Royalty Free Stock Photos for Web Design

by: Sharon Housley

Stock photography websites contain thousands of existing photographs that can be licensed for specific uses. A customer who uses stock photography instead of hiring a photographer can save time, effort and money. Typically publishers can either purchase exclusive rights to a single image or they can purchase a subscription of sorts. The subscriptions allow publishers to download a limited number of photos over a specified period of time.

Stock photo websites allow webmasters, marketers and publishers to locate pictures for their marketing and promotional materials without the hassle of organizing a photo shoot. With copyright laws businesses must be very careful in using unlicensed photos.

There are also risks to using "free" photographs. Many of the free websites contain collaborative works from multiple photographers and artists. While the websites attempt to monitor the images in their collections in violation of copyright laws, there are no guarantees. If you opt to use photographs or images from a free portal, it is important to keep this in mind.

The following are a large number of reputable stock photo websites available:

Photo-Wizard.net - The Photo-Wizard's website contains thousands of fantastic, high-quality photographs, in more than 30 categories. Photos can be used on websites, in promotional materials or educational materials. The Photo-Wizard's stock photo directory is packed with eye-catching photos that will meet the needs of graphic designers and webmasters looking for exceptional quality images at reasonable prices. The site is filled with inexpensive, professional quality royalty free photographs. There is no longer a need to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a single photograph. Single images can be purchased for $.99 each or subscriptions can be purchased for $49.95 - $ 179.95.

Photo Wizard - http://www.photo-wizard.net

Photos.com - Photos.com contains professional royalty-free stock photographs available via a subscription. Pay only a single fee and download up to 250 photos from the Photos.com collection per day. The photos.com collection contains more than 325,000 professional quality stock photographs. Subscriptions can be purchased for $149.95 - $ 699.95 .

Photos.com - http://www.photos.com

ClipArt.com - The ClipArt website is exceptional, known for its large variety. You can filter images based on file formats, (photographs, photo objects or clipart) so only the specified format appears in the search results. Subscription can be purchased for $ 17.99 - $ 269.99.

ClipArt - http://www.clipart.com

Morguefile.com - The term "morgue file" is popular in the newspaper business to describe a file that holds past issues. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. Photos on Morguefile can be used free of charge, but only for personal use; but are not available for commercial or business use.

MorgueFile - http://www.morguefile.com

PixelPerfectDigital.com - PixelPerfectDigital contains 4,000 images. The website uses a forum format to display the images, many of which are clipart rather than photographs. The images can be used free of charge for personal use.

Pixel Perfect Digital - http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/free_stock_photos/

StockVault.net - StockVault contains photos and logos that are free for non-commercial use. They have additional image packs available for fixed prices.

StockVault - http://www.stockvault.net

Free-Photographs.net - The Free Photographs Network is an online resource for royalty-free stock photographs for non-commercial use. The collection is very limited and a search function specifically for the site is not available.

Free Photographs - http://www.free-photographs.net

FreeStockPhotos.com - Photographs on Free Stock Photos can be used free of charge for non-commercial use, but the photograph must include credits to FreeStockPhotos.com when used on the Internet, in a web page, in printed publications, or in any product, advertising, or packaging. This credit, however, may be cropped out or digitally removed from the photograph if it is included in readable type near each photograph, group of photographs, in the text, or in the credits. The collection is limited and a search function is not visible.

Free Stock Photos - http://www.freestockphotos.net

FreePhotos.com - FreePhotos is a collaborative website that contains photos. The website contains many different image categories, but not a large variety in each category. In order to download an image users must register.

Free Photos - http://www.freephotos.com

ArtFavor.com - ArtFavor contains a limited selection of small high-quality photographs. The images are not available for commercial use.

ArtFavor - http://www.artfavor.com/types.php?type=12

FreeDigitalPhotos.net - The photos on Free Digital Photos can be used for commercial and non commercial interests. If the images are used for promotional items (greeting cards, mugs, t-shirts, screen savers) there is a $ 20.00 charge for the use of each image. Some images also stipulate that they require a link back to the FreeDigitalPhotos website.

Free Digital Photos - http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

FreePhotosBank.com - Free Photos Bank is a collaborative website with a number of attractive photos. Photos contained on the Free Photos Bank are from a variety of photographers and the reprint permissions may vary.

