Say It Better with Pictures: Sourcing Images

Notice how a magazine or newspaper article is usually accompanied by a picture? Well, you should be doing the same thing on your blog.

The eye is naturally drawn to images. Using a photograph or illustration in a post looks more professional, and gives the eye a break from reading blocks of copy. Since most people scan online content, you’ll improve readership by breaking up your written content with images.

So where can you get pictures and how do you use them properly? Part 1 of this series will cover sourcing images. Part 2 will cover how to use them properly – both from a design and a legal standpoint.

Art for sale
Royalty free stock images (either illustrations or photography): Try sites like iStockPhoto and Fotolia. Prices start at $1 for royalty free, small file size photos. (You do not need high resolution files for blog posts, but do for print.)

Using these sites can get expensive over time. Instead, you may want to only buy unique images for your logo, blog banner, or background, and use cheaper or free sources for blog posts.

Clip Art Software: Check the racks at your local office supply store. Often you can find thousands of photographs on a disk for less than $20. I prefer software with photographs, since the vector illustrations can be a bit cheesy.

Clip Art Books: Some of these books come with disks so you won’t need to scan the images. Your local library may have clip art books, which you can scan for free, too.

One of my favorites sources for vintage clip art is Mostly Happy Clip Art of the 30’S, 40’S, and 50’s: Scan, Photocopy, Stat. It’s where I got the image for my blog, This Mama Cooks!

Free photography and graphics
Take your own photos: This goes without saying, of course. Then again, it’s not always practical if you’re not much of a picture taker, have lousy equipment, or write a lot about life in Africa – and you live in Detroit.

Flickr: Make sure the photographer has granted permission to use their photography. To determine this look over the details of the various Creative Commons licenses at Flickr. You’ll want to look for photographers that use a Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Just make sure to link back to their name and Flickr account in your post and you should be fine.

Public domain sites: Wikimedia Commons is one of the most popular.

Microsoft Office Online Clip Art: My favorite option for free photographs and graphics. You can download their clip art images on to your hard drive using the Microsoft Clip Gallery or Microsoft Clip Organizer.

If you use Microsoft Windows Live Writer to create your blog posts, you can simply copy and paste the clip art into your work. To do this, click the Copy to Clipboard icon beneath the clip, move your cursor to where you want the clip in your document, right-click, and then click Paste.

Anne-Marie Nichols is the Social Media Manager at Mom Central Consulting. You can also find her blogging up some healthy recipes at This Mama Cooks!

Anne-Marie Nichols