I want to use this opportunity to wish every one of us a Happy New Month. We are now in the middle of the year and i think its time for us to go back and check how far we’ve gone with our new year resolution and goals. Wow, that reminds me of mine which i haven’t gone far with :), still trying anyway.
OK, like i told you before, my exam is still on and I have another guest for us today and he is Alex Strike, you will read more about him by the end of the post. I’ve known Alex for some time now and when he asked me if can write a guest post for me, i accepted because i know what he can do :). So, lets see what he has for us.
BTW: I will also announce the winners of the giveaway i hosted with Ashvini about two weeks ago so, lets watch and see who the 2 lucky winners will be.
5 Main Sources To Find Images For Your Blog Posts
An essential attribute of every (well, almost every) blog post of high quality is a good photo or illustration. It will be even more precise to say that this is some unwritten “rule of etiquette” while blogging. Someone posts themed pictures, someone creates images by himself, but all authors often ask the same question: where can we get good images for our blog posts? After all, not everyone is a good photographer or illustrator. Moreover, spending time on image of 250×200 pixels is not always effective.
Fortunately, the Internet provides a large number of images with a Creative Commons license. To describe Creative Commons briefly, I can say that it is conducive to the simple and free use of different materials on the network. Therefore, the search of such pictures or images is what we exactly need. So, I suggest reviewing useful websites where every blogger will be able to find various images he needs for his posts.
Google Images
Let’s begin with the most usual tools – Google Images. If we take a look at search tools, we will find “Commercial use” and “Modification” options there (Usage rights menu), that can be used to determine which images are free. I admit that sometimes I just look for pictures without a license, but I use them only for personal non-commercial projects (my blogs for example). In general, Google Image Search is comfortable enough, and many new useful features are added there every year, such as images filters by color, etc.
Flickr
Creative Commons images can be found at the popular photo hosting named Flickr too. As well as in case with Google Image Search, all we need to do is set search up a little or use the catalog. Flickr really has so many beautiful pictures, whether it’s an author’s photograph of a city or a country, or just abstract narrative pictures. We can find images with a free right to use, or pick up a picture with a non-profit license – the choice will be even greater in this case.
Once I was looking for the Czech Republic images for a thematic blog on Flickr, so, some pictures were impossible to copy, and the page provided me with a hint that those files were protected. But in general, there is a big number of various pictures to use on Flickr, so, we should check this source out for sure!
Stock.xchng
Stock.xchng is one of the largest (it has in about 400,000 images) stock services, which has free images and doesn’t require any back links to them. We can enter a desired request to a search bar, and get a set of pictures available for download + links to some premium files. I’m not sure if there are any restrictions as for the number of downloads per day, but if we want a small picture to illustrate blog posts, we can copy them from the site with no problems at all.
123RF
It is not a bad idea to find a free image on 123RF too. The chances increase significantly if we are not interested in large files of a very high resolution. The site gives you an opportunity to download photos of various sizes, depending on your goals, but the smallest images of 400 pixels are available for downloading for free. The choice is very good: according to this site’s developers, in about 12,500,000 images can be found at 123RF. Use the search to find illustrations of the topics needed.
EveryStockPhoto
Finally, I would like to mention one more place where we can “hunt” for images properly. This is EveryStockPhoto. The project is described as a “search engine for images on a given license,” so, it can be a really good service to use. Specify the website you want to search in the advanced user settings (for example, it can be Flickr or Stock,xchng, that I’ve mentioned about), and the side will provide you with thousands of search results. It’s very convenient when all pictures are available at a single website.
I think that these five sources will be enough to have really beautiful and free images on hand. With their help we’ll be able to find proper pictures and illustrations very quickly, and make our blog posts more interesting and attractive for readers.
Share Juice Pro Giveaway Winners
I’m excited to the announce the winners of the giveaway right now as was randomly selected by Raffle Copter…..
1. Lisa Buben
2. Tim Bonner
Congrats to the two winners. You both will get an email from Ashvini ASAP. Thanks to all who participated too, I’m sure you will also win some other time :).
About the author:
Alex Strike is a 26-year-old blogger, interested in social media, online marketing, innovative technologies and the Internet in general. Alex is always ready to help with assignment writing if someone really needs it.
