How to Get Square Images for Your Online Articles

Many online sites, whether writing platforms or social media, require at least some of your images to be square in shape.   

If you check the requirements, you’ll most often find them to be 250 x 250 pixels, 400 x 400 pixels, or 600 x 600 pixels. 

The problem you’ll find is that most images you’ll want to use are not square.  Ninety-nine percent of images are rectangular in shape and either in portrait or landscape orientation. 

So how do you get a square image? 

You’re going to need crop your photo.

 

Free Photo Cropping Websites and What They Have to Offer

You don’t need to invest in expensive software to get square photos.  There are plenty of free cropping sites available on the Internet.

Here’s how they work.  Have the photo you want to work available on your computer.  You will be asked to upload it to the crop/resize website that you choose.  And then you’ll manipulate the photo as you’d prefer by following the website’s simple directions.

All sites will provide you with easy tools to reduce the size of your image, crop, or resize your photo to change the width and/or height.  Most sites will have features that will help you to sharpen the contrast, brightness or saturation of the photo.  Some will help you convert black and white photos to color.  Most will help you to rotate an image or add a border.  Some websites, like IrfanView, lets you add do batches, slideshows and add music.  Some sites, such as Luna Pic, will even help you add artistic details to the image. 

I’ve listed a few free photo reworking websites below.  Every one of them is top notch and I’m sure you’ll find them super easy to use.

Some of My Favorite Free Websites 

Cnet.com Photo Editor – requires a download

http://download.cnet.com/Photo-Crop-Editor/3028-2192_4-10536710.html?c=SEM-SEO&s=fivemill&pid=dlcom_sem&aid=10536710_6406387810_4485840884&dlc=n&part=fivemill

Pic Resize

http://www.picresize.com/

Cropp.me

www.cropp.me

Cut My Pic

http://www.cutmypic.com/

Fotor

http://www.fotor.com/features/crop.html

Web Resizer

http://www.webresizer.com/

Luna Pic

http://www160.lunapic.com/editor/?action=crop

IrfanView

http://www.irfanview.com/

Give any of these websites a try.  You'll be happy with the result!

 

Using Photos and Images on Squidoo and Other Online Sites

Using Photos and Images on Squidoo

as well as Other Online Sites

There are many ways to find images you can use in your Squidoo articles and in the next two articles, we’ll discuss some of the ins and outs of using images online.

The first thing a new writer needs to know is that even though there are many great images to look at online, using them in your own work might be copyright infringement if you don’t have permission from the image’s creator.  That means it’s technically illegal to place the image in your work if you haven’t asked.

So how do you illustrate your article.  Let’s take a look at some options.

Free Images You Can Use

Your Own Photos

First and foremost, take your own photos.  People love looking at real images.  Why not take your own and share.  They needn’t be professional grade to be interesting.  Using your own photos can a good choice in many circumstances.

Want to crop your photo taken from your phone into a square image?  A great option for iPhone and Android users is the free app at Instagram.   It automatically resizes all of its images into the square format you’ll want for your introduction photos.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is one of the best place to find photos that artists are willing to share.  Use the Creative Commons search engine to find a suitable photo that you will be using for commercial use.   

Amazon

If you want to use a product image or a logo, sign yourself up to become an Amazon Associate.  You can then not only use the image, but can link to a product .  If your reader clicks the link and buys the product, you’ll also earn a commission.  Now that’s a double duty image! 

Allposters

Allposters is a great way of obtaining photographs or artwork for articles.  Allposters  has a huge array of images that they sell on posters, pictures, cups, tee-shirts, etc.  Sign up for the Allposters affiliate program and you’ll be able to use the image.  In addition, if your reader would like to purchase an item with this image on it, you again receive a commission. 

Art.com, Zazzle and others

There’s a good amount of affiliate programs out there, so go and explore.  Check out the sites to see if you’d like to belong and if you do, suddenly you’ve got art.  

Other Trusted Sites  - Free Images Direct from Copyright Holder

The following sites allow commercial use within an article or website.  Some allow other use.  Always check the Terms of Use for revisions.

BigStock Photo

Microstock site which has some good free images.  Always check the licenses agreements. 

Crestock

This stock-photo site has a free daily photo from professional photographers/ artists.

Dreamstime

Free images from professional stock photographers.

Free-3d-Textures

Free images for many, many uses

License Terms are liberal.  Email with questions. 

Free Digital Photos

Free image site for stock photos.

Free Pixels

Free photos and images site.

Kozzi

Recent newcomer offering free stock photos

morgueFile

Free images for use directly from their creators. Images from professional photographers and amateurs.

Photopin

Searches for images licensed under Creative Commons.

RGB Stock

Free stock photos

Shutterstock

A professional microstock site where one can obtain free images weekly for a variety of uses.   Read the terms.

Seven Oaks Art

Wonderful artist providing free animated gifs he creates. 

RGB Stock

Free stock photos.

 

There you go.  Plenty of ideas.  Now, go out and get creative!

New Recipe Format is Now Available on Squidoo

Like to share recipes? 

Consider writing food articles on Squidoo!

Squidoo has just made it easier to become a food writer on their site with a newly revised Recipe Module. 

Ingredient lists are now a snap with the new module.   

The new program will allow you to auto-number your steps.   

You can add sub-titles to your recipe.  

And it’s really easy now to combine several items together in one line of text, something that wasn’t so easy to accomplish before.

While this is still just a modification for many writers, the module itself is undergoing a change and is coming to Giant Squids and Rocket Squids soon.  These folks will get first try at using the new recipe format. 

The new module gives writers a very nice proportional photo which you can re-position as you wish.

It will also allow you to include up to three Amazon products which relate to your recipe, giving you a way to monetize your article. 

As we said, some of the changes are still only available to the top contributors on Squidoo but the format change is ready and working for everyone. 

If you already have recipes published on Squidoo, you can work with this new format through your Edit mode. 

So pull out your recipe box and find your family favorites. We'd love to give them all a try.  

Wishing you a productive day!

 @SanneCollins