3.20.2003

Getty Images has completed a major new release of its Web site in order to give customers greater freedom, selection of imagery and convenience through an enhanced royalty-free image offering, a complete revitalization of digital film and the launch of a full-service online photo assignments offering.

"We have listened to our customers and have responded by creating the de facto home page for the industry," enthused Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive officer of Getty Images, who talked about the transformation. "Getty Images has paved the way for the imagery industry, and we are now taking that a step further by giving our customers complete freedom in their work. We are doing this through high resolution digital film footage that can be instantly downloaded to our customers' work flows, through outstanding new royalty-free imagery, together with new functionality, and through photo assignments where customers have the ability to commission their own photo shoots with Getty Images quality photography, art direction and execution," he said.

Through its Photodisc collection, Getty Images invented the royalty-free imagery industry. It was time for the next step and Getty Images is now offering easier accessibility, larger file and comp sizes and more-globally relevant, fresh royalty-free imagery and illustrations. All of Getty Images' royalty-free collections, including Artville and EyeWire, will be consolidated to the Photodisc name within the gettyimages.com platform. As a result of this consolidation, Getty Images will offer nine price point categories across three categories -- Photodisc Red, Photodisc Green and Photodisc Blue -- so customers can locate the best image to meet their budget and creative needs. Customers can also access the many third party royalty-free collections on gettyimages.com, including Digital Vision, Rubberball Productions, Thinkstock and Brand X Pictures.

As part of this upgrade, Getty Images is also offering photo assignments online, whereby customers can work directly with Getty Images to hire commercial photographers for commissioned photo shoots. Getty Images' photographers are experienced in various niches of assignment photography, such as headshots, environmental portraits, group portraits, feature stories, CD covers, magazine covers, special events, architecture, industrial shots, product stills and breaking news. Getty Images' assignment photographers have won many awards, including in the last few weeks, the World Press Photo Award for Portrait Photography.

Getty Images has greatly enhanced its Web experience for the customer working in film and television, by making its film clips on the Web 50 percent larger, enabling customers to make more informed selection and purchasing decisions.  Downloading capabilities with a variety of resolutions have also been added.  For some of the collections, customers can download final elements in broadcast quality, which dramatically increases the speed of delivery and the overall accessibility of the collections.

"The film industry is on the cusp of a revolution, similar to the one experienced in desktop publishing a decade ago.  With tools like Final Cut Pro and Avid, customers are able to create high quality video productions, broadcast quality programming and films directly from their desktop.  Getty Images is leading that transformation by providing the best products and services to meet our customers' growing needs," said Klein.  "Getty Images has remained the undisputed leader in the digitization of still image files, and we have now applied that expertise to film."

Getty Images has made a significant investment in making its film collection accessible by converting more than 68,000 rights-managed clips to digital format, which is in addition to the thousand of clips of royalty-free footage that can be directly downloaded from the gettyimages.com site.  In addition, customers can conduct key word and conceptual searches across all of Getty Images' film collections through the gettyimages.com platform.  The revitalized film offering is being launched in conjunction with the completion of a major new release of gettyimages.com, which also offers enhancements to its royalty-free print collection and photo assignments whereby customers can utilize Getty Images to hire a commercial photographer or filmmaker.

Gettyimages.com is now the single largest source of both rights-managed and royalty-free film footage on the Web.  These collections include Getty Images owned collections, Image Bank Film, Archive Films and Photodisc Film (previously known as EyeWire Motion) in addition to well known third-party film collections such as Artbeats, Digital Vision, Rubberball Productions and Triangle Images. [24x7]