Finding Free Images and Royalty Free Stock Photographs
78Not All Images Are Free
Getting free images is not simply a case of browsing Google Images until you find something you like then copying it. All images are owned by someone. Usually the photographer owns the copyright on an image and unless it says somewhere that you’re free to reuse their work, you’re not.
Copyright theft of images online is a massive problem and can be a lucrative sideline for legal firms representing photographers whose work is stolen. I know this to my own cost as a few years back I was presented with a pretty hefty bill (about £400/$650) for using a single image of a celebrity on one of my sites, that I didn’t have permission for.
It’s often tempting to think you can get away without bothering about copyright, and as it’s not vigorously enforced by everyone, you possibly can for a long time. The thing is; you could be sitting on a time bomb. How many copyright bills of anything from a few hundred to several thousand of pounds/dollars are you willing to cross your fingers about not receiving?
It’s not all doom and gloom though. Fortunately there are plenty of photographers out there who are willing to release photographs into the public domain for you to use free of charge, or free to use providing you credit the photographer (a small price to pay for their efforts).
Finding Free Images with Creative Commons & Google
There are many sites that offer free images for use on your blogs or web sites, either entirely free in return for credit or a link back. But before listing out some of these dedicated resources, it’s worth spending a couple of minutes talking about Creative Commons and how you can use the ever popular Google Image search to find free images.
Creative Commons in a non-profit corporation that has a stated aim of “making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” In terms of image copyright they provide copyright holders with free licences to mark their images with so that you can know whether or not you’re allowed to use them, and what if anything the photographer wants in return.
There are various licence conditions available from Creative Commons to identify whether the image can be reused. When you come across an image that is licensed they’re will be a link somewhere on the page where it’s shown to let you know how you can use the image. All the licence instructions are self explanatory so clicking on the link will tell you all you need to know.
Finding Creative Commons images on Google is pretty simple. Here’s what you need to do:
- Open up Google Image Search
- Click on the Advanced Image Search option (to the right of the Search Images Button)
- Near the bottom of the Advance Search options is a choice of “Usage Rights”. Choose from one of the four licence options, depending on the rights you’re looking for.
- Add your search term in the top field and hit the search button.
The image results you see now have been filtered to only show images that have the selected licence information. So now, you’ll be able to find the image you want and quickly see how you can use it without having to worry that you’re infringing copyright.
Free Image and Stock Photography Libraries
There are thousands of sites that offer free images and royalty free stock photography, as a simple search on those terms will prove. However, there’s lots of liberal usage of the word “free” for things that turn out not to be free at all. No real surprise there of course, but to save you a little time filtering through them, here’s a selection of some of the better Free Image Libraries.
- Stock.xchng
Has approaching 400,000 stock photos in their library at time of writing. So there’s a wide range available here, and the quality is generally good too.
- Flickr
Very popular site that’s got probably got millions of photos on it. The frustrating thing for me with this site is the amount of times you find a great image, only to discover you’re not allowed to use it. Better searched with the Google method mentioned above in my opinion.
- morgueFile
A beautifully designed site that has lots of well categorised images, that are easy to browse through.
- Openphoto
Not very well organised to my mind, but still worth a look as there are some good photographers on here.
There are of course many, many other options and sites for finding free images out there. These are just a few of my personal favourites.
Finding More Free Image Resources
I would recommend any of the resources mentioned above for the quality of their output, but there are of course many other resources you can use. I find a good way to come across new libraries is by using the Advanced Google Image search features; this works particularly well in finding niche libraries for your chosen subject.
Hope this small introduction to acquiring and using images without risking copyright infringement and nasty bills has given you a few ideas. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I need to go find myself a nice image to accompany this article!
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Thanks, pleased you found it useful.
Ooh, thank you, thank you for this hub. The only one I am familiar with is stock.xchng and I had been looking for more free pictures. Whoopee!
Thanks for you comments Money. It's not everyday I get a "whoopee!" for one of my articles. :)
Oh My! I think I'm in sooooo much trouble. All of the images on my hubs came from the internet. Do you get some kind of warning when you click on the picture? Do you find out after you get sued? Anyway, thanks for the great sites.
Hi Friendlyword. You only find out when you get a not particuarly nice letter asking you for money. If I were you I'd definately start looking for replacement images.
Great information on this hub. I can see Google Image Advanced Strict Filtering in my future. Thanks RR!
Thanks Flightkeeper, pleased you liked it.
Great hub. I'm afraid there are too many hubs out there that do not speak to the issue of checking for rights to use the photo. Your photo above, do you know what the picture is of? Reminds me of one of the cisterns in Istanbul. Congrats on your HubNuggets nomination.
Hi and thanks for your comments. Not sure what that image is of to be honest. I used it to demonstrate that you can still get high quality images for free. Didn't know it had been nominated either so more good news; thanks again! :)
Thanks for a really useful article. I have saved all the links you suggested and you can be sure I'll be using them.
Thanks Wood, happy to help.
Wow-this hub is amazing-thanks, RP, for the info.
Sorry, but I forgot your name from the forums...:o(
This is very practical and useful information for hubbers.
Photographers (and artists and graphic designers) have every much a right to protect their work as writers.
I use a lot of my own photos--(I give myself permission to use them) and I also have a wonderful photographer friend, and a photographer son who are very generous, but I do ask and give credit.
I think we all need to be more diligent about this-- and your personal story makes the point strongly.
