Fotolia

[rpcarnell]

I have been designing templates that I can sell through the web, and one of the things that worries me are pictures, and copyright violations.

Sure you can put some pics on your website, and not worry about someone accusing you of copyright violation, but when it comes to selling templates, things may change.

I know there are places like http://www.fotolia.com where you can buy pics you can use on templates.

But are these places necessary, or am I going to waste my money using pics I could get for free elsewhere?

[KDLA]

I dislike stock photography, especially when used in business templates. Many times, the organization will use photos in templates even though the images have nothing to do with the business itself. How many times have we seen some chick in glasses, standing there staring at you, as the main image on some business site? Doesn't give the site much personality or inform the viewers as to the nature of the business.

Instead when I design a template, I put a placeholder in the area; the placeholder is usually something like "this is where you place a 200px x 300px photo of your building" or "a 400px x 200px close-up of your best-selling product." This informs the template user that they should customize the template with images pertaining to the business.

KDLA