Where To Get Royalty Free Images – Things You Must Know Before You Use Them
Images are one of the essential components for online marketing. No matter you are blogging or doing product creation, you will need proper and attractive images to blend in to your post or in the product if not doing the e-cover yourself. In this post, I am going to share a few resources and techniques to find royal free images so that we can use them without infringing the copyright.
What Does Royalty Free Mean?
It simply means it is royal free so every time you use it you don’t need to pay royalty to the person who holds the copyright of the image. It does not necessarily mean it is free image though some of the resources I introduce below will be free. Just do note that you might still need to credit the sources or the author in some other ways (i.e. link back or mention to the source) when you use the royalty images.
Google Image Search
One of the most popular resources I use frequently is Google Image. Just like the normal Google Search, you type in the keyword you would like to find for the images and it will return the results. Instead of showing the typical websites, it will show relevant photos as results. So it is very easy to find what you want.
Before you delve in to scrap all the images and download to your computer, you must check the right of the usage to avoid the infringement of the copyright. If you intend to use the images in your blog or e-cover of your product, you should look for the images that are allowed to be used commercially (unless you will never monetize the blog).
How To Filter The Usage Rights For The Images?
After Google Image returns a tons of images based on your search keywords, you should click on the Option icon > Advanced Search located on the top right hand corner, as shown below:
Subsequently, choose the usage rights from the drop down menu. If you are using the images personally without involving any commercial related matter such as to put in your diary or print out to paste it on the wall of your bedroom, you can choose “Free to use or share”. If you intend to use the images in your business (your blog is considered as a business if you monetize or get any other benefits via any form through your blog), you should choose “free to use or share, even commercially“.
Most of the time, you should see the number of images return from the Google Images substantially reduce when you choose the commercial usage right. To take a step further, check the terms and conditions before you download the images to be on the safe side. Some of the sites will require a link back to credit the original source, some might restrict the images to be used for certain ways, etc…
I have also included a video below to demonstrate the exact process to use Google Image to get royalty free images:
Get Royalty Free Images With Google Images
Flickr
Another popular image source is Flickr. After you type in the keyword you want to search in Flickr, you will need to filter the usage right by clicking on “” and ” “.
Just like we did in Google Image, it is safer to check the license of the image we are going to use and attribute the creator of the image by linking back.
As we can see from the license above, you can use the image for commercial work under the following conditions:
- Attribute the author for the image
- No alteration or amendment of the image.
So, make sure you check the license of every single image before you use them on your website.
There are a number of the royalty free images sites that you can use below. However, you might need to pay for some of the photos and the cost varies for each sites.
If you would like a walk through of the process to get royalty free images on Flickr, watch the video below:
Get Royalty Free Images With Flickr
Stock.Xchng
Stock.Xchng is another site that I love since it is free however the selection and quality is limited.
MorgueFile
MorgueFile is another site that allow you to use the images for Free.
DreamsTime
DreamsTime contains lots of photos that you can pay as low as 20 cents to around $16 for high resolution image.
IStockPhoto
IstockPhoto allows users to purchase credits for the images and the cost of the images vary.
BigStockPhoto
BigStockPhoto provides royalty free images that ranges from $2.99 to $12.99.
Free Digital Photo
The cost of images from Free Digital Photos ranges from free to $10 depending on the resolution of the images.
How To Use Them?
Usually, I outsource the graphic design. So, I mainly use the free images for blog post. If I need an awesome e-cover to be done, I will sometimes pay for the premium images and hand them to my graphic designer and let them use the graphic I desire.
Do you come across any other sites that provide royalty free images? Feel free to share it by leaving a comment below.
To Your Success,
Ming Jong Tey
Filed under Content by on Jun 27th, 2012. Comment. 
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Comments on Where To Get Royalty Free Images – Things You Must Know Before You Use Them
I usually go for flickr to get creative common images, well thanks for sharing the idea
Ifham khan recently posted..4 Places for A Newbie Designer to Make Money Online
Great list thanks! But wouldn’t Google penalize for having duplicated image?
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@Ifham khan: Flickr is great! There are tons of good images that we can use
Ming Jong recently posted..Get Tons of Traffic From Press Release
@John: Good question. Initially, Google does not have the ability to search image (relying on the alt tag). Now, even Google can let you upload and search the image (open Google Image and drag one of your image to the search box), it is at its incipient phase and not reliable.
