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David Peralty, owner of the popular blog ‘Extra For Every Publisher‘, announced last week that he is the new Community Manager for PicApp. He dropped me an email the other day and asked if I could have a look at this new picture resource site.

So what is PicApp?

PicApp is a photo resource site which has thousands of very high quality images which are available for bloggers to add to their blog posts for free (or to use their term, high-end stock photography images). Most high quality image galleries (eg. Getty) charge for using their photos so a free alternative is sure to be welcomed. You don’t have to sign up to use the images but those who do gain access to some extra features. Registration is free anyways so if you use it more than once it’s probably worth signing up.

Using PicApp

Images on the site are split into two categories : Creative and Editorial. Creative images are generic images which can be used to enhance blog posts eg. nature pictures, familes, business people etc. Editorial images are journalistic images related to current events. By default both categories are selected however you can choose to search in either category.

To better explain how PicApp works I will walk you through a search I did to find a picture. I decided to search on the keyword ‘blogging’.

The search results page is very well organised and you can tell right away that pictures are of a high quality. The most common image search service I believe bloggers use is Google’s Image Search but comparing this with PicApp is like comparing night to day. Not only are the pictures of a generally higher quality, the results are definately more related to the keyword you searched for. I’m a blogger who adds images to a lot of his posts and I use Google’s Image Search frequently for finding those images however the search results you get for some keywords are strange to say the least.

The results for searching for ‘blogging’

When you click on the image you want you will see a description of the image and you are also presented with 4 options :

• Embed : Allows you to embed the picture on your blog post.
• Add : Allows you to add the picture to your lightbox. The lightbox is a great little feature. A lightbox is a storage area in your profile where you can add pictures for use at a later date. You can create multiple lightboxes to cater for your different blogs and topics. For example, you could create a lightbox for basketball pictures and another lightbox for golf pictures. You do need to be registered to use this option however in my opinion it’s worth it.
• Send : Allows you to email the picture to a friend
• Share : Allows you to add the picture to a social media site. They currently have 36 social media options!

Embedding the image on your site is very easy. You are given 2 or 3 size options for the pic, you can choose whether the image frame is animated and you can choose whether the PicApp mascot Picaboo is displayed at the top of the image.

One thing I noticed was that if you are not signed in and try and embed an image you get this message :

You are not logged in! You can publish the image without
signing up by providing your email

I thought it was strange that you have to provide your email address even if you’re not logged in (I assume this is to stop spamming or misuse or whatever). In the same popup box it asks registered users to sign in however when I did this it took me to my dashboard instead of the page with the embedded code on it. Therefore, after signing in I had to click back on my browser and then click on the embed link again to get the code.

And here is the resullt of adding the embedded code to your blog post, none other than celebrity blogger Perez Hilton :

Image details: KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango 2008 - Arrivals served by picapp.com

Image Sponsor

You can see from the image above that ads from PicApp have a sponsor area above it. They have included an advertising mechanism to facilitate royalties to the content owners. Most of the images hosted on the site are expensive to buy the rights to use them so this sponsor area is required in order for us to use the images for free.

As you can see in the above image, the sponsor area is quite large. At first I assumed that you were stuck with this large sponsor area underneath your post but David pointed out to me that by choosing the animated frame feature the ads are hidden behind the image and are only shown when you hover over the image. You can see the difference between the two frames below (the ad below uses an animated frame, the previous image used a classic frame) :

Image details: KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango 2008 - Arrivals served by picapp.com

As I mentioned above, I completely understand the need for these images to have adverts but I usually don’t like more adverts on my blog unless I’m getting something from it. The PicApp FAQ suggests that users will be able to make money in the future by using Pic App so hopefully this will be a feature which is added soon.

Overview

High end stock photography images can be expensive so I welcome a site like PicApp as it allows bloggers with low budgets to post images on their blog which they normally wouldn’t be able to. The service is incredibly easy to use and I’m sure the lightbox feature will prove very handy too.

I do believe that the sponsor area is a little too obtrusive if you use the classic frame but I guess this is the price you need to pay for getting expensive images for free (though the the animated frame is pretty good at hiding the ads). Once PicApp pays users a percentage of the ad revenue generated from the ads I think we will see the service grow in popularity.

If you are looking for a suitable photo for a blog post I recommend you browse through the images at PicApp as they have a large archive and it’s very easy to use. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comment area

Link : PicApp - Because a picture is worth a thousand words

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