Finding Affordable/Free Holiday Graphics for Your Website

Whether you're looking for photos about Easter or you need some Christmas illustrations for your Web site, these images can easily be found at low prices on microstock sites. And in some cases, they may cost you nothing.

Where to Buy -

There is quite a selection of microstock sites for you to choose from. However, the best can generally be summed up as the "big five." This list could change with time due to mergers or other reasons, but for now, this is how these sites are ranked. First there's iStockphoto, followed by Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Stockxpert, and Bigstockphoto (cheapest). A few less well known microstock companies you may be interested in are Fotolia, 123RF, and Featurepics.

Types of Imagery -

The types of imagery that you can purchase at these microstock agencies generally fall into two categories. Photography and illustrations. The illustrations often include a vector file format, which allows you to resize and tweak the graphics yourself. Of course, you'll need a vector illustration program like Illustrator to modify the files.

Out of these microstock companies, iStockphoto offers some additional incentives for shopping at their site. Not only does iStockphoto have photography and illustrations for you to purchase, they also offer other types of media. Videos, animations, and even audio can be purchased at this microstock site. None of this media is free, though. Just so you know, Shutterstock also offers videos on their website. And in the future, it is quite possible that all of these agencies will too.

Price -

The cost between these microstock agencies will vary slightly; however, you can expect to pay around five dollars for a medium sized image, and ten to twenty dollars for the largest of images. Thumbnail sized images can be bought for around a dollar or less. You will pay a higher price if you wish to print these images, and then the price will simply depend on how many images you wish to print out. Truly cheap images are for digital use only.

Also, most of these agencies offer subscription plans for their images. Subscription plans simply allow you to purchase a certain number of images for a set price, and then you can download those images at any size for around a credit or so. In the case of your subscription plan, one credit would equal one dollar. This is only a good idea if you want to download several dozen images; otherwise, it's not worth it. Please note that Shutterstock only offers subscription plans, so don't waste your time with them if you don't want to use subscriptions.

As for the other types of media (audio, animations; video), you'll find that videos generally cost a bit more than photos or illustrations. Some of the simple animations only cost around a dollar, and the more complicated ones will cost more. But it's still a great deal.

Dreamstime has a section of free photos and illustrations. Generally, these images are not as good as the ones that cost money. However, they're free so why complain? You can find the Dreamstime free section here.

Locating holiday graphics for your Myspace page or website has never been easier, thanks to microstock agencies. Just remember to read the license agreement carefully, and be sure you pay the correct price if you want to print some of the images. But if you just want some affordable holiday graphics to use on your website, then you will not have any problems.