Loading... How do you find free public domain photographs for your hubs?

MissOlive has written an excellent hub on this, detailing many sites where you can find photographs that it’s legal to use.

My favourite sites to use are:

Wikicommons: in particular great for old photographs and of famous people, though there are lots of other photos too

FreeDigitalPhotos: great for when you want to illustrate a concept in a hub, eg showing someone is stressed or I used it for a photo to illustrate a ‘Goals” hub,

Flickr: but you need to be sure to use the creative commons part of it.

Here is the link to MissOlive’s hub:

http://missolive.hubpages.com/hub/Free-Photo-Websi

It is very confusing about photographs and not many sites make it that easy to understand.

I use Wikimedia Commons quite a lot and I feel that on the whole it's quite easy to understand in what way you can use photographs. On this site if you see the paragraph - usually with old photographs - that its copyright has expired, then you can use it without having to give the photographer/source a mention.

The others on Wikimedia Commons - usually you have to name the source of the photograph and this is given, usually, just below the photo itself. This is because, although the photograph is free to use, the photographer would still like to be recognised for the work they have produced.

These are all great sources but I would also say, even if someone has all rights reserved it is easy to get permission. I send them an email and I have never been refused. I put a link back to their gallery of photos. Most are happy to send me a larger version as well. Plus if you like one of their's it is likely you will return to use more.

It is a great question because I imagine there are a lot of people who want to know, and like yourself, are still confused with the how to go about it.

I use stock.xchng (www.sxc.hu), which has a good selection of free pictures as well as images for purchase. They make it quite clear which is which, and also if the image requires any mention. Some do, some don't. I have also bought photos from this site - they seem good value, usually less than $1.

One site for free photos is freedigitalphotos.net. The other is flickr.com.On Flickr try using the advanced search tab and tick the boxes marked search within creative commons licensed content & free for commercial use.

Always give attribution to the author and the source page.

You can also use wikipedia.org. Check the license for "free for commercial use" and attribute it appropriately.

Funny - I'm about to compose a hub on this very thing, since I've now learned an enormous amount about licenses, creative commons images, and copyrights.

It's probably wisest NOT to use Google Images. The largest percentage of images on Google are all copyrighted. This is also true of most of Flickr.

I mostly use one of two sites:

1) search dot creativecommons dot org - type your keyword(s) into the box, then click the button of the resource you want to use. But be very careful of Flickr. Even if some of their images come up as a result of this search, some of them still require you to purchase a license. You can tell by the icons on the middle of the right column.

2) wikimedia commons dot org - pretty much everything on this site is in the public domain, and therefore completely free to use.

Make sure you attribute them appropriately on your hub, by the way. The Learning Center (click the help button) can help you with that. I usually fill in all the fields in my photo capsule these days, unless they're my own images.

There are others - just google "free images" or "free pictures" then be sure you read their guidelines carefully. Good luck!

FreeDigitalPhotos.com - but you need to give them proper credit - they make it easy and provide the appropriate link for you

Try : freestockimages.co.uk

When you do a search look for sites that offer pictures that are completely free for use, there are many sites that do this now.

Normally we use our own pics done by my daughter Naintara. Rarely we go to the internet photo domains...Sangeeta

Great question. I went to freedigitalphotos.com, got shunted somehow to gettyimages.com, looked for a single world war i photo, filled out all the questions, pressed the button to get the cost: $2,310. Maybe it's because I specified the 10 year option? See the attached image for info. Kind of outrageous.

You can also go to www.publicdomainpictures.net or just type Stock photos in google to find other sites.