Free Photos Bank - http://www.freephotosbank.com

DesignPacks.com - Design Packs offers free, high-quality image collections that can be used in both personal and commercial web design projects. Each collection features a group of 15 images that share a common theme.

Design Packs - http://www.designpacks.com

ShutterStock - Shutterstock is a large subscription-based stock photo agency. They have an outstanding collection of premium, royalty-free photographs, illustrations, and vectors. Subscription can be purchased for $ 199.00 - $1,999.00 and allow subscribers to download up to 25 images per day.

ShutterStock - http://www.shutterstock.com/

ComStock - ComStock contains a large collection of royalty-free images. ComStock offers three purchase options images can be purchased individually, CD options are available or publishers can purchase a subscription for $299 - $1999.00 which allows them to download up to 50 images per day.

ComStock - http://www.comstock.com

These are all a number of options available for webmasters and publishers in need of images for marketing campaigns or packaging. Regardless of the website selected, be sure to read the agreement terms carefully to ensure that you are adhering to the guidelines.

source : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1307.shtml

Spicing Up Your Blog with 3D Animated YouTube Playlists

by: Jeff White

People have blogs for different purposes, some people maintain a blog purely for commercial reasons, and other people keep blogs strictly as a hobby. Blogs serve people in various ways and means and ultimately the aim is to provide the audiences reading these blogs with as much content and information as possible. Usually such information is written but sometimes a little something extra and visual is appreciated. We're not talking in the sense of pictures but rather video and movie type content that is becoming increasingly popular these days.

Strictly speaking there are a limited number of videos that we can afford to upload on most standard hosting packages and websites. If you really want to show your users video content then maybe you should consider YouTube videos as an option. You can find a whole number of videos on YouTube or you can upload your personal videos as well. Certain websites offer you the capability of creating playlists of your favorite videos and listing them on your blog. It's almost similar to the way you use other codes to display MP3 songs on something like your MySpace profile but in this case you're using codes to display YouTube videos on your blog.

YouTube video codes are a great way of displaying great content to visitors of your blog without going through the stress of having to upload videos on your own server. There's no limit to the number of videos you can use in your video playlist. If your blog is about rap music for instance you can use the video codes to display a playlist for some of the videos of the latest rap music available on YouTube.

You can think of other imaginative ways of using YouTube video codes as well and it all depends on how creative your mind can get. If you run a blog that offers advice to people, maybe a blog that shows people how to make stuff or do some DIY project or the other, YouTube video codes and YouTube playlists make it all the more fun. Rather than having boring graphic descriptions, followed by a whole lot of words describing a very simple process, you can simply upload your videos to YouTube and create a YouTube playlist. Using video codes you can now give your users access to your playlist of videos through your blog.

Of course you don't necessarily have to do all the hardwork yourself, a number of websites out there will provide you with the content that you need. Some people have content that is freely available for redistribution and viewing on YouTube, you can also use websites like YouTube-Video-Codes.com to create playlists of other people's content that can be found on YouTube.

For more information be sure to visit us at http://www.Youtube-Video-Codes.com

source : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1308.shtml

Free Image Hosting Service

by: Russell Hawkins

Image hosting is a part of most web hosting services, providing hosting solutions for images instead of words. Most web hosts that host web pages do allow image hosting as well, but most times you have to pay for those services, or of those that are offered with no charges, you are limited to the size or quality of images you can submit. Free image hosting however is not a faux promise, neither is it too good to be true.

Why may image hosting be necessary? Sometimes a person might wish to publish a web page, but may find that his server at home or at the point of production is not adequate enough to keep the page running on the internet – in order that the published web page is to be continuously displayed, the server through which it is published must also run continuously on the internet. Also, a server also has to be able to support high traffic flowing to the websites that it connects to the Internet – what would be the point of publishing a page without the intension of having people visit the page? If the server is shut off, then the page also goes offline and becomes inaccessible to the public. Web hosting is the service provided to persons who wish to have their web pages up on the internet at all times but who do not have the means or support to do so on their own. Web hosting services may be offered free of charge or they may require a service fee, but almost all web hosting packages include free image hosting services.

