SEEING IS BELIEVING: Get Visual, Get Clever, Get Coverage

Trouble is, the internet is now so overwhelming that web-fatigue is setting in. Too many words and too much noise. It\’s like shouting your drinks order at the barista during Happy Hour. So the next best thing to do is to get clever with your visuals – and no, we don\’t mean copying from Google Images, as that will get you into copyright trouble.

Whether you\’re in travel, hospitality, lifestyle, fashion or any other business, you can use the many image sharing, and editing, sites on the web to give your site a visual burst of interest.

Best of all, you can do it for free.

Here are four image editing/sharing sites you can put to the test…

Each image on this site can be purchased as a higher resolution file, but internet-ready images are available for immediate download free of charge (provided you take note of the site’s Terms of Services and credit the original photographer). No registration is required.

Compfight allows you to filter Flickr images and view only those available through Creative Commons or for Commercial use. Some images are shared with permission to “remix” (which means you can crop it, or add a title on top of it, for example). Most “some rights reserved” images ask for credit.

For photo-editing PicMonkey is worth a try. It\’s free and doesn’t require you to register. It offers many comprehensive human touch- up tools to remove wrinkles and even out skin tone.

BeFunky comes with all of the basics, like the ability to fix the bane of many photographs, red-eye or uneven lighting. So why not test out its claim that it has more effects than any other photo editor, and features you won’t find anywhere else.