One of my favourite things about building websites is getting to be creative with the look and feel of each site I build. True, lately I’ve been lazy and have been using the same layout for most of my new sites, but that doesn’t mean I can’t customise them to stand out from one another.
If you look at my site Working Holiday Info you’ll see that loads of detail was put into drawing characters from different countries holding items from the country they’re destined for. This took a crapload of time but I was willing to spend the time on it because I love drawing and I wanted to built a site that stood out a bit. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to spend on making all of my sites so customised, I don’t have the photos to draw on for inspiration, and I have no idea how to use Illustrator to make my own images from scratch.
For some reason this afternoon was the first time I thought of a solution to this problem: stock photo websites. I’d heard of stock photo websites as a way to earn money online but I had never thought of actually buying photos to use on my own sites. I suppose a part of me hates paying for things that I can do myself but as I attempt to build more sites and start earning a bit more, it makes sense to spend the money now to save the time later. Plus my finished websites will have a much more professional, polished look for a small amount of money.
I just downloaded my first ever stock photo which can be seen in the header of my Living in Sydney website that is nearing completion (finally!) As of right now there’s no title but I am decent enough at Photoshop to be able to pull this part off myself. It’s actually getting that background photo that’s tricky for me.
I used the first site I stumbled onto iStockPhoto and it had loads of great images to choose from. I spent US$18 on 12 credits and bought that image on my Sydney site for 3 credits for a small image (1527×314 pixels). The cheapest files are 1 credit and the most expensive are 28 credits for super huge files. Spending $4.50 on one photo might seem pricy but I expect it to be on every page of my website for the site’s lifetime (or at least until a redesign) so I think it’s a bargain.
The main reasons for me going down this road is to save time, get quality images, and not step on anyone’s toes by ‘borrowing’ images I find on Google. If you’ve got a bit of a design mind but don’t have the time or resources to snap photos and make images of your own from scratch, start browsing around the stock photo sites and see what you can come up with.
Does anyone have any recommendations for other good stock photo sites to draw files from?
That’s so funny! As a designer who’s negotiated rights-managed stock I can tell you that $4.50 is insanely cheap, even for royalty free. I use iStockPhoto for some print design and have to pay $14 per photo and feel a bit guilty that it’s so little. Most of the stuff on there is done by professionals.
Here’s some more:
Shutterstock
Photos.com
Stockxpert
Stock.xchange
Are you familiar with the creative commons?
Many people who upload pictures to Flickr add a license that makes it available for use–even for commercial use. You can do key-word searches among just those photos.
You don’t find the things that stock photo sites are so good at (teacher in class pointing to blackboard, guy in expensive suit behind a big desk, etc.). But, if you just need a picture to illustrate something, you can often find a really good picture. (I wrote an article about teamwork and found an awesome shot of two dogs fetching a stick together.)
Since I started using creative commons pictures, I discovered that the people who take the pictures are delighted at having them used. Realizing how cool it was, I decided that I wanted to get in on the act–and have started licensing many of my photos–and some of them have been used.
(Note that there are several creative commons licenses, and not all allow commercial use. But you can search among just the ones that do.)
I was gonna mention same thing as Philip, http://search.creativecommons.org
i use creative commons but i like this istockphoto too….thanks for the link! glad to see ur working too lol
You can use pix on Flickr.com that are filed under Creative Commons licences as well – and they have some outstanding photographers!
I’m so addicted to your site its not funny. Watch out you’re fast becoming my travel guru!
That’s a cool site. I didn’t know that I could buy stock photos at this price. Methinks I’ll give it a try.
Love those animals on your working holiday site!
I never realized there were affordable stock photo sites out there. Always assumed that stock photos were insanely expensive. I try to use my own pics as much as possibe but at those prices I might give iStockphoto a try.
Hey thanks for those other links and the creative commons stuff too. I’ve never even heard of creative commons before. I’ll for sure have a look before I buy more photos.
what, you can BUY stockphotos? when did that happen???
i always used http://www.sxc.hu/ , most photos there are free and have a pretty good quality. images there are submitted by users, not by professionals who have to make a living.
however, i think using stock photos is a bad idea, just because everyone uses them – stock photos are the new average in design. if you cant avoid it try to make sure you dont use pictures of the everywhere girl: http://www.theeverywheregirl.com/?cat=179