[david@zap-clean]

Me again...

I'm looking for some quality images for my upcoming website design - does anyone know any on-line photo archive/library images I can go to for these?  I've got some from http://www.dreamstime.com/ but there's only a limited number of suitable images on it.

[*Hector*]

I don't know of any stock photo sites for carpet cleaners..

However why don't you get some carpet samples dirty them up and do your own before and after close up shots.... That way you will not have any other carpet cleaner yelling at you for stealing their photo's and you will know and can tell your customers with your hand on your heart that they are your before and after pictures..


Just a thought..

[david@zap-clean]

I'm not looking to rip-off photos from other peoples websites.  http://www.dreamstime.com/ for example are a website which allow you to buy the publishing rights to their images - and it has  far better photos available than I could ever snap myself, even with a decent camera. But it's quite expensive.

[wynne jones]

The choices you have are to have something fairly generic from a stock site, do your own or beg someone to let you use theirs until you have your own.   

[david@zap-clean]

I've purchased a couple so far, but need more... what do you think?

www.facebook.com/pages/Zap-Clean/481557091856530?ref=hl
what do you think?

[Simon Gerrard]

One thing that always amazes me is why carpet cleaners clog up their websites with meaningless stock pictures that may look good but mean nothing to your potential customer who is looking for information about you and what you do. The picture you've bought shows a stain, but the customer wants to see it gone, so before and after pictures of your own jobs are key.

Simon

[garry22]

David,

To all intents and purposes, a website is an online sales letter, especially since the Google updates. You now have to write pages for the benifit of the reader (not stuffing in "carpet cleaner "timbuktu" every third word).

If you wrote a long salesletter to be posted to a potential client, would you put general images in, just to make it look better? I hope the answer is no.

Images and video ARE important but they have to earn their place on the page (i.e. be relevant). They also have to be labelled so that the reader knows exactly what they are and why they are there.

Golden rule. Never let the client try to figure out something themselves. Tell them what the image is and why it is there.

As the others say, get your own stuff done as soon as possible. Don't use stock photo's unless you really have to (how many more times will we see "that" chocolate labrador lying on someone's carpet?).

[Mike Halliday]

IMO....most pictures on websites are there to add colour and break up the layout of the page,  a page full of text is intimidating to the reader, when a potential customer lands on your page from google they need to be engaged, text alone does not to this (unless you use different typefaces, colours or tricks like doodles or scribbles)

a photo does not need to mean anything it just has to grab the viewers attention and stop them bouncing away, but if it does mean something then that is a bonus..... but don't  think you need to fill your website with meaningful photos, because you don't

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I agree mike, photos just add to the aroma and help set the scene also breaking up text, look at the master script marketers the newspapers and you'll see how they get people to read text.

Shaun

[Derek_Walker]

You do not really need to spend lots of money on Photo's, there are plenty around which are free without royalties. Some may need a link to the owner. Here is a list of 30 sites, if you trawl through them you will find more than enough until you get some of your own.

http://slodive.com/design/free-stock-photos/

[garry22]

look at the master script marketers the newspapers and you'll see how they get people to read text.

Yep.

Attention getting headline.

Sub paragraph giving summary

Relevant photo's, always with a caption underneath explaining what they are.

[Buckland]

Even with a cheap digital camera you can if you want take perfectly competent pictures for a website - they are not used (jn websites) at high resolution anyway so it really makes no difference having pinpoint sharp pictures - you just need something relevant and fairly generic showing what the customer can generally expect from your service - whatever that may be - many of the pictures on that dreamstime website are rubbish anyway - what has a turbohead cleaning a carpet got to do with hwe - they are US centric anyway - the drycleaning one is good tho!

As long as the pics are clear it is up to the website designer to use them creatively and by cropping even a badly composed picture they can get the result you need - also manufacturers of the gear you use will let you use their official publicity pictures - its no skin off their noses - then as you do jobs you can just use competent phone pics to show before and after scenes in your gallery - also make sure if you open the jpg in photoshop to do your own crops you save them as RGB (web) and not CMYK (which is for print)

[wynne jones]

Even with a cheap digital camera you can if you want take perfectly competent pictures for a website - they are not used (jn websites) at high resolution anyway so it really makes no difference having pinpoint sharp pictures - you just need something relevant and fairly generic showing what the customer can generally expect from your service - whatever that may be - many of the pictures on that dreamstime website are rubbish anyway - what has a turbohead cleaning a carpet got to do with hwe - they are US centric anyway - the drycleaning one is good tho!

As long as the pics are clear it is up to the website designer to use them creatively and by cropping even a badly composed picture they can get the result you need - also manufacturers of the gear you use will let you use their official publicity pictures - its no skin off their noses - then as you do jobs you can just use competent phone pics to show before and after scenes in your gallery - also make sure if you open the jpg in photoshop to do your own crops you save them as RGB (web) and not CMYK (which is for print)

I agree with all that, is that you and your mrs in the white sweatshirts on your site.

[feldon]

look at the master script marketers the newspapers and you'll see how they get people to read text.

Yep.

Attention getting headline.

Sub paragraph giving summary

Relevant photo's, always with a caption underneath explaining what they are.

Hi Garry, really like your website with your video's, is it easy to make your own video's like yours, what sort of camera/video do you need and how do you add text, music etc?  I appreciate that there may not be a short answer to this so if you know of some guides or websites to point me in the right direction that would be great.

[Ian Gourlay]

I do not think I have but someone on here suggested the best way to get pictures was to take them from International sites.

You could email and ask . No fear of conflict , competition etc

[garry22]

Hi Garry, really like your website with your video's, is it easy to make your own video's like yours, what sort of camera/video do you need and how do you add text, music etc?  I appreciate that there may not be a short answer to this so if you know of some guides or websites to point me in the right direction that would be great.

Thanks Richard.


1/ Most vital = A tripod and good lighting

2/ Camera.

A high definition camera, £ 130.00 from ALDI (not full HD. This one uses 1280 x 720 but it gives reasonable results. Ten times Optical zoom (get optical rather than digital zoom - it is normal magnification rather than digital adjustment). This one has a remote control (like a TV) so you can film yourself. It also has a 5 mp still picture function. The stills in the video were taken with this.

Nowadays, there are some really good Full HD camcorders around for a couple of hundred quid. To be honest many phones have really good cameras, as long as you can hold them still.

3/ Editing Software

You can use the free Windows Movie Maker on your PC. Mine were edited with Sony Vegas. You only need the basic version as they are amazingly sophisticated. You can produce pretty much broadcast quality stuff with it. The Pro version is really for professional film makers. I was told by a Pro film guy that a program like this would have cost £5-20,000 a few years ago. These are under fifty now!

Light levels can be altered so you can get away with less than perfect lighting if you have to.

Believe it or not, each video takes about five hours to make (but can be used as a template then saved in the software which knocks an hour or so off the process).

If you want very simple videos done, try www.animoto.com

[feldon]

Thanks Garry, excellent info.

[garry22]

Richard,

I'm glad you asked.

When I checked, I had lost all the original footage following a recent virus attack.

I've managed to get some off the old disk so hopefully, I'm back in business.