Regulars on my site know that I prefer photos as images for my posts and since I’m often asked where I get my photos, I thought I’d share my secret— Photos.com! I personally prefer photos because they add a polished touch to my writing and I can always find the right images on Photos.com. With over 2.6 million royalty-free stock photos and illustrations available, I don’t ever have to worry that I’m infringing on someone else’s copyright when obtaining an image from their site.
About Photos.com
Photos.com is a division of Getty Images and provides professionally shot and user generated content. Photos.com offers images for any work related project from advertising and sales brochures to presentations, websites, blogs, newsletters, brochures, scrapbooking, and more.
Affordable Images
Usually high quality images cost a lot of money but there are a variety of ways to purchase images from Photos.com thanks to different pricing plans. I have an image pack which is a specified number of pre-paid downloads that can be purchased in quantities of 1, 5, 20, 25, and 50. They can be used to download any photo(s) you select over the course of one year.
Subscriptions can be a smart way to save when many images are needed over an extended period of time. The 3-month, 6-month and 1-year subscription plans provide substantial savings ($0.19-0.23 / image) and the ability to access image sizes that best meet your needs.
Image sizes are determined by how you will be using your image. Here’s a quick guide to the image sizes available and what they’re best for:
- Web- websites, mobile apps, blogs
- Web plus- Presentations, websites, mobile apps, blogs
- Print- publishing, brochures, presentations, websites, mobile apps, blogs
What you plan to use your image for dictates the download quality. When in doubt, buy the better image quality. Images can always be made smaller and look fine but if you purchase a lower quality image and try to enlarge it, it won’t look as good. You can never make an image larger than its original size without experiencing pixilation (seeing those little dots that make up the picture) and loss of clarity (fuzziness).
Using Photos.com
Photos.com couldn’t be easier to use and thanks to their vast library, it’s easy to find the right image quickly. Here’s a quick how to:
Log in and enter the key words of the images I’m searching for. Just last night I did a search for earthquake related photos following the quake that shook the East Coast. I typed earthquake into the search field and the following results came up quickly. I paged through the images using the arrows on the upper left until I found the images I wanted.
Clicking on Add to Lightbox below the image puts the photo in an image tray that can be saved while I locate the best photo for my project.
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| Save photos as you browse to your Lightbox |
When I’m ready to review the images I love, I can access them in my Lightbox through the link in the upper right corner of the screen.
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| Photos.com Lightbox saves your favorite photos for downloading later |
When I’m ready to download, I click on the link and select the quality of image my subscription or image pack allows. The image downloads to my computer and is mine to use!
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| Choose from various download sizes depending on where you plan to publish your image |
It’s that easy to get high quality royalty-free images for your print or web publication!
Would you like to try Photos.com? Win a 50 image print pack valued at $134.99!
To enter: Leave a comment about the most challenging image that you have tried to find and what the image was for. Keep it clean and you must include your email address or Twitter handle in order for your entry to be valid. Also be sure to read the giveaway terms and conditions at the conclusion of this post.
For additional entries, you must complete the above and are welcome to do any of the following:
- Follow @Photosdotcom and leave a comment that you have done so below
- Tweet this daily and leave a link to your tweet in your comment: Win a 50 image print pack w/ royalty free images from @Photosdotcom & @TechSavvyMama! Enter here: www.techsavvymama.com #giveaway
- Subscribe to Tech Savvy Mama via email, through your feed, or via the Google Followers gadget. Leave a comment for each way you follow for an additional entry.
Giveaway Terms and Conditions:
- Prize cannot be substituted for cash.
- Prize cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts, or promotions being run by the sponsor company (in this case Photos.com).
- Prize must be redeemed using a promotion code for a 100% discount at the time of checkout on the Photos.com site.
- Winner will be selected from all eligible comments on Friday, September 2 using Random.org. Winner will be contacted by email or Twitter and must reply within 24 hours or another winner will be selected from eligible entries.
I was provided with a 50 image pack for review purposes. No additional compensation was received for this post or hosting a giveaway. All opinions are my own.
Thanks for reading Tech Savvy Mama through your feed!
Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
©2012
I find it hard to find good kid pictures with various facial expressions. Like “worried boy”. I also have a hard time finding kids in medical settings.
This sounds wonderful!! I have a hard time finding photos of multicultural families.
I would love to win this!! The most challenging photo I had to find was a couple fighting when home remodeling had gone wrong/they ran out of money before it was done.
For me it’s getting creative with the images I use when I’m writing about a blogging or technical subject. I want the image to coordinate but find the same stock images coming up over and over from the free photo sits. This would be helpful for changing things up for my readers!
ang.england at yahoo dot com
Following photos.com
ang.england at yahoo dot com
Subscribed via email
ang.england at yahoo dot com
I write about a lot of abstract things and it can be really hard to find good photos. For my events website, it’s hard to find images for things like support groups and parent meeting and webinar, but good lord, photos.com has stuff for that. Awesome.
I found it hard to find an image that was not super hero related when looking for Just.Be.Enough.
Also I followed photosdotcom on twitter. 🙂
following photos.com on twitter.
tweeted
http://twitter.com/#!/CiaoMom/status/106406937230446593
would LOVE to win this!! I tried to find a photo of the back of a child wearing a red shirt for a post I was writing for DCMoms, and ended up just putting my own son in one and taking it myself. . . totally should have thought to do that right off the bat, I suppose!
following photos.com on twitter
tweeted!! http://twitter.com/#!/teachmama/status/106420134717038592
It’s usually challenging in general when I have a project in mind but don’t know what image to use. Takes a lot of searching to make the right one work for me. So, while I can’t say that it’s a single image that’s been most difficult, it’s usually the solidifying the concept.
Whenever I write a post about race or racism, I have a hard time find a photo to go with my post.
I followed Photos.com on twitter
I subscribe via email
I follow via Google connect
And I followed Photos.com on Twitter!
Also, I follow on Google connect.
It’s hard to find a good shot of my boys together.
The hardest thing to find is a good image of “reading together” that we tried to use in a newsletter.
@susanlanai
https://twitter.com/#!/susanlanai/status/107066630021971968
I subscribe to Tech Savvy Mama via email.
@susanlanai
I follow via the Google Followers gadget.
@susanlanai