How do I make images load faster on my website?
It seems like you have a gallery of pictures on your site that you would like to show people. Great! However, it seems pretty slow to load. I got a couple of ideas that you could do. (to make it a LOT faster)All your pictures should have different size for different need.For example, all your pictures should be in the thumbnail size when the user didn’t click on it yet. Wondering what size should thumbnail be?According to What size are typical thumbnail images and, thumbnail means your picture’s dimension should be either 75x75, 100x100, 125x125, 150x150 to 200x200 with size of ~2–4kb.Lazy load all your thumbnail pictures on your page - only load the pictures that the user sees, pictures yet to be seen by user should not be loaded. Let me give you an example, say you have 100 pictures to show on your page. Normally, when user enters your site, those 100 pictures will be loaded so that user can sees it. However, some user might see only the few pictures in the beginning or only the first 20 pictures. I would suggest you that instead of loading all 100 pictures at once, you lazy-load them. You ONLY load the pictures when the user sees it. Let me show you in action, here is an example of lazy loading images, Stress Test. As you can see, pictures will only be load when you get to or scroll to. This gives a lot of benefits. This will save us a lot of bandwidth. Here is the library for using the lazy load, Vanilla JavaScript Lazy Load PluginUse image compress software to optimize your images (here we are talking about the full image once the user click on it). You will be surprise how close they really look with big differences in sizes. Also, will save us a lot of bandwidth as well as quicker load time for user.Use image CDN to speed up delivery of your images. There are tons of services that will help you to do that on the internet. Note: for CDN to really work out, your site NEEDS traffic.Optimized your full size pictures for different devices. For example, laptop/computer, tablet, and smartphone. Normally, laptop/computer should outperformed a smartphone in terms of internet speed. Hence, same size of an image should load faster for a laptop than a smartphone. (normally the case)Cache your images. (big topic, search online)That is all I can think of for now. Let me know if this helps.Thank you and Good Luck!
Where do travel sites get their destination images?
There's a lot to be found on Wikipedia and its media library, the Wikimedia Commons. All those photos can be used freely, also by web sites, as long as any derivative work made from them is licensed under the same terms. I've uploaded quite a lot of photos to Wikipedia, and I often find them recycled on travel sites all over the world, most often with proper crediting and license text on display. Also, lots of travel sites have photo competitions with themes like best beach photo, best island photo, best desert photo, best city photo, and so on, where you have to give the travel site all rights to use the photo (not exclusively, but still) on their web site in any and all context for eternity. That's a pretty cheap way to build up a good image library for use in articles and postings about travel.
How do I get the best quality images for free?
You can get Best quality images for free on lots of websites. Some of them are:-Stunning Free Images · PixabayFree stock photos · PexelsBeautiful Free Images & Pictures | UnsplashBeautiful Free Stock Photos (CC0)
Free website to host photo albums?
www.filelodge.com allows you to store/host files online. You will need to signup for one of their free accounts. Then all you have to do is upload the photos, copy/paste the image link into the webpage script, and you are set :)
What's the best source for royalty-free images?
Being a kind of active blogger addicted to beautiful pictures, I am a real denizen of photo stocks. No wonder, a picture is still worth a thousand words - today, perhaps, even more. Among the resources which offer galleries of stock photos with no copyright restrictions, I would mention the following ones:UnsplashPixabayMoosePexelsFree Range StockFree Photos BankPicture from MooseFree stock photo search engines are also helpfulEvery Stock PhotoAll the Free StockYou can also find a huge list of free photo stocks with links and descriptions here How to Steal Stock Photos and Ways to Get Them LegallyPicture from UnsplashHopefully, my answer will be helpful. As usual, I am open for discussion if needed