Harleena Singh says
Hi Alex, and welcome to Theodore ‘s blog 🙂
Ah;…I love images, and I’m glad you shared these great places to find images from 🙂
Yes, I’ve used images for my blog from all these sites, though Google images take a lot of time to hunt for as you rarely find the kinds you are looking for. My favorite remains Freedigitalohotos, perhaps you missed out that one from this list. I think the image there, like in all these others are awesome, free, and easy to use.
Congratulations to Lisa and Tim, and best wishes for your exams too Theodore 🙂
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Alex Strike says
Hello Harleena!
Thank you very much for such a sweet comment and for sharing your thoughts with us! Yes, you are right, Google images take much time to find the right one, because most of them are used so many times already. Anyway, this source still remains one of the biggest and most popular ones to image search.
I haven’t heard of Freedigitalohotos, thanks for sharing! I will definitely check it!
Cheers!
Sue Neal says
Thanks for reminding me about the freedigitalphotos site, Harleena – appreciated 🙂
Sue
Temilola Globalwalyy says
Hello Theo, You have a nice list, i taught you are going to skip Google out of the way, but i see you didn’t try that, Google has been my number 1 list to get anything i want from the internet, even when am searching for a post on my blog, i make use of Google….
Thank you for the wonderful List…
Alex Strike says
Hello there!
Thanks for passing by and sharing your thoughts with us! Yes, you are right, Google is #1 for searching images today though many of them are not original anymore, though not good enough for our personal blogs. We should always try using something new to make our blogs different and unique. I am glad tou liked my article!
All the best!
Martin says
true, images are vitally important for any blog post! You’ve got the point!
Alex Strike says
Hi Martin!
Yes, we can’t do anything with our blogs without images! So, here is the point))
Martin says
Right! I recently posted article about it, Check this out) http://templatesmint.com/how-to-get-the-killing-images-to-your-blog-post
Theodore Nwangene says
Ok Martin,
Thanks a lot
Pst Bless says
Hello Theo, you have compiled a great list here, i appreciate your efforts in putting this together, more grace bro.
Alex Strike says
Hi!
I am glad you liked my list of images sources! Hope it will be useful when you search for unique content for your own blog as well!
Cheers!
Onibalusi Segun says
Great list Lisa.
Images place a vital role in an article. Your list is quite expensive and interesting.
Thanks for sharing.
Alex Strike says
Hi!
Thanks for your comment, but I am Alex, not Lisa))) Anyway, I am glad you liked my article! And you are always welcome. This list is very useful for me as well, because I often need images for my posts and blogs too))
Have a nice day!
M Nirmal Anandh says
Hi Theodore,
You have done a good job. Getting images for blog is one of the important thing for bloggers. Because we have to be careful while putting image, it could not be a copyrighted image. Thanks for sharing this theo.
Alex Strike says
Hi there!
Yes, you are definitely right as for copyrighted images! You have no rights to use them, especially if they have watermarks! Fortunately, there are many really good sources which give us wonderful and free images, and we can use them to make our blogs look better!
Dan Black says
The main place I get my blog images is through a Google image search. I’ll have to check out the other ones you mentioned. Thanks for this post my friend.
Alex Strike says
Hello Dan!
I am happy to give you more info about images sources. I am sure you’ll like some of them, as they can provide you with really beautiful images which are difficult to find via Google sometimes, as it takes much more time.
Have a nice day!
Majharul Hossain says
Yes absolutely right! Images improves the content quality and engaged readers in it for some extra time. The sources of the images you’ve mentioned here is really helpful to a beginner. But, my problem is the copy right. I’m always worried about it whenever I copied images from those sources.
Alex Strike says
Thank you Majharul!
You see, this is my problem as well. Copyright is very important to remember when you use this or that pic for your blog. I just try to pay attention to watermarks, and I don’t use images with them. but when I see there are so many alike images on the Web, it’s clear that this pic is used many times already, so, it is probably free to use))
Gautham A S says
Its good to find free images, but if the images are not yours, it is always better to just credit the image with the place where you got it from.
Alex Strike says
Yes, you are right Gautham!
Thanks for sharing this useful advice with all of us. Such a step can help you avoid many problems with copyright in the future.
Cheers!
Sue Neal says
A very helpful post, thank you – I’m always on the lookout for good sources for images for my posts. I appreciated Harleena’s suggestion, too.
Many thanks,
Sue
Alex Strike says
Thank you Sue!
The more suggestion we have – the better our blogs will be)) That’s what we need this community for))
Regards,
Alex
Tim Bonner says
Hey Theodore
Wow, that’s brilliant news on winning your giveaway. What a nice surprise! Thank you.
