Crestock free images WordPress plugin – Test Post

release! from Stock Photography

This is just a test post for a new plugin by Crestock where they allow WordPress users to use free images.  Instead of giving them a link I’ll let you click on one of the images below to see the site.  They even put the link to their free images for WordPress users on one of the photos – how handy is that?

The plugin has some problems like when you drag or click on a image to add it to your post.  Sometimes it uploads and sometimes it doesn’t.  At this point it’s just hit and miss.

I’m also finding that I’m having a difficult time in positioning the images.  I think that’s more of a WordPress thing than this plugin though.   But it’s not all WP.  Crestock puts its images in a wrapper so they can add their own text and a link even though they already watermark the image with their logo and the copyright of the photographer.

Thats fine but when you nudge the images it all goes away – not my fault Crestock – You’ve still got one link on the last image and I’ll add another at bottle of the post.

My goal was to put all four images side by side in pairs.  That didn’t work so good.  I should be able to place the images in the post without using the alignment attributes letting them align naturally.  That doesn’t seem to work.  Maybe it’s the wrapper.  The truth is I just don’t know.

The plugin comes with it’s own folder to store the images.  It also installs a new database where it records all the information about each photo.  It doesn’t appear to add the images to the WP gallery.  That’s probably a good thing as they aren’t really meant to be used for gallery purposes.  They’re small, usually 300 to 400 pixels which is an ample size for most bloggers who love to write while sprucing up their site with some profession photos.

Will I use it?  Probably for some blogs but not this one too much.  I think it is a perfect solution for a lot of blog applications though.  If Crestock gets the uploading bug worked out it will be simple and fast to find related photos.

I wish more bloggers would use photos because it adds to the appeal.  A little nice eye-candy never hurts.

The plugin itself will let you manipulate the images to a degree using the built-in WP photo attribute settings.  You can set the photos to align left, right, center or choose none.  You can also resize the images down but not up.  You don’t get the option of choosing a thumbnail so I seriously doubt the images will play nice with any of WP or certain theme’s abilities to use the thumbnails.  This is because the images are directly uploaded to the built-in gallery.

Is it worth it?  It is what is and nothing more but certainly not less.  First and foremost it’s a marketing stream for Crestock.  Us bloggers use their images for free and give them some free advertising in exchange.  Is it a fair exchange?  I’d say yes.  And because of that I’d also say it’s worth it as long as it fits your needs and the application (scheme) in which you’re using it.

There’s another similar service out there called PicApp and I wrote a review on that one as well.  You can read it here.  What I do like about Crestock Freebie Images is they don’t slap a third party ad on their images.  That makes it a winner in my book.

To download and learn more about Crestock’s Freebie Images go here or to see what Crestock is all about you visit their home page.  They also give away a free high quality stock image everyday.  I’ve used several of these over the previous year.

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