Magazine publisher Time Inc and photo library giant, Getty Images, have teamed up to offer the web’s largest collection of photographs.

The website is to be called Life.com and will include images used on the covers of Time Magazine and will also include many photographs of sports events and celebrities from 1850 to the present day. Getty will add around 3,000 images daily to the library of seven million photos.

They will be catagorised and users will be able to link, share and rate the pictures. The galleries are to include, animals, news, celebrity and travel and can be searched in terms of time, interest, topic and photographer.

Guest celebrity curators, starting with US talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, will put together collections of their favourite pictures photos following a particular theme, to add another dimension to the site.

Getty Images’ Jonathan Klein, says the firm is “always looking for ways to advance imagery and make it even more accessible…By combining the two best known brands in photography − the classic and seldom-seen photos from Life with Getty Images' award-winning photography − we have created an unsurpassed online photo experience for consumers."

Consumers are able to buy prints of the photographs and can opt to have them framed. It is free to make single copies or prints for personal use only. However, looking at the terms on the Life.com site it does not appear that individuals nor organisations are able to display the images on their own websites.

Getty Images also own i-stock photo which is a great way into the stock librbary market for any photographers wanting to start making money from their images. To maximise profits beginners are advised it would be worth investing in a photography course or DVD before signing up,