Stock Photography Images from Fotolia.com And Dreamstime.com

Fotolia.com and Dreamstime.com are two Web sites that offer stock photography images that are reasonably priced and accessible to freelance AC content writers. Fotolia.com is better than Dreamstime.com, but neither one is better than 123RF.com, which I've discussed elsewhere.

Fotolia.com offers a few, usually fifteen, stock photograph images as free royalty-free images, but the quality is usually pretty ordinary. The link to the Free Photos is at the bottom of the page in the footer. The purchasable royalty-free images have a really nice range and versatility. What you can't find elsewhere in a free royalty-free image, you can surely find at Fotolia.com.

Fotolia.com is an internationally based Web site with sites opened in Espana, France, UK, Deutschland, Italia, Portugal, and Brasil. Photographers who contribute to Fotolia.com hail from even more places than that including, for example, the Russian Federation and Poland. This diversity adds tremendously to the range of subject matter.

Fotolia.com maintains a high standard of selection providing quality professional images for users to choose from. Aside from the fifteen or so free images, all of Fotolia.com image use licenses are sold at a reasonable rate. Three image sizes of Medium (standard), Large, and XLarge are potentially available, some images may only be available in one or two of the sizes. The standard rates for use are $1, $2, and $3 dollars for the respective sizes. Purchases are made through Credits.

In order to make purchases at Fotolia you must be registered with the site and registration is free. Then you must purchase a Credit package starting at $10 equaling 10 Credits. This is not the best choice for Content Producers who write AC content, but if you simply must have an image to go with your article, then at $1 a standard image sized royalty-free image is a viable option. Purchases can be made through PayPal, which all AC Content Producers are used to using, or through credit card. If you dislike these methods, you may contact to make other arrangements.

Downloads of images from Fotolia.com can be obtained one of three ways. You may download a JPEG file to your computer by Saving from a dialog box. You may save a Bitmap image through Rescue Download and Saving from a full screen view of the image. Or you may have it emailed to your Inbox. When I did this, it opened in my Adobe.

Dreamstime.com is my least favorite source for stock photography images. They have a selection of about ten or so free royalty-free images. And they also sell their purchasable royalty-free images for $1, $2, or $3, equaling 1, 2, or 3 Credits. The Credit packages available from Dreamstime.com start at $20 and equal 20 Credits. They also offer Subscription packages, like 123RF.com, that start at $89 for 30 days. Subscription packages lower the cost of the images to "as low as $0.27", with a total daily limit of 10 images downloaded.

The quality of stock photographs available at Dreamstime.com is good but not as consistently good as 123RF.com or Fotolia.com. I don't very often find images that I wish to use. And I don't want to pay $20 when I can get high quality free images elsewhere.

Both Fotolia.com and Dreamstime.com have affiliate referral programs whereby a registered member can gain monetary rewards. Each participant agrees to put a Dreamstime "badge" on their Web site, placement of the badge will be confirmed within a few days. Individuals who click to Dreamstime.com through this badge will be identified and a percentage of their purchases is assigned to affiliate.

So, there are resources available to AC content writers for acquiring images with which to enhance their content. Fotolia.com and Dreamstime.com are two of the three best and most economical choices.