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Using the stock.xchng
One of my favorite stock photography web sites was not included in your reading assignment.
That site is the stock.xchng, which you get to by typing sxc.hu into your favorite web
browser.
Creating an account is free, and you need to be signed in to download full-size images.
To show you how the site works, I'm going to search for a photo of puppies.
The first thing to notice is your search results are divided into "Premium results" and "Results."
Premium means there will be a fee to download the full size image, and it will come from
iStockPhoto.com. The other results are free, and will come from sxc.hu.
One thing I find very helpful about these search results is that the image size in pixels
is given underneath each thumbnail image. And hovering over any thumbnail image shows
a larger size.
When I visit an image's page, I get detailed information about the image, including the
maximum size the image can be printed at 300dpi. If I know the print size for my final project,
I can quickly determine whether I've found an image with enough resolution. For example,
let's say I need an image that can fill a 6-inch by 4-inch postcard. At 5.6 by 3.5 inches,
this photo does not have enough resolution.
While we're on this page, let's look at other available information. Under Availability,
I see there is a standard restrictions license, and the photographer must be notified and
credited when using the photo for a public work. (For purposes of this class, let's assume
any work we do is potentially public work.) I can click the user name to visit the photographer's
profile page. This is where I would find the photographer's real name (if given). I would
want to save this web page address because I can use this "Contact user" link to notify
the photographer I am using the image, and I can include this page in my attribution
so that people who see my project can find the photographer, too.
Let's look at the image license. stock.xchng's standard restrictions allow you to use the
image in a wide variety of ways as long as you meet a few restrictions. I would save
this web page address, too, so that I can link to the image license in my attribution.
Since this image doesn't have the resolution I need, I'll go back to my search results
and choose a different one.
At 13 X 8.6 inches at 300dpi, this image has more than enough resolution for my project.
This time the availability says I do not need to notify the photographer if I use this photo.
But I still want to look at the photographer's profile so I can give the correct attribution.
Since I'm going to download this photo, let's take a moment and collect all the information
I need to write a good attribution.
I often collect my attribution information in a TextEdit or Word document. I'll use TextEdit
today. The information I need is:
The title of the photo
The photo's web address
The photographer -
the name given is "eve bee" and I'll use no capitalization, just like vee did.
The photographer's profile address
The image license address
I also need the file name of the photo, but to get that I need to download the photo first.
Don't make the mistake of saving the image representation on this page. If I view the
image information, I can see it is 300 by 200 pixels, a very low resolution file. To
get the full size image, click the orange download button. Once you have the large version
on screen, you can right click and save it into your project folder. While I'm saving I usually copy the file name.
Then I can paste it into the document I created with my attribution information.
Then I save my document to the same project folder.
As long as I keep the original jpeg file and the stock photo credit information together,
I'm confident that when I use this image I will be able to attribute it correctly, even
if I stop working on the project for a few weeks and return to it.
And that's the stock.xchng! Have fun searching