Blogging Sueblimely

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As I was preparing my recent posts on images I came across image generator tools you may find a place for in some of your less serious posts.

Yearbook Yourself

Its amazing how much I look like my mother once I add a 1960’s look.

Wigflip

A range of generators including:

• Superstickies

• Easy Street - street sign generator

• Say What - add speech bubbles to an uploaded photo
• roflbot Add text to an image -create lolcat or lolband type images

Dumpr

Another site with multiple generators. e.g.

• Rubics Cube Generator - upload an image and turn it into a rubics cube

Doppel Me - create your own avatar.

Reflection Maker

Image Chef

There are many different kinds of generators at Image Chef - example:

• Fun Generators

Comic Strip Generator - choose backgrounds, characters and add your own text.

Create a graph

Why would you want to do this for fun you may be asking - well, you may want to submit them to graphjam:

Big Huge Labs Flickr Toys

LoonaPix - add frames and borders and trim your images

Why would want to create silly images?:

• As a break from tedious work.
• You need more practice perfecting procrastination
• To add special effect images to your blog and possibly get them Stumbleupon Photoblogged - hint hint.
• You want to be a star contributor on:
  • icanhascheezerburger sites (lolcats, loldogs, pundit kitchen….), althouth they do provide their own generator (if you need to learn lolcat speak try the Definitive Lolcats Glossary) or take a PAWS Universitee course
  • graphjam
• Just to be silly - the only reason needed?

Thanks to the Generator Blog for putting me onto some of the image generator tools- it would have saved me a lot of time if I had found this site to begin with.

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How do you go about finding free images for your website or blog? I recently talked about the best sites for good free images but you may prefer to do a general search rather than looking within one particular site. This way you are likely to have a wider range of images to choose from.Some of the free stock image sites are aligned to non free sites and the free images may not be distinguished from the paid. It is frustrating to find an image you like on a free site to discover that it is from the paying site. Although it may not cost very much, you cannot usually just buy one image and have to purchase multiple credits. These credits will buy you more images but you may not need more; or not during the time you are given to use up the credits.

Image Search Tools

Creative Commons Images

• Creative Commons Search by Creative Commons - searches Google, Yahoo and Flickr for Creative Commons works. If you want to use an image on a non commercial site then you can use any image you find here. Additional search options allow you to look for:
  • only CC works that you can modify, adapt, or build upon, and or
  • works that can be used for commercial purposes.

Source: g-hat Flickr

• Compfight is a site that provides a quick method of searching for Flickr images. The results are displayed as quick loading thumbnails, 250 to a page. Clicking on a thumbnail takes you to the photo’s Flickr page. The option is provided to search within tags or all text for Creative Commons usage only or for Creative Commons commercial usage allowed. Still check the CC licence if you intend to adapt the image to make sure this is allowed.

• Flickr’s Creative Commons Page search for photos according to their type of Creative Commons License. I would use this if I knew I was going to edit a photo otherwise I find Compfight is quicker.
• Every Stock Photo - a search engine for free photos from many sources. View a photo’s license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos or use the advanced search function to choose which sort of license you want.
• Firefox - Use the Creative Commons search engine that is built into Firefox by choosing the CC icon from the drop down menu to the right of the Firefox search box.

• Wikimedia Commons is a database of 3,089,392 freely usable media files which includes images from these sites.

Source Cool Image Bank Ios - memories of holidays long past

Images without Creative Commons search criteria

• Google Image Search comes up with a treasure trove of images but, as the search results contain images from all Google listed websites, you are unable to use a great deal of them; for copyright reasons. I do use this search but only for ideas when creating my own images and for personal browsing purposes. Today for example after doing an interview with Kuanyin on Blog Blond my interest in Maui was peeked and I ended up searching for images of Hawaiian volcanoes.

Source: mattsabo17 Flickr

• Pixsy - a search engine for images and videos, including stock photos. Allows search to be customized by criteria - vector graphics, black and white, greyscale and backgrounds, digital photos. Categories covered are: News, Celebrities, Sports, Travel, Viral, Video, Entertainment, Music, Stock Photos, Edge and Miscellaneous. (Pixsy is the search engine powering Compfight, Lycos image search, Mokoseek and various other sites that distracted me from writing this post)

Images from people you know

Ask a fellow blogger if they would mind you using an image from their blog - they may be pleased to allow it to get a backlink. How are these for pairs of crocs??

