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AbleStock.com
Reviewed by Geetesh
Bajaj
A Reason - A Purpose
About Hemera
About AbleStock
Register At AbleStock
Searches And Lightboxes
Managing Your Account And LightBoxes
Pricing & Support
In Conclusion
A Reason - A Purpose
There are umpteen web based repositories of clip media - where
you can download as much as you want during a fixed subscription
period. However, as a rule of thumb most of these sites contain
either simple vector clipart or low resolution images. Although
their raison d'être dwells more on quantity than quality, customers
are often satisfied because a flat subscription rate covers unlimited
downloads.
On the other end of this scale are vendors of high resolution
images, where you can choose individual pictures to download (or
request a printed catalog) for a certain amount per image . The
content on these sites is first rate, but costs are certainly prohibitive.
It is surprising no vendor of high resolution images has ever
come up with a business model that treks the middle path - a site
where users could download any number of quality images over a
certain period to provide a higher ROI rate. Enter AbleStock from
Hemera Technologies.
You might want to take a look at the AbleStock
site before we discuss further:
AbleStock.com
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About Hemera
Hemera Technologies is a Gatineau, Ottawa based entity whose
most famous foray in clip media has been through its Photo-Objects™ range
(see separate review). Currently, Hemera
provides more than 100,000 Photo-Objects™ - and new ones are
created on a continuous basis. Needless to add, Photo-Objects™ has
been the harbinger of Hemera's success story since it was founded
in 1997.
Since then, Hemera has strengthened its foundations in the clip
media market. Most significantly, Corel Corporation bequeathed
its clip media interests to Hemera in exchange for a 23% stake
in the company on July 17th, 2001. More info at:
Corel
Press Archives
Hemera's other success stories include the GraphicsDesk.com website
(see separate review) and 'The
Big Box of Art' (see separate review)
clipart collections. Take a look at Hemera's site for more info:
Hemera Technologies
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About AbleStock
The content at AbleStock is of two types - stock images and high-res
Photo-Objects™.
Stock images are professional photographs available in three resolutions
(maximum dimensions and pixels mentioned for square images):
- Large (9" x 9" at 300 dpi - 2980 x 2980 pixels)
- Medium (6.25" x 6.25" at 300 dpi - 1875 x 1875 pixels)
- Multimedia (2.4" x 2.4" at 72 dpi - 720 x 720 pixels)
Rectangular (35 mm) images are also available in similar resolutions:
- Large (8" x 12" at 300 dpi - 3653 x 2435 pixels)
- Medium (5" x 7" at 300 dpi - 2289 x 1526 pixels)
- Multimedia (3" x 2" at 72 dpi - 900 x 600 pixels)
In addition, small comp images are available free for all the
15,000 images that can be previewed online.
The Photo-Objects™ available here are high resolution versions
of actual Photo-Objects™ for professional use - again available
in three resolutions - large, medium and multimedia. All Photo-Objects™ are
pre-masked.
All content can be downloaded using a 'membership' model - alternatively
you can also pay for individual images to download. For all practical
purposes, we'll discuss the membership model in this review.
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Register At AbleStock
To procure any content from AbleStock, you need to register. This
is a one-time process - you need to provide basic information like
name, email address, password, country, etc. The email address
automatically becomes your login ID.
Thereafter you can always log-in to change your profile or password.
You can also view your purchase history - as also re-download purchased
images anytime repeatedly.
An AbleStock membership for 6 months or 1 year can be purchased
online through credit card on a secure server.
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Searches And Lightboxes
Searches are through keywords or combinations
of keywords. Results are displayed as thumbnail pages (see screenshot
below). You can further fine-tune the results by entering new
keywords and searching within existing results.
For my example, I searched using the keyword 'dessert' - results
included 41 images - all displayed on 2 pages. Each image has two
buttons below - one of them provides a comp image, price and specifications
while the other adds your selection to a new or existing lightbox.
So, what is a lightbox? To anyone used to procuring images from
stock image vendors, lightboxes may be as familiar as pixels -
but for anyone else, there's no mention of a 'lightbox' in the
Glossary page onsite. The FAQ page is not very helpful either.
Once you click on the lightbox button, a popup window prompts
you to add the image to new or existing lightbox - basically something
between a project and a folder.
When you create a new lightbox, you are
prompted to add a unique name along with Client and Project names.
Thereafter, you can continue inserting more images within your
lightbox. Such lightboxes can be emailed - this actually sends
a unique URL that displays the content of your lightbox.
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Managing Your Account And LightBoxes
You can access your lightboxes whenever
you log-in into your membership at AbleStock. The following screenshot
shows the top left of your browser screen before log-in:
The following screen shows the same area
after log-in:
As you can see, the log-in and register buttons
have been replaced by the My Account and My LightBoxes buttons.
The My Accounts screen allows you to change your password,
profile and search preferences. You can also view your purchase
and download history.
 The My
LightBoxes screen is actually the pulse of the AbleStock
site. All important tasks, such as managing your collections,
sending URLs for preview and actually downloading the images
is accomplished from here. Beneath each image thumbnail, there
are three icons (see screenshot on left).
The first icon allows you to purchase and
download the image (not required if you are a member). The second
icon opens the price and specifications popup window (contains
direct download links for members). Finally, the third icon allows
you to remove the image from the current lightbox.
Non-members can directly download the image
after paying online through credit card on a secure server.
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Pricing & Support
Subscriptions are currently (September 2002) priced at US$399
for 6 months - and US$699 for a year. You are also provided a complimentary
annual membership to NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals).
Single images can be purchased at US$ 24.99 for multimedia resolution,
US$69.99 for medium and US$129.99 for large resolution.
Support options include a comprehensive FAQ and Glossary. Further
support is through telephone or email.
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In Conclusion
The quality of the content is certainly
of top calibre - combined with an excellent customer-friendly
interface, a reasonable search facility and good support. All
put together, AbleStock is certainly a winner.
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