When Macy and I first started our blog, we wanted to make the posts look neat, readable, and fun. Our posts came easy to us because we had so much to talk about. But the problem we found was that it’s really hard to find that perfect image to use for your specific blog posts.

Sure, you can go through Google images and find some good ones, but I never use those because I get too worried about copyright stuff and credentials, it just gets to be too stressful and too much work.

And then one day, our fairy godmother stepped in and emailed us. Okay, she wasn’t the fairy godmother but she somehow knew that we were struggling for images. Her name was Jenna and she introduced us to the wonderful world of Fotolia. It’s so similar to iStockphoto but different at the same time. You can find great, scratch that, AMAZING photos for your posts all in one spot and there are a ton to choose from. If you’ve noticed my posts look a little high in quality lately, it’s because of Fotolia.

Now let’s get down to to basics. Fotolia has to somehow distribute the royalty-free images so there are some costs involved. The good news is, I’ve found it can be cheaper than iStockphoto. True story! Here’s the breakdown I put together:

Now of course, these numbers can change, but generally speaking – those are the numbers given when I ran them through each of their sites.

Personally, I’ve had a great experience using Fotolia’s images. There’s been a huge selection every time I’ve gone to search for a certain keyword or topic. Just for kicks, I searched both sites for the word ‘sun’. Istockphoto gave me 205,695 results, and Fotolia gave me 551,113 results. It could vary depending on the keyword I’m sure, but that’s just an example.

It’s also very easy to check out once you’ve gotten the hang of it. It took me a little bit to figure things out, but that might just be me. Lol! They also feature HD videos but I just haven’t had the use for it yet! One more thing to note is that all of Fotolia’s images are royalty free and there is no limit on time or copies you use.

According to Fotolia you are free to use them on:

AND! To make things even better, (I know you’re probably thinking woman is rambling on about Fotolia for nothing). But I’m not! Because… Fotolia gave us the opportunity to share the wealth! Now you are lucky because you get the chance to join the other 2,631,260 Fotolia members and get photos for free! 

Here’s the scoop!


We are giving away FIVE free, two-week subscriptions to our readers! (A $210 value!) To enter, leave a comment below that includes your email address (don’t put your email address in the comment, but in the info for the comment) and we will use the random number generator to choose our winners on Wednesday (August 3, 2011)!

Update: This contest has ended! But head over to Fotolia and check them out anyway

Disclaimer: The Real Housewives of Minnesota were given a one free month subscription of Fotolia to review. We were not paid or compensated in any way and all views expressed in this post are our own.