Picture Nation > Jargon buster

Jargon buster

If you want to buy a digital picture but are confused by all the digital jargon out there, we've put together a jargon busting list to help you get to grips with the things you might want to know before purchasing an image.

We've kept our help list as brief and as simple as possible for your ease of use, and as relevant only to what you may require from Picture Nation.

Need a website image only?

If you only want to use your Picture Nation image for a website or any other onscreen viewing like a power point presentation, then you only need to concern yourself with images that have a resolution of 72dpi. This is because most common visual display units only have an output capability of 72dpi. So anything higher would not be noticeable.

All our web res images are sized up to 400 x 400 pixels for you to download and use on your website. You can resize the picture to make it smaller than than 400 x 400 pixels but you cannot enlarge a web res picture.

You are permitted to use Picture Nation web resolution images for non-commercial print purposes (i.e. school leaflet, flyers, personal use) but you cannot print or reproduce the picture larger than 400 x 400 pixels.

Need an image for print?

If you wish to purchase an image for any printing purposes like newspapers/magazines/leaflets etc then it will need a resolution of 300dpi. 300dpi is the resolution recommended for print quality. Images available on picture nation as medium or high res are all 300dpi. They differ in terms of actual size i.e. how big you wish your picture to be.

For example, our medium res pictures are available as an actual size of anywhere up to an estimated 17 x 17cm. Our high res images are available at an actual size of anywhere up to an estimated 51 x 51cm.

If you want Picture Nation images for quality print you should purchase and download our print resolution images.

They can be used royalty free for non-commercial print.

They can be used for commercial print up to 300,000 times royalty free, after which a royalty payment is applicable for each repeat print thereafter. See Images Terms of use.

Basic jargon explained –

What is DPI?
What does resolution mean?
What does 'web res' mean?
What's does 'medium res ' and 'high res' mean?
What are pixels?
What's a megapixel?
What is a JPEG?
What does royalty-free mean?
What is copyright?
What's an SME?

What is DPI?

DPI literally translates as Dots Per Inch. It is a printing term used to describe the amount of dots of ink per inch a printer uses to reproduce a digital image.

What does resolution mean?

Resolution is measured in dpi and is a guideline as to the clarity of a digital image. The higher the dpi, the more dots per inch are stored within that space.

What does 'web res' mean?

This is our term used for Picture Nation images that are offered to you as compressed files of up to 400 x 400 pixels, ready for you to use on your website. You may want to reduce the size to fit your webpage but these images are 'website ready'.

What's does 'medium res' and 'high res' mean?

These are our terms for our higher quality images. Both are good quality picture sizes available for print use. Our 'medium' res pictures are up to 2000 x 2000 pixels and our 'high' are up to 6000 x 6000.

What are pixels?

Digital images are made up of tiny squares of colour called pixels. A computer screen is made up of millions of pixels arranged in a grid.

The pixel size of a picture on a computer determines how long that website page will take to download. The more pixels, the more time it takes. So websites generally want images that have fewer pixels than printed images. You still see a good picture, but not good enough for print, and the web page would not be weighed down with an unnecessarily high quality image.

What's a megapixel?

A megapixel is one million pixels. You will hear it used in reference to digital cameras as an indication of resolution capability. The picture quality capability of a digital camera is measured in megapixels. A 3 megapixel camera can take pictures with a resolution of 2048 x 1536, which equals 3,145,728 pixels. The resulting image will be made up of 3.1 megapixels, or over three million dots.

What is a JPEG?

Images for websites have to be 'compressed' (see What is a Pixel, above) so they don't make a web page too heavy to download. It's an image format named after its developers (Joint Photographics Experts Group) that can compress images to very small file sizes. Jpegs can contain thousands of colours which makes the format ideal for compressing images such as photographs, without losing too much quality.

What does royalty-free mean?

When you purchase an image, you often have to sign a contract saying where and how you can use that image, and how many times. If you wish to use the image more than the contract allows, you have to pay a royalty to the copyright holder for each time the image is used. This is called 'rights management'. This is a fair system for professional photographers who may well have spent a great deal of time and money getting that image. But it also means that smaller organisations, educational and information establishments, small businesses and individuals cannot necessarily afford to by 'rights managed' pictures.

More and more picture agencies are offering a royalty-free service, as we do at Picture Nation. Our images are generally useful snapshots that we are happy to offer on a royalty-free basis*. That means you pay once for the photo and you can use it as many times as you want.

*All our web res images are royalty-free. Pay once, download and use as many times as you wish.

Our medium and high res images are suitable for print and can be used as many times as you wish for non-commercial use i.e. education, information and news.

Our medium and high res images can be used royalty-free for commercial print up to 300,000 times, after which a royalty payment is applicable on each print over 300,000. See our Terms and Conditions.

What is copyright?

Oooo, big question. The copyright holder of a picture is generally the person who took the picture. There are exceptions to this rule – of course. If you are employed by someone and take a photograph as part of your job, then the employer holds the copyright of that picture. If you take a photograph of a work of art or painting then the artist can hold the copyright of the picture that features their work.

If you take a photograph of an identifiable person, then you own the copyright of that picture, but you cannot sell that picture for commercial use unless the person in the picture has signed a model release from allowing you to do so.

A photographer paid to take photographs for you – ie. a wedding photographer, owns the copyright to those pictures, unless you have a signed document from the photographer handing the copyright of those pictures to you.

Buildings can be protected by copyright if they are trademarked. For example, the Eiffel Tower in Paris can be photographed in the day and the photo offered for sale, but if the photograph is taken at night when the tower is lit up then the photograph is copyrighted by the company who put the lights on it and photographs of it cannot be offered for sale without permission. Unless - it is a landscape wide shot of the Paris skyline and the lit up tower happens to be in the shot.

There are many grey areas involving copyright and it is something Picture Nation is constantly researching. See our Copyright page for more details

What does 'model released' mean?

A photograph featuring an identifiable person or persons that is offered for commercial sale should have a model release. This means the person in the picture has signed a form giving the rights of the photograph to the photographer allowing them to sell it. For minors (under 16s) the parent or guardian of the minor must sign the form.

Model release rules in the UK can be different from other countries, and not as tight. But with the internet, of course any picture offered for sale is done so on a worldwide platform so model release rules should be more rigid.

Generally, pictures featuring identifiable people that are used for news, educational and non-commercial purposes can be used without needing a model release form.

If the picture is to be used for commercial purposes, i.e. to sell a service or product, then a model release form is compulsory.

Almost all Picture Nation images featuring identifiable people are model released. When you select an image for viewing the details for that image will state whether or not the image is model released.

What's an SME?

Business jargon for small, medium enterprise. The DTI and EU definition of a small and medium sized enterprise that is a business that employs between one and 250 people.