Where to get Royalty free photographs to use for VNs?

[Dollywitch]

Looking to go the Photograph route, but realistically I don't live in diverse enough a place to make it work by taking photos myself.

Is there a good resource I can put to use here, where I would be able to find things like College classrooms, parks, office buildings, whatever?

[HigurashiKira]

A good place would be Flickr
When you are searching their images, just select 'Advance Search" and check this box:

[Dollywitch]

CC license doesn't necessarily mean free, though.

[HigurashiKira]

Since the site is equivalent to Imageshack and Photobucket, it dosen't charge for any of the images that are used.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Since the site is equivalent to Imageshack and Photobucket, it dosen't charge for any of the images that are used.

She means that Creative Commons license doesn't always mean you can use the image in a commercial work. I would look at stock photography sites and check the prices for their royalty-free photos.

Of course, the best and cheapest way is to go out and take photographs yourself.

[Dollywitch]

Since the site is equivalent to Imageshack and Photobucket, it dosen't charge for any of the images that are used.

She means that Creative Commons license doesn't always mean you can use the image in a commercial work. I would look at stock photography sites and check the prices for their royalty-free photos.

Of course, the best and cheapest way is to go out and take photographs yourself.

not really practical though, since there's nowhere I can take photographs that'll be useful, except maybe the local college. But I don't want it to look like "My" local college.

[sake-bento]

I've actually had fairly good results with deviantART's stock image section. Most people only require credit and a link for use of their photos, and there's a diversity of stuff there.

[llplldll]

Since the site is equivalent to Imageshack and Photobucket, it dosen't charge for any of the images that are used.

She means that Creative Commons license doesn't always mean you can use the image in a commercial work. I would look at stock photography sites and check the prices for their royalty-free photos.

The safest creative commons license to use is CC by 3.0, its free and viable for commercial use so long as you credit the original author (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) But be very careful when using flickr CC by 3.0 images, a company called Getty images appears to be buying licenses to sell these free works, it has stirred up a lot of controversy over there.

[Celianna]

Any stock photography site will do (they've got millions of images, honestly), such as iStockphoto.com, Shutterstock.com, Dreamstime.com and even Gettyimages.com.

I recommend Dreamstime, since they use credit-based payment (and you're lucky since you don't need a high resolution so you can get it even cheaper), and you do not want to pay 250 dollars for a monthly subscription that you're never going to use.

[leon]

I check http://sxc.hu/ before looking at the paid sites. The selection is smaller than on paid stock photo sites, but the quality is on par with paid sites and the licensing is more clear than on Flickr.

[AxemRed]

@leon
From what I can tell, that site's "standard restrictions" disallow use in video games and ebooks.

[leon]

@leon
From what I can tell, that site's "standard restrictions" disallow use in video games and ebooks.

You can use these for both e-books and games. While neither is specified under "You may use the Image", they are not disallowed either. "Digital multimedia presentations" (I guess you could call a VN that...) and printed stuff are specifically allowed, however.

This post from their site explains what you may use the images for: http://www.sxc.hu/forums/topic/12673

[AxemRed]

@leon
From what I can tell, that site's "standard restrictions" disallow use in video games and ebooks.

You can use these for both e-books and games. While neither is specified under "You may use the Image", they are not disallowed either. "Digital multimedia presentations" (I guess you could call a VN that...) and printed stuff are specifically allowed, however.

This post from their site explains what you may use the images for: http://www.sxc.hu/forums/topic/12673

The only thing that counts is the actual license. The exhaustive list of allowed digital formats:

In digital format on websites, multimedia presentations, broadcast film and video, cell phones.

When I read multimedia presentation, I think powerpoint, not a video game.

[Dollywitch]

Maybe I could post in the Recruitment forum actually, basically just asking people to send me awesome photos?