Pictures make you remember good times but also bad times. They capture the past and let you remember all the moments that made your life worth living. Imagine the world without images! It is impossible.

The importance of pictures can also be seen in the Internet. On every other web site you can see pictures, as bandwidth is not an issue anymore. And with digital cameras the burden of having to develop pictures has gone too. As a web site owner you might have asked yourself the question of where you can find pictures.

I hope to uncover this to you in this article: How to find good pictures on the Internet.

First we have to figure out where we can get pictures that we will be allowed to post on our web sites.

Where to Find Great Pictures

If you want to start up your browser and open Google to find pictures than you are not on the right track. The first problem with using Google is that you never know, with the pictures you found, whether you are allowed to use them on your web site or not. Secondly you don’t know whether the person who uploaded it, stole it from someone else. If that was the case you could be held accountable for uploading it to your web site even though you didn’t know about it.

Therefore don’t use Google to find images. It simply doesn’t work for our purposes.

Buying Pictures

One method to find good pictures is to buy them from stock image web sites. The images available on stock image web sites are of great quality. But buying a picture for every article will be quite expensive. As the average blogger cannot afford to buy a picture for every post, it is of no use for us.

But what if you want to find great pictures that don’t cost anything? Which web site could you possibly visit?

Free Pictures

Flickr is the first address I can recommend to find images for articles. Flickr offers pictures from professional photographers for you to download. This is one of the reasons why it has become so popular.

The next source I can recommend is stock.xchng. This is a web site which offers free images available for you to download. All you really need to do is sign up for it and you can start downloading pictures right away.

But be aware, in both cases there are some restrictions you need to know about.

Image Restrictions

If you want to add a picture to your web site you need the rights to be able to do that. You can’t just go on a web site and simply download an image and post it on your web site. That’s not how it works.

Flickr Licenses

In Flickr there are lots of different licenses. These licenses restrict what you can do with the picture you downloaded. Some of them can’t be put on a web site that contains advertisement. Other licenses won’t allow you to edit the picture in any way.

I personally use the Attribution license since you are allowed to do almost everything with the pictures. All you have to do is credit the author of the picture when using it, by linking to the author’s Flickr page. You can search for pictures with the Attribution license here.

The other Flickr licenses, in my opinion, restrict too much what you can do with the photo. If you want to read more about these licenses then go ahead and visit Skellie’s great article about finding and using amazing flickr images.

Stock.xchng

Stock.xchng’s licenses are similar to those of Flickr. Generally you can use the pictures for anything since they contain very few restrictions. But sometimes the author requires you to notify him or to give him credit by also linking to the author’s page.

Before downloading pictures please read about the standard restrictions of stock.xchng pictures. Also visit both web sites to see which works best for you.

What to Search For

The trouble with finding images is to know what to search for in order to find them. There are thousands of great pictures out there but what good is it, if you can’t find them. First of all let’s explore what you want to find.

There are several types of things you want to find as an image:

• an object
• a location
• an emotion or feeling

You can of course add to this list but I feel that these are the most important ones.

Finding an object is rather easy. For example if you want a picture of an apple you might search for apple. If you want to find an apple that is used in a recipe or simply as food, then you should search for apple food.

Similar to objects are locations. They are also relatively easy to find. All you really need to do is to search for the specific location you are looking for.

You can also search for emotions or feelings. This is actually the very best way to find amazing pictures. Feelings describe a picture as a whole. If you search for a sad picture then the whole picture will convey a sad atmosphere. On the other hand when you search for an object then the object is usually just part of the picture. It doesn’t sum up the picture all together but it is just one element of the picture.

Pictures that stir a feeling in the viewer make the person that much more interested, not only at the images but also at your written words. If you can offer a great image then your visitors will look more closely at it and probably even remember it better.

If the picture conveys more than one emotion than this is great. It is even better if these emotions are almost opposite of each other. For example this picture conveys both sadness but also calmness.

This picture seems to be very simple. On the other hand it is very complex.

How to Find Great Pictures

Since we now know what we should search for, we can start using Flickr’s and stock.xchng’s search functions.

To find good picture through Flickr you might want to consider using the Attribution license search function. When you enter a keyword such a yellow flower it will return all the results.The results are sorted by “most relevant”. Generally though these pictures are not the best. In order to find better pictures you should click on “most interesting”. And just like that we found a beautiful picture of a yellow flower.

