If you're after images for your own blogging Flickr can be a great source. I've written previously on how to find the images that are available to use for free.

Now here is a step by step guide to finding photos on Flickr that are free to use. This is complete with screenshots to help guide you through the whole process of finding great free photos!

 

While it is great to get photos to use for free it is worth keeping in mind why the photographers behind the work might be offering their shots for nothing. Whether it is simply the desire to see their images in use or a marketing tool to promote the image or their work generally there is usually something the end user of a free image can do help and show their appreciation.

Using free photos from Flickr typically requires attribution crediting the photographer and linking back to their image on Flickr. This obviously rewards the photographer with exposure for their work and a link which in internet seo (search engine optimisation) terms has real value. For photographers who do also license their work for fees this exposure and link building can be a valuable return for distributing some images for free use. If you've used an image from a photographer on Flickr be sure to properly link to the image page and if possible to their profile and any personal website they may have. Many photographers will also appreciate an email letting them know where and how you've used their work. It is always great to know someone has appreciated your work and the 'tearsheet' can be valuable to a photographer showing their work to potential clients.

Many photographers who usually license images for a fee will also allow some limited free use of images as a way of marketing their work. This may mean giving away odd images to gain exposure or allowing the free use of web size low resolution images but charging for the full size version. The free images available on most of the microstock websites are a good example of this. They are all the work of contributors who are licensing their work for royalties but have decided to make some images available for free. Generally speaking the motivation for this will be to raise their profile on the site temporarily and promote their portfolio. The Dreamstime free images section is one of the best in the micro stock photography sector and it can be seen each free image is shown alongside images from the rest of the photographers portfolio. Often these will be related or similar images, so a great way to thank a photographer for their free image is to buy one of their other photos!

However you do it, keep in mind the value of what you've been granted in a free photo and, whenever possible, try to give something back to the photographer in return.

Free photo research tool

If you're a blogger, photo researcher or designer you're going to love this cool website which offers an excellent way of finding free images for use in your projects. Photoree describes itself as the equivalent of last.fm and stumbleupon, but for images. Essentially it serves up images based on your preferences. On signing up you create some filters to let the search know what you're interested in. Then, by rating what the site serves up you effectively fine tune these filters so the quality and relevance of images it suggests should improve as you use it.

It is a great idea and even without specifying free images only most of the content Photoree is indexing at the moment is creative commons, so it is a very effective way of creating a regular automated lookout for free to use images you might be interested in on Flickr.

Click here to visit Photoree.

Click here for more on finding free photos on Flickr.

How to find free photos on Flickr

If you haven't already done so you might like to read the previous post on Creative Commons licenses. CC licenses are the things that make it possible to find photos and images to use for free on Flickr, but there are usually still terms and restrictions, so it is important to understand what is being offered. Usually attribution is required; so you need to credit the photographer as author of the work.

The whole of Flickr is not a source of free photos! While Flickr is the Internets biggest photo sharing site the term 'showing' would really be more accurate. Photo sharing on Flickr does not mean any image can be downloaded and used for free. It depends on the license a Flickr user has chosen to publish an image with and if they have gone with traditional copyright "all rights reserved" then the image may not be used without first seeking permission to do so.

However Flickr is a great source for free photos and images if you know where to look! To find photos for free we need to filter Flickr's collection to show us only images available under Creative Commons licenses. Before starting a specific search you should be clear about what you need the photo for in order to look for the applicable CC license that will allow this.

To search for CC photos
Go to the advanced search page on Flickr. This page gives you various options for fine tuning a search on Flickr. The last of these at the bottom of the page is an option to show only content with a creative commons license. This is what you want to find images, and videos, available to use for free. If you want photos etc to use commercially or to adapt yuo can further filter the results to allow for this.

To browse for CC photos
Or to use Flickr terminology, Explore! Go to the Creative Commons page on Flickr. Here you'll find brief definitions of the different license options and links to explore content available under each diferent set of options.

Flickr can be a gold mine for creative photos and a lot of great content is available to use for free. Just remember to credit authors and abide by any other CC terms and if you find an image that is just what you need but isn't Creative Commons licensed then be sure to contact the photographer to seek permission to use their work.