In general, this type of royalty-free license grants the right to use any image in any way without additional charges. Sometimes, the license agreement will include additional charges if the image will be printed on an item that will be duplicated and sold. Catalog CDs are also popular because they allow potential buyers to examine a wider range of images. File formats and methods of determining usage rights vary greatly. With low-res catalogs, buyers generally must call and arrange payment and delivery, which can be by credit card and overnight courier or via the Internet.
Different suppliers have different methods for charging for the use of the high-res images.
Most catalog discs come with a preassembled database of the images and an image browser such as Fetch. Better collections tag images with keywords , enabling database searches for the images you need. Accelerating developments in image storage and retrieval technologies promise still more revolution in digital archiving. For example, these technologies may soon make it possible for Internet users to zoom, rotate and crop photos on-line, prior to printing. These developments will be examined in detail in future issues, but let's look at what's currently on the World Wide Web for a glimpse of what's to come.