Whether you dabble in graphic design
or are a full-time professional, the ability to find a suitable
image for a project at a moment's notice can make all the difference
in the world.
Many people turn to various web sites
to find images. But you need to be very careful about copyright
infringement. I have a friend who is looking at a potential
infraction costing him several thousand dollars all because he did
not know the image he used many years ago in his marketing
collateral actually was owned by someone else.
Having worked for years in Corporate
America I can tell you that copyright violations represent big
money. When I worked in cable television, we had to be very careful
not to use copyrighted images without permission. Doing otherwise
could cost us in excess of $100,000 per infraction.
Of course, there are many reputable
web sites offering royalty-free images. Usually the selection is not
as good as paid sites. But even trying to find a good image to use
in your marketing materials on these sites can be a challenge. You
may find one, but depending upon the way you intend to use it, you
will probably have to pay considerably more for the image than
intended. Read the fine print!
So what are your options? Well, a few
reputable companies out there have put together some affordable
high-quality royalty-free image collections. And the best of these
is Art
Explosion 800,000 from Avanquest. This collection comes with
5 DVDs packed with many different categories of images and in many
different formats.

Using the Art
Explosion 800,000 Portfolio Browser which is included in the
package you can search for images by browsing, keywords or any other
combination of filters.
You will probably find
the photo library of the greatest use. With over 120,000 photos,
15,000 high-resolution images, and 1000 photo clip art images with
drop shadows, you should be able to find something for virtually any
occasion. There are also over 12,000 backgrounds and 72,000 detailed
illustrations available.
Did I mention fonts,
too? Yes, Art
Explosion 800,000 includes 1800 different types of fonts
including premium quality book fonts and novelty typefaces to choose
from.
In addition, you receive
DrawPlus 5, a drawing and illustration program that makes it easy to
customize any vector clip art in the Art
Explosion 800,000 collection. With this tool you can create
marketing materials, logos, web animations and much more.
The folks an Avanquest
have gone the extra mile to make sure that you receive the highest
quality images possible. Over 350,000 of these images are exclusive
to Art
Explosion 800,000, meaning you won't find them anywhere
else.
To learn more about Art
Explosion 800,000, please visit their web site by clicking here.