Also, welcome to Theodore’s blog Alex. I’ve used a couple of the sources for images that you mention. Nowadays, I tend to use the site that Harleena mentions, FreeDigitalPhotos, as the terms of use are very clear.
I find that other sites are less clear on where and how you can use images, particularly Google Images. I’ve heard horror stories of people using images from Google and being sued for the privilege because there were copyright issues.
Alex Strike says
Hello Tim!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! I think I should check FreeDigitalPhotos as soon as possible now)) And yes.. Copyright issues always matter, so, we always should be careful with what we use in order not to offend anyone!
Have a nice day!
Daniel Adetunji says
Wow! Theodore,
Do you know I don’t even know these image sources well? Well thanks for the eye opener
God bless
Dan
Alex Strike says
You are always welcome, Dan! I am glad that my article was useful for you This is the best award for every author when his works are accepted and liked by readers!
All the best,
Alex
Sylviane Nuccio says
Hi Theodore,
I actually posted this comment yesterday, but when I clicked the submit button I got an error page. So here it is again…
II knew of a few of them, but not all. I am always careful with Google images as I know many of the photos that come up on the search results are not fee to use, so I try to keep away as I’m never really clear about the ones that are OK to take.
As much as I can I use my own pictures which make it even better when possible.
Thanks for sharing these ideas and links to find images for our blog posts 🙂
I’ll keep those links for future references.
Alex Strike says
Hello Sylviane!
Thanks for your comment! yes, sure, your own pictures wil lbe perfect for a blog becuase you will never have to deal with copywright issues in this case. Moreover, you can make a picture look exactly what you need for your post and not to spend time on searching the most appropriate one at different online sources. If a blogger has such an opportunity, he should definitely use it.
Cheers!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks a lot for stopping by Sylviane,
I’m glad you also found the post interesting.
Okto says
Hi Alex,
Thanks for this informative post! I am also using freedigitalphotos though. It’s a good alternative for free image source
Alex Strike says
Thank you, Okto! I’m glad to know that you find my post informative!
Cheers!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for your contribution Okto,
Free Digital Photos is also a good alternative
lionleaf llc says
Images are a great way to enhance your own blog, and adding and managing them is easy.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks man
Alex Strike says
Yes, you are right! Everything genius is simple)) And we should use this simple stuff to create really genius blogs))
Cheers!
Ruchi says
Awesome sharing and great list definitely so helpful my work thank you for sharing such a wonderful post.
Alex Strike says
Thank you Ruchi!
Best luck with your work!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Ruchi, I’m glad you like the post 🙂
Doula Training by Doula says
Thanks for the informative tips shared here! Got only positive emotions and dozens of ideas that could be useful for my blog. Thanks it was just another motivation to devote some more of time and effort to my start up! Regards
Alex Strike says
Hello Doula!
It’s so pleasant for me, as for the author of this article, to read such positive comments from readers! Thank you for writing here, and I am glad that you find my article interesting and inspiring!
Cheers!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Doula,
I’m happy you found the post interesting.
Ganesh Narayan Gupta says
Thanks for the list of the sources. Till now, I was much dependent on google and stock.xchng, but now I will have more options to find a suitable image 🙂
Alex Strike says
Hello Ganesh!
I am glad to know that my article helped you to find new sources for good images! i hope they will make your blog really attractive to your readers and new visitors!
Cheers!
Theodore Nwangene says
You welcome Ganesh
Nithin Upendran says
Great post bro.I use google image search it is the best and the most widely used for searching image.Flicker and all doesn’t have that much image collection.Since we are using images in googles for non commercial purposes there would be no threat of copyright issue.Thanks for making me aware of some unknown image searchers.I would like to try it out !
Alex Strike says
Hello Nithin!
Thanks for passing by and sharing your thoughts with us! I am glad you liked my post and found it useful! U hope it will help you with your future work with images)))
Cheers!
Alex Strike says
You are always welcome, Skype Hacker! ))
P.S. Nice nickname, by the way 😉
Alex Strike says
Thank you for your kind words! We’ll try to contunie working hard to provide you and other readers with interesting and useful information!
All the best!
Bob says
I would put pixabay.com and goodfreephotos.com on the list. Usually I want to be able to use photos personally or commercially for any purpose I want.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for the addition Bob