Small Businesses And Personal Projects (NAPSA)—Asthe Internet gains sophistication and online photo and user-generated video sites gain popularity, there’s increasing pressure for everything online to look good. Consumers are demanding that even small businesses and personal blogs look as polished as some Fortune 500 companies. How- ever, most of us just don’t know where to start. People wrongly assume that adding images or videois difficult or expensive. It’s no surprise that people have this misconception. Finding and buying images and video was once a complicated, difficult process. Royalty structures were confusing and expensive and the $200-plus price tag kept ordinary people from utilizing images. That’s no longer the case. It’s now easy to find original, highquality images or even motion clips and animations for your Web site, personal journal or business presentations. And royalty-free images (paying onceto license the image for unlimited use) start priced as low as $1 at various sites. When looking online, be sure to look for stock photo or video sites that: Are easy to use, with tips for nondesigners Clearly explain price and paymentoptions Have inspected the images for legality and trademark issues. iStockphoto was thefirst to sell community-generated photos, changing the way stock imagery is sold forever. The site offers highquality, royalty-free stock images for as little as $1 each. iStock also recently added video clips starting as low as $5 each. Founder and CEO BruceLivingstone started the site by giving away his own photographs. Soon, other photographers and designers were clamoring to do the same. It became so popular, iStock started charging to pay the bandwidth bills. Now, Lisa Gagne/iStockphoto Photos like these are available for as low as $1 online, to enhance your work and personal documents. iStockphoto is the world’s most visited online image market with more than a million images and videos to offer. Thousands of new files are addeddaily. Especially nice for small businesses, iStockphoto offers a feature called Copyspace, allowing you to designate where on an image you would like space for words. For example, a veterinarian creates reminder cards. Not only can he search for pictures of dogs, he can specify where the blank space needs to be for the message. Great imagery can energize your Web site, but don’t let your imagination stop there. iStockphoto’s million-member community has made everything from print ads, posters and brochures to direct mail postcards and even wedding invitations. And as video grows prevalent on Websites or in pre- sentations, you can appear edgy and tech-savvy for less cash than your morning grande latte habit. Everyone, from real estate brokers andlocal bandsto faith-based organizations, medical practices and magazine publishers, has found images and video clips online that bring their ideasto life. For more information about images and video clips, visit iStockphoto.com.
