Read this article and discover how to choose the perfect free stock photos for your website or blog!
Use our 3 helpful tips!
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Having high-quality pictures on your website is really important as a picture is worth a thousand words!
Choosing photos to use on your site can be a difficult task and you know it. First, you need to know exactly where to find photos to use for your online projects. For instance, you need to be familiar with the websites you can use for finding and downloading photos for free and websites where you will pay to use photos for your personal or commercial projects. Next, you will have to understand and determine which formats are best utilized on blogs and websites so you know exactly which versions to use and download. Even though these two steps are very important, the third step is probably the most important one. The third step represents the photo selection process.
Determining where to find photos or what formats to use are technical and logistics considerations and making a photo selection is a design decision. Luckily for you, there are some tips that you can use to help you make the best choices when it comes to choosing photos for your website or blog.
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- 1. The value of uniqueness and originality – A lot of businesses and designers decide to use free stock photos when they are looking for photos to use on their websites or blogs. The advantage of these sites is that they have an amazing selection of photos to choose from and the pricing on those photos is pretty reasonable and affordable. The only downside to stock photos is that they are in no way original to your website. So, we always recommend to dig a little deeper when searching for images and lower the chances of using a photo that has been over downloaded and overused.
- 2. Keep license in mind – When downloading and using photos from stock photography websites, you need to be extremely careful and keep the license in mind. When looking for free stock photos, you will encounter 3 common licenses – Creative Commons, RIghts Managed, and Royalty Free. You should know that each of these licenses come with different restrictions and requirements, so understanding how licensing works, when you are allowed to use a certain photo and when you are not, and ensuring the photo fits your budget and plans is a really important factor to keep into consideration during the selection process.
- 3. The importance of image size – The image size is crucial! It is really important to determine what size you need a photo to be so that you can find photos that will work within those requirements and which will also work well across different screen sizes and devices. Yes, you can always make a large photo smaller and keep the quality at the same time but you can’t increase the size of the photo and retain the quality. That is simply not possible.
If an image is worth a thousand words, then selecting the right photos for your website is crucial! It will help you attract the right visitors and future loyal customers and it will help you make your business and brand more powerful. for example, if your website is focused on babies, download baby photos! platforms like Shopify have many of them! By focusing on the logistical and technical aspects of the choice, as well as, on the design-centric points, you will be able to select the right photos for your next online project! Follow our helpful tips and enjoy the beautiful selection of stock photos available online!