Professional use of source material and copyrighted images

BenMo

Hello. I'm new to the Photoshop forums, but I've been using Photoshop for about 8 years now and have decided to start doing some commercial freelancing. I was curious as to how other professionals deal with the internet and source material.

I routinely grab random images off of the Google Image search and use them as source material for many of my own projects. I try to steer clear of obviously copyrighted images, but lots of images online seem to be in a fuzzy legal zone that I'm not sure how to navigate. (Say, if I wanted to use the little pattern of blue dots under the "PhotoshopForums.com" logo)

For example, I was making a birthday card for one of my friends who likes a certain player in the NFL, so I just googled that player and took his face to use in the card. No doubt that the original image was used in a magazine, television, or something. So if I was to actually commercially sell that card I made to a client, is that breaking the law?

Also, does it vary depending on the degree that I change the images? For example, if no one can recognize the original image, is it fine? I doubt it...but I'm not sure.

So, what's the normal practice in commercial graphic work? Thanks for your time!

TiDaL · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject:

obviously for personal use the line can be a bit fuzzy and you can do what you want, but for commercial graphic work you cannot search google images and use them.

this problem is easily solved by belonging to a photo website. sure it costs money but do you wanna go out and take a picture of a tree or a rock everytime you want to use one? if you get caught using google images it could cost you a lot. including your damaing future reputation and clients.

good examples: (or search google)
http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/home/home.aspx
http://www.liquidlibrary.com/

gonzo13 · Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:15 am Post subject:

You can use http://istockphoto.com/index.php

The images are royalty free and most of them cost you $1.
I agree with the previous poster. You cannot use google images for commercial use. You will get in trouble.