by
David Nagel
Executive
Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
Here's
a slight change of pace for a review. We usually look at software
applications and plugins for graphics software. But this week
we're taking a look at a collection of royalty-free images from
Hemera Software. Normally I wouldn't review a royalty-free image
collection because, first of all, most of them aren't very good.
Second, the ones that are good are usually quite expensive.
And, third, how much can I write about a collection of royalty-free
images? Well, as you might have guessed, this collection is
different.
I remember
back in the oldee tymees, back when I was in print, when my
art director and I would be putting together an issue and hammering
out some cover concepts. We had a period of about a year and
a half when our art budget was pretty tight, nowhere near enough
to hire a professional photographer regularly. And we couldn't
really get out and take our cover shots ourselves, since our
subjects were often just too far away. Plane fare alone would
blow our budget.
So we had
a meeting and decided to use catalog images. The strategy was
a simple one: We'd pick an object that had something to do with
a feature story, then composite it in Photoshop and make it
look good. Nothing metaphorical, just a clean image backed up
with bold cover lines. It was the best we could do with the
money, and, although we didn't like the idea of cutting out
our photographers—especially with stock art, which is a
real blow to photographers because they don't see any royalties—we
had to keep producing a magazine somehow.
Well,
it worked out, and I think our covers won about six or seven
awards over that 18-month period.
The problem
was that, while our images were nice and less expensive than
hiring a photographer, they weren't all that cheap, and we were
spending more time negotiating prices than compositing. Prices
depended on placement in the issue (cover versus inside), frequency
of placement, size of the image and use in collateral, such
as our monthly marketing material. We'd also have to pay based
on our magazine's circulation. In the end, we were paying about
$300 to $400 for a cover image.
When
royalty-free collections emerged, they helped the situation
in one sense, but they were extremely limited, and they cost
about $100 for a single CD, sometimes less, but that just meant
fewer images on each CD. Images did not always include transparency,
and they weren't exactly the best pieces of artwork the world
had ever seen.
The breakthrough
came, I think, a couple years ago when Hemera Software released
its Photo-Objects Vol. I collection. It included about 50,000
royalty-free images in a broad variety of categories, most high-quality,
with good lighting, for a total of $85. (Early on it wasn't
available on the Macintosh, but this error has since been corrected.)
The Photo-Objects Vol. II collection, which we're looking at
this week, expands on this breakthrough even further with just
a slightly higher price point.
What
it is
The Photo-Objects Vol. II collection includes yet another 50,000
high-quality, royalty-free images. We've all seen vast collections
of clip art in the past. Usually they've included about 99,000
EPS images not even suitable for a peachee folder, with a couple
hundred photos suitable for framing, assuming that you were
planning to throw that particular frame in the trash. But the
Photo-Objects Vol. II collection is definitely different.
Now,
granted, in any collection of royalty-free art, there are going
to be images so specialized that you would never use them, but
there are also so many in this collection that you're bound
to find something useful for just about any purpose. The images
are available in resolutions from 72 DPI to 300 DPI, and you
can choose the format for your export, including 32-bit TIFFs.
Image styles range from objects on white (televisions, phones,
clocks, etc.) to full scenes to scenes with effects applied
to them, such as the borders you see in some of the above examples.
But the
images aren't the only things this collection has going for
it. Hemera has put a lot of thought into its catalog browser
software. You can search for images across the entire collection
just by entering a keyword in the browser, and the results come
up instantly. This is because the software stores a thumbnail
of each image on your hard drive, so you don't need to keep
swapping out CDs just to get a look at the images. Each image
includes a description, category and CD reference. But you can
also just double click on an image's thumbnail, and the program
will prompt you to insert the proper CD. Or, better yet, if
you have the DVD version, you never have to do any swapping
at all.
The Photo-Objects catalog
browser.
The software
will also optionally allow you to install thumbnails from Vol.
I, which doesn't slow things down at all and provides a handy
reference just in case the image you need isn't included in
Vol. II.
When you've
selected an image you want to use, you just double click its
thumbnail, and the software walks you through the export process,
allowing you to choose a format, size and resolution.
The Photo-Objects Export Assistant.
As an added
bonus, the software includes a function for applying textures
to any font in your system. You just choose the font you want,
and then click on a texture thumbnail to view the results. The
Export Assistant then walks you through the process of saving
the file.
The PhotoFonts font effects
application is included in the catalog browser.
The bottom
line
First, it's hard to go wrong with 50,000 photos for $100. But,
beyond this, the images included on the eight CDs or one DVD
are high-quality, with high-quality masks. Images can be saved
out from the image manager in all major formats, with the ability
to preserve transparency and set the size and resolution (72
DPI to 300 DPI) on an image by image basis. The catalog tool
is easy to use and surprisingly fast, and it even includes references
to Vol. 1 images. The printed catalog is also a handy reference.
In addition to the images and catalog software, you also get
a font tool that allows you to apply images inside font outlines.
We give
this product a buy recommendation. For more information, visit
http://www.hemera.com.
