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Royalty Free Photos and Videos

PuppyI’ve demonstrated multiple times that adding a photo to a site has been proven to increase the conversion rate. In addition it draws attention and keeps visitors on your pages (yes I should use photos on this blog more often as well for the same reasons).

Where do you find photos you can use?

You can of course take your own photos. Those would be free to use.

That’s not always practical though. It can take a lot of time to get the right subject, lighting, and background. So what about using photos from others.

While some might feel otherwise, you can’t simply grab and use any photo you find. Unless specifically stated otherwise, those photos are copyrighted. You have to have permission to use them in your projects.

Please note I’m not covering non-business use as that would be another subject since the majority of my readers do run for-profit businesses.

You need royalty free photos. If you produce videos, you may also want some royalty free music and stock footage for elements of the video.

Royalty free doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a charge to use. It simply means you only pay the fee once and can use the item however you’ve been licensed to use it. For example, if you purchase a photo from http://www.istockphoto.com to put on your website, you don’t have to pay based on how many people view your site. You simply pay them one fee for use of the photo for as long as you want to use it.

You can find royalty free photos, music, and videos both for free…and for a fee (there are a lot more photos available for free than audio or video).

Here are some references to get you started.

For free photos, check out: http://www.sxc.hu

They have 350,000 stock photos you can use. On their image license agreement, they state you can use the photos on websites, multimedia presentations, video, and promotional materials. You need permission if you plan to distribute photos in any type of website templates or reproductions you plan to sell.

Here are two sites that let you search for photos:

http://www.compfight.com allows you to search through flickr for items. Checkmark to look for “commercial use” right beside the “Creative Commons” near the top of the page. Please note you need to individually check each photo that you may choose for your use rights.

http://everystockphoto.com – Click on “advanced search” to the right of the page. Then there is a dropdown menu for “license.” You can see that you’re able to search all types of licenses, some where you have to give attribution such as in the credits of a video and others are completely public domain.

What about music and video?

A good place to start looking is Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

You’ll often find you’re better off spending a little money to get the licenses you want.

For example, I feel everyone should have an account at http://www.istockphoto.com. You buy credits. Then you search and find whatever you need for projects you’re working on (photo or video stock footage). You’ll see a lot of images I use on my different web sales letters came directly from iStockPhoto.

For music, check out http://www.audiomicro.com. Very similar setup to iStockphoto, but it is audio instead. Great for finding music for your video productions.

Another site popular among video creators is http://digitaljuice.com. At the time of this writing they’re having a special on their stock footage DVDs (making them a very good price). I own a couple of stock footage DVD packages and I also own some of the royalty free music from them.

Good prices on video right now – http://www.digitaljuice.com/products/product_volumes.asp?pvid=10
Audio Files – http://www.digitaljuice.com/products/product_volumes.asp?pvid=8

Then finally don’t forget about eBay for purchasing royalty free music and stock footage. I wouldn’t use them for any photos as you’re better off with the above sites, but music and videos can get pricey.

Do a search for “buyout music” or “stock footage” from eBay’s main search. Here are a couple of links from my own searches:

Buyout Music on eBay

Stock Video Footage on eBay

There is no reason why your websites, products, and videos can’t look professionally designed with all these tools available to you.

Written by Terry · Filed Under All 

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Comments

11 Responses to “Royalty Free Photos and Videos”

  1. Semmy on October 30th, 2008 12:19 pm

    Hi Terry what a great post! I want to add a web site that I personally used for my graphic images, http://stockxpert.com and it’s cheaper then http://www.istockphoto.com with the same quality.

    cheers

    Semmy
    http://www.myminisitegraphic.com

  2. duncan on October 30th, 2008 12:23 pm

    Terry, could you please send me a free report …Thank-you

    “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life!”

    I have signed up for “the report”at least 20 times and its never arrived …keep up the good work…

  3. Gregory Nemer on October 30th, 2008 1:00 pm

    Hi Terry and Indy,
    I was just looking for some good places to get some free images. As always, your article is very timely and very useful.
    I especially like all the links that you provided to make it easy to view all the options.
    And of course, The puppy dog image on this page is going to be at number one spot for a long time.

  4. Terry on October 30th, 2008 2:05 pm

    Semmy: Thanks for your addition. I like istockphoto because of how easy it is to use their system and the easy searches.

    Duncan: The link was emailed to you.

    Gregory: Glad I could help.

  5. George on October 30th, 2008 3:40 pm

    Nice post… I never heard of http://www.sxc.hu/ before, it looks pretty good. Will definitely bookmark it for future use. Thanks!

    Stumbled…

  6. Phil Tanny on October 30th, 2008 4:07 pm

    Very useful, many thanks Terry.

    I like to find an illustrator on istockphoto.com that suits my taste. Then I’ll make a sales site that uses only that artist’s drawings. If you use just one artist, you get a continuity of style that gives the presentation a bit more polish.

    Illustrations are 10 times more expensive than photos, a drawback. Still, if you consider the images are a one time investment that will enhance the site for years, the investment should pay off. For many projects, $500 worth of images can pay for themselves with a couple regular customers.

  7. Ethan on October 30th, 2008 8:57 pm

    Hi Terry

    As usual, great resources from you! I always scanned my mailbox and I will click yours to read on the first thing in the morning. It has since become a habit. Keep this great stuff coming.

  8. Debra Conrad on November 1st, 2008 6:13 pm

    Thanks for the great ideas! Really good… but you missed my fave:
    http://www.morguefile.com/

    No fees and no attributions commonly required. I love moving the “free” line. :)

    Thanks again, going to look for more great articles on this site.

  9. Matia Bryson » Blog Archive » Royalty Free Photos and Videos by Terry Dean on November 2nd, 2008 10:25 am

    [...] Another great link for the archive file. What every webmaster needs: Royalty Free Photos and Videos. [...]

  10. Jordan Cheng on November 3rd, 2008 4:20 am

    Hi Terry,

    Thanks for sharing the list of photo resources.
    Indeed, photo is a great traffic enhancement tool. The amount of traffic that found my site through Google Images Search is amazingly high.

    Jordan Cheng

  11. Ayjay on November 25th, 2008 11:13 pm

    Another great site with tons of great royalty free music is http://www.sfxsource.com … its got thousands of sound effects for media too

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