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helping businesses

> SOURCING IMAGES

Stock photo examples

You basically have three options for sourcing images to use in the design and content of your website:
  • Do It Yourself
  • Purchase stock images
  • Hire a professional
If you don't have the time or ability to create or commission your own images, chances are you'll find what you're looking for in a stock photo library (or image bank).  They contain thousands of photographs, illustrations, clipart and animations that are created for general use. For a licensing fee (or sometimes free), you can select any of these images for use in your project.

Every stock photography source has different guidelines regarding the licencing of images (eg. free, royalty-free or rights-managed) so be sure to check out the fine print and know what these guidelines are before you source an image. Some galleries even restrict the usage of their images to personal and non-profit use only.

Here are some sites we recommend:

iStockphoto - http://www.istockphoto.com

Getty Images - http://www.gettyimages.com

Foto Search - http://www.fotosearch.com.au

Dreamstime - http://www.dreamstime.com


What Not To Do When Sourcing Images

Google Ganking

You may find it inspirational to do a Google image search for topics around which you're building a website. You might even feel the urge to save some of these images to your computer, then open them up in Photoshop and crop, resize and modify them a little to fit your needs. This is known as Google Ganking and it's a serious problem in web design. Unless the images on a website are specifically marked as being free to use or available in the public domain, you can assume that they are copyrighted by the site's owner, and therefore you'll need permission to use them.

You may think the image's owner will never notice your rip off of his or her work, but you run the risk of enduring something as embarrassing as having a cease and desist letter sent to you, or something as serious as a lawsuit.

The penalties of stealing images probably won't involve handcuffs, but we would rather you not do it.

Corny Clipart or Illustrations

Many websites offer free clipart and illustration packages. While these cheesy, generic graphics may work for an internal company bulletin, or a corny do-it-yourself greeting card, they should be considered off-limits for any professional website project. 

While the quality and 'freshness' of some stock photos can be questionnable as well, there's nothing worse than seeing a good design blemished by stale, cliched clipart. 

So please think twice before inserting clipart or a cheesy animated GIF on your site.


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