Finding the appropriate stock image can be difficult, but it’s even harder when you have to guess what your client might or might not like. After listening to user feedback and studying the way its offerings were being used, as well as conducting in-depth customer research, Getty Images has developed Boards, a collaboration tool for creative teams and their clients to curate, discuss, and arrange images and video for various projects.
The new tool gives creative teams a place to find new photographs or other imagery for a project, and select the content as a team through discussion. Members of a particular board can comment on individual images and videos, or on the entire board. A creative team can bring clients into the discussion by inviting them with a link. The client can then sign off on the direction the project is going, or comment on images to tweak the project. Boards allows for communication across a distributed workforce.
“In today’s always-on global economy, media and creative professionals collaborate with peers and clients who are just as likely to be across the world, as across the office,” Getty Images Chief Technology Officer Steve Heck says in a company statement.
Boards will replace Getty Images’ Lightbox. The company believes the new functionality offers a more intuitive curation experience. “By establishing seamless workflows, Boards ensure creatives can capitalize on ideas and opportunities at any time, working across various devices, wherever they may be,” Heck says.
Creatives and other users can access Boards on a PC or Mac via a Web browser, as well as on mobile platforms such as tablets and mobile phones. On iOS devices, users can access Boards through Getty Images’ iOS app. The iOS app, which requires a software update, will also let you share images via iMessage.
The new platform’s key features include the ability to view collections of images and videos; curate favorite images and compare images at a glance; invite others to collaborate and comment; view images with multiple layout options; and curate Boards on the go.
Boards is reminiscent of Pinterest, where images and video “tiles” are displayed in a grid-like format. Users will have a vast number of images, as many as 60 million royalty-managed photographs, The Next Web reports.
Getty Images is expanding its reach through more than just Boards. Reuters reports that Getty Images and Microsoft reached an agreement, dropping a lawsuit Getty filed against the software giant for its use of Getty Images’ copyrighted photos being used by Microsoft’s Bing Image Widget. Both companies agreed to dismiss all claims against each other, and entered a “broad business partnership.” While the exact details of the partnership were not revealed, it was said that the two companies are working in collaboration to develop applications for Microsoft products, such as Bing and Cortana.
