Find and Use Free Stock Photographs for your Blog [PicFindr]
“Images say a thousand words”. There is not a more truthful saying than this, images do increase the charm of your post and make your posts look more meaningful. We have even talked about this in our post 6 Tips to make a good blog post better.
That said finding images is not a easy task and to top it finding images that does not have any copyrights on them is a bigger task.
You can use Flickr of course to find such images but there is no dedicated search engine for finding such images. Well don’t fret because I am going to point you to a dedicated search engine which allows you to find Free stock photo for your site which you can use without any hassles and worries about licensing.
PicFindr
PicFindr searches the web* for stock photography that is completely free to use commercially. Several licensing arrangements have recently emerged as alternatives to copyright (sometimes called “copyleft”) and PicFindr makes sense of them all by helping you find images based on what you have to do to use them, whether licensed under Creative Commons, GNU, a site-specific agreement, or something else. PicFindr can even find free images you can use commercially without requiring permission or credit of any kind!
As you can see PicFindr is a search engine which helps you find free photographs which you can use without licensing hassles.
Does it Work that Good?
I put the search engine to test and was disappointed by the results I saw, they still have a long way to go in providing accurate search results, a search for Bill Gates returned me some pictures which were no where related to my search term.
That said I did find the interface quite good and I can preview the images right from the search page by hovering the mouse over the thumbnail.
Summarizing
If you are looking for free photos without having to go through licensing issues you should definitely give this a try. There is still a long way to go and they have to definitely improve on their search engine and make the results much better.
The interface is quite good and I can preview the images without loading another page which I definitely like.
Which search engines do you use to search for free photos? Do let me know so that I can try those out.
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Do i have to put a link “this picture is from …”?
That is completely up to you, the images are free to use.
Bookmarked. Might come in handy any time
Thanks for reviewing PicFindr Keith, I appreciate it! To add to your answer to Eugene’s question, there is an advanced search option that lets you choose this. If you select “give credit” under “Requirements for use,” you’ll get more results (and generally more accurate) but you may have to put a “picture is from…” link - check the site’s requirements (which you can do easily by clicking the blue “i” button next to each site’s logo in the results).
If I may make one clarification about PicFindr’s search accuracy and stock photography (free or otherwise) in general - there is no such thing as a free stock photo of Bill Gates (or any other famous person) because of the legal requirement for a “model release,” which is a document signed by the person in the photo (Bill Gates) giving permission to the photographer to use their likeness. Unfortunately many photographers contributing to free stock photo sites aren’t aware of this legal requirement when photographing identifiable people and unknowingly put themselves and consumers of their photos (you) at risk. It’s a very very very very tiny little small risk in most cases, but if your blog gets a huge amount of traffic and/or you use a photo of a person in an unflattering way, the person in the photo has the legal right to come after you the blogger and the photographer if there is no model-release in place. Of course the person in the photo has to know about your use of it AND dislike it enough to take action, so that’s where the smallness of the risk comes in, but it’s still important to know. Microstock sites (like our partner Dreamstime) generally have model-released photos of people, but they’re very rare among free stock photos. Sorry this turned into such a long comment, but the legal issues around model-releases and stock photos of people are unknown and misunderstood by most people. Just wanted to let your readers know. Again, thanks for the review!