How to Use Stock Xchange and Stock Xchange Photos

A good source for photos, as stated by Associated Content, is stock.xchange.

However, it can be difficult to maneuver around the site, especially when it comes to letting users know that you have used a photo on one of your articles.

It is obviously ideal to let the user know a photo was used on an article after it was published. However, it can be quite difficult to do this since articles are not immediately published unless they are non-exclusive and for performance payment only.

There is an easy way to remedy this and to make sure you give credit to the photographer.

First, follow all of Associated Content's guidelines. Put the user name in the credit field. For an example, I'll use the user name I use on most sites which is kagomeshuko. This was too long for stock.xchange, so it cut off the name and put kagomeshuk. So, if I were to have any photos and you were to use one of mine, in the credit field, you'd put "kagomeshuk."

The next part says to put the URL to the user's work in the copyright field. Associated Content states that this should be http://www.sxc.hu/kagomeshuk. This is where they are incorrect. The correct format for the user's page is http://www.sxc.hu/profile/kagomeshuk. They have forgotten to put the word "profile" before the user name. However, it is not a huge dilemma as the URL without "profile" will go to the main page of stock.xchange.

The really irritating part is letting the user know the image was used. For a long time I would just tell them that it was used for an article and give my home page for all my articles. This worked fairly well, but the person was never sure when the article would be published just as I was never sure, either.

I tried using photos, then going back and searching for the user. That also proved quite difficult and time consuming, though it did work. Sometimes I could easily find the user name. Other times I had to search for the photo again.

There is a much easier solution. Register and log into stock.xchange. Once logged in, click on the tab that says "lightboxes." Create a lightbox. You probably want to name it something like "AC photos," as you can create more than one lightbox.

Then, whenever you use an image, simply click the link under it that says "add to lightbox." Once the article using the photo is published, you can go to stock.xchange and go to your lightbox. In it, you will easily be able to find the photo that you used. You can click on the photo and it will take you to the photo where you can comment and leave the URL of the article where it was used.

Afterwards, you can go back to your lightbox. If you no longer want to keep that photo for other articles or would rather search for photos again, you can delete the photo from your lightbox.

This is much simpler than going to stock.xchange and having to search many user names or topics for photos after the photo wanted has been found.