More on Sources for Free Images on Internet

Used under Creative Commons Licence 3.0

Some rights reserved by Sergio Tudela

A few weeks ago, I posted about various sources for royalty free images on the internet.  These images can be used freely, without payment of royalties, for various projects such as blogs, civic newsletters and even your child's homework, and their use does not violate any copyright laws.

Some of the images may even be used for commercial purposes.

Here are four additional internet resources for royalty free images:

Flikr (click here) is the largest storage site for photos on the web.  Millions of these photos are licensed for Creative Commons use, including some for commercial use.  Along the top headings on the Flickr site, go to Explore, then on the drop-down menu click on Creative Commons.  Conduct your search, and just make sure to give the proper attribution on the photo. 

Example of royalty free image.  Creative Commons 3.0 - some rights reserved by pfarrell95

Compfight (click here) is a great search engine for royalty free images.   Many of its images come from Flikr, but it is not associated with the photo storage site.  On the left column, Compfight gives you the ability to search for Creative Commons images (royalty free for non-commercial purposes, with attribution), or "Commercial" for images that can be used for commercial purposes.  And if you blog or have a website with Wordpress, Compfight is even better.  There is a plug in that allows you to use the Compfight search engine directly from Wordpress.


Photo Pin (click here) is another great search engine for blog photos, or even images for commercial use.  It is very easy to use, gives you options on how to display your results, and gives you a multitude of options on the size image to download.  Photo Pin requires that you copy and paste the link to the photo in the credit line.

Photo from Photo Pin - see link below

Royalty free Halloween artwork from Open Clip Art

Open Clip Art (click here) is a totally free site of clip art images.  The images here may be used for any purpose, including commercial use.

















Link to Photo Pin photo:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/440698504/">Stuck in Customs</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Where to Find Free Photos for Your Blog -- and Even for Commercial Use

As writers, we are all sensitive (or should be) to copyright and the intellectual property rights of others.  But what do you do for illustrations for your blog?  Or for your kid's homework project?

I make great use of Istockphoto.com.  It has a vast array of images available in different sizes at very reasonable costs. For small size images used for non-commercial purposes (a blog, for example), the price ranges from as low as $1 to maybe $5.  For larger resolution of the same image, you may pay $4-10.

But there are other sources for licensed images, many of them free. 

Photo:  Flkr via Google.  Free for all uses, including commercial use.

There is  a wonderful compilation of these resources for free licensed media:  Your Guide to Finding Free Creative Images and Other Media Online (click here).  The web article is posted on WonderHowTo.com.

This is not just a listing, but also explains the various licenses and how to both post photos and use photos from those various resources.

For me, the best source seems to be Google.  Go to advanced search (there's a link at the bottom of your search results page).  The last line on the bottom of the advanced search page is "Usage rights."  Its default is "not filtered by license."  But you can change this by clicking on the drop down menu and chosing from:

1.  "free to use or share," 
2.  "free to use or share, even commercially," 
3.  "free to use, share or modify," and 
4. "free to use, share of modify, even commercially."

Another example of artwork available for free use or sharing through Google

If you have any need for images to highlight your blog, spruce up your civic club newsletter, or give a little assist to your child's homework project, you should check this out.

Image through Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 license