Tuesday, January 5, 2016

3 Excellent Sites to Get FREE Images for your Blog or Social Media


I love using photos on my blog or in posts on Twitter or Facebook. One issue that we face is that some photos have rules that prevent them from being used and shared by others. Fortunately, there are photo sites that allow us to use their photos for free. Today I’m sharing three that I use.

First, I hope that you’re using a free photo editor like Canva to create custom graphics for your blog. Both are easy to use, and you can find many tutorials on the web on how to use them. (Canva also has free images that can be used. Once you choose the size of your graphic, click on "background" and scroll down through the background options or choose  “elements” on the left side of the screen then click on “photos.”  You may have to scroll down past the paid elements to get to the free photos you like.)

Unsplash

The first site I use to get free images is Unsplash. The licensing information on the website reads:

UNSPLASH LICENSE
  • All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.
  • They have beautiful images that are updated every 10 days, and you can even do a search for a specific topic/image.


(Picture from Unsplash, edited at Canva.com)

Picography

A site relative new to me is Picography. The photos on the site are large and of high quality. Just scrolling through the images on the site is inspiring. I bet you will find what you need there.

On the site, it states:

USING A PHOTOGRAPH
  • Photographs are provided free of charge and under the Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 licence.
  • You agree never to advertise the photograph(s) as your own work or portray yourself as the author of said work.
  • By downloading an image from Picography you agree to all terms and conditions stated on this page.
(Photo from Picograhy, edited at Canva.com)


Picjumbo

Picjumbo is the site newest to me. The site has a premium membership where you can download lots of pictures, but I’ve found the free images to be exceptional. You can review the Terms of Use here.

At the bottom of the site, there is a section titled “Browse more,” where the photos are sorted by tags. 


(Photo from Picjumbo, edited at Canva.com)


All three of these sites provide phenomenal photographs for use on your blog or social media. (Wordswag and Typorama are two great apps you can download to your phone for creating graphics with text.)


TIP for Educators:

Take pictures of great things happening in your classroom or school, add a text overlay, and share on twitter. 


(From one our teacher-led summer PD sessions)


Let me know if I can help in any way.


I would love to see your creations! Share with me on twitter -- @jennifer_hogan.



5 comments:

  1. Hi, thanks for this sources. Take also a look at https://freeimages.red they serve great photos with cc0 license.

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    1. Thanks for sharing that resource! I checked it out and really like it!

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  2. Replies
    1. Glad to hear it, Ariel. Be sure to share your creations with me on twitter!

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  3. Thanks for compiling this, Jennifer. You and your readers might also like Snappy Goat: it's a searchable database of over 12 million free, downloadable public domain and cc0 images. Check it out at snappygoat.com!

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