Image hosting is a big industry today, drawing almost 90% of the audience market. In fact, almost every site wants to publish a video advertisement or a music introduction in an attempt to increase his market size. Most sites that provide free image hosting services however will limit the amount or size of images that you can post. For example, if you have a site that is dedicated to providing ring tones, music videos, large amounts of photographs or any other image in very large amounts or with very big file attachments, you will not be allowed to publish via the free image hosting service. On the other hand, if you wish to post images on a blog site or any other site with size restrictions, then free image hosting is your solution.

source : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1309.shtml

Website Basics-Choosing a Hosting Plan

by: Richard James

Once your website has been created, it is time to make it go live on the internet. In order to do so, you will need a hosting plan. A hosting plan is different from a domain name. You own your domain name but you rent a hosting plan. A hosting plan in it’s simplest terms is paying a company to broadcast your website onto the internet. This article covers what to look for in a hosting plan.

SERVICE The number one thing to look for in a hosting plan is service. It does not matter that a multitude of features are offered or if the price is low if the service you will be getting with your hosting plan is sub par or even worse, nonexistent. Once your website is live on the internet you will want it to be up all the time. Therefore should a problem occur it is important to select a hosting provider that is readily available and will resolve the issue in as timely a manner as possible.

UPTIME What is the hosting company's "uptime guarantee". Many guarantee 99% uptime for their servers. That sounds great, but it does mean that your site could go down for 1% of the time, which means over 7 hours out of each month! If you can, choose a host guaranteeing 99.9 uptime.

SIZE How large is your site? Most sites do not require much space but if you're planning on having a large site with a lot of multimedia content or an ecommerce site selling multiple items, you'll probably need additional disk space.

DESIGN How was your Web site designed? For example, if you designed a website using ASP or ASP.NET, you'll need to find a Windows hosting plan. If you have a Web site that uses CGI or PHP, you'll need to get a Linux hosting plan. For the novice user who is building a simple website the above may not be a consideration at first, but may become important later on as you become more experienced and add more features to your website.

TRAFFIC How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect monthly? The more visitors or traffic you expect on your site, the higher the bandwidth you will need.

At www.startmywebsitetoday.com we offer 99.7% guaranteed uptime and service 24/7, and a variety of shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting plans with either Linux or Windows operating systems for every need and budget ranging from the small personal website to large online multimedia sites to those interested in ecommerce website building. Check us out HERE.

source : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1310.shtml

Website Basics-Creating a Website

by: Richard James

If you are new to building websites, you might be surprised to find out that it is not as difficult an endeavor as you might suspect.

After securing a domain name, there are 2 main considerations to having a live website on the internet. The first is creation of the web pages, and the second is hosting it on the internet. (Hosting is discussed in the next article).

A webpage is just that, a page. If you have some familiarity with using a tool such as Microsoft Word, the concept is very much the same: when you type a letter or document into Word, you are creating a page. When you save it on your computer’s hard drive, you are saving a page. In point of fact, you'll find you can create a website easy using Microsoft Word. You can type information, adjust the font size and colors, paste in pictures with captions, and add links to other websites. All you have to do when finished is choose the option “save as web page” instead of “save as word document”. The resulting file is saved in html code, the universal language of the internet. Voila! You have created a simple website. In fact for someone who wants to start up a website with a simple single web page website, this is a very easy to use website tool.

Of course, while Microsoft Word will serve the purpose, it is not the best tool for building a website. The 2 most popular software packages for website creation by far are Microsoft Frontpage, and Macromedia Dreamweaver. Both are excellent and fully featured for building and publishing websites. (Uploading a website to the internet is known as “publishing”). Both of the above mentioned products require quite a learning curve, and are really aimed at the more advanced web author.

For the first time web builder, www.startmywebsitetoday.com offers easy website design software with a package product called Website Tonight. The package includes easy to use web site tools in the form of easy website design software combined with hosting. The software offered in Website Tonight is geared toward the newbie. You simply select a basic template, or page design, to begin. Next you will decide on a basic color scheme. Next, a page layout. When these 3 elements are in place, the rest is all menu driven. When you place the mouse pointer into a given area of the page, a menu will pop up, allowing you to select from a number of options, whether you will be adding text, video, audio, photos, etc. All elements of the page are able to be edited and changed as you desire at anytime. When satisfied with your final design, simply press “publish” to make your web page live on the internet. It's easy to make websites using Website Tonight. For more information on Website Tonight click HERE.

Whether you choose to use Website Tonight or another website building software, www.startmywebsitetoday.com offers a wide variety of easy to use website tools to make your presence on the internet a successful one, starting with our hosting plans, discussed in the next article.

source : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1311.shtml