How to get free images for your blog posts legally in a few seconds

Sometimes when I feel like I’ve got a few minutes to kill, I tend to go ahead and add a custom designed image to my blog post that I was currently working on. It’s not a necessity and I could’ve just inserted a few random pictures off the Google Image Search. But, in fact, having your own custom made graphics give that post a sense of professionalism and sometimes, you could really get into trouble when you steal off other people’s pictures from Google Image Search.

The first and the most important thing to keep in mind is that just because it comes up in a Google Image Search, you just can not go ahead and freely use it in wherever you want. Why? It’s like stealing. Many of us do this and some of us get into trouble. It’s like copying and pasting someone’s content in our blog, without asking.

Usually, the workaround is to contact the owner of the site you want to get that specific picture from and ask for permission. But we both know that’s too much of a hassle.

So, what’s easier method?

Creative Commons Search of course. Creative Commons organization lets you search for work that you can legally and freely obtain and manipulate without contacting the owner first. If you check this search out, you can find out that you can search for pictures within Flickr that you can “use for commercial purposes”, and can “modify, adapt of build upon”.

If you intend to edit the images or manipulate them, you should in fact keep the “modify, adapt of build upon” option checked. If you’re using them directly for commercial purposes, such as your own designing work that you get paid for, or your advertisements, you should have the “use for commercial purposes”.

Flickr lets it’s users define CCs(Creative Commons) rights for their works. They can forbid anyone from using the pictures regardless of the purpose, allow it to be used for non-commercial purposes or just let whoever wants to edit it their way to edit it for whatever purpose. What CC Search does is go through these pictures and list them out for you.

So, when you feel like you need to use an image for your post, just go through these licensed images and take your pick. CC helps you find what you need in the most legal, and ethical manner.