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DREAMSTIME.COM INTRODUCES FREE IMAGES
January 5, 2006
The micro-payment site Dreamstime.com has announced that as of February 15, 2007 designers will be able to download high resolution royalty free (RF-LL) images at no cost, compliments of Dreamstime.com and its community of contributors. This FREE section of the site is designed to attract bargain hunters and is expected to ensure the company's continued growth as well as improve its imagery.
(Images downloaded under the Royalty Free Limited License (RF-LL) enjoy the same benefits as the regular Royalty Free License with the exception that they are limited to 10,000 copies in print usage.)
Only images that have been online for one year, and have had no sales, will be considered for this free section of the site. Photographers may choose to use this section as a way of cleaning their portfolios and thus raising the overall quality of the offering. Each photographer can choose to offer images for free, or not. In some cases these images will be marked for deletion anyway because there is an over abundance of better images in the category already on the site.
According to Serban Enache, CEO and co-creator of Dreamstime.com, "A year with no sales in this market means the image is really having a problem: is too common and faces tough competition from other images, is simply weak or has keywording issues. Regardless of the reason, it is unlikely that such an image will generate a significant number of downloads in the future. One year with the kind of traffic we have is quite enough."
"Creating this sector has a three-fold purpose," Enache continued. "First and foremost, our small staff wishes to thank the entire Dreamstime community for making us big! Their contributions and participation are a reflection of our success. Second, this sector enables Dreamtime.com to be consistent in offering new and fresh images...and finally, the anticipated heavy traffic on this free page will also serve to enhance portfolio exposure for all contributors."
Dreamstime editors will make the final decision on whether an image should be added to the free section of the site. It is expected that this section will never exceed 1% of the total images on the site, but it is hoped that it will have a broad cross section of all the site's subject matter. From time to time images will be deleted to make room for new images.
One advantage for photographers giving away images is that it may encourage customers to look at the rest of the photographer's portfolio to find other similar images. For example suppose a photograph has a number of cloud images on the site and he puts one of them in the Free collection. A customer might see the free one and think, "Hey,
this is close to what I want, maybe this guy has more cloud images." Then he
goes to the photographer's portfolio to see what else he has. Currently, Dreamstime has over 39,000 images on the site keyworded with the word clouds. Anything a photographer can do to get customers to look at his images first may be worth giving up a few sales.
Once an image is donated to the free service, it is up to the algorithm if this image stays free, gets deleted (not enough interest) or is transferred back (proves as being very popular). In the case where an image is transferred back, it will probably enter a re-keywording stage.
Complimenting the Free Section, Dreamstime.com has also introduced a series of discounted subscription packages to make photography shopping even more enticing. Dreamstime packages now range from $89.99 to $929.99 with up to 3,600 downloads available for one year.
In addition to being "the place to shop" for topnotch stock photography, Dreamstime.com has balanced the scale to afford contributing photographers increased royalties for their submissions. Dreamstime.com has enhanced the compensation structure to render contributors more value for their photos while in turn ensuring higher quality photos for the designer.
With over 250,000 customers all over the globe, Dreamstime.com provides imagery to a wide variety of clients in the creative market from the private sector to Fortune 500 companies. Today, with nearly 850,000 photos available, Dreamstime.com has more than 10,000 current contributors from novice, amateur and semi-pro photographers.