Great Royalty Free Images – Why They Matter, and Where to Get Them
We’ve all heard the cliché, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” While it’s an overused phrase, the reason it’s used so much is that it’s absolutely true. Pictures communicate to us better than words alone can. They elicit feelings and emotion; they can explain complex concepts at a glance; and they can make an otherwise boring website come alive. That’s why many of the best and most professional blogs you find will include a picture with each post. Finding the right picture to go with your articles might add a few minutes to the time it takes you to create a post, but the extra time is well worth it.
There are some important guidelines to remember when choosing images for you site or blog though. If you want to make an impact, not just any image will do, and there are legal considerations to take into account as well. While it’s not always easy to find the right image to go with a post or page on your site, taking a little time to make a conscious decision about your images is important. Some titles lend themselves to easily finding an image. For example, a title like, “10 Great iPhone Apps,” would be easy to find an image for. Just look for a good picture of an iPhone! But even then, a picture of an iPhone with the screen full of apps communicates your post’s message better than a guy holding an iPhone might.
As for legal considerations, it’s important to know that not every image out there on the net is fair game. In fact, unless you have express permission to use an image (permission from the actual owner of the image), it’s not ok to post it on your site. There is a misconception by some that as long as you give credit somewhere on the page, you’re in the clear. This is not the case. In some cases, an image owner who has shared an image on a photo-sharing site, like Flickr, will attach a creative commons license to his or her photo and specifically say that it can be used with attribution (credit given). This is the only case where a simple mention of the image owner is enough to make its use legal. In other cases, an image owner in the same situation will give full rights, without attribution, which allows you to use the image freely in whatever way you want. This is more unusual, and the images you find with this kind of license aren’t always very useful, but they do exist.
The bottom line on image permissions is that you can only use an image on your site in one of three cases:
- You have express permission from the image owner. (Might or might not require attribution)
- You purchased the right to use the image.
- You are the image owner because you took the picture (or created the graphic).
Note: Even in the first two cases, there might be restrictions as to how you can use an image (i.e. commercial use vs. personal use), so watch out for that as well.
Ok, so now that we’re clear that images are important and what’s ok and not ok legally, where do you find great images for your site? There are a lot of free and paid sources to consider for quality images. Here are some of the best:
Paid Sites
iStockphoto – iStockphoto is the internet’s original member-generated image and design community. You get easy, affordable inspiration with millions of safe, royalty-free photographs, and more. You have the option of signing up for a subscription, or using their pay-as-you-go plan. Generally, images will end up costing you from $.99 each and up, depending on the image size and your plan.
Shutterstock – Shutterstock is the service we use for Blogtrepreneur.com, and our sister site, YoungEntrepreneur.com. They boast being the largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world, and they provide a massive library of high-quality, unique images. You have a choice of their 25-a-day subscription, which allows you to download up to 25 images of any size each day (costing as little as $.33 per image on the one-month plan, if you max it out for one month), or you can choose their on-demand plan, which will end up costing you about $4 – $10 an image, depending on your needs.
Corbis – This site is a little more artsy and fairly pricy. They have a very attractive UI, for what that’s worth, but you’ll pay from $15 and up per image and a lot more if you plan to use the image in print. Rather than a subscription model, you pay per image, and the fee varies widely, depending on how you plan to use the image. If you’re publishing a magazine or a site where you want celebrity images or very high-end graphics, Corbis might be a good match.
Getty Images – Getty is the leading provider of digital media worldwide. Like Corbis, they charge by the image, and for royalty-free images (the kind you’ll most likely want to use), you’ll pay upwards of $10 for a small image (170 px square) and $25 or more for a 230 px + image. The only advantage to Getty is that they have very high quality images, and a lot of them.
Free Sites
Flickr Creative Commons – If you don’t want to pay for images and don’t mind weeding through a lot of pics to find the right one, Flickr’s creative commons area is a great resource. They list six degrees of creative commons licenses with explanations of each. With as many as 40 million+ images for a given license type, you’ll surely be able to find something worth using. Be careful though. If an image looks like it’s a pro shot, it might not actually belong to the person who uploaded it, and you might get a nasty email from the actual owner!
Stock.XCHNG – This site was recently bought by Getty Images but has been around since 2001. They offer free stock images of pretty good quality. It will be more difficult to find just the right image on SXC than on one of the paid sites, and the images are generally from amateur photographers and illustrators, but you might have an easier time than sifting through a million results on Flickr.
Google and Yahoo image search – Here’s where you have to be careful. You’ll find millions of results for any image subject you’re looking for on both Google and Yahoo, but chances are, you won’t have permission to use them. If you do find a great image using this method, try asking the site owner where the image is displayed if you can use it. As long as they’re the actual owner of the image, they might not have an issue with it and just ask that you give them credit.
Hopefully this post gives you some good ideas and resources for adding images to your site and blog. There are a lot of other image resources out there too. Which ones do you use? Share them with us in the comments!
