What do you use for pictures?

[MaggieB]

I think you are referring to the little square ads one sees on blogs... those are actually 125 x 125... if you think of either those or the thumbnails at least you have something to judge size with... hope that helps.

[AlexNewell]

For those that use istockphoto.com do you find an image you like and then choose the size? When I go to an image it ends up on large every time but I can choose the x small one instead right? I really have no clue how to really tell what the actual size is going to be before I buy it, is there any way to see that other than just the size?

I'm so bad when it comes to techy stuff so any help would be appreciated. If you have used a certain size istock image on your blog posts or site and could show me an example that would be great.

Angie - yes, just choose the smallest image available, no worries about pixels, just the smallest, whatever they call it.

This is ideal for blog posts!

All The Best

Alex

[angienewton]

Thank you guys!

Alex, so there is X small and small, either is fine correct? Guess it couldn't hurt to buy both sizes for two different images to see what I'm getting.

[AlexNewell]

Spendthrift!!!

:-)

I only buy the totally tiniest, weeniest, cute ones but if you want to get higher resolution for a project that needs really big or high quality photos then you have to spend more than a dollar.

In fact I just looked after a bit of a break at iStockphoto and the prices are higher!

Yeah, xsmall is what we need - something to bear in mind is that we care about file size because that slows down the loading of the webpage. And not only is this bad for the user but big G is now including page loading time in its algorithm.

That means we need to be very careful about image sizes and anything else on the page that slows it down.

Remember that loads of magazine editors and media folk are buying photos here and they need much higher res photos than we do.

[angienewton]

Thank you so much for your help, Alex! I truly appreciate it.

[torontocarol]

My daughter Bridget is a budding photographer and has a number of really nice photos on her website that she is allowing to be used without charge as long as you give her a link back to your site. Her blog is at blogphotos.us

Carol

[Tishia Lee]

Angie I always just buy the xsmall images for blog posts. They are actually fairly decent sized and I end up making them a little bit smaller for my blog posts!

[angienewton]

Thank you Tishia! Awesome feedback everyone.

And Carol, your daughter has beautiful photos!

[Greg]

http://123rf.com is a photo site I've used. The pricing appears to be lower than istock. The selection is as good or better, depending on what you are looking for.

-Greg

[scottcarey]

As far as I could tell from the terms of service, you can use the clip art and photographs on Microsoft's site at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx if you own Microsoft Office. The TOS says you can use them in your web sites and I can't find anything the prohibits their use on commercial web sites.