Editorial use is publishing a photo to inform or tell a story — news, features, reviews, education — while commercial use is using it to promote or sell a business, product, service or cause.
General information, not legal advice. Laws differ by country and state — check with a lawyer where you work before you rely on it.
Draft a licence for personal, editorial or commercial use, then download a PDF.
Also used in: Model Release Form
The difference decides what permission and what fee a use needs. Commercial use usually needs a signed release from every recognisable person and from the owners of private property or brands shown, and it is normally priced higher.
Editorial use often doesn't need a release, but the images must not be presented in a way that suggests the people in them endorse anything. The same photo can be both: a magazine's feature uses it editorially, while the same image in the magazine's subscription advert is commercial.
A travel photographer's street scene in Porto runs in a newspaper's travel section: editorial, no releases needed. A tour company then wants it for an online advert.
That's commercial, and the two recognisable people in the frame haven't signed releases, so she offers a different frame with no identifiable faces instead.
Write posts that bring in clients
Spotlight's Get clients mode turns a photo from a shoot into posts for every platform that say what you shoot, where you work and how to book or license from you.
Get clients is a mode of the Spotlight workspace on CAPTD's paid plans — see pricing.
Open Get clients