Writers become so used to creating vivid imagery with words, that its easy to forget the importance of real visual images to draw the eye and attention of your potential readers.

Although I went to design school (briefly!) it’s usually easier to leverage the talent of others when putting together a graphic design. Whether you are designing a new blog, website or putting together an illustrated book or brochure, good quality photos serve an important role in first grabbing attention.

Let me just warn you from  personal  experience now, grabbing an image off Google Image Search can lead to LOTS of problems. (Don’t ask!)  Likewise sites such as Flickr may have copyright free images, however make sure you read the license carefully before you use these photos and graphics.

By far the best way to ensure your rights to an image is by buying rights from the original creator. Of course if you hire a photographer, that can be big bucks, especially if there are models and locations involved.

The answer is to use a stock photo site. Even then you can end up paying a lot per image.  On a recent project, I chose to use DreamTimes and was happily suprised at the quality and low cost compared to many other stock photo sites. I put together a set of graphics for a new template for under $24, in fact I even used a couple of free images from their site for backgrounds. Its not just photos, they have all sorts of graphics in vector format as well.

Check out DreamTimes for your next graphical project.

PS: You can also upload and sell your own photos hassle free once you have an account.