Using images on a website is not only a great way to portray mood and emotion, but it also can break up text and make it easier to read.

Most of us are not professional photographers and I don’t think I’ve ever used one of my own pictures.  Fortunately for the rest of us, there are several sites what provide free or low cost images.  Not only images, but abstract designs, vector images, flash and more.

My favorite is Stock.XCHNG – http://www.sxc.hu.  Here’s how they describe themselves:

Welcome to Stock.XCHNG, the leading FREE stock photo site!
Whether you just want to browse our huge image gallery or want to share your own photos with others, this is the site for you!

Browse through the categories of our huge gallery containing over 350.000 quality stock photos by more than 30.000 photographers! Need a wallpaper for your desktop or illustration for your blog? Need a pic for your commercial website design? Looking for inspiration? Have a look around.

Another site is iStockphoto – http://www.istockphoto.com .  There you’ll have to pay about $3-10 per image, but the quality and selection is outstanding.  Here’s their bio:

iStockphoto is the internet’s original member-generated image and design community. Find your inspiration on the world’s leading royalty-free stock destination. Search for over 3 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage and Flash files.

Browse around and enjoy!