When you are creating content for your video, eLearning project, web site, or blog, you need to be able to have access to useful and affordable content that helps you reinforce your message. You need images, graphics, sound and music to put your entire message together. You want it to be eye-catching, ear-catching, and memorable. There are so many great resources available for stock video, photos, graphics, animations, fonts, music and sound effects. You want them to be effective, and they need to be affordable. I will share with you some of my favorites and what has worked well for me.
Digital Juice
The name says it all! Digital Juice is a royalty-free content provider for video, print, presentations, advertising, and more. They have stock video, photos, fonts, After Effects sequences, animations, backgrounds, layered Photoshop art work, Apple Motion templates, music, sound effects, and so much more. They used to sell it all piece-by-piece, or in bundled sets. Now, like a lot of suppliers these days, it is by subscription. They have two methods of payment – both are Lifetime plans, but with one price, one time, forever! The libraries and content keeps growing and, depending on your plan, you have access to all of it. The Standard Lifetime Plan is $299 and the Pro Lifetime Plan is $499. Right now, there is a limited-time special of half-off on either of those plans. Not sure how long that lasts. If you need Digital content that adds Juice to your presentation or message, I recommend it!
Adobe
So very much to see and explore with Adobe. Of course, there is the ever-popular, and useful Adobe Creative Cloud. An amazing suite of creative tools for content creation, and manipulation. I am not really going to cover that here, although if you are a creator it is a suite of tools you should consider. There are educational rates for students and faculty, alike. If you qualify for the educational rate (as a student or teacher) it is $19.99 per month (for the first year), and $29.99 per month after that. The regular, non-educational rate is $52.99 per month. But that is for all the apps (20+ apps), and the tools are amazing. Oops, I said I was not going to cover that here. Sorry.
The reason I even brought up Adobe, is because they also have an incredible library of images called Adobe Stock. It is a great stock photo service with a library of royalty-free images. It is one of the largest stock images around with over 100 million images! Pricing varies, depending on whether month-to-month, or annual enrollment. With annual enrollment you have access 10 standard assets per month for $29.99 (with a free 1-month trial), and on up from there. If you are a Creative Cloud subscriber you get some images through that plan. The Adobe images are incredible and worth checking out.
Soundsnap
There are a lot of sound effects libraries out there. One that I have found as an excellent resource is Soundsnap. I have found their sounds to be excellent in quality, with a wide range of sounds and sound environments. With 250,000 sounds, this royalty-free library has am excellent price structure. You can pay as you go, for as little as $15 for 5 downloads. Or you might enjoy access to the entire library, unlimited downloads, for the annual rate of $199. The site is well organized, and easy to use. Their customer service is excellent!
I hope these resources will be useful for you. I should note, I do not hold any financial interest in any of these companies (other than being a subscriber to some of these services). If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at mike@mikesvo.com. If I can be of help in providing the voice for your project, that is what I love to do and I would love it if you would, “Let me do your talking!” -Mike