Royalty free image site

sequencehosting · #1 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 09:46 AM

Hello all,

For the first time in my life I'm looking to purchase images. Before I also relied on finding generous people giving away their royalty free images. I'm wondering if anyone knows some good sites to use? I have heard some great things about http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php

I am only looking to buy about 20 images to spice up my site.

Thanks all,
Jack

BreLove · #2 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 10:43 AM

I've been using Fotolia.com. You pay depending on the size picture you need by buying credits (the option I think you'd want) or you can subscribe. Each credit cost $1 and the number of credits equate to the size photo you want. I don't believe I ever purchased a picture for more than $2 and that's only because I was afraid of getting something too small. Also, you put money "on the books" so to speak so you can buy until you use up your credits.

Hope this is helpful, I like them alot.

sequencehosting · #3 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BreLove

I've been using Fotolia.com. You pay depending on the size picture you need by buying credits (the option I think you'd want) or you can subscribe. Each credit cost $1 and the number of credits equate to the size photo you want. I don't believe I ever purchased a picture for more than $2 and that's only because I was afraid of getting something too small. Also, you put money "on the books" so to speak so you can buy until you use up your credits.

Hope this is helpful, I like them alot.

Thanks for the info. Sounds really good. I will take a look now. I guess the price isn't too important but more so the image. Luckily as you say I’m only looking for small images and even then I will need to crop them a bit so the price will be cheaper. On Istock it costs £13.00 for 12 credits. Every small image I have seen is 1 credit so that should be enough for now. It's funny because since I have been looking at these images I recognise them from many sites. The quality is so much better than any free images online.

sequencehosting · #4 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 10:57 AM

Your right Fotolia.com has some really nice images as well.

I have a couple of questions for anyone who has bought images from Fotolia.com or istock.

1) Does purchasing these images grant me access to using them on my site and editing them?

2) What format do the images come in? JPG, PNG? I'm looking for transparent PNG images.

Thanks!

BreLove · #5 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 11:42 AM

I was unable to find anything concerning altering the pics but the pics I've downloaded were jpg.

sequencehosting · #6 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BreLove

I was unable to find anything concerning altering the pics but the pics I've downloaded were jpg.

Thank you for trying anyway

I will keep looking, I hope it’s possible to get them in transparent PNG because I’m not very good at using the magic wand tool.

BreLove · #7 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 12:33 PM

Well you made a good point in asking about transparents. I searched the Fotolia site for the word transparents and did get some pictures with a transparent background (I'm assuming that what you mean) but nothing about png. I wouldn't know how to alter a picture using any wand but now that you mention it a transparent background would be easier to work with.

See you're training without even trying

James · #8 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 12:56 PM

Actually jpg or other formats are easily usable.

Just load them into your graphics program and save as .png files. I use Paint Shop Pro and do it all the time. Works great.

For example I took my portrait, a jpg, saved it as a png file, and then erased the background. The erased part is transparent and lets the background of the page show through. Lots of similar stuff.

png is great.

Edit: I may have missed the point. You may have just not wanted to do what I suggested because of the difficulty with the Magic Wand tool. I understand that, but the background eraser is very effective. You just drag it around an area overlapping the image part you want to keep and everything with a similar color to what is under the center dot gets deleted. Slick, and it works on most images, If the colors are too similar you can temporarily increase contrast or hue to get it to work well. You can clear out very irregular areas with relative ease.

sequencehosting · #9 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BreLove

Well you made a good point in asking about transparents. I searched the Fotolia site for the word transparents and did get some pictures with a transparent background (I'm assuming that what you mean) but nothing about png. I wouldn't know how to alter a picture using any wand but now that you mention it a transparent background would be easier to work with.

See you're training without even trying

Yes your right that was I mean. Since you’re on a learning spree I will explain a bit. PNG is an image file extension much like JPG. PNG supports transparent background but JPG doesn’t. GIF also supports transparent backgrounds. Internet Explorer 6 has problems displaying transparent PNG images (there are ways around it) while Internet Explorer 7 and 8 seem to handle them perfectly along with all the decent browsers (all apart from IE

). Once again thanks for looking.

sequencehosting · #10 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

Actually jpg or other formats are easily usable.

Just load them into your graphics program and save as .png files. I use Paint Shop Pro and do it all the time. Works great.

For example I took my portrait, a jpg, saved it as a png file, and then erased the background. The erased part is transparent and lets the background of the page show through. Lots of similar stuff.

png is great.

Edit: I may have missed the point. You may have just not wanted to do what I suggested because of the difficulty with the Magic Wand tool. I understand that, but the background eraser is very effective. You just drag it around an area overlapping the image part you want to keep and everything with a similar color to what is under the center dot gets deleted. Slick, and it works on most images, If the colors are too similar you can temporarily increase contrast or hue to get it to work well. You can clear out very irregular areas with relative ease.

James you’re correct that is exactly what I want to do.

I use Photoshop for editing images, I wonder if there is a way to do this in Photoshop. I always thought the only way to do this was to use the magic wand tool on an image copy and paste the correct section onto a transparent background PNG file.

I took a look online for Photoshop but the tutorials are all using the magic wand tool.

James · #11 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 01:47 PM

Yes, Photoshop has a background eraser tool, too. It is a slick way to go and works quite easily—compared to the Magic Wand for sure. I have lots of difficult selecting irregular areas, too. It can be frustrating.

Here is an tutorial that has just what you want I think:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pho...lrbps_1jet.htm

sequencehosting · #12 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

Yes, Photoshop has a background eraser tool, too. It is a slick way to go and works quite easily—compared to the Magic Wand for sure. I have lots of difficult selecting irregular areas, too. It can be frustrating.

Here is an tutorial that has just what you want I think:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pho...lrbps_1jet.htm

Thanks very much James I found the tool on Photoshop now (Never needed to right click the icons yet

). I will read this article now and try it on a jpg image to see how it goes.

Kevtheman · #13 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 09:07 PM

I particularily like Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Shutterstock is a subscription based service so I would not recommend this for 20 images. Dreamstime would be a good option as they are fairly well priced and easy to use. They also have a pretty good selection of free images that are still good quality but didn't make the cut.

Links are in my sig.

Jordy3738 · #14 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 09:23 PM

I'm totally hooked on veer.com

They have excellent images. Although I have never purchased any from them, I am very impressed with the pictures and how clean and simple the site is.

Bill the Builder · #15 (**permalink**) 10-27-2009, 10:59 PM

I have an account at http://www.123rf.com/
I have been very happy with it.

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