True, true! With the easy access using the internet, people obtain a lot of information and copy images, text, stories and articles just like that. It's good to know this and be warned. Enjoy the Hubnuggets festivities all aboard the Hubnuggets Ship as you vote and promote your hub. Congratulations for being a Hubnuggets Wannabe! http://hubpages.com/_hubnuggets10/hub/X-Marks-The-
Thanks, Laurel, Rochelle and ripple. I'm really pleased this article is getting so much attention, hopefully many will learn the easier way that photographers and artists "have every much a right to protect their work as writers."
Well done, this one is a forerunner for my vote. You are up against a Groucho Marx hub, it's gonna be close.... good luck!
Thanks Ben, not sure I could compete with Groucho for entertainment value though! :)
I'm really new to this & was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to add non-copyrighted photos to my hubs. I was going to ask hubpages in an e-mail when I ran across your Hub. Thank you so much! stock.xchng didn't have what I was looking for & directed me to istockphoto....they charge, but not very much & I found what I needed. Good job. Thanks again!
Pleased I could help. I use istockphoto too when I need a really good image for something as they only cost pennies and there's a wide choice.
RP thanks for this one! I do take the time and email or contact the artist and ask for permission to use their work because I know how important it is to get and give proper credit to the original artist. This is a very handy hub to use! Thanks for the sources and links!
Bookmarked!
Appreciate your comments Am I, thanks.
Thanks for a great Hub, especially the links to the sites you mentioned. It's frustrating about Flickr. I use them to host some of my art, and then I find people pirating my drawings. I will usually share my photos asking only credit, but I like to be asked. I don't even mind letting people use my art to decorate a website most of the time, but I want to be asked. I want to know that I'd agree with the cause or theme or idea of the site, not wind up say, representing a group I strongly disagreed with.
I know what you mean about being asked. I use mostly my own photos, and a few others with permission. I put a lot of educational content out there for free, and I'd love to know when it's being put to good use. Or when someone else is making more money off it than I am!
Thanks for the tips on online sources. I found OpenPhoto's descriptive panels were helpful for making it clear how the photo can / can't be used.
-Erica
Thanks RP Chapman for great tips,especially searching google images.
Thanks for the great info, let me go rearrange my hub now.
Excellent and very useful hub. Thanks
Thanks for all the new and positive comments. It's especially nice for me to see the photographers and artists supporting it too. :)
Thanks for the useful leads, your 'hefty bill' experience makes a useful warning.
(I suppose Perez Hilton's millions affords him the confidence to abuse photos at will)
Very useful.
Tip always consider download, bandwidth, time for web images.
Thank you for the advanced Google search info. I really needed it!
This is useful info for good writing and illustrating and I have bookmarked it.
Great article. I'm always looking for free images. I've bookmarked this article for later reference. Thanks!
Thanks for all the new comments, they're very much appreciated. :)
Just read your blog and it's very true about copyright laws.
I found a great free photo and clip art site:
fotosearch.com---type in your topic and be sure to make it to royalty free. Animationplayhouse.com is totally free but you've got to put their banner on your site. I don't have camera privileges at the library computer so I rely on lots of free stuff online. I also type in free images of topic and many pictures come up per image search engine too. Take care.
Happy writing,
Krissttina Isobe
hi, this is a great article. Thanks for sharing things that other writers don't know about.
Very pleased to, and happy you enjoyed it.
photobucket.com is also free I guess.. thanks for your nice hub.
Photobucket places the legal responsibility on the uploader to ensure they have copyright of the images they upload. Approach with caution would be my advice.
Many thanks for this. I was wondering where i could find images to spice up my writing which didn't break copyrights and which I hadn't taken myself.
This will be very useful indeed
Pleased I could help. There's plenty of great images out there.
Thanks again. I saw the article but hadn't read it too carefully before today.
The info is great. What is even better is the language you used to write it.
This is a very easy to follow but informative guide that tells me what I need to know, what I need to do, how to do it and the pitfalls
I know from experience that reading these things is a lot easier than writing them.
Many thanks once again and best wishes.
Liam
I often find myself searching google images for the information I am looking for.
Some very handy hints, thanks I am off to try them now...
Great hub! I'm going to bookmark this one :) thank you!
I only knew the Stock.xchng and the Google Advanced Image Search.
Thank you for sharing!
Hub bookmarked, I found it very useful. Thank you.
Very useful info. Flickr does let you choose the usage rights through Advanced Search, but I can't seem to access that page until I hit "search" and get to an actual search page. I usually use the tool at search.creativecommons.org for finding Creative Commons images. It lets you search Flickr, Google, and a number of others for images with the right licensing so you can skip the advanced search steps.
Thank you for this information, it's so hard finding appropriate images for your hub and then realize you can't even use them. Will definitely be putting the info here to use.
There's a new free photo site at
where all pictures are free for commercial and non-commercial use. Nearly 900,000 photos are organized around precise topics such as people, places, animal species and more.
Thank you, I've been looking for some extra places to find images. Morguefile is new info for me. thanks
Hi R P Chapman,
that's a really useful collection here!! Thanks!
I'm developer and co-founder of Pixabay.com, a rather new resource for 20.000+ quality public domain images (and daily growing). We'd be really happy, if you took a look and maybe list Pixabay on your awesome hub.
Best,
Simon
tim-tim 2 years ago
Great info., thanks!