“I need some images to make my screencasts look more presentable. Because I don’t want to get my company into trouble, I need to be absolutely sure the images are legit. Where do I go, and how do I get the best bang for my buck?”
There are a metric ton of online services for downloading pictures to spice up your video content. Where specifically to go is a matter of personal choice. But I think for everyone, a pay-to-download service should fulfill two basic goals:
- It should grant you unlimited use at a very attractive price, and
- The images should be very high quality, with lots of selection.
For me personally, I have come to rely on Fotolia.com as a near perfect mix of quality, selection, and price.
Here are a few things that tip the scales for me in its favor:
- You can choose between a credit-based system and a monthly subscription.
- The subscription option is highly versatile. There are several monthly download quantities for all kinds of budgets. Also: If you don’t need a ginormous image (and for screencasting, you usually don’t), you can generally pick something smaller that will only cost you half a download.
- And my favorite part is that your unused downloads ROLL OVER. Screencasting projects are highly variable – I’ll need more downloads some months, and fewer in others. This feature means I’m covered either way.
So that’s the “why” of my choice, but today, I want to demonstrate the “how.” The following screencast will show you:
- How to go about choosing the right images for your project.
- How to organize and buy them, and
- How to do it as economically as possible.
February 1, 2016 @ 4:32 pm
I have found https://www.123rf.com/ to be a really good source of cost effective images. I use a lot of images for blog articles and paying $10-20 for images that I will use one time for a blog, especially with the volume I putting up each month doesn’t work. What I like about this site is the selection seems decent and you can get small images for $1, which is fine when using them for web content.
February 2, 2016 @ 5:42 am
Thanks for the suggestion, Michael. It looks like a great source. FWIW, I don’t pay anywhere the per-image cost you allude to in your post at Fotolia. I imagine it comes down to your anticipated volume. With my (low-to-mid level) plan, my images end up costing me about two bucks a pop when you take into consideration that most only cost me a “half-download.” I’ll definitely check out 123rf, though.
July 25, 2016 @ 8:54 pm
I am using Adobe Stock collections that allow 10 downloads. Fotolia is an Adobe product how are they different. I would pay $29 per month for the 10 downloads. I would not be using lots of images since I would only video cast tutorials for my own firm. I would be a low volume user of any product.
Elizabeth
July 25, 2016 @ 9:09 pm
Adobe has since acquired Fotolia. So whether going through Fotolia directly or via Adobe, it’s the same collection of images. They each have different pricing structures. The main advantage to using Adobe Stock is its direct integration with Adobe apps, so if you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud customer, this could make all the difference. I also subscribe to Adobe CC, but for the time being will stick with Fotolia directly, as I’ve acquired a large quantity of rollover images over time, and Adobe currently offers no way to migrate from Fotolia.com.
Hope this helps!
December 11, 2016 @ 8:46 pm
Depositphoto
March 6, 2017 @ 10:46 pm
Thank you Daniel.
This video is great.
I am waiting for some of my customers to pay me and I will be signing up for Ninja Academy.
Thank you, Sir.
I look forward to it.
March 7, 2017 @ 7:43 am
Hi Mike, thanks so much. Ninja Academy is probably the coolest thing we’ve done to date. I hope you get a lot out of it 🙂