Articles by Jim Pickerell

Shutterstock Reports Design Trends For 2014

By Jim Pickerell | 287 Words | Posted 1/23/2014 | Comments
Shutterstock has published an infographic that outlines some Global Design Trends 2014
based on its more than 350 million all-time downloads and over 100 million of them in 2013.

FlashStock Inc., Another Distributor Of CellPhone Pics

By Jim Pickerell | 643 Words | Posted 1/22/2014 | Comments (1)
Do companies need an inexpensive catalogue of company-specific images showing their products and services being used by consumers? FlashStock, Inc. thinks they do. Do the companies still need such images if that are all shot by part-time, amateur photographers using cellphones?

Alamy Offers Vector Graphics

By Jim Pickerell | 307 Words | Posted 1/20/2014 | Comments
Alamy has announced that it will add vector graphics to offering as part of its strategy to provide a full service to image buyers. The company is launching with a collection of 500,000 vectors from leading suppliers including YAY media AS, Matthew Britton and Pavel Konovalov.

Time Lightbox – Feast For The Eyes

By Jim Pickerell | 171 Words | Posted 1/17/2014 | Comments
If you want to see beautiful pictures and know what’s happening visually in the world at large there is no better place to go than the Time Lightbox. Each Friday the Time editors put together a 40 to 60 image slideshow of the best pictures that have come across their desks in the past week that were shot by news photographers around the world.

Skillfeed From Shutterstock

By Jim Pickerell | 385 Words | Posted 1/17/2014 | Comments
If there is something related to photography or illustration that you want to learn more about, chances are that Shutterstock’s Skillfeed (www.skillfeed.com) has a video tutorial on the subject. Some of the tutorials are designed for beginners while others are aimed at people with more advanced experience. When searching a subject you can sort the tutorials by your skill level.

“Usage Rights” Image Filters On Google And Bing

By Jim Pickerell | 889 Words | Posted 1/16/2014 | Comments
Google has just made it much easier for searchers to find images they can legally use for FREE – even for commercial uses. Bing introduced this feature last July. Go to Google. Use the images search feature and search for any subject. Click on “Search Tools” and under that click on “Usage Rights.” The default search is “not filtered by license,” but the searcher can change that to any one of the following:

Emerging Trends From Image Source

By Jim Pickerell | 394 Words | Posted 1/16/2014 | Comments
n it’s latest trend briefing, the Image Source blog, IMSO, delivers an analysis of popular stories covered during 2013 – from the Cult of Maersk on the rise of Industrial imagery to features on Richard Avedon’s work in Jeans Advertising – the research reveals five developing trends in photography: Mythography; Post-Cowboy Capitalism; Neo Geo Plus; Tonka Tech; and The Double Take.

Top 5 Industry Leaders

By Jim Pickerell | 859 Words | Posted 1/15/2014 | Comments (2)
I was recently asked to name the 5 biggest companies in the stock photo industry and the percentage of total industry turnover they represent. The surprising thing is how the names of the top 5 have changed in the last few years and the implications for the long term future of the industry.

Orphan Works In UK

By Jim Pickerell | 818 Words | Posted 1/10/2014 | Comments
Last summer Selling Stock published stories here and here about efforts in the UK to revise the copyright rules and devise a path for those who want to use “orphan works” to do so legally. Orphan works are any copyrighted material where the copyright holder cannot be identified or located. The process moves forward.

Vector Illustrations or Photos

By Jim Pickerell | 408 Words | Posted 1/10/2014 | Comments
Recently Shutterstock published a Trend Report that showed the 12 most popular images downloaded by creatives in the last week. While this is a very small sample it may provide useful insights for photographers to consider. Only 4 of the 12 images in greatest demand were photos and two of the 4 were backgrounds. The other 8 images were Vector illustrations.