In stock.xchng it is similar. You can decide whether to use the date as a basis for a search. But of course there are other possibilities such as the number of downloads it has received. In this case, I recommend to use the number of downloads as a basis for finding good images.

Don’t Destroy It

Once you have found a great image that you could use on your web site be very careful with the editing. There are some pictures that you can edit without losing its feeling. But there are some which can be totally ruined through simple image editing.

I actually wanted to use another picture in this article as a way to show you what a great picture is, but then after trying to make it fit to the web site I realized that it lost all of its power.

Therefore always take a second look at the pictures you are including in your articles. You might even compare them to the original ones. If you think there is something wrong with a picture or it simply doesn’t work then go ahead and search for a new one. You now have the skills to do this.

Was this article useful for finding images? Do you now know where you can find the right pictures?

The Art of Finding Amazing Pictures is a post from And Break

Some people hate to write. Some actually love it. People love it because it is a form of communication. Further writing offers you a way to express your feelings and become more conscious of yourself.

No matter why you like to write, there are several steps you can take to improve your articles.

Thorough Research

Before you even start writing an article you should do research. Research includes not only collecting information about a topic. It also means searching for different views of people on a topic. When writing on the Internet, it also includes searching for valuable links for your readers.

By providing links to interesting articles you not only get attention but you also give your readers the possibility of diving deeper into the topic.

I researched a lot for this post and found several very useful tips on how to create better articles. I include these links because, not only do they provide more content for interested readers, but they also acknowledge the work of other people.

Take Your Time

The next step is to spend time. The more time you spend on an article the better it is going to be. It’s that simple.

You cannot expect to have written a good article within 30 minutes. Great posts will take up lots of time. First of all you need time for outlining the article ideas. The next step is to do some additional research on the topic you are talking about. Then you head over to actually writing the article.

But wait, you are still not done. It follows adding images, proof reading, refining and editing the article. And this over and over again.

Bottom line: Simply take time to create a truly unique article.

Find Awesome Pictures

Images are a very important part of your article. They create focus points for your readers. Because all the immediate attention is focused on images, it is important that they underline or reflect key aspects of your article.

There are different ways you can find great pictures but one way is to use Flickr. Skellie has written an excellent article on how to find great pictures via Flickr.

In general you can not only use Flickr but also lots of other sources to find images that suit your needs. I occasionally use stock.xchng to find pictures, as all of the photos provided there, are free.

Write with Your Readers in Mind

This aspect is also essential for creating great content or articles for that matter. If you do not aim at writing for your readers than where is the purpose in writing an article?

Writing is essentially a form of communication. You want to share your thoughts and your point of view with other people. Further you expect the very same from other people. If you don’t want to communicate, then don’t write.

I would still guess most people want to write. Therefore it’s necessary to think about your readers.

Ask yourself some questions. Is this really the kind of content that I want to publish on my blog? Does it fit to my previous articles?

Only Publish Articles You Like

This is another important lesson. People tend to publish posts even when they are not happy with them in the first place. This is a huge mistake. It’s actually not a problem for yourself but rather for your readers. They have to read what you wrote. You don’t

Therefore it’s easy to write articles that you aren’t satisfied with. Articles that reach your level of quality are way harder to create. Because most people do not take this route, it’s ultimately a way you can distinguish yourself from other people.

Taking time to write an article doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun doing so. Your happiness should be supported by your writing. And that’s why you should write about topics that you are enthusiastic about.

If you don’t really care, don’t write. If you are a student and everybody is talking about exams and papers and you simply don’t care, let it be. If your job bores you, it will bore us. (If you despise your job with a rich, enduring passion, that’s another thing entirely!) Write for yourself; you are, in the end, your most important reader.

This is an important lesson as no one forces you to write if you don’t like to. In the end you personally need a reason to write otherwise there is no point in writing at all.

If you want to dig deeper into this topic I suggest reading some tips from professional writers.

5 Tips for Creating Stunning Articles is a post from And Break

The article is about speeding up WordPress blogs. It is pretty long and should cover all different sorts of optimization possibilities. Go ahead and take a look at it if you are interested in optimizing your blog.

