Charmskins

I find myself doing a lot of searching for great images to create template designs from and I thought I would share some of my favorites with you. Some sites require membership and the images must be purchased to be used without copyright infringement. But as you’ll see, there are a lot of great photos and illustrations that can be purchased for as little as $1. That price is hard to beat and is an exceptionally good value. Of course it’s easy to use the search engines for free images but the best quality images must be purchased.

My personal favorite right now is Dreamstime, they have an incredible selection and their prices are very low.

My second favorite site is iStockphoto which is also a great resource for both photos and illustrations but the images are usually a bit higher priced.

Third would have to be Fotolia which also has images for as low as $1 with a huge selection in every category you can think of.

These are just a few of the best ones but there are many, many more. Too many to list here, a simple web search will turn up tons of results, hopefully this list will save you some time.

Always remember to be aware that images you find on the internet may not be in the public domain and using them could be a copyright infringement. Stealing someones photo’s for your personal or business use is against the law, just because they are on display on the internet doesn’t mean you have the rights to use them. Often, it’s just a matter of asking the copyright holder for permission. Most people are flattered that you would want to use their photos and asking first is the right thing to do.

tags: photos, images, illustrations, art, copyright, design