Polylooks’ new subscription model offers more choice for stock image shoppers

Great news for publishers, agencies and individuals with large stock image needs! Today we’ve launched a new monthly subscription model offering more flexibility for stock photo buyers.

Polylooks’ customers can now take advantage of subscriptions of 100, 300, 500 and 1,000 Credits per month with a choice of three, six or twelve-month packages. Image buyers can purchase licenses flexibly during the month and are no longer obliged to order a specific number of images per day. We believe this model gives more flexibility to publishers, agencies and individuals who regularly download large numbers of stock images.

We also estimate that depending on the volume and length of subscription term, stock image buyers could save up to 60 per cent under the new subscription model.

Via this new subscription model, we’re addressing the needs and wishes of stock image buyers, especially within agencies and publishing. Our experience shows that these customers value a high degree of flexibility.

To take advantage of the offer, visit Polylooks.co.uk. Happy shopping!

Images for Easter: Grab your camera!

This weekend sees a welcome four-day break and it looks like spring has finally sprung. The daffodils are out, the buds are appearing,

Just one of 5,000+ Easter images on Polylooks

and this Easter break promises to signify the end of a long cold winter. OK, we’ll ignore the forecast that it’s expected to rain again!

Within both religious and secular circles Easter signifies rebirth, hence some of its most enduring images – eggs, flowers, young chicks and bunnies. If you’re blogging or publishing about Easter around this period then you’ll need images which you have the right to use publically.

At Polylooks we’ve got more than 5,000 images tagged as ‘Easter’ so you’ll be able to find the right image for your needs. You can also find:

• 2,339 images of eggs
• 673 daffodils
• 80 rabbits
• 54 chicks
• 23 egg hunts

Get behind the lens this Easter

Easter is also a great time to dust down your camera and take advantage of the longer hours of light in the evening since the clocks went forward last weekend. There will be a whole flood of colour coming forward in the next few weeks as the buds begin to bloom.

If you’re interested in photography, why not read our blog on how to photograph spring?

Have a great Easter break, whatever you’re up to, from all of us at Polylooks.

Polylooks offers exclusivity bonus to photographers for limited period

Polylooks is offering microstock photographers a bonus of €0.25 (around £0.23) per image for photos they sell exclusively via Polylooks. The offer will run from 22 March – 30 April 2010 and is valid for the first 100,000 images which are accepted by the Polylooks team. For example, a contributing photographer uploading 1,000 exclusive images passing the editorial process would earn a one-off payment of €250 (around £230).

Photographers will also get the higher payment of 50 per cent of the net sales price per sale for images offered exclusively via Polylooks rather than 35 per cent for non-exclusive photos. Contributors can therefore profit twice by uploading exclusive images before 30 April 2010. The one-off bonus will not be credited against the fee paid per sale.

Norbert Weber, head of Polylooks, says: “Our sales records show that exclusive images often sell faster than non-exclusive ones. Customers in publishing and advertisement really look for fresh and unique images. That’s why as a microstock agency we’re looking to broaden our portfolio of exclusive royalty free images.”

To find out more on this on the Polylooks exclusivity offer, please visit http://uk.polylooks.com/irresistible/

Beckham’s absence from South Africa 2010 leaves photographers in a quandary

Illustrators are getting ready for South Africa 2010

When David Beckham pulled up with a torn Achilles playing for AC Milan last weekend it not only signalled a blow to England’s World Cup bid this summer, but also threw the media into a spin. The 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa has lost world football’s most photographable and marketable asset, so what will the paparazzi do now?

Whenever there’s been a major tournament, paps have swarmed to Beckham like bees around honey, even more than during the regular season due to the heightened media interest. Who could forget the infamous half-naked balcony shot from Euro 2004 in Portugal? What about the controversy surrounding footballers’ WAGs (wives and girlfriends), including Victoria Beckham, from the 2006 World Cup in Germany?

Rather predictably, the UK daily free paper Metro posed the question this week: “After David Beckham’s injury who will be World Cup 2010′s hot totty?” citing Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Spain and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres as eye candy for the ladies this summer. They – and others – may not have the same positive global media appeal as David Beckham, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of them nonetheless.

We suspect that David Beckham will be at the World Cup, either to help out the England team or, as is widely tipped, as a TV pundit – or both! So we think the tabloid paps will still get their fill of David Beckham at South Africa 2010, just not on the field of play. We’ve not given up hope of the odd Beckham pose this summer.

