Frugal Mom Blog

Posts Tagged ‘free images’

Are you in need of graphics for your blog or website but don’t want to spend a lot of money?

Fotolia.com and istockphoto.com are two resources I use exclusively, and are the lowest prices I have found for high quality images.

Both sites have a searchable database of royalty free stock photos for purchase on just about any topic you need.  Fotolia is the cheaper of the two; most xs small graphics (around 460 x 460) sell for 1 credit.  istockphoto normally start around 3 credits for an xs graphic, although you can find xs graphics for 1 credit.

As you browse Fotolia and istock and come across images you like, you can put them in a lightbox for later purchase.  istock allows you to organize your lightbox with folders so you can have images on different topics saved and sorted.

Once you are ready to purchase, you will need to buy credits, which is their form of currency.   They accept all major credit cards, as well as Paypal.  Both sites have a minimum number of credits you must buy.  Fotolia’s minimum purchase is 10 credits for $10.00 and istock’s minimum purchase is 12 credits for $18.00.  You do not have to use your credits all at one time – you can save them for later use.

If you don’t want to pay for images, try some of the copyright free image sites that allow you to use images free of charge.  Make sure you read their terms before downloading the images.  Two popular sites for free images are Freefoto and Stock Exchange.

Do you know of a place to get frugal graphics?  Let us know in the comments!