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
What if you edit an image extensively before using it? Most people do that. Well actually, some people do that, most people just use the images as is without bothering about copyright. Sad but true.
Yes I realize that this is a regular practice and I often use images as a base for creating something myself – not being too artistic I need help with perspective, shadows etc. Copying an image without credit is in effect no different to copying any other content and bloggers who do this are definitely not appreciated.
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Categories covered are: News, Celebrities, Sports, Travel, Viral, Video, Entertainment, Music, Stock Photos, Edge and Miscellaneous
I also take part in athletics and this site has given me so many new training ideas. This is a very comprehensive web site which I will definitely be using again.
I’ve learned so much from sufficient net behaviour of you – thanks for sharing your thoughts..
I am quite unscrupulous about images. I just grab what I can. I have a non commercial blog and try to link where appropriate. I have never been asked to take images down.
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It depends where the images are from and whether they are found. A professional photographer would not appreciate his work being used especially without attribution. Mainstream media are getting sensitive too – with AP trying to stop their content being used etc
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You have a point about hotlinking and I must do a post about it – there is absolutely no need to hotlink.
I think the key phrase here is non commercial. I agree with you, it should be a problem : )
You have a point about hotlinking and I must do a post about it – there is absolutely no need to hotlink.
Great post, more bloggers need to start finding legal ways to find images for their blog rather than hotlinking and wasting other people’s bandwith.
You have a point about hotlinking and I must do a post about it – there is absolutely no need to hotlink.
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I am offering the use of over 1000 photos, free of charge for use on your blog.
Please see the following blog post for further info:-
Free Photos For Your Blog
I hope this is of interest to you (and clear enough to follow as it is my first attempt at doing it properly).
Thanks!
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Your posts are brilliant as they are substantial, well and pedagogical written and easy to follow. I’ve learned so much from sufficient net behaviour of you – thanks for sharing your thoughts, knowledge and experience!
Pixsy was new to me – a great service!
Btw: Hop over as soon as you can: You are Awarded!
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Thank you so much Renny, I am pleased you find them easy to follow. Thank you too for the award. I am honored.
This is a great post. I had no idea there were all these free tools- I was just using Google image search.
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There is an advantage to using CC images and linking to the creators too – they are likely to come visit your site
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I have had people take photos from my websites so many times, but I don’t really mind as long as they credit and link to me.
What’s the rules regarding this anyway?
Exactly – a credit and link are blogger’s friends
You set your own rules for your own images. You can set up a Creative Commons license specifying how your images can be used or slap a copyright on then so as not to allow them to be used at all. If you are using other people’s CC images then you must use the same CC license that they set up.
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This is a wonderful article! We can always use more tips on finding legal, free images for our blogging. I hadn’t seen compfight yet. That’s a great one!
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Good list of sites for photos, very interesting too. I usually do well by simply searching with Google. However you never know, I may need something more sometime.
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Vey interesting and helpful information for finding images. Thank you.
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Hi! I liked unprofound very much. Another one for you is morguefile. I have used it in the past. The creator usually wants to know how you use it via an an email. If your a member you can leave a comment and even rate their images. They are always pleased to know that you have used their images.
http://www.morguefile.com/
Take Care and thank you for the information once again – Peter
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[...] Search for Free Images [...]
That’s a great list of resources! Another one I like a good bit is morguefile.com – lots of pictures & the owners of the images LOVE it when you email them & give them credit and say thank you
I get a lot of pics from there. Though I always appreciate some more resources for others when I can’t find exactly what I am looking for!
I use Firefox for Mac. I don’t have that handy litt “CC” on my search box! Now I’m going to have to get that if I can becauseI use CC a lot.
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Hi Sue.
Great post as always. I left a comment on your interview over at Blog-Blond. And speaking of images I like the colour of the Blokester badge. COOL!
…BB
P.s.: How’s your guest post coming along? I can’t wait to read it.
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There’s a plugin called wordpress dropper which gets photos off flicker and drops them directly into posts–very useful!
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What if I copy an image but will edit it with Photoshop, is it still covered by the copyright law? I use the Google Image search to find photos for my blog but I edit some of them.
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Thanks for doing all this work. Excellent sources. I will refer again I’m sure.
I use the PhotoDropper plugin for WordPress, it works really well to find Flickr photos that can be used. Very nice integration with WordPress.
Some great resources here – thanks. One I don’t think you mention is sxc – stock.xchng which has loads of good quality stuff you can use freely.
Hi Sue,
Another list I have to bookmark immediately since I’m forever searching for blog post images.
The latest post at pingable.org has a list of free icons (and very good ones) that I’ve already bookmarked.
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Thanks for the list of alternatives in using Image Search. I actually use photos in my blog and most of them are from Google and Flickr. Do you think it is fine to copy from them?
