Looking for inspiration? Images add visual interest to posts and SEO value. Do you need a free wallpaper, background, header image or illustration for your blog or website? Do you want to get the most out of image search? The quick and easy way to find free images you have permission to use is by searching for public domain images or those under the Creative Commons license. Here are seven free sources I recommend.
Rear door of the Last Chance Store, built in 1857 Council Grove – prairiedust.net
Google Creative Commons Image Search allows you to specify exactly what you are looking for. Take advantage of the usage rights filters on the Advanced Search and Advanced Image Search pages to find web content (such as text, videos, or images) you can reuse, share, or modify. You can use operators in the search box; Find pages that are similar to, or link to, a URL; Search pages you’ve visited; Customize your search settings.
Flickr is home to over five billion of the world’s photos and makes it possible to post content hosted on Flickr to other web sites. Visit Flickr creative commons section and use the advanced search feature to specify a search within the Creative Commons-licensed content. Sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr. This provides a way to get more information about the content and the photographer.
Flickr photo by schoschie
By Jos. (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
FreeDigitalPhotos.net provides free image downloads for use in corporate and personal projects. Images are free provided you publish a credit to FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Images can be manipulated, edited, have text overlayed, or be combined. No registration is required see the terms of use for more information.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
image © Emmanuel Salé
for openphoto.net CC:NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Stock.XCHNG has close to 400,000 high-quality, hand-picked stock photos and graphics. You will find what you need quickly and easily but Stock.XCHNG has a more complex image licence agreement.
morgueFile free photos allows you to copy, distribute, transmit the work and to adapt the work. Attribution is not required. You are prohibited from using this work in a stand alone manner.
OpenPhoto is a high-quality photo sharing platform created in 1998. Contributors offer their images for free under terms of Creative Commons licensing and usage conditions vary from image to image.
Discussion
I have listed 70 free sources of images on my Resources page under the heading “images (free sources)” and my list is by no means complete.
Do you incude images in your posts?
Would you like to share any sources you recommend?
I’ll be happy to include them on my Resources page as well.
Thank you TimeThief,
I appreciate all of your post and the time you put into creating them for us. If I may say so, lovely pic. Have a wonderful Holiday!
as they say: a picture’s worth a thousand words. I like to use http://flickrcc.net to find and edit Creative Commons images – it’s amazing how many great photos people have made freely available
Fantastic! I only use one of these sources regularly so I’m very happy to know about the others. I’ve used pubicdomainpicutres.net for the most part, which I may have found on your wonderful resource page to begin with!
Hi Sandra,
I hope you are enjoying your digital vacation. I’m so glad that this post has provided you with more sources of free images. Thanks also for providing that link to pubicdomainpicutres.net.
This is a sweet tip. The background image you have is amazing and yes you have great pictures.
Hi Baxter and thank you. :)
I had no idea there were so many resources. Thank you!
@lizfruitberry
Hello there,
I’m happy to hear appreciate my post and my Resources page too.
A wonderfully helpful resource for all– thanks, TT. Hurrah for visuals!! : )
Hi Mark,
Thanks. Hooray for your cartoons. The best visuals of all are the ones you create yourself. :)
wow am so happy just what i need..taught me a lot ..thank you
That’s good to know. Happy blogging!
I’ve been looking for new places to get free photos. Thanks for sharing this list.
Hi Anna,
I’m glad to hear you found what you needed.
Interesting and a bit disturbing that I should only just today (the 19th) have gotten the email notification about this post, when I first happened across it yesterday, and it was originally posted on the 17th. I thought those automated email notifications went out as soon as the post was published.
Oops, I was reading yesterday’s mail. But still, the notification came a day after the post is dated.
Hi there,
I have been so busy answering support forum questions over this http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/permalinks-causing-invalid-activation-key-error?replies=1 for the past 3 days that I haven’t even had time to answer comments on my blog. Now you tell me the email notifications are a day late – what’s next?
Even if I knew, I wouldn’t have the heart to tell you.
Thank you Time Thief. I use mostly my own images on my blogs but I often need an outside image and don’t know where to turn or how to give proper attribution. This is very helpful.
Bi Barb,
I’m glad this post was helpful. Here’s another related one > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/02/05/copyright-basics-for-bloggers/
sooo helpful! Thank you!
Hi there,
I like being helpful so thanks for letting me know that I helped you. :)
Curiously, I was just talking to someone today about the issue of using Creative Commons free images and attributing them correctly.
I hadn’t heard of the last two sites
. Interesting, thanks! Not that I use other people’s images, I have enough of my own! :)
As for other sites… my own, new blog, has images in the posts that are okay for people to use, in exchange for a link. Here’s the info: http://artyoldbird.com/using-my-images/
Hi Val,
There are 70 sources of free images on my resources page. I chose to select only 7 for this post. :)
:)
So many new bloggers don’t know how to correctly attribute creators of images or text for that matter. When I noticed that happening a lot I decided it was time to publish this post to illustrate how it’s done.
I try as often as possible to use my own images, but this is extremely valuable and helpful information. Thanks so much!
Hugs,
Kathy
Hi Kethy,
I love your images. Thanks for the kind words here. :)
Thank you, it is very helpful for some of my blogs.
Hi Ben,
I like it when what I come up with is useful to others. Happy blogging! :)
Thank you so much for this!
I’m glad you liked it.
I will check out these sources today. My blog could use a little something. Thank you!
I think related images do enhance blog posts. Blocks of texts are not very appealing and related images can break up the text and add interest as well as providing some rest for the eyes.