Getty Images Reviewer's Comments

Getty Images fills all four corners of the world market. They support multiple languages and formats, and deliver-entrancing, energizing and empowering images. Getty Images masters the competition and wins our "TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award."

Getty Images offers every type of media we looked for, including editorial, medical, film and video, celebrity and famous people and powerful stock images. They offer access to elite collections like National Geographic, Time & Life Pictures and Stone+.

This stock photography service attempts to satisfy every client need, offering assignment photographers, editorial archives, a complete account management tool, exclusive rights licensing, as well as a royalty-free subscription.

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Feature Set:  

Getty offers royalty-free and rights-managed images on a per-image basis, as well as a subscription plan. Their 'Creative Express' subscription gives members access to 60,000 images and up to 50 downloads per day for $399 USD/month for files sizes of 1-3MB or $499 USD/month for 10-16MB file size. Getty also offers multi-user subscriptions.

Their prices are competitive, they offer high-quality, expressive, royalty-free (RF) images from about $80-450 USD per image, they also offer value-priced RF images as low as $54.99 USD. Rights managed images are priced per use and exclusive rights are available by contacting Getty directly.

They provide 'virtual CDs' , which are collections of royalty-free images, based around a central theme that are available for immediate download and most have a corresponding physical CD available.

Getty Images offers a unique media management tool called Getty Images Media Manager, which is an on-demand, digital-asset-management service. This media manager supports a private virtual library of assets, coupled with flexible 'permission system controls' that enables multiple users located anywhere to access digital media.

Getty supports nearly every file type including, TIFF, JPG, EPS, CMYK, RGB (Photoshop, Illustrator, Web Elements, Flash, Shockwave), as well as Word and PDF. Their video and audio downloads are compatible with Windows Media, Real and QuickTime.

Getty Images strives to be globally compatible, their media manager supports 17 languages and they offer contextual searches in six local languages. Based in Seattle, Washington, Getty Images operates 16 offices worldwide and supports users in over 100 different countries.

Search/Sort Options:  

Getty Images supports searches by theme, keyword, color word, category, release type, collection, orientation, image type, color and black and white.

Although they do not support exact color searches, their searches produce relevant results even for phrases like a 'woman in yellow with flower.' They also have a filtering feature that clarifies searches. For example, we used the key word 'bitter' and than it asked us to choose 'bitter' as in 'sour taste' or as in 'bitter ale.'

Quality:  

What is most salient about Getty's images is the high level of communication their images evoke. Almost all of their images seem to have been chosen based on what the picture says as opposed to what the picture is. They provide images that can create ads that incite and editorials that provide insight.

Their illustrations are amazing, some resemble paintings others cartoons. Their high-quality, artistic illustrations look like they could be used for book covers or other high-exposure mediums.

Selection:  

Getty manages over five million images and adds an additional 10,000 per week from 2,800 photographers and filmmakers. Their collected works capture the world market with collections for every continent. In total, they offer 44 rights-managed collections and 26 royalty-free collections. They offer a Royalty Free Zone, RF stills, rights managed and exclusive images, film (modern and archived) and virtual CDs.

They offer the best medical stock photography service available through 3DMedical.com and 3CClinic. They also provide innumerous choices for archived images from collections such as Hulton Archive, Retrofile, Time & Life Pictures as well as world images from America 24-7, Asia Images, Gulfimages, Robert Harding World Imagery, Lonely Planet Images and Nordic Photos.

Their royalty-free collections include, Blend Images, Brand X, DAJ, MIXA, MedioImages, Photodisc, fStop, Westend61 and Rubberball Productions.

They, however, do not provide clip art, but do offer cutout images.

Summary:  

Getty Images through their invigorating, yet sensitive imagery, provide their clients with a doorway to the world market and an avenue to global understanding.