Images – Where Do You Find Them?

Images add Interest to Online Writing …but where do you find them?

I was at a client’s recently and had a surprising conversation about using images from the internet.
My client thought that if the image was on the internet then it was OK to go ahead and use it. It was freely available to see, so (they thought) freely available to use. Arrggh – Never heard of copyright? I asked– well yes, but that’s only applicable to printed books and stuff, not the internet.

Now I’m not a lawyer, neither am I copyright expert, but I do know about plagiarism (thanks to The Open University and some of my students for that one) and I do know enough about copyright to know it is NOT OK to use all the images available on the internet as your own.

Copyright applies on the internet too – images and writing and other content.

Where to Find Good Quality Images for Free or Low Cost

If I need an excellent quality image then I use a designer to find (and usually amend) one for me. That’s for things like brochures and my logo.

Most of the content I write includes images to add interest and break up the page. For that, free and low cost images are great and these are the sites I use regularly to find them.

Two are free:

• Stock Xchng I’ve been using this site for years after it was recommended to me by someone else. Good selection and I like the way the lightboxes work (nice and simple)
• RGBStock This is a more recent site but it’s growing and some of my favourite photographers from sxc.hu are there now too.

One is paid for, but the prices are incredibly reasonable (don’t  want to say cheap, they might put their prices up!)

• Fotolia I used to use this site a lot and recently I’ve been using it again. There’s a bigger selection here.

One thing I always do if I can – I acknowledge the photographer/owner and add a link so if anyone else is interested, they can benefit too.

I know there a lot more sites offering free images out there. Which ones do you use – and why?

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Tagged as: fotolia, free images, images, internet, online writing, quality image, RGBStock, stock xchng