iStock Photo

iStock is a very popular source of royalty-free photos, vector illustrations, Flash movies, video and audio files. If you are a photographer or illustrator you can also sell your work to others online using this web site.

Visitors purchase blocks of "points" and then purchase media as required. As the site is based in Canada, the price has gone up over the past six months with the weakening pound. iStock is not quite as bad as some of the American royalty-free web sites which have typically charged the same figure, whether the purchaser is buying in pounds or dollars. This is unfair seeing as many of the US royalty free sites have a lot of images that are irrelevant or rarely usable for European designers.

As a lot of the iStock portfolio is from European photographers and is of generally a high quality, this web site is proving popular with UK graphic designers, despite the increased prices.

iStock on the web can be found at www.iStockPhoto.com.

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