Source: Ultraviolet Observations aka Sueblimely’s daughter

I have justed added a new site to my free image post - a smallish collection as yet but very impressive - unprofound.com

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I have spent considerable time researching the best sites to find online free images/stock images, along with their copyright/ Creative Commons licences. Some of these sites will probably already be familiar to you but others new, as they were to me. I hope you find this of use, as it makes the time spent all worthwhile. Sites are listed in alphabetical order.

Free Images

• BurningWell - a repository for public domain (free for any use) images. Donations welcomed - anyone have any Melbourne images they could upload, Melbourne is not represented there at all!

Waterlillies - Fiji

• Flickr Usage: image pages display their Creative Commons licences
• Free Digital Photos Dot Net - Royalty free images Usage: commercial and non-commercial.
• Free Photos Bank Usage: see terms
• Free Public Domain Photos You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial

Morning Glory

• Freerange Stock free stock photos - Freerange is an advertising revenue supported photographic community - photographers get paid when users click on the ads that appear next to their submissions. Usage: commercial and personal.
• Free Web Page Headers - Usage: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
• freewebphoto Usage: Free for linked web use
• Image*After a free online photo and texture collection. You can download and use any image or texture from the site Categories covered: architecture, art, food, nature, industry, humanoids, human parts, landscapes, objects, vehicles. (pretty much everything) - Usage: commercial or personal but no redistribution.

• Kave Wall - Free Stock Photos, Images and Textures. Usage: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
• morgueFile - free high resolution stock photos. Usage: commercial personal.
• Openphoto is a wiki-based photography site. All images on the site are marked with Creative Commons attribution. Anyone can register and upload images. Users can browse or search by tags to find photos they are interested in.
• Pixel Perfect Digital Free Stock Photos Usage: Personal non-commercial use, restrictions apply for commercial use (also features premium low-cost images from Dreamstime).

• Microsoft Clip Art
• StockVault - stock photo sharing website. Over 100,000 images. Usage: Free for personal and non-commercial purposes.
• Stock.XCHNG - over 350.000 free user submitted images - terms of use vary but are displayed on each image page.

Smaller Free Image Sites

FreeImages.co.uk - over 2,500 free stock images. Usage: Only a link to site required. *

unprofound.com which was started by one photographer, Jim, has now grown to become a “a global collaboration of photographers” all generously sharing their work freely with the only restrictions seeming to be on redistribution of the photos. Check the FAQ if you are unsure. No attribution is required although I think that giving credit is the right thing to do wherever possible. Search is via photo color or photographer and a search tool still to be refined. I had trouble choosing only one image out of this wonderful collection of high quality photos and I hope to see this site grow and become well known.

Specialist Free Image sites

There are so many of these that I cannot mention them all here but I would appreciate it if anyone can recommend any that are worthwhile checking out.

These sites contain images relating to specific topics or genres, those that have been designated as public domain, creative commons or are of an age where copyright has expired.

• Gimp Savvy Photo Archive - images come from three main sources: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Usage: copyright free, some restrictions with regards to privacy for commercial usage.
• Old Book Illustrations includes galleries of animals, plants, landscapes, characters, scenes, buildings and monuments, science and technology and miscellaneous illustrations scanned from old books.

Source

• Plants of Hawaii - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Agapanthus aka Mt Eliza leprosy Source

• The Best Copyright-Free Photo Libraries - a post on gov.watch with links to specific public domain (copyright free) government photo libraries.
• PhotoEverywhere UK Free Travel Images Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License - Free to share and remix with attribution. *
• Wikipedia:Public domain image resources includes links to sites of historical images, 2,600 realist painters (many in the public domain), copyright expired visual artworks, scanned images from old books, logos, stamps, US government sites as well as general collections.
• wellcome images -
  2000 years of human culture Usage: unless otherwise stated - Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial version 2.0 or Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales

Crystals of a DNA repair protein bound to DNA

Source Bernard O’Hara & Renos Savva, Wellcome Images

Personal Photo Sites

Personal sites where images are offered for download free of charge:

• PD photo.org contains public domain photos taken by the site’s owner, Jon Sullivan who also has a blog, aptly titled, Jon Sullivan

John reminds us that if an image is in the public domain then it must stay there. You cannot claim it as your own nor add any extra restrictions on its use. He also advises that it is wise to assume that no model release has been given for commercial use; unless stated otherwise or indicated by its Creative Commons Licence.

Future posts in this series will include image search engines, directories of free image sites, where to find low cost images, useful image tools and Firefox image tools. I know because most of them are written already

* New sites added since original post. Last update: 17 July 08

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