Royalty-Free, Copyright-Safe Photography for Your Projects The
revolution in digital photography and its proliferation on the Internet
have made the acquisition of quality photography easy, cheap and safe.
The result is a new expectation-- Yes, there are still justifiable uses of clip art--times when only it will do. These exceptions will be obvious and justified by the specific effect they achieve. But the exceptions prove the rule.
Second, a photograph captures a moment in time. This single moment can produce a classic teachable moment, putting into play one of the most important principles of successful learning materials: segmentation. Humans learn best through discrete chunks that do not overload short-term memory. A single photograph with a single provides an optimum chunk for learning. Finally, photography helps humanize our lessons rather than letting them become a recitation of facts with little chance of being meaningfully absorbed. Photography allows us to communicate our feelings about the facts, to tell a story about them, helping to make the material more engaging and personally relevant for the audience. OK. So Where Can I Get Some Great Photography--Free and Legal? You will be surprised at the number of sites on the Internet that have collections of public domain photography, photography that has been made available through Creative Commons licensing, non-profit organizations that make their photography available to the public, and the many photo-sharing sites where contributors can decide what rights, if any, they wish to assign to their work. |
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The first place most tend to visit is the Internet's default home page, Google. But each image there warns, "Copyright restrictions may apply." A serious legal statement. So the trick is to find images in the Google database (largest in the world) where copyright restrictions are not a problem. This can be done with Google's Advanced Image Search feature. Google Advanced Image Search 1. Click on "Images" in the Google homepage tool bar. 2. Type image description in the search box and search. 3. On the results page, click on far right "cog" or tool icon and select "Advanced search" from the drop down menu. 4. On the Advanced Image Search page, scroll down to "usage rights." From the pull down menu, select "free to use or share" or "free to use, share or modify." 5. Click on Advanced Search button. |
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Flickr, the world's largest repository of Creative Commons licensed images, has over 200,000 images available through CC licensing. (The terms of CC licensing can be found here.) Flickr's Image Search 1. On Flickr's home page, type image description in the search box and click "Search photos." 2. On the results page, on the left side is a dropdown menu titled "Any license." 3. Use the drop down menu to select "All Creative Commons," "Commercial use allowed," "No known copyright restrictions," or "U.S. Government works." 4. Click on a photo you are interested in. 5. In the licensing section on the bottom right of the page you will find what restricitions, if any, apply. |
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morgueFile is
a family affair. This repository of 275,421 free images (and counting)
was first conceived by Michael Connors as a college student in 1996,
and is now run by Michael, his brother Kevin, and friend Johannes
Seemann. These free images have virtually no restriction on their use.
Don't believe it? Here is the morgueFile license summary: Although attribution is not required, attribution is expected and required in academic and professional work. Often overlooked in the praise of this resource, the morgueFile search engine is as powerful as ones found on high-profile sites like iStockphoto. |
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More Free Image Sites--Some With Caveats There are a number of non-profit sites like morgueFile that collect amateur and professional photography for free use. Lately the big for-profit houses like Getty Images have gotten in the game, buying and using the non-profit sites as advertisement vehicles and gateways to their for-sale databases. Sometimes the for-sale images are cleverly mixed with the free ones. Here are a dozen more popular free image sites. |
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