I’m making
a cover for my next book, A Wolf of Her Own, so I’ve spent quite a lot
of time on various stock photo sites trying to find the perfect photos to use.
Since I’m not a Photoshop expert – or GIMP, the free equivalent that I use – perfect means pictures that are both suitable
for the cover and something I can work with relatively painlessly. It took some
searching and studying the wares of more than one site, but I found what I
needed. Come back next Monday to see what I made of them.
In the
meanwhile, here’s a list of my favourite stock photo sites.
- Dreamstime
- Fotolia
- iStockphoto (part of Getty Images)
They all
have a nice selection of quality photos for many different purposes. All photos
are royalty free, meaning you don’t have to pay for their use. There may be
some limits to their use though, such as how many copies you can make of a
photo. It’s usually quite a huge number so you don’t have to worry about it. However,
make sure to read the terms of use before buying.
They all
let you buy pictures with credits – you can spend as little as $10/£10/€10 on
them – so that you don’t have to commit to expensive subscriptions when you
only need one picture. iStockphoto even lets you buy individual pictures
without buying their credits.
All sites
are relatively easy to use, but they have differences in their search
functions. The more you can narrow a search, the more effective a site is
finding accurate pictures. When it’s a difference between going through 10,000
pictures or 1000, you tend to value effectiveness. Fotolia has perhaps the best
search functions, but since the photographers add the search words themselves,
it’s not always optimal either. I tend to use loser parameters for that reason.
The credits
cost approximately the same in each, but the photo sizes and how much they charge
for the largest photos vary a lot. Fotolia is occasionally more expensive when
you’re buying larger pictures, but not every time. And the fact is that when
you find the perfect picture, you’re willing to pay a little extra.
All sites
allow you to store your favourite images to light boxes for easier comparison.
Dreamstime has made it easiest to sort the pictures to different files even as
you save them.
All three
sites offer some free photos too, but their range and quality aren’t great.
However, there are a couple of sites that offer photos for free. The photos
tend to be smaller and not suitable for book covers, but they’re great for illustrating
your content on blogs or G+ for example. I’ve mostly used these three:
Of these
three, I like morgueFile the best. They have beautiful photos for almost every
possible purpose that work especially well as illustration. And unlike the
first two that exist to drive traffic to paying sites – they only show a few
free pictures and then suggest paying ones – they show their own stock first. Many
pictures on this blog are from there. They’re large enough to work as book
covers too, should you find something suitable. However, the paying sites are
infinitely better for that purpose.
These six
sites should get you started. If nothing else, you can spend hours on them,
looking at beautiful photos. Sometimes that’s valuable too. Just don’t get lost.
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