Licensing
How Our Pricing Works
A couple of things work differently here than on most stock photo sites:
We don't sell different size tiers (Small / Medium / Large / XL). Every photograph is sold at its full original resolution for maximum print quality — your only choice is file format: JPEG or TIFF.
We also don't offer a shopping cart — each photograph is purchased individually. We simply don't have enough clutter in our archive to fill one.
Simple, straightforward pricing: $20, $30, and so on — never $19 or $29.50. No pricing tricks, no psychological games. Just honest prices.
We believe honesty always works.
We also don't offer royalty-free licensing. Rights Managed photographs are sold under a specific, clearly-defined license package — see the comparison table below. Public Domain and Photographium-Retouched photographs are sold as a single full-resolution purchase instead, as explained next.
Public Domain & Photographium-Retouched Photographs
Some photographs on our site are labeled Public Domain or Photographium-Retouched. These work differently from our Rights Managed collection below — there's no package to choose, just one simple purchase.
Public Domain photographs are not protected by copyright, so they carry no usage restrictions of our own — once purchased, you're free to use the file as much and however you like. What you're paying for is a high-resolution file, professionally scanned and curated by us, delivered straight to you.
Photographium-Retouched photographs start from public domain material that has been carefully restored and retouched by hand by our team. Your purchase gives you a license to use that specific retouched version. The retouching work itself remains ours — please don't extract or resell the retouched file as a standalone product.
For the full legal detail behind both of these, see our License Agreement.
Rights Managed License Packages
Each Rights Managed photograph on Photographium may be available under one or more of the license packages below. The table shows exactly what each package allows, so you can choose the right one for your project before you buy.
| Feature | Editorial | Print & Publication | Interior & Architectural Display | Commercial Use | Broadcast & Film | Exclusive Rights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical use | News, articles, blogs, research | Books, magazines, catalogs | Offices, hotels, showrooms, private display | Marketing materials, packaging | Documentaries, TV, streaming, film | Full, sole use of the image |
| License duration | 1 year from purchase | One-time use (see note) | Unlimited, in a single physical location | 1 year from purchase | 1 year from purchase | 1 year from purchase |
| Advertising & promotion | No | No | No | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ |
| Merchandise for resale | No | No | No | No | No | By separate agreement |
| Large-format / interior display | No | No | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ | No | Yes ✓ |
| Print publication | Limited, editorial context only | Yes ✓ | No | Yes ✓ | No | Yes ✓ |
| Film, TV, or streaming production | No | No | No | No | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ |
| Exclusivity | No | No | No | No | No | Yes, ✓ for 1 year — no other party will be licensed this photo during that period |
Not sure which license fits your project? Contact us and we'll help you choose.