Free Pictures Free Clip Art Free Photos

Finding royalty free images on the web is easy. You just have to know where to look! They are out there, thousands upon thousands of images that include clipart as well as photos, and they are all open for public use. Some corporations offer up a taste of hundreds of free images but other images belong to everyone. No one owns the absolute rights to their use, or the copyrights that once existed on them have expired, and so they now are available for anyone to use as they wish.

Finding free Clip Art and royalty free photos Online can be difficult. In Cyberland there are always more than a few bad apples out there trying to sneak into your computer and your private information. Searching online for free images can open you up to a world of trouble! It seems like you wind up opening sites that lead you to more sites, which lead you to more sites, which lead you to more sites but you never really find those free images that you are searching for. The search for free images just winds up taking you around in circles and opens your computer up to any number of disreputable individuals.

Even searching out Royalty Free Images doesn't often bring about a lot of luck on a search engine. It turns out that most of the sites offering these pictures, often offer them for a price and you are once again prohibited in their use, or worse yet you may be asked to give up access to your personal information in return for their use! The internet has a tremendous amount of useful information on it but it is also filled with those individuals trying to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals.

Even some sites that are reputable, and where you may believe that you are getting a Royalty Free Image from, may be providing you with a picture that is not yours for the taking. If you pick up a photo from Google Images then you may be opening yourself up to a copyright lawsuit. The majority of these images are ones that the Google Robots have picked up within their network. THEY ARE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE and they may contain copyrights on them which strictly prohibit their use elsewhere.

Credit must be given where credit is due, if you use someone else's information or images then you must either obtain their permission, or site your sources. You don't want your work stolen from you. Well no one else does either. You cannot just pick up any image that you find Online and use it for your own personal use! You are risking involving yourself in one very costly lawsuit.

Blogging has brought about a new era to the World Wide Web, amazing opportunities now exist to promote or share ones thoughts and ideas, to socialize, and even to earn a living through the writing of articles. This has created an amazing amount of free sites on which to blog, write, or create photo albums. All now available for public use.

Along with this ability to provide written words to anyone who is willing to read them, comes the search for photos to enhance our work, the search for free images. So where do we go to find free Clip Art and free Photos?

If you are using a Microsoft Office program on your computer then Microsoft Office Online provides a selection of free clip art to it's users. If you are in a Commericial venture then be sure to read their policies on it's usage before deciding if these images are right for you. Microsoft provides a large amount of clip art but their photo selection is unfortunately limited.

Creative Commons is a non-profit licensing outlet that allows alternatives to full copyrighting. Under a creative commons license different images and works can be outlined as available for public use. http://www.flickr.com/ hosts a large number of these photos. If a creative commons image here is set under the heading of Attribution than this means the image is available for others to copy, distribute, display, or use in their work. You must still give credit for the image where credit is due. A picture termed Noncommercial means that others may copy, distribute, display, and use within their works but for noncommercial purposes only. Share Alike means that others may use this image only under a license agreement that is identical to the license that governs this work. Sites such as Wikipedia and flickr contain a large number of creative commons images or you can do an Internet search to find available creative commons images.

Another way to acquire publicly available images is to Google "Public Domain Images". The PUBLIC DOMAIN is where images and articles that are open to public use wind up! Within the Public Domain are thousands of free Clip Art Images and free photos that are there for the public's use. No one owns the absolute rights to them, or the copyrights that once existed on them have expired, and so they are now available for anyone to use.

There are a couple of things to still be wary of when using any image that you pick up on the Internet that isn't your own. You still must watch out for the bad apples that are trying to use any means of getting to you and you must still be careful of photos or images that contain pictures of brand name products. These brand names themselves may have copyrights on their usage. Otherwise the Images within the Public Domain Library are free for anyone and everyone's personal or commercial use. Just remember to still cite your sources at the foot of your article and include the library that you obtain your images from.

One site that you might like to visit to find public domain photos is this one: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/

Another interesting site is: http://www.freephotobank.org/main.php Just remember to link back to them from your blog, article or website.

Enjoy the touch of creativity that Images can give your sites. When you acquire your images legitimately blog guilt free with the added benefit of beautiful images adding that little extra zip to the information that you are sharing with the rest of the world.

Remember to play safe and good luck out there in Cyberland!

http://www.google.ca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain

http://www.public-domain-photos.com/objects

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/FX101321031033.aspx?pid=CL100570201033

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

Thanks once again Google - You are always out there providing me with information to write about!