Unless you are purely using images in your post, I am sure majority of your content will be in text format, that will be assessed by Google…So, don’t worry about being penalized for having duplicate image.
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Ming,
Thanks for this great and helpful post. I had been using another route to get at the Google images I could legally use. I never even noticed the advanced search option. This is going to save me SO much time. Flickr is fine if you have a half hour or so to waste finding a legal image. I don’t.
I recently came up with another way to use beautiful images without worrying about copyright. I became an affiliate at Art.com. They sell 100,000s of images, photos, drawings, etc. Now, when I need a nice image for a post I simply insert an affiliate link that contains a beautiful, nice-sized image. My travel website is becoming an art gallery! I might sell some art from time to time, but that’s not the point. Visit my site if you’d like to see this in action. Click on “Concert Tours” or “Urban Adventures” as examples.
All the best,
Scott
Hey Ming what a great idea for the post. I mean adding the element to actually explain what the difference is and what you can and can’t use is perfect. It’s a very tricky thing to miss when you first start.
bbrian017 recently posted..#BlogEngage Twitter Chat ReCap For June 28 2012
@Scott Shannon: Hi Scott, great to see you here again
Google Image indeed makes our life easier to find the images but the images allowed for commercial usage is quite limited…
Interesting idea for Art.com. I didn’t know they allow you to use the image as long as you promote for them. What a win-win
Saw the images under urban adventures, good quality image! Thanks for sharing this. I will explore this further and likely to take up the affiliate route to use their image.
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@bbrian017: Thanks Brian. It is confusing sometimes for the usage right, especially if you are totally new and that could well cost a lot to pick up the lesson.
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@Ming Jong: well when I started blogging for the first year I was using any image. I started like that but now I make sure to link all the rights as I know better now. Many people just think ah it’s Google it’s free.
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@bbrian017: Another important point is even Google provides the advanced search function to let us filter the commercial usage images, it is still our responsibility to make sure the usage right of the image. So, always double check the image usage right.
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I didn’t know you could search the rights even commercially! that is so crazy! this post has helped me a lot! so thank you for that! and i always search images on Google! its the best place to go!
Jake Dewman recently posted..Boise Churches, Considering All Aspects of Your Boise Home Purchase
@Jake Dewman: You are welcomed Jake. It is really convenient to search the images. Images are attractive and we all love them. However, just need to pay attention to the usage right
Ming Jong recently posted..How I Published An Amazon Kindle Book in 2 Weeks Working 2 Hours A Day
Hi Ming! Using images is great and can attract readers. There is a saying “Picture capture
a thousand words”. Always give credit to those that create images. Thanks for the share.
Becca recently posted..End Of Lease Cleaning Wollstonecraft
I think it is also a good idea to alter the images in some way. I’ve ‘heard’ that some legal cases about copyright infringement were thrown out or questioned because the original image had been altered or changed in some way. This in effect, creates a new image that is not copyrighted – except by you.
david recently posted..Why Running An Ecommerce Website Is Better Than Blogging
@Becca: Hi Becca, definitely agree! Using pictures sometimes is a lot easier to convey the message. The safest way to protect ourselves is to find out the usage right and stick to the requirement.
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@david: Yes, if it fits into your purpose. Just be careful when you choose the image and make sure the usage right allows you to alter the images. Otherwise, just like what you mentioned, there are quite a lot cases related to the alteration of the original image.
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I use flickr for images and it has one of the best collection of free images. I have installed http://www.compfight.com/ and it has made the attribution process really easy.
@Abhishek: Haven’t come across the site you mentioned. It seems to smooth the attribution process a lot
Ming Jong recently posted..Fully Automated Online Business? The Right Way To Generate Passive Income
Excellent suggestion – I hadn’t realized that Google Images had an advanced search feature to filter for images. Thus far I have avoided using images on my site (even though it isn’t commercialized) and was looking into creating my own graphics. Talk about a time saver!
Andrew Price recently posted..Are companies inflating their Twitter followers?
@Andrew Price: It is a handy function by Google Image and definitely a time saver. It is always a myth about the copyright of image on Google and hence lots of people prefer to stay away from them rather than sorry… Now, we can harness literally endless great images
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Another very informative post from you, Ming. This is very new to me. Same with Abhishek, I also use Compfight.com on searching Creative Commons photo.
@Jerome Ibuyan: You are welcomed Jerome. These are some of the popular resources that I used in my blog or product creation. Handy!
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