I have a question for webdesigners primary. When you do mockup for clients what images do you use? I saw many designers here in contest section using fairly good images with no copyright over it, so that means that either they have they personal collection of stock and are using the same images over or they just google it and paste into the mockups. I dont believe anybody buys the images before making sure client likes them. So is it possible to get a bigger sized image (I mean good looking one) to use for client's mockup design without the watermark of stock company? Or how do you guys deal with this in your mockups?
Some of the stock companies offer non watermarked comps if you're logged in. They're big enough for making a mockup, and usually good enough to send to client - if the client likes it, then you buy it.
I'd be interested to hear what companies provide that service too. The majority that I've found only offer watermarked images until you purchase them. Having said that, most clients that I've worked with fully understand that the watermark will be removed once they have approved the design and have been quite satisfied with that. I think that so long as you explain it clients respect the situation as it shows you aren't taking an image and actually infringing on the copyright. There are some websites out there that have free stock photos and images though so it's possible that some designers are using these. Even these you have to be careful with though and read any clauses carefully as some still require you to link back to the source.
I know that corbis.com has unwatermarked images when logged in, although some can be quite small for what you want. Resizing to make it slightly bigger usually helps but don't make it too big otherwise it'll just be a blurry mess. corbis.com are quite expensive though. I usually use istockphoto.com and send the mockups with the watermarks on. Clients don't usually mind this as they know we will have to buy them eventually and know they're getting stock photo's legally.
there are lots royalty free images also available on the internet. google them. and deviantart.com also has a section of free stock photos which you can use
normally istockphotos.com is a bit costly as compared to shutterstock.com. Shutterstock has got tons of images and there main advantage is that they alo provide vector images to the members. It costs 250$ for a month and you can download 25images daily.