One of the questions I’m asked most often is where to find images for your blog (or Facebook, Pinterest, or any other popular social platform). Here’s a quick reference list. Bookmark and Pin this page to refer to it often!
Where to Find Images to Use On Your Blog or Facebook
- Dreamstime
- Shutterstock
- Morgue File (public domain photos)
- NYPL Digital Gallery
- Kozzi
- Flikr Commons (be sure to check the Creative Commons limitations and remember that if you make money from your blog, you fall under commercial use!)
- Stock Exchange
Where to Make Your Own Pictures and Memes for Your Blog and Social Media
Tools to Create Flashier Mobile Photos (on Instagram Too!)
What are your favorite places to find images?
What are your favorite apps for mobile photo editing?
More Articles About Finding and Using Pictures
- Copyright Law for Blog (And Facebook) Images
- A Few More Links For Copyright Information
- Can I Legally Use Company Logos on My Couponing Blog?
- Copyright Fair Use and Online Images
Don’t miss our guest post from Sara Hawkins about copyright issues associated with finding and using images. Sara is a lawyer and blogger who not only has a successful personal blog (Saving For Someday), but also a professional blog where she shares important information about the laws that apply to bloggers and how to ensure you’re within those laws so you don’t lose your page via a DMCA complaint.
One of my favorite places to find photos is actually a collection of websites. Depending on the type of photo I’m looking for I’ll head to some of the US Government websites. I’d say about 98% of the photos on the National Parks websites are in the public domain because the US Government does not gain copyright on their photos. There may be some on their taken by photographers that retained copyright, but that’s a quick cheek. The best thing is that these images are often excellent quality and because they’re in the public domain they can be altered, unlike most other photos.
My favorite app for photo editing is Snapseed. I like the filters and that I can fine tune many aspects of the image.
Sara,
That’s a great tip re: the government sites. They really do have some great ones there.
Someone else was just mentioning Snapseed to me! I guess I better check it out. Thanks!
I’ve recently discovered Photo Pin: http://photopin.com/. I’m a fan because it has a diverse selection of pictures. I blog about natural (unchemically processed) hair. Needless to say. this isn’t the easiest topic to find pictures for. However, Photo Bin makes it a breeze. They have paid and commercial/noncommercial Flikr pics.
What I like most is how easy it is to give proper credit. Each picture comes with preselected image sizes for easy download and HTML attribution.
For my memes I use http://imgflip.com/. It was the only site I found that allowed you to download your own memes without registering or saving anything to a cloud.
Picmonkey is my absolute fave for picture editing.
Kay, thanks for the tips! I’ll have to check those out.
I’ve used PicMeme to create memes on my iPhone from my camera roll. I can save it to my phone instead of putting it out publicly.
Ahh…the joys of technology. PicMeme isn’t an option for me as I don’t have a cell phone.
Yes, I am a dinosaur amongst humans 😉
Actually in Nigeria I don’t think there is a law particularly on copyright but people who blog entertainment news, music and videos can they use instagram photos because that’s the major sources of images and some news nowadays.
I always use Shutterstock to find images for my blog. The images available are very useful and interesting to us.
Anyways, thanks for sharing a list of other sites where we can find images.
What a great resource. Thanks for the suggestions Melanie, now I know where I can pickup some sweet awesome pics!
-Eric Out-
I actually didn’t know anything many of these websites but um definitely gonna use them while creating infographics for my blog
Most of the times, I use Flickr Creative Commons to search images for my blog. I didn’t know about Creative Commons limitations for blogs. That’s a news for me.
Right now, there is no problem in using it as I have not monetized my blog yet. But I will monetize it very soon and then I will have to look for alternatives. Thanks for sharing these sites. I will check them out.
I’d also like to recommend actually taking the photos yourself! May smart phones these days have better cameras on them than my SLRs. And you can pick up a good quality camera for next to nothing these days. Get a camera and start taking photos, edit them with photoshop or GIMP and enjoy using your own work. When its your own work, you really don’t have to worry about something sending you a DMCA notice or anything like that. Just another suggestion, though 🙂
Good point, Shawn. GIMP is an excellent free option for those without Photoshop.
Great resource with plenty of information. I really struggle to get quality photos for my FB page. This will help. Thanks!
I don’t know about creative common limitations. Are they commercial or free?
Creative Commons is free, Ravi. You can find out more about it here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/