematical renderings, they can be expanded to any size and manipulated in a vector graphics program.
4. Compelling Images
You can find photos based on a concept, emotion or theme. You can find people doing interesting things and simple single objects that are ready to use.
5. Guaranteed Model Releases
You need the signed release of a model to use his or her photo. Model releases are guaranteed with a paid service. This is not true on a free site. That’s why I never use photographs of a person from a free service.
6. More Efficient Search
There’s nothing like typing in the search term ‘money’ and getting back photos of the Eiffel tower. This kind of poor search functionality is common on some free photo sites. On the other hand, efficient search functionality is one of the foundations of Fotolia. Fotolia has staff to tag their photos with keywords, so the results are usually more accurate. The keywords are also translated in many languages.
7. Supports The Arts
The world would only be shades of gray without the Arts. By paying for images, you’re helping photographers and illustrators earn a living. We need them.
8. Reduces Stress
When you can quickly find the graphics you like and need, it reduces your level of stress. And we all need that.

About Fotolia:
Similar to the music or film industry, we believe that every artist's (photographers and designers) image is a work of the soul and protected by intellectual property rights.
Fotolia is convinced that the principle reason for illegal pirated use of protected images is mainly due to the high price barrier created by other agencies.
Fotolia provides a compromise between photographers and buyers, by protecting a photographer's intellectual property rights and offering high commissions, while legally lowering the price barrier so that everyone may enjoy/afford these beautiful images.
In addition, Fotolia challenges the traditional closed agency model by offering the opportunity to monetize their talents to everyone, hobbyist or professional, whatever their fame, status, or size of portfolio may be.
Thanks to a collaborative online model, Fotolia is able to offer individuals and professionals (advertising agencies, press, small business, graphic artists, designers) the greatest image collection in the world for free or as little as $0.75.

How it works:
Fotolia is the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations.
Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print.
Photographers and designers constantly update Fotolia with thousands of new photos and illustrations each day, while photographers and designers receive commission from each photo sold and revenue from advertising on the free section.

CREDIT SYSTEM
Credits are Fotolia's form of currency. Credits are used to buy images on the website. (Credit from $0.75)
Image prices are given in credits; the price depends on the size and use of the purchased image. Image prices are from:
Credits Prices

SUBSCRIPTION SYSTEM
Fotolia subscriptions allow you to download between 25 and 250 images a day during the period of your subscription.
Images downloaded using the subscription system are equal to the L size (4MP). The subscriptions are offered from:
Subscription Prices





 
 
 

Are you interested in giving Fotolia.com a try free??  If so, just leave a comment below (just one comment please) and make sure I have a way to get ahold of you if you are chosen.
I will take comments until August 10, 2011 at 9 pm CST.
Three (3) lucky readers will get codes for a trial subscription!!

 

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