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.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
High quality fresh images for your blog
Having premium images in your blog posts can really help your blogging by improving the quality of your content and bringing seo benefits.
It hasen't always been easy to find great images and stay within the law though! Fortunately there is now no need to resort to grabbing photos via google images with little regard to copyright; millions of fresh high quality images are now freely available to bloggers via PicApp.
Photos from top sources like Corbis and Getty Images are constantly being added covering all current affairs and events from the world's top press and stock photographers. It is easy to find photos and grab a slice of code to embed into your blog post; all the pics in this post come from PicApp. The deal is that sponsored ads will display over the images when they are moused over; a pretty reasonable price to pay for the use of images you'd otherwise have to steal or pay a high price for.
Both creative and editorial images are available but this is probably most useful for anyone running a current affairs, news or celebrity / gossip type blog where the availabilty of up to date high quality images will be extremely useful. PicApp supports most of the popular blogging platforms and has a plugin for wordpress users with others on the way. So if you need a shot of Paris Hilton's latest shopping trip look no further!
It hasen't always been easy to find great images and stay within the law though! Fortunately there is now no need to resort to grabbing photos via google images with little regard to copyright; millions of fresh high quality images are now freely available to bloggers via PicApp.
Photos from top sources like Corbis and Getty Images are constantly being added covering all current affairs and events from the world's top press and stock photographers. It is easy to find photos and grab a slice of code to embed into your blog post; all the pics in this post come from PicApp. The deal is that sponsored ads will display over the images when they are moused over; a pretty reasonable price to pay for the use of images you'd otherwise have to steal or pay a high price for.
Both creative and editorial images are available but this is probably most useful for anyone running a current affairs, news or celebrity / gossip type blog where the availabilty of up to date high quality images will be extremely useful. PicApp supports most of the popular blogging platforms and has a plugin for wordpress users with others on the way. So if you need a shot of Paris Hilton's latest shopping trip look no further!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Mother and daughter outside free stock photo
This nice natural portrait of a young Mum and her daughter enjoying time together in a park is available as a free download from Dreamstime.Saturday, January 23, 2010
Best microstock sites for free photos
Many of the microstock stock photography sites have some photos that are available for free. The sites offer these images as incentives to attract visitors but there is no requirement to do anything more than sometimes register on the site in order to download free images. The advantage the microstock sites offer over many regular free photo sites is the availability of higher resolution images and a generally higher quality of photos.
Sites that have a searchable collection of free images
These sites maintain seperate collections of photos and illustrations that can be searched and/or browsed. They therefore offer a very useful resource in your hunt for a free image when you're after something specific.
Dreamstime - Dreamstime have a very user friendly searchable free section that offers high resolution downloads.
123rf - 123 Currently offering over 25,000 free images! Images stay in the free collection for 30 days so the content is constantly being refreshed.
FeaturePics - Themed collections of free photos created by FP contributors.
Bigstockphoto don't actually promote any free images on their site but they do make them available to site developers. Scroll down to the bottom of any page on this blog and you'll find links to search and browse the free photos you can get from Bigstockphoto.
Sites that offer regular free images
These sites only have from one to a small selection of images available for free at any given time. They aren't, therefore, great for finding a free photo for a particular use when you need it. Visiting these sites regularly though will enable you to build up your own collection of free photos for potential future uses.
iStockphoto - iStock have a free image of the week and these are archived so at any time there are several available for download. Arguably some of the highest quality free images available.
Shutterstock - Offer a free photo and free vector each week.
Crestock -A fresh free photo is served up every day, and there is an RSS feed if you'd like to subscribe.
Fotolia - Have a large database of free images from which a different selection are available each day. Update; Fotolia now encourage you to connect with them on their facebook page to access their free images.
So there is a wealth of good quality imagery available for free from the microstocks, and if you can't find quite what you need their prices for regular images are of course micro cheap!
Sites that have a searchable collection of free images
These sites maintain seperate collections of photos and illustrations that can be searched and/or browsed. They therefore offer a very useful resource in your hunt for a free image when you're after something specific.
Dreamstime - Dreamstime have a very user friendly searchable free section that offers high resolution downloads.
