Quality Images say almost everything for a stellar website. It is important for you to get good quality image for web design.
A picture is worth a thousand words…
Most people do not know where to go to find good images. They simply do a Google search, and pick whatever image they like. But there is a problem. Images are copyright protected, and unless you obtain written permission from the owner of the photo, you should not use it.
Where do I find good quality images?
For a doctor’s clinic website, you need photos of people showing some ailments. Most patients will balk at the thought of using their pictures on the website. But unless you show the pictures, visitors will not understand the features and benefits. Similarly, most businesses are at a loss of where to get good quality images. I have listed some free and paid stock image websites and libraries that you can use.
Sure, you can purchase images from Stock image brokers. There are several good quality image brokers, who can provide very high resolution images.
Adobe Stock Images
has fantastic stock images and they are much lesser in cost compared to other providers below. Get 10 Free Images from Adobe Stock by clicking on this link.
Dreams Time has been a long time provider of good images. They have a lot of medical and business website images. I have used them several times, for many projects, and the cost of decent images can be as low as $1 to $3 per image.
Getty Images is the grand daddy of stock images. These images are very high quality, and they cost the most. I try to avoid them at all costs, but I have used them when the client insisted.
Free Stock Image Sites
Pixabay has 2 million images for all kind of websites. I have used photos from here to make Hero images, use as backgrounds or image overlays using Elementor page builder too. They have mostly high quality images for web sites.
Pexels is similar to Pixabay. It has 1+ million images of all sorts. I have used them to make custom calendars and regularly use on websites and even in creating Facebook Ads in our WSQ Funded Digital Marketing Training course.
Unsplash has high resolution images for everyone. You can even upload your own photos there and get attributed when someone uses your photos. There are several categories, and you can search by any keyword. I highly recommend this creative library of quality images for web design.
Considerations for Choosing A Good Quality Image
There are several factors to choose from when picking a good quality image. Some key considerations are:
Resolution of the image
The number of pixels in an image make for the resolution of the image. The higher the resolution, the better the quality, and the higher the size. Keep in mind that if you want to use images on a website, you should only use 72 pixels per inch (72 DPI or 72 PPI).
For Print related work – like making posters, banners, mugs, T-Shirts or using it for any commercial CD cover, magazines, name cards etc. we use a minimum of 300 Dots per inch (300 DPI or PPI). You can learn Photoshop for Beginners at Intellisoft Training in Singapore, and learn all about pixels, resolution, Vector, Scalar, Layers, Filters etc. and get started with Photoshop in just 3 days.
Size of the image
The size of an image can be in Inches, Centimeters, Pixels or Points to get started. You can also edit 8 by 10 photos, A2, A3, A4 sized posters, banners or create a custom sized image in Photoshop too. Plus, you can size or resize images in WordPress also, easily. WordPress supports custom sizes, and even creates the size you need once you key in the parameters. Thumbnail images may be too small. Make sure to upload the right size of your image for your website.
Copyright of the image
Study the copyright that comes with the image. Is it Royalty Free or Rights Managed. Many people think that Royalty Free means Free to use anywhere. This is not the case. Royalty free only means that you pay the Royalty once, and then use the image as per the usage right, for limited or unlimited number of times, at the media types specified in the image release.
Rights managed images are much more expensive, but come with controls like only for use on web or Print, or T-Shirts. They may be released for a fixed number of prints or impressions. Check the fine print before buying this type of images.
Attribution for the image use
If you have used an image from a Royalty Free website, or a Free Website, ideally you should attribute the image to them. You can write the name, email, link, or handle of the copyright owner. They will be notified when you use the image, and no-one can then accuse of using the image without attribution. For best practices of attribution, study this.
Conclusion
Your website, brochure or banner will come alive when you use high quality images for web site. There are huge number of images waiting for your use. Use the free ones from to get started.
And if you find any new source of quality images for web, do let me know. You can post a comment below too.
