This is a follow up article to “Make Your Website Better“. I wanted to take a chance over the next few days to dive deeper into five areas that I feel that most church websites lack. Today I want to provide some resources for pastors and web designers out there who are interested in where exactly to get stock images to use for sermon series, worship slides, or just to help inspire ideas. These resources include some free image libraries and some paid or subscription based libraries
I love images. They can be powerful, dramatic, inspiring, and creative. I spend a lot of time looking for quality images, some of which I plan on sharing in future articles, but for right now I want to share exactly where I look for images. Some of these resources are free and some you will have to pay to access. Please make sure the check the user licenses on each image before using them.
Stock.XCHNG
Probably my favorite place to start my searches for free images is Stock.XCHNG. This website is a stock photography site that allows users to share their stock images for the community to use.
deviantART
While you need to be careful on what you search here, the community around deviantART are amazingly talented. Great place to find artwork, images, and graphics designed for the community.
Free Foto
Another good place to look for free photos and textures.
Texture King
A ton of texture images that are free for personal and commercial use.
StockXPERT
This is a pay-per-download stock website, but the quality is simply amazing. I use this for a lot of work I do.
iStockPhoto
Pay-per-download stock website, very high quality images available.
Shutterstock
One more pay-per-download website.
FreeDigitalPhotos
Free photos for commercial and personal use.
FreeStockPhotos.com
A small free library of images that can be used for personal or commercial use.
Free Images
A small library of free images.
Every Stock Photo
Search engine for free images. The restrictions for the images are based on the artwork owners, so be careful.
Public Domain Photos
5000 free stock photos that are public domain that you can use for your personal or commercial use.
Free Photos Bank
Database of free images for use.
Another great one is creationswap.com I use them all the time when making bulletins and hen I need sermon series graphics.