123rf - 123 Currently offering over 25,000 free images! Images stay in the free collection for 30 days so the content is constantly being refreshed.
FeaturePics - Themed collections of free photos created by FP contributors.
Bigstockphoto don't actually promote any free images on their site but they do make them available to site developers. Scroll down to the bottom of any page on this blog and you'll find links to search and browse the free photos you can get from Bigstockphoto.
Sites that offer regular free images
These sites only have from one to a small selection of images available for free at any given time. They aren't, therefore, great for finding a free photo for a particular use when you need it. Visiting these sites regularly though will enable you to build up your own collection of free photos for potential future uses.
iStockphoto - iStock have a free image of the week and these are archived so at any time there are several available for download. Arguably some of the highest quality free images available.
Shutterstock - Offer a free photo and free vector each week.
Crestock -A fresh free photo is served up every day, and there is an RSS feed if you'd like to subscribe.
Fotolia - Have a large database of free images from which a different selection are available each day. Update; Fotolia now encourage you to connect with them on their facebook page to access their free images.
So there is a wealth of good quality imagery available for free from the microstocks, and if you can't find quite what you need their prices for regular images are of course micro cheap!
Free Money!
Well not quite, but this money photo is available as a free download and the perspective used makes it useful for illustrating money making and success concepts.
Download the full size (2560x1920 pixels) image here.
Download the full size (2560x1920 pixels) image here.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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.
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.
What is a creative commons license?
Creative Commons (cc) is a non-profit organisation founded by Lawrence Lessig with the aim of facilitating the easy sharing and use of creative works. The premise being that traditional copyright laws are too restrictive in this regard by preventing creatives who would like to make their work more freely available from easily doing so.
It should be noted that an image, photo or an other creative work made available under a creative commons license may be free in that payment for its use isn't required but it is not usually entirely free from restrictions and conditions on the use of the work. The nature of these depends on the particluar CC license the creator of the work chooses to use; there is no single creative commons license but many versions depending on the combination of permissions and restrictions set. The copyright of CC works does still remain with the original creator.
Photos and images offered under Creative Commons Licenses will usually come with the attribution condition. This means the author is happy for the image to be used as long as credit is given, so for instance if the image is used on a blog a credit line and link back to the photographer's own site or Flickr stream for example is required. Often sources offering CC images will provide the details of what is required and any necessary code.
Other common terms used in CC licenses concern the further sharing and distribution of works, the use of works in derivative work and the use of works for commercial purposes. An image made available under a CC license may, therefore, still have rights retained by its author that prevent some uses. It is important to understand the particular license that is being offered in order to avoid infringing an author's copyright; remember CC images are still the copyright of the author and are only free to use within the terms of the CC license they are offering!
Here's a nice video presentation that explains the ideas and benefits of using CC licensing.
So, with that understanding of creative commons licensing, where do you find photos and images to use for free under a CC license?
It should be noted that an image, photo or an other creative work made available under a creative commons license may be free in that payment for its use isn't required but it is not usually entirely free from restrictions and conditions on the use of the work. The nature of these depends on the particluar CC license the creator of the work chooses to use; there is no single creative commons license but many versions depending on the combination of permissions and restrictions set. The copyright of CC works does still remain with the original creator.
Photos and images offered under Creative Commons Licenses will usually come with the attribution condition. This means the author is happy for the image to be used as long as credit is given, so for instance if the image is used on a blog a credit line and link back to the photographer's own site or Flickr stream for example is required. Often sources offering CC images will provide the details of what is required and any necessary code.
Other common terms used in CC licenses concern the further sharing and distribution of works, the use of works in derivative work and the use of works for commercial purposes. An image made available under a CC license may, therefore, still have rights retained by its author that prevent some uses. It is important to understand the particular license that is being offered in order to avoid infringing an author's copyright; remember CC images are still the copyright of the author and are only free to use within the terms of the CC license they are offering!
Here's a nice video presentation that explains the ideas and benefits of using CC licensing.
So, with that understanding of creative commons licensing, where do you find photos and images to use for free under a CC license?
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