Also take a look at the new article page and see if you like it. It’s nothing fancy and I also have to change a few things around but I think overall it is pretty good.

New Expert Article is a post from And Break

Just Write

First of all, you really have to start writing everything that pops up in your mind. Just keep writing no matter how useless it may seem to you.

Do Not Correct Mistakes

Make sure that you do not obsess about mistakes you are making, they don’t matter at the moment and you can always correct them later. Correcting would otherwise interrupt your writing process, therefore avoid it.

Avoid Rephrasing Sentences

Also do not rephrase any sentences. As with fixing mistakes, rephrasing will hurt your writing flow.

Write Shitty First Drafts

As Anne Lamott points out in her book “Bird by Bird”, shitty first drafts are the way every writer starts an article or book for that matter. Just don’t obsess about getting everything right in the first place, no one does.

Have Fun Editing
This is probably the worst part when overcoming the writer’s block, you have to edit all that crap you wrote a few minutes ago.

4 Steps to Overcome the Writer's Block is a post from And Break

When I first started blogging I always wondered how it was possible to reduce the size of images because on the Internet this is extremely important. If you upload pictures that are too big than this might take up a lot of bandwidth of your server. Further your users won’t be happy about having to wait 3 seconds for a picture to load.

But how do I reduce the size of pictures?

The process is simple once you get used to it.

Download a Photo Editing Software

First of all I suggest downloading a photo editing software. There are several programs out on the web that you can use but I always use GIMP.

Gimp works on all operating systems. It doesn’t come with all of the features of Photoshop but it’s enough to do some simple editing . That’s why I recommend to download GIMP. If you want to buy a more professional software such as Photoshop than go ahead, if you are a student you get 80% off on Amazon. You should still be able to follow all the steps that reduce the size of images.

Setup Gimp
The next step is to install the application. Choose the settings you want and you should be fine. After you are done setting up, go ahead and open GIMP.

Open an Image

Click on the main window. Then click on File -> Open. This should open up a new window and ask for a image file.

Go ahead and select a file that you want to reduce in size.

There are actually two steps we are going to take to decrease the size of the image. But before we do this, you need to know that the bigger the picture is the more bandwidth it consumes.

Therefore, posting a 1600×1200 picture on your web site is going to take up a lot of bandwidth as the image’s size is at least 1mb or higher.

Reduce the Image Size

To reduce the space an image takes up we have to make the image smaller. On the top of the main window, where your image is displayed, there should be an option saying Image. Click on it and scroll to the section where is written Scale Image… After clicking on this button a new window should appear.

Tip: Now usually the width of the content region of your web site layout is around 500 pixel. This means keeping a width of an image of more than 500 pixel does not make sense, only if you want people to be able to see it in full width when clicking on it.

Since this is rarely the case you may want to make sure that you scale it down to around 500 pixel if you want it to take up the whole horizontal content section. If you want to use a picture but still have text to the right or left of it, then scale its width down to 200-300 pixel.

After changing the width value, the height will be automatically adjusted. Click on the Scale button and the picture will be adjusted to the values you entered.

Reduce the Quality of the Image

The second step is to now save the image. Again while saving you can reduce the image size even further.

Click on File and then on Save As to save it under a different name. Let’s name it default1.jpg . Note that .jpg is the format the picture is saved in and the actual name of the file is default1. Click on Save and a new window should pop up.

In the window you can now reduce the quality of the image itself. If you think you do not need such a quality picture than go ahead and turn it down a little, but not too much. I usually choose to reduce the quality to around 85 depending on how important it is.

Save the File

The last step is to really save the file. Now go ahead and  compare the size of your two images, the original and the new one.

As a general rule, pictures over 50kb are too big, but of course it always depends on the circumstances.

One last tip: It might also be helpful to save pictures in different formats, the most common ones are .png and .jpg . It varies from picture to picture but usually a png file will reduce the size of an image significantly if the image consists mostly of text. On the other hand if you have almost no text then it might make sense to save it as a .jpg file. Just try it out

A WordPress plugin is available which doesn’t follow the steps I mentioned above but still reduces your image size a lot. It does so by, for example, removing all the unneeded information, such as with what camera the picture was taken. In doing so it certainly decreases the size of the file. The plugin is called WordPress Smush.it.

How to Reduce the Size of Pictures is a post from And Break