copyright question

[studiofigure8]

Hi everyone, I have a copyright question:

I've found some really nice interior rooms online in commercial places like furniture stores. If you alter the room, can you use it as a backdrop for your art?

If no, does anyone know where to find good interior images for sale other than shutterstock - their interiors don't really provide a good environment for my work.

Thanks,
Ann

[CopperLeafStudios]

no, those photographs belong to someone else. You'll have to either find images from a site that will allow you to purchase/ license/ use them for free, or take your own.

That said, photoshopping your artwork into a stock photo is probably not the best representation of your work anyway. It doesn't give the buyer an accurate sense of scale, color/ lighting, etc. Your best bet is to create a small area in your home of studio that you can use to stage photos. Buy a few pieces of mat board to create different colored "walls". I've used homosote behind mat board to add structure, then just hang your work, add a few props, and it can look lovely :) Your cost is minimal -- a few dollars for the board, maybe $5-10 for lights if you can't use natural lighting. And then you can use it indefinitely!

If you want a quick way to stage similarly sized pieces, just take a staged photo of a standard frame -- empty -- and photoshop in whatever new piece you create. It will give a much more accurate sense of scale, which is one of the main purposes of a staged photo anyway.

[TerraRhapsody]

As mentioned, those will be copyrighted. There are plenty of stock websites where you can get either low cost or free photos for commercial use- not just shutterstock. I know deviantART has a lot of stock images.
Were you wanting an entire room for taking such photos? Could you perhaps set something up to make a mock interior room, or at least a part of it? You can get swatches of expensive wallpaper to create a feature wall background and perhaps embellish the area with vases and wooden furniture to make it more appealing? In all areas of photography I've done, I find illusion is a great tool. If you can make light box into an enclosure to take lovely bright photos of items, you can use bright lights, wallpaper and furniture to create the illusion of a bright and airy interior room to house your work!

[studiofigure8]

Thank you Chris and Kitty for all your ideas and thoughts.
I'll give the do it yourself background a try.
This was a huge help!

[Stickerscape]

Hi Ann - I agree with the points above that there's no real substitute for real life images (albeit I also appreciate the difficulty it can be in replicating these stock photos yourself, particularly with the nature of our products!).

For my two cents, if you're going to create the photos yourself, a little knowledge of Photoshop (or equivalent) can help to improve the photos significantly (searching in Youtube in particularly can be helpful). If you're going to use stock photos, there are many many websites out there other than shutterstock (which I think is the most expensive). Take a look at www.123RF.com and www.fotolia.com.

[studiofigure8]

Thank you so much Mike and Jo!
I'll take a look at both of those sites.