Writing for the web often requires a great deal of self publishing, especially if you run your own blog or news/feature website. Because of this, there is a good chance that at some point, you will be required to find images, resize them, and add them to your articles.

Nothing can fully replace having your own photographer at your side, but there are many photographers who use the web as their digital portfolios and allow writers and website owners to use their images royalty-free. Just because an image is on the web does not mean it’s a free image and you have the right to use it, and if you start making money off your blog while illegally using copyrighted images, you could be in for a world of hurt.

There are several types of royalty-free photo sites out there. Some have their own licenses, and others use copyleft licenses like Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation License. Still others allow the users to specify the terms such as notification and crediting. The following are several sites you can use to find free images for your writing.

Where to Find Free Images?

stock.xchng – One of the most well-established free stock photo sites, stock.xchng showcases an amazingly large number of photographers. Licenses include the standard restrictions, which do not require attribution, as well as an attribution, permission, and/or notification requirement. All of the images are high-quality, and all are free of charge.

Flickr – Since Flickr itself is a photo sharing site, there are plenty photos with “all rights reserved” that are off-limits to you unless you gain the photographer’s permission. With the “advanced search” feature, however, you can locate usable photos by scrolling to the bottom of the page and checking: “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content”. If you need to use the images for commercial promotion, also be sure to check “Find to use commercially”.

A word of caution: Flickr uses the Creative Commons feature trusting that the person who uploads it will honor its terms. Unfortunately, some are prone to later change the license or upload images that they do not have permission to license in the first place. Therefore, always use your best judgment.

Wikimedia Commons – Created by the same non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia, this free image site has a plethora of usable photos and art. Because of stricter requirements for submission, Wikimedia Commons photos are all reusable under Creative Commons. Most require attribution, so be sure to credit your sources.

OpenClipArt – Although clipart may be the last type of image you want to include in your writing, OpenClipArt has some quality vector SVG artwork that may cause you to reconsider. All of the images on this site are released to the Public Domain and do not require attribution.

Google Advanced Search – Rather than an image hosting site, Google image search is a meta search tool that you can use to find reusable images. Simply click on “Advanced Search” and for “Usage rights” select “free to use or share”. Most of the images will come from Flickr, but it may also find additional ones, and best of all, it relies on Google’s speedy search interface.

everystockphoto – Another meta search tool, everystockphoto searches many of the sites mentioned above, such as Flickr and stock.xchng. Each entries clearly defines the license type, resolution, image source, and more.

morgueFile – An interesting concept, morgueFile is designed specifically for creative people looking for free images to use. The site license does not require attribution, and the collection of photos is quite impressive and high quality.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog – The Library of Congress has tons of digital images, and it would make this article unduly long to list all of the categories. If you are looking for art, historical photos, or things you might not be able to find elsewhere, LOC probably has it. Most of the old photos and art are in the public domain, but be sure to check the restrictions for each collection you use.

Now you have no excuse not to include beautiful free photos and art in your writing. Like you, a writer who shares your creations with the world, there are plenty of photographers and artists who do the same. Enjoy their work, and be sure to give them credit when they request it.

About the Author

Tavis J. Hampton is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience in writing, information services, and Linux system administration, relying on only quality web hosts like server hosting company 34SP.com.

You may also want to read: Where To Find Free Images For Your Blog
Photo credits to Miguel Ugalde

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After reading Kevin Muldoon’s review of PicApp.com, I’ve though about sharing some tips on where and how to find free images to use in your blog posts, like I do.

I know for a fact (and Kevin confirms this too) that many bloggers use Google’s Image Search to find free photos to use on their blogs, which is cool, but not necessarily legal. Let me explain.

The Google bot has a nasty habit of indexing every information and file that is linked from your pages, which basically gives him access to the /images directory of every website. This can be fought by using a robots.txt file to prevent search engine access to directories and files.

By indexing these folders, Google will share through his results copyrighted images used to develop the websites, or images from professional photographers’ portfolios. So, these images are not free. And so says Google:

“Image may be scaled down and subject to copyright.”

So, why risk using copyrighted images when you have quite a few options of free or extremely low-cost photos available? Check them out below.

Free Photos from stock.xchng (sxc.hu)

Until now, stock.xchng has been my favorite tool for free images. Some of the images require a author notification of use, some don’t. They are all big, some have quite a high-resolution. For some topics you’ll find the perfect photo, for others, you’ll need to take a metaphorical approach, but still, they are free.

Free Photos from EveryStockPhoto.com

EveryStockPhoto is a service similar to stock.xchng, but check this out: they have 3,161,661 free photos in their database as I’m typing this. Definitely worth taking a look. Various photos come with various licenses.

Free Photos from PicApp.com

PicApp is a new website, currently in BETA stage, that lets you look (and use) for creative & editorial images. They are all high quality (like you would find on Getty Images), but there’s a downside. When embedding the image on your blog, a small animation produces when mousing over it, making way for some sponsored ads. True, the high price of the image rights don’t pay for themselves, and this is PicApp’s solution to provide high-quality FREE images. I would definitely recommend them if you’re running a celebrity or news blog. Paris Hilton, Geoge Cloney, Hillary Clinton, they are all there!

Free Photos from Photoree.com

Photoree is a service that’s searching Flickr database for images released under the Creative Commons license. After you sign up (free), you have the possibility of creating filters to display only images of interest to you. Thanks CTI97 for suggesting to add this service.

Free Photos from FreeFoto.com

FreeFoto has been around for many years and has a database of about 115.000 photos, organized in about 3000 categories. While some tech photos are a bit “old”, you’ll always find here nice travel images. They are free to use, but at a web resolution and with a link back and attribution. Higher resolutions are available for a price.

One Dollar Photo Resources

This is a somehow recent type of selling images online. Websites like Dreamstime.com, iStockPhoto.com and Stockxpert.com sell stock images for prices that go as low as one dollar. Basically, anyone can register and start submitting images that would generate revenue. By selling the images more than once, the owner can afford the low price for a very good quality. So, if your online activity generates enough income, these photos probably worth a $1 investment.

Other Resources

Some photographers share their work with the public, releasing their photos under the Public Domain license. You you’re one of them, or know one, add a comment and I’ll add it to this list:

• FreeArtisticPhotos.com

Tight Budget?

No more! Now you can have your free or very cheap, but most important, LEGAL photos to spice up your blog!

Photo credits to Miguel Ugalde.
Post has been updated to include EveryStockPhoto.com and Photoree.com.

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