Using Images

Although text and information is very important on your web pages, images that add bring your site to life. There are a variety of different kinds of images that you can use on your pages, from a variety of sources.

There are several online resources where you will find thousands of images that you can use on your web pages. These sites are searchable to help you find any image that you can think of. These images all cost money, and you will probably want to fund ones that have a one-time cost (they will be labled "royalty free"). We found this image by searching for "puppy" at photosearch.com. Once you find a few suitable images, you can upload the samples to your clients site. Then if your client likes them, you can have them pay for the ones that they want. Prices vary and you will want to check the price of a particular image before quoting it to your client. (Notice this image has water marks since it has not been purchased.)

You can import a variety of images from SpinSite's image library. Go to "Uploads" on the site toolbar and click the "Import" button to see the images that come with SpinSite. In addition, check out our Resources page for other sites where you can find graphics.

Most images are available at different resolutions. Only the lowest resolution needs to be purchased for use on a web page (higher resolutions are necessary when printing the images on paper).

Animated gifs always add fun and excitement to your page by adding movement. There are hundreds of animated gifs available on the internet, and one of the best sources is the Animation Factory.

	A great way to add images, and stay within a narrow budget, is to take them yourself with a digital camera! This is a particularly great way to build a site for a store that is selling products. You can find out what products the owner wants to promote, and then take pictures of the items, and place them on the site.

Businesses often need a custom logo, or some other kind of custom graphic. There are businesses that specialize in creating these types of images Many businesses that you approach will have already done this, and might be able to provide their logo to you in some kind of digital format. If they only have their logo in hard-copy, you might be able to scan it. If they need a custom logo developed, you might be able to find an art student from your school who could either draw a logo, or create one using a variety of different software packages (like Photoshop). This example was created for SpinSite by a graphic artist who specializes in both web and print graphics.

Custom text headings can also add to the look of a page. There are a variety of software packages that let you type in some text, and then customize it with 3-d effects. This text was created using Macromedia Fireworks, but there are a lot of inexpensive utilities that can do this type of thing. Check out download.com and search for "text" to find some of these.