Posting with pics

[MasterYourCard]

Does it make a difference in your opinion?

I rarely do it, but I'm thinking of starting since most of the successful blogs seem to have at least one per post.

[Lynnae]

I like pictures, because they break up the text and make a page of blog posts easier on the eyes. Pictures catch the eye when you're scrolling through a feed reader really quickly.

[amandajane]

Yeah I think it does make a difference. The problem is good photos are hard to come by on the web. Unless you rip them off from other sites and that's not a good idea for your credibility. Where would you source your photos from or would you take them yourself?

I'm seeing a gap in the market here and I'm a photography student, lol.

[rstlne]

Originally Posted by amandajane

Where would you source your photos from or would you take them yourself?

One way would be to do a Creative Commons search: http://search.creativecommons.org/

If you're looking for a common item, there are surprisingly many photos on Flickr with few or no rights reserved.

However, I do take lots of pictures and I prefer to use my own whenever possible just for the sake of having pride in my work.

[Seb]

I make it a point to use at least one image in each post. I like it because it breaks up the monotony of nothing but text, and it makes the post seem more "individual".

I get most of my images from www.sxc.hu. It has tons of free stock images you can use royalty free.

[breadandbutter]

That would be great. At least people can take the time to comment and look mat the pictures..

[khorrell]

What other sources do you use for pictures?

[gt0163c]

Personally, unless the picture is directly referenced in the blog (like a chart or graph or used to illustrate a "how-to" step) I prefer most posts to not have pictures, especially not pictures embedded in the text. The thing is, I want to get the information from the blog quickly. I don't want to wait for a picture to load or have to jump around trying to figure out where the text goes next (this is more a problem with embedded pictures as sometimes my feed reader has formatting issues with pictures). Fairly regularly, especially for posts/blogs which used colored text, annoying backgrounds or too many pictures, I will just copy the text that I want to read and paste it into a text editor and read the information that way.
So, while it might not look as nice, I generally prefer the utility of just text without lots of images. But, again, this is most likely just me.

This, of course, does not apply to personal blogs, in which case I do want to see my friends' cute kids or sister's vacation pictures.

[purplefdu]

I use pics as a header on my personal blog, in a standard size of 500 x 200 pixels. Its normally what I'm blogging about or something that would relate. I tend to get most of mine from Flickr or sxc if they aren't my own or product shots from the company's site. I link any images that aren't mine back to where they came from though. So a Flickr found pic links to the pic's page there, a skittles pic would link to the skittles site, etc.

My dog's site usually just has the thumbnails at the bottom of posts and its way less visually interactive. If you check out my two blog links in my sig you can compare them.

As for professional business blogs, it could come in handy, but probably alot less likely. I sometimes find ones with cute clip art or images barely relevant to be annoying and misleading.

[amyschiff]

I definitely like pictures on posts. I'm a visual person and I feel like it helps with readability to break up the text a bit. However, I'm very wary of using images that you don't have appropriate rights to because I definitely think it is a credibility issue.

I work at a web design firm and we mainly use istockphoto for stock photography (meaning royalty-free images). They usually cost, but they are also really good quality and you don't really have to worry about copyright issues.

stock xchng like purple mentioned is also good because there are free, user-submitted ones.

Regardless of where you get your pictures, make sure you read the terms of use! Sites will say exactly what you can and can't do with their images.