Royalty Free Stock Photos from fotolia

Just because photos and images are on the Internet, does not mean they are free to use for whatever you want them for.  Some people get quite upset if/when you use their images without permission - even if you give them linkage and credit - so it's always a good idea to check the licensing before using.

The people at fotolia gave me a free 30-day trial subscription (5 images per day) to their site so I could try it out.  The site offers thousands, no millions of royalty free images.  The royalty-free license allows you to use images in your projects without limitations on time, the number of copies printed, or geographical location of use.

They offer two types of plans - Pay-As-You-Go and Subscription.  Anyone can sign up for a free account and begin searching for images.  They have a really great search function, and you can search for images by keyword, concept and category, color, and more - to find just the right image.  Fotolia will also suggest similar images or items in the same series, which would be especially helpful if you're doing a project and want the images to coordinate.  Save any images you like to your 'Lightbox' and organize them any way you like - perfect for finding the images you like again!

Once you're ready to buy images, decide what kind of plan you want.  The per-image cost is higher with the Pay-As-You-Go plan, but I think it's better, unless you need a lot of images.  The subscription I had was for 5 images a day, and that meant I had to go back every single day and download those 5 images, and then I had to wait until my time re-set to the next day - and go back again to download another 5 images.  I found that I did not really need that many images, and some days - even though I meant to go and download my 5 images - I just didn't get there.  They have a new monthly subscription plan that might solve that problem since they give you the whole month to download the files you want (you choose the number), and if you don't download them, they roll over to the next month. 

I did download several images during my month's subscription.  I just haven't used many of them.  I am going to keep adding images to my lightbox - because there are some great images there - and if/when I have a real need for a great royalty free image, I'll just buy some credits and do the Pay-As-You-Go thing.

If you're looking for images, be sure to check out fotolia.  If you'd like to sell some images, you can do that too.

Related articles

• A Picture's Worth 1,000 Links: How To Find and Cite Images (blueglass.com)
• Figure Out Where a Photo Originated (howto.wired.com)
• Photo Pin - Royalty-free Image Search (freetech4teachers.com)

Aurora over Norway (Time Lapse)

This is absolutely, totally, completely amazing!


The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

More info at Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Explanation: Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. Such was the case earlier this month when one of the largest auroral displays in recent years appeared over northern locations like the border between Norway and Russia. Pictured in the above time-lapse movie, auroras flow over snow covered landscapes, trees, clouds, mountains and lakes found near Kirkenes, Norway. Many times the auroras are green, as high energy particles strike the Earth's atmosphere, causing the air to glow as electrons recombine with their oxygen hosts. Other colors are occasionally noticeable as atmospheric nitrogen also becomes affected. In later sequences the Moon and rising stars are also visible. With the Sun expected to become ever more active over the next few years, there may be many opportunities to see similarly spectacular auroras personally, even from areas much closer to the equator. 

Someday, I really want to see these in person!

Related articles

• Time-lapse Tuesday: Ultimate aurora (newscientist.com)

Get a Free Photo Book

Inkubook wants to give you a free photo book. All you have to do is sign up by October 31, 2008. Yes, I know that's tomorrow, but I just found out about this. Tell your friends, and they can get a free book, too. Then, upload your pictures, get your friends to share some pictures, and create your photo book. I think the hardest part is deciding which pictures to use.

The 1-2-3 of your FREE BOOK

1. Sign up with Inkubook by October 31, 2008 and start your book.
2. Using the "Invite Friends" feature, invite someone to join Inkubook and submit a few photos to include in your book. We'll send your friend a promotion code to use for a free book.
3. Finish your book then order it within 30 days of joining Inkubook. Use this code EJR372, which is good for any book up to 120 pages!

I found out about this on MomReviews. Thanks for mentioning it, Elizabeth!

Expand the Capabilities of Your Camera

Image via WikipediaI was writing something on my other blog about downloading pictures from my digital camera, and Zemanta suggested an article that sounded interesting. While I admit that mostly I put my camera in 'Auto' mode and point and shoot, I like the idea that it can do more. If only I can figure out how to use all those extra options... I really need to review the lessons from my online Sony class.

From this Zemanta-suggested article, I found out that there is a free, open source project called CHDK that can turn your point-and-shoot Canon camera into a super camera. From what I can tell, you copy some files to your camera's SD card, and CHDK expands the capabilities of your camera way beyond what it can do now. You can get features like RAW shooting mode, live RGB histograms, motion-detection, time-lapse, and even games on your existing camera. It's non-permanent, so you can try it out and easily remove it whenever you want.

I don't really have time to play with it now, but I wanted to save the article and the links so I can read more about it and try it later. Do let me know if you've tried this or if you think this is helpful.

Zemanta suggested some additional articles that may be helpful:

Related articles

• Supercharge Your Digital Camera With Open-Source Firmware [via Zemanta]
• How to Make the Most of Your CHDK Camera [Camera Hacks] [via Zemanta]
• How-To: Expand your camera with CHDK [via Zemanta]
• Porting CHDK to new cameras [via Zemanta]
• Turn Your Point-and-Shoot into a Super-Camera [Camera Hacks] [via Zemanta]

Words and Pictures

One of my favorite sites, and one I don't spend nearly enough time on, is Tabblo. It's a great site for sharing pictures, but that's just the beginning. The idea behind Tabblo is that you can easily put together photos and words to tell a story. They have plenty of pre-styled templates, and they can all be customized to give you the exact look you want. When you are finished, you have your very own tabblo, or web page. You can share them with other members of the Tabblo community, invite your friends via email, share them on a blog or website, or even order printed versions of your creations. You can also download a high quality pdf version and print it on your own printer.

Here's one I did about a year ago:

---

“If every year is a marble, how many marbles do you have left? How many sunrises, how many
opportunities to rise to the full stature of your being?”

Joy Page

... See my Tabblo

---

Tabblo generates the code and makes it easy to share. Even if you don't share your tabblos on another blog or web page, it's fun to share them with the rest of the Tabblo community. There are groups to join, people to meet, other tabblos to comment on. There are some really talented photographers using Tabblo. I'm always amazed at what I see.

If you haven't tried Tabblo yet, go ahead and give it a try. It's a lot of fun, and it's FREE!

Tabblo is part of Hewlett-Packard.