Finding free images used to such a pain in the proverbial I gave it up entirely. Now I rely on the Zemanta plugin or supply my own images as it is saves a lot of stress and is so much more time efficient
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A great image resources. I have been using Compfight for quiet sometimes but I’ll be checking on Wikimedia Commons in a while. It looks decent to me.
Thanks for sharing them with us.
Yan
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An extremely useful post, this is a must for all the bloging newbies, including me. Thanks Sueblimely
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This is a great resource for bloggers everywhere that I think can be very useful when creating a blog!
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Yes, this is a great resource
[...] Search for Free Images [...]
[...] Search for Free Images [...]
i use wikimedia commons, and i try to stick with the images released without restrictions, into the public domain.
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One of my blogs at now sees more than 7,500 unique visitors per month and I average 2 images per post, 3 times per week. So, I’m in the market for fresh images all the time. Stock.xchange used to have hardware problems but now runs smoothly most of the time. It is an excellent place to begin the quest for a specific image or theme. FreeFoto can be helpful, too, but I prefer the former. Don’t forget that if you have Microsoft Office installed, you can pull lots of free images from the Clip Gallery.
I love the meercat, Sueblimely. I love your blog, too. I’ve subscribed to your first-class blog on my Google Reader. I’ve Diigo’ed several of your preeminent articles over at Diigo and bookmaked ‘em in my Blogging and Social Media group at Diigo. I really enjoy your blog articles! You are fantastic!! Keep up all your excellent work!!
ya you are right but most of the peoples are lest bother about copyrights. or they edit the image and use it. but thanks for the information.
Excellent post. It is very helpful to have such a nice list of image resources in one place. Thanks for doing this work. This list is likely to be a very popular resource on the web.
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I use free images from http://www.sunipix.com for my blogs and photoshop presentation.
wow…great post n good idea…
Thank you for this great and comprehensive list.
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I love the meercat, Sueblimely. I love your blog, too. I’ve subscribed to your first-class blog on my Google Reader. I’ve Diigo’ed several of your preeminent articles over at Diigo and bookmaked ‘em in my Blogging and Social Media group at Diigo. I really enjoy your blog articles! You are fantastic!! Keep up all your excellent work!!
Wow, lots of sites being shared for free images. I normally just use Google as my main source to find free images but after this great post, I’ve lots of choices to make. Thanks.
Thank you for this great and comprehensive list.
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I stumbled upon this site looking for way to get more free images under creative commons commercial. Flickr is always good to search for images for creative commons commercial license if you sourcing for your business projects. I will try these other options out too. Thanks! for the List!!!
EXCELLENT. I couldnt ask for more. I have bookmarked this page.
Is there a free or inexpensive software that allows you to search and browse through OCR’ed .TIFF Images? I’m looking for a free or inexpensive piece of software that allows the user to search and browse through .TIFF images that have hidden OCR .txt files. This piece of software needs to be able to show the folder structure of the files and also be able to search through the metadata fields of the .TIFF images. Any help is greatly appreciated!
sounds like Sweet! Thanks for this guide. I am working on a site where I will offer book reviews. Is there a place on the net where I can legally get pictures of the cover of these books. I could go to amazon an just lif tthe thumbnails but want to be legal. I would think it would be in the publishers interest to create a repository of sorts. Any ideas? thanks again for sharing your lovable experience…!!!
excellent set of resources. our company learned our lesson regarding images when one of our web designers “borrowed” an image for use on our website… well, about a year later, the owner of the image found the image and threatened legal action. we removed the image, but still had to pay the owner a lot of money…
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Great list. Bookmarked this post. One must be careful to not get copyrighted images.
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good info for me.. later, this can guide me to search more free images.
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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
You want free images that you can use openly for your own profit. there are many ways you can do this. one is to purchse stock photography.These images are often available at a nominal fee or you can find sites like morguefile that allow you to download for free.
Thank you for sharing this, I am going to pass it on to a friend of mine that is in design who is always complaining that he has to pay for images, so he is going to very happy that I came across this post.:)
? liked this , ? used frequently pictures search
Thanks for this, unfortunately big companies like Sky often just grab any image without thinking of the copyright (recent news story).
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@PSP Go, they probably do that because they think a small person won’t go after a big company.
Till then,
Jean
Good sites for free image search. I use only Google for image search. Thanks for good resource.
A lot of good resources mentioned here, thanks a lot!shark books
I love the word free =D Thanks for all the great resources on places where I can get free images =D
Till then,
Jean
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.
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What if you edit an image extensively before using it? Most people do that. Well actually, some people do that, most people just use the images as is without bothering about copyright. Sad but true.
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I usually get Google images to get me free images …
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It’s a tricky one. The copywrite remains with the artist, but then what about the property or person in the photograph? The trick is to ask. If I photograph a wedding venue or wedding guests for my wedding photography site and put them on the web, do I have to get permission from all the guests and the venue owner? Probably not – however, if a photographer photographs a profesional model, the photographer need a model release. I don’t think anyone would mind
As long as it’s not commercial.