Celestial Seeds Studio

Contact

Last Updated: May 9, 2026

Usage rights and
credit guidelines.

Practical rules for how images may be displayed, modified, credited, and protected. This document is a companion to the licensing rules, read both before you publish.

01 Credit and attribution

Credit is optional for Personal, Standard, and Extended licenses, and mandatory for Editorial. When credit is given, it should appear in the form:

Photo · Melvin Green / Celestial Seeds Studio

Credits should appear adjacent to the image (caption, margin, or accompanying caption block), not buried in a “credits” page far from the image. For long-form video or motion work, credit may appear in the end card.

02 Modification and derivative use

You may crop, recolour, retouch, composite, or layer text and graphics over a licensed image as part of normal design work. You may not:

  • Modify the image in a way that misrepresents the subject (e.g. removing a person, changing identifiable features, or recombining elements to imply something that did not happen).
  • Strip embedded EXIF metadata or the invisible watermark.
  • Use the image as a “base plate” for a generative-AI in-painting or out-painting workflow.
  • Apply heavy stylisation that masquerades the image as someone else’s work.

03 People and recognisable subjects

Where images contain identifiable people, the studio holds model releases for editorial use only. Commercial use of those images requires either:

  • A confirmation from the studio that a commercial release is on file (we will state this when you license the image), or
  • A custom license that includes contracting an additional release directly with the model.

Images without people, or with people who are not identifiable (silhouettes, distant figures), do not require additional releases for commercial use.

04 Locations and property

Some images contain recognisable buildings, artworks, or branded property. These are usable under all license tiers except where the property itself is the primary subject of a commercial use that could imply endorsement (e.g. using a photograph of a recognisable storefront in an unrelated brand’s advertising). When in doubt, ask.

05 Online and social use

Images may be uploaded to social platforms (Instagram, X, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.) within the scope of your license. The studio does not warrant against re-use of platform-resized copies by the platforms themselves under their own terms — this is a known limitation of social media and not a copyright transfer.

You may not upload images to:

  • Public stock-photo or generic-asset sites (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, etc.).
  • Public AI training datasets, even those marked “non-commercial” or “research”.
  • NFT marketplaces or any blockchain-based asset registry.

06 Watermarks and metadata

Every downloaded file is fingerprinted with an invisible per-license watermark and standard EXIF/IPTC metadata identifying the license holder and order ID. You should not strip, alter, or obscure this metadata. It exists to protect both you (proof of legitimate license) and the photographer (provenance for enforcement).

07 Artificial intelligence – express prohibition

No AI training, ever. No license tier, including Extended and Custom unless explicitly negotiated, grants any right to use the image as training data, fine-tuning data, evaluation material, or input to a generative system that produces derivative output.

This restriction binds the licensee, the licensee’s vendors, and any third party the licensee shares the file with. If a third party trains a model on the work, the licensee may be held responsible for having shared the file improperly.

08 File security

Treat downloaded master files like any other internal IP. Don’t post them to public Slack channels, open Dropbox folders, or unprotected file servers. The studio is not responsible for downstream misuse that begins with a leaked file.