But don’t forget, you can’t just copy and paste a picture of David Beckham for publishing use. If you’re publishing online, print or marketing material around the South Africa 2010 Fifa World Cup, Polylooks contains more than 1,300 images relating to ‘football’ to choose from, all of which can be used safe in the knowledge that you have the copyright to use them.

Only three more months to go!

Get ready for St. Patrick’s Day!

Just one of the 70 shamrock images available on Polylooks.co.uk

On Wednesday 17 March, it’ll be St. Patrick’s Day again. This often conjures up cliché images of shamrocks, over-sized Guinness promotional hats, red beards and leprechaun outfits. The original annual saint’s feast may have been overtaken by lively parties in many cities across the world, but this week and next many a blog and marketing ad will include the types of imagery you’d expect from St. Patrick’s Day. Whether you’re after a sensible image or something tongue-in-cheek for your St. Patrick’s Day marketing, this is where microstock photos come in handy.

Look and feel is everything when it comes to organising a party, and Polylooks allows you to surf for stock photos using the ‘emotion’ option. You can search for royalty free images conveying ‘happiness, luck’, ‘humour’ and ‘friendly’ to help narrow down your search to something of a party feel.

And, being St. Patrick’s Day, you won’t be forgetting the all important colour – green. On Polylooks you can also search by colour scheme, which includes both dark and light green, to give you the exact feel that you want.

Keywords are essential in narrowing down your search. In Polylooks’ online store of more than 500,000 stock photos and illustrations you can find 508 pictures of ‘Ireland’, 70 shamrocks, 295 references to ‘Irish’ and even eight leprechauns!

Whatever you’re doing for St. Patrick’s Day, Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig from us and we hope you have a great time.

Polylooks teams up with iSyndica

Polylooks brings a European look and feel to microstock

Polylooks has teamed up with online photo syndication platform iSyndica, meaning that microstock photographers can further expand the reach of their images to include Polylooks’ growing customer base. If you’re a microstock contributor and are unfamiliar to Polylooks, then that’s understandable, as the company only launched in the UK market in late autumn 2009. Our German site Polylooks.de has been live since June 2009 and has become one of the prominent sites for stock photos in the German speaking countries.

As a European stock image provider with predominantly European photo and illustration contributors, we believe we bring a much-needed European look-and-feel to the microstock market which has traditionally been dominated by North American image sites. This offers European stock photo and illustration buyers far more choice and relevance when searching for microstock imagery and we’ve now got more than half a million images on our database.

Rights issue

The market potential for microstock grows daily as thousands of new Web pages are created in addition to offline marketing, publishing and other materials which require images. Yet we’ve found, in the UK at least, that confusion abounds when it comes to the rights and wrongs of using images from the Internet.

In December 2009 we surveyed 200 UK marketing and PR professionals and found that more than a third (37 per cent) admitted to using images illegally from the Internet. Not only do many not pay for the rights, but there is also widespread confusion over common microstock terms such as “royalty free” and “rights managed”. Nearly half (44 per cent) believed that “royalty free” meant they could use the image without paying for it!

At Polylooks we’re trying to educate those that want to use images from the Web about what they should and should not do when it comes to image copyright.

Why microstock?

Polylooks is backed by Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading service providers in the telecommunications industry, which often prompts the question; “why would a telecommunications provider want to get into the microstock market?”

We see microstock becoming more and more central to publishing going forward. Our survey found that in the UK marketing sector alone, 44 per cent of professionals legally download between one and five pictures each month, while seven per cent buy more than 11 stock images each month. In fact, while nearly half (48 per cent) do not have a microstock image budget, five per cent spend in excess of £100 each month on images, so there is huge demand out there.

Polylooks contains more than half a million images

For iSyndica’s contributors, it is reassuring to know that Polylooks is supported by a large parent company. It gives us reach and stability at a time of upheaval in the microstock industry.

Partnering for success

Currently, Polylooks operates in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and the platform is available in German and

English, but the partnership with iSyndica will enable Polylooks to draw on an extended pool of creative talent by reaching contributors in new territories.

We, in turn, look forward to thousands of new, high quality stock photos and illustrations being made available to customers from our archive. Why not take a closer look at www.polylooks.co.uk!

Norbert Weber, Head of Polylooks