Save time and give proper attribution when accessing free images from the web

Without knowing where to search, finding the perfect image to complement your web content, presentation, or blog can be frustrating, expensive and labor-intensive. Thankfully there are photo-sharing sites that offer free downloads of some very well crafted photography with creative commons licensing agreements.

5 photo sharing sites every aviation marketers should have booked-marked:

1. Photopin – http://www.photopin.com searches millions of creative commons photos from Flickr-based on keyword search. Downloading is simple and images are available in a variety of sizes. Photopin also generates HTML codes for author attribution, enabling easy insertion into your website or blog post.
2. Stock.XCHNG – http://www.scx.hu is now under new management from Getty Images. In addition to offering creative commons licensed images, it also presents a catalog of iStockphoto images that are available for purchase at very low cost. iStock images are a good value when looking for royalty-free images for unlimited use.
3. Flickr.com – http://www.flickr.com offers a photo catalog of hundreds of thousands of images licensed under various attribution creative commons licenses.  Photographers that choose to upload their original works to Flickr indicate their creative commons licensing requirement in their photostream.
4. Morguefile – http://www.morguefile.com is a great resource for presentation images. Many of the files are creative commons licensed; however consulting with the photographer is always recommended when selecting images featuring people or places.
5. Wikimedia Commons – commons.wikimedia.org is a media file repository making available public domain and freely licensed educational media to everyone. The reposition has over 16 million media files for use. Anyone is allowed to copy, use, and modify any files as long as they follow the terms specified by the author.

Types of creative commons licensing:

When the author posts an image to the photo-sharing site, he or she will license it for use under the licensing protocols listed below:

Attribution CC BY: Lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the author’s work, even commercially, as long as they credit the author for the original creation.

Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA: Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the author’s work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the author and license the new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND: Allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the author.

Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC: Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the author’s work non-commercially, and although the new works must also acknowledge  the author and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license the derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA: Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the author’s work non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license the new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND: The most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download the author’s works and share them with others as long as they credit the author, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

For guidance on proper attribution protocol, click here

Image by United States Navy, edited by Mfield