Fotolia: Royalty Free Stock Photos

I was first introduced to Fotolia.com through 1and1.com. 1and1 had a section dedicated to images and they had a link to fotolia with a promotion for signing up for a free account. So I tried it out.

As a web developer, I need images all the time, but sometimes a budget will not allow for a $100+ image for the homepage. Personally, I think it is ridiculous to charge that much for an image unless it was to be used for a billboard ad. Fotolia advertised prices of just $1. I liked that idea. Fotolia also advertised that you could sell images that you own, I liked that even more.

Signup was quick and simple. I started browsing what seemed to be an endless gallery of images. Many very high quality images. I enjoyed the way I could hover over a thumbnail to view the image larger. The first time I navigated Fotolia's website, I felt that their site seemed to load slowly, yet since then they have greatly improved the speeds that they pages load. Which must be a difficult task considering how large high quality images can become.

I have purchased many images from Fotolia, including the one in my banner. I have yet to sell any, but I am planning to begin tinkering with my 10x Optical 5MP Kodak Camera.

Chris