Shopping Images?

Where To Find Web Page Graphics
Some Free, Some Not

Shopping images was confusing to me when I first started building websites. First of all, I had no idea where to even find website graphics let alone understand copyright laws and such.

The more I built out my first site, Theme Party Queen.com, the more I had a need to find good quality images that I could use without getting into trouble.

I started by doing a Google search for images but was quickly overwhelmed with the huge quantity of poor sites offering their services. Trying to find on line images through the search engines was like looking for a needle in a haystack and I wasted a lot of precious time.

Eventually I narrowed down my bank of image sources to a few favorites. Now when I am shopping images, I know exactly where to go to get what I need. In addition to buying images, I also use:

• Free web clipart
• Images from Google Search
• My own digital photos
• My own scanned images

Below, I share a few of my favorite places to go when I am shopping images. If you would like to share a favorite image source, we would love to hear it. Just drop me a quick note via my Contact Form.

Buying Images On Line

My favorite sources for buying webpage images and clip art are:

IStockPhoto.com--Several of the images in my first site came from this image resource. If you are shopping images at IStockPhoto.com, here's what you do:

 Join --It is free and easy to do, just sign up

 Pick a Plan --Either "Pay as you go" or "Buy a Subcription." Most small to medium webmasters can make do with "Pay as you go" which basically means you buy credits in packages as you need them (ex. 12 credits for $18 or 26 credits for $38). I usually buy 26 credits and since most of what I use are photos under 400px wide they only cost one credit each (I can get 26 images for $38...). CAUTION: Credits expire after 1 year.

NOTE: Alot of sites you will come across when shopping images will want you to sign up for a subscription, say $20 a month for unlimited downloads. That doesn't work for most small sites or blogs.

 Search and Download --The interface is very user friendly. After you input what you are shopping for, you'll get a page of thumbnails and if you hover over them, the image will enlarge so you can see the detail. I store images I like in a "lightbox" which helps me add images and organize them by category, like "People" or "Animals." Then when I'm ready to buy, I simply choose the size that I want and download to my computer. The credits are deducted from my account.

The forum at IStockPhoto.com is great too. All kinds of information for people selling and shopping images.

This feature has been extremely helpful to me especially when I am trying to match image color to something else on the page. If I need a green flower image, for example, I can either click on the palette to choose the green I like or I can input a hex code. Then it will only display images matching my color choice. Really nice!

Another favorite of mine is that you can search by orientation. Just pick "Vertical" or "Horizontal" from the drop down menu.

I don't find the lightbox feature (add images and store by category) as easy to use as on IStockPhoto.com but I have been able to work with it.

Where To Find Free Web Clipart And Images

DoverPublications.com--Here's what it says on the Dover website "Sign up for the Dover Sampler, and each week we’ll send you an email with links to free content from books favored by customers like you. Download, print, enjoy!"

In addition to these free on line images, they have a huge variety of clipart images to buy.

FreeGraphics.com--This site is a smorgasbord of on line images for webmasters. Not only do they have a great selection of free clipart, but for webmasters in particular, they have free banners, bullets, buttons and dividers that will really come in handy as you build your site.

Their disclaimer reads "Here you will find clip art collected from various web sites, contributors, and binary newsgroups. To the best of our knowledge, all of the clip art images available here are in the public domain and can be freely used by anyone." I'd say that's reassuring.

Flickr.com--I have uploaded some of my personal images through the Flickr Uploader. The process is simple if you want to upload your own images and store them there for other people to view. It is even simpler if you are shopping images and want to use someone else's images for your website or blog.

All you have to do is display the image on your webpage, attribute the image to the photographer and link to the page on Flickr.com where the image is stored. If you were going to use one of my images, here's how you would do it:

Image courtesy of Sandee Lembke

How To Use Google Image Search

When you are shopping images, you can find just about anything you can think of at Google Image Search.

All you have to do is input what you are looking for in this screen. Page after page of thumbnail images will appear.

Clicking on the image of choice will take you to a screen like this one. Notice the words "Image may be subject to copyright."

My rule of thumb is to contact the webmaster who has posted the webpage image.

Ask them if you can use the image, free of charge. If it is copyrighted, you will find out quickly enough.

How To Scan Images

On occasion, I like to use old images that need to be scanned into my computer. The process of scanning is slightly different depending on the type of equipment used, but in Adobe Photoshop the steps are:

• Put image face down on the glass of your scanner
• Select File-Import from the Photoshop toolbar and then choose the name of the hardware you are using to scan in the image. My scanner comes up in the list as "WIA--Hewlett Packard Office Jet."
• In the scanner dialog box, select the type of image you are scanning. Choices are color picture, grayscale picture, black and white picture or text plus you have a choice to do your own custom settings. For most of my work, I choose color picture.
• Click on Preview to see your image. Use the red sizing boxes shown in the image above to crop down to just what you want to scan into your computer and then click Scan.
• The image will open in Photoshop. Proceed as usual when fixing, saving and uploading webpage images.

Visit Our Other Image Webpages

	How To Position Images Learn all about positioning images so you can get them exactly where you want them on your webpages. Find the exact code for all of your image positioning challenges including wrapping text and objects around images and lining them up in a row or column.
	How To Size Images As you build out your site, you will need web page graphics ranging from tiny 16 pixel by 16 pixel (for favicons, buttons or table images) all the way up to large http graphics that are the entire width of a webpage. Learn how to get your images to the perfect size for the intended spot on your site.
	Creating Image Links If you are going to go to the trouble of placing web site images on your site, you might as well make them into image links whenever possible. Learning how to make image links and using them often will greatly improve site navigation for your visitors and help your monetization efforts.
	Why Tag Images? If a webmaster has used the html image alt tag properly, you will see a small box of text appear when you hover your mouse over an image. A huge number of visitors find my site because I purposely add a keyword-rich alt tag to every single web site image that I place on my sites. Learn how here.
	Photoshop Drop Shadow Tutorial Look at the web site images in the header above. When I created them, I added a gray shadow, aka a drop shadow, around each image. Learn how to add a professional touch to your webpage graphics by watching a drop shadow tutorial video.