Graphic Design Resources
This page offers recommendations for finding graphic images for your website, articles, and books. (For more recommendations click here.)
Always read the license agreement before you use a free image for a commercial purpose such as a shopping cart, landing page or book cover. When you do client work be extra careful when searching for images. You would not want to violate a license agreement and get your client in trouble. Better to buy the rights to an image and charge the licensing fee to the client.
Graphic Design Software
Good:
Canva.com offers a free cloud-based graphic design software. This creative platform keeps getting better and now includes many design tools for its free and paid plans.
https://www.canva.com/
GIMP is free open source software which runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux)
https://www.gimp.org/
Better:
Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher are Mac-only alternatives to Adobe products. These programs have a one-time fee ($50 each) and can be used on up to six computers within one family when purchased through the Mac App store. Unlike Adobe apps, this software does not have a subscription fee. Unlike cloud-based options, this software will work when your internet connection is down.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
Canva Pro and Enterprise: Canva offer free, pro, teams and enterprise level plans. You may find one of these plans meets your graphic design needs.
https://www.canva.com/pricing/
Best:
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are the mainstay programs of graphic designers everywhere. Depending on which programs you need, the monthly subscription price is from $10/month to $60/month for everything. Adobe lets you use your subscription on two computers. For most designers this means a computer with a big screen in the office and a laptop to take to clients. My wife and I use Adobe products for our graphic design projects. We used Adobe Audition to edit episodes of the Ron Paul Homeschooling Podcast.
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html
Image License Categories
“Free images” means you pay nothing up front and no royalty payments in the future.
“Royalty free” can include an up front cost of $1 to $33+. This is a one-time cost and you do not pay anything in the future as you sell your products in the future.
“Premium” means you pay something up front for the rights to the image. Your rights may be limited to digital usage only or allow you to use them on digital products as well as physical products. This is important because you wouldn’t want to choose an image for a Kindle book that you couldn’t later use for a print book.
Graphic Image Resources
You may find these websites helpful with your projects.
These images are free with attribution. Some photographs are for noncommercial use only.
https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
These images are royalty free and do not require attribution for commercial usage.
https://pixabay.com/
https://morguefile.com/
“Graphic resources for everyone. Find Free Vectors, PSD, Icons and photos.”
http://www.freepik.com/
“Free Clip Art You Can Use For Anything You Like.”
http://www.clker.com/
“Free Photos and Images. Plus premium images from Getty Images.” You can use these free images for most uses including websites, e-books and printed books. Not licensed for print-on-demand t-shirts, coffee cups, etc.
http://www.freeimages.com/
These websites sell images either by subscription or on a per image basis.
https://us.fotolia.com/ (Adobe)
http://www.shutterstock.com/
iStockPhoto is owned by Getty Images. “Explore millions of royalty-free images, illustrations and videos at ridiculously great prices”
http://www.istockphoto.com/
Disclosure: Please note that some of the product links are affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. Please understand that my recommendations are for products I have used or have been used by people I trust. I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions I make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.