7 places to download images for your blog

by Tim Bednar on May 12, 2009 » Add more comments.
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Photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Ashford now supports using thumbnail images in its blog layout. Using an “hero” image is now an important part of running a professional blog. The best blogs select eye catching images that relate well with the title. Our latest release is optimized to use a 300x220px image in single blog post. (It supports the use of the caption feature.) For the blog layout, it zooms and crops the image to 150x150px.

However, how do you afford and find images? This article will tell you where to download images and the right way to use them.

Where to download images

Your mileage may vary as to the quality and selection of images. But you are not paying for them so stop complaining. I have listed sites that provide free images. They are ranked by order of my preference based on easy of use and quality of images.

1.) Flickr

Not all photos on Flickr can be used legally in this way, but you can search the Flickr Creative Commons Attribution photo stream. Or you can try out Compfight which makes it easy to find images for commercial and non-commercial use.

All the photos in this stream use the generic Creative Commons licence. So you must attribute the photo. This is best done by putting the photographers name in the caption and this linking to the photo at the bottom of you post. You have all the search and tagging feature of Flickr to make this easy.

For example, here is D Sharon Pruitt, Flickr member, who actively promotes her Creative Commons photos.

  • 13,127,145 photos
  • No registration required
  • Keyword search
  • Browse by category or tag
  • To use legally, you must include linked attribution to Flickr photo

When browsing and searching, make sure that your results ONLY include Creative Commons Attribution required licensed images as it is easy to start including images with other licenses. To find the license for any image you want to use, check the right column under Additional Information. Most likely you will need to give credit when you use any image on Flickr.

2.) Stock Exchange

One of the largest free image site is the Stock Exchange. Please make sure that you pay attention because they do a great job of linking to premium images.

3.) Stock Vault

Free images with lots of attempts to up-sell you to premium content.

4.) Free Digital Photography

5.) Free Photos Bank

Free Photos Bank is similar to Stock Exchange.

6.) Dreamstime

Dreamstime makes it a hard to get free stock images (23,814 images).

7 tips for using other people’s images

  • Royalty Free does not mean you do not have to pay
  • The best license to work with is Creative Commons Public Domain or Attribution
  • Do not use faces to avoid model release problems
  • ALWAYS read the terms of use and the license agreements
  • Download the image to your hard drive and upload it into your post (do not link directly to the photographer’s copy of the image)
  • ALWAYS credit other people’s photos and link to the photo
  • Set the target on the photo credit link to “Open in new window” to prevent people from leaving your site

Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt

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About Tim Bednar

Ashford WordPress Theme is developed by Tim Bednar founder of Turtle Interactive. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Download Free Photos
August 10, 2009
7:52 am

Hi,

You can use my photos for free at http://www.download-free-photos.com/

Enjoy,
Alex

Getty Image Office Philippines   
August 10, 2010
11:17 pm

I found a website called MorgueFile.com, which you guys might like if you are into very, shall we say, unique, photoediting. But trust me, they have a very nice collection.

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