Internet success coaching by CoachKat.com

Below are places you can get a free photo for your Web site. These are limited in their photos and they are mostly small, but there may be something you can use.

• Free Photos

• Free Stock Photos

• Wall Paper Collection

Another great way to find a lot of images, go to Google.ccom and AltaVista.com. Click on the "Image" button. Now enter the word or phrase that best describes the image you are looking for and click on the "Google Search" button. You should find plenty!

There is lots of help out there.

Paint Shop Pro or Other Graphic Software

You will need to have Paint Shop Pro or some other graphic software that supports .JPG and .GIF graphic file formats in order to successfully download images from the Internet and upload them into your Web site.

If you do not have such software, your images will most likely be saved in .ART or .BMP or some other format not as easily workable for the Internet. This can cause real frustration.

You can get a free download of the latest version of Paint Shop Pro by clicking here. Once there, click on Free Trial at the top of the screen and it will walk you through the rest of the process.

Depending on your Internet connection speed, downloading software like Paint Shop Pro could take as little as a few minutes, to as much as 3 or 4 hours. So, if your connection is slow, start the download at night just before you go to bed. If your ISP kicks you off before the download is completed, go back the next night, go to the same page and click on the "resume" option in the pull down menu that you should see to the right of the product pull down menu.

Paint Shop Pro Tutorial Links

At the Corel software site there are tutorial links. Check them out, they can be very helpful.

If you do not have the time or patience to learn a new piece of software to create your logo, we have discovered a professional graphic artist with a very unique system.

Logo Express. This is a small fee service, but well worth reading about their unique system.

Below are additional tutorial help links. They are worth the time to go through and learn what they offer. Certainly, you cannot get everything there is to have at these sites right now. Check these links out and get what you presently need, saving the links in your favorites/bookmarks on your browser. You can come back to these later and go into them in greater depth.

• 5th Power

• Graphic Buds

• Autumn Web

• PSP Book

• PSP Tips

Cooltext and other sites listed below will actually help you build a logo on-line. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to go there to learn the on-line software, and create several logos to upload onto your Web site. Once you get the hang of it, it is really easy to use.

Free Logo Creation Sites

1. Cool Text

2. Flaming Text

Copying Images

Any graphics or image that you find on the Web can be cut, stored on the hard drive or disk and put into a document.

• Find the image that you want.

• Put your cursor on the image and click on the right mouse button.

• Choose "save picture as" if you are working with Internet Explorer or "save image as" if working in Netscape.

• Choose where you want your image saved. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Make a folder to save your graphics. If you have a computer at home, you can choose download. You can also save the image onto a floppy disk, which is always a good idea in case something happens to your computer causing you to have to find another computer to use.

• Name the graphic what it is... sometimes the image is named something strange and when you go to find it you won’t know what it is. Especially when you have 500 images saved!

• Save as .gif or .jpeg if you want the graphic for a web page (These are types of files that are graphics.)

• Click on Save.

Special Note on Saving Images: Saving Images at Cooltext.com and Flamingtext.com - When creating any images at cooltext.com and flamingtext.com you must add on the extension of the file. The file extension will be listed under File Type on the Save Picture window. (This window appears when right clicking on an image and then left clicking on the menu option to save it to your hard drive.) So, when saving an image, for example, you might name it logo1.gif (if it is a gif) or logo1.jpg (if it is a JPEG). The File name field is found at the bottom of the window, near the the "Save As" window.

One More Site to Check Out

Another graphic application you can test out for 30 days at no cost is The Logo Creator.

Color Wheels

To better understand color and how colors work together (or not!), this link to Color Wheels will provide great information on all that.

Color Wheels and Color Information

Sherwin Williams

Psychology of Color

Information on Colors

If you are interested in learning more about colors and how to use them, the link here takes you to a site with a great deal of helpful information.

Color Matters

Image Compressors - Downloading Your Images Faster

When your visitor is on your website, their download time is of extreme importance. Large graphic files can take too much time to download, especially on slower computers with slow Internet connections, which will result in frustrating your visitor so he/she leaves. The Image Compressors here can "crunch" your images so they are not too large.

Check out these Graphic Compressor links for help in compressing your images.

Spin Wave

Net Mechanic

Please Note - Savings Images for Upload

Images for the Internet need only be 70-72 dpi and .3 or 30% quality. So if you are scanning any images have your scanner software save them according to the above specifications.

Now, get some good, quality graphics together to use on your website. Be prepared to discuss with your coach your progress on developing graphics.