Can I use photos I find online in my work?
Key concepts:
Copyrights and right of usage
Tips for 39 resource sites with photos
The photos or illustrations that we use on the web and social networks are important to be of high quality and relevant for the topics. We can either make/create them or use someone else’s work.
Now if the first aspect of using our own work is pretty clear (we own it), with the second we need to pay a bit of attention to the conditions in which we could use them.
The main condition to use someone else’s work is to have their approval, be it as free for reproduction and usage (common licence, free licence) within the conditions imposed, or by buying the rights to use the materials.
If it is to search for images directly in the search engine’s Image section, you should select from setting the usage rights and labelled as reusage (free usage, no conditions). The tricky part about this though is that you may not always find what you are looking for or not of high quality. Don’t take just any photo if you can’t really use it. There are various other sites that offer you alternatives and good quality images. Let’s check them out:
Pexels
Pixabay
Unsplash
Flickr
FreePik
RGB Stock
Foter
Canva (some)
Morguefile
PicJumbo
Gratisography
Stock Photos for Free
Life of Pix
PickUp Image
Public Domain Archive
Stokpic
PhotoPin
Deisgnerpics
Negative space
Vecteezy
Foodiesfeed
Findaphoto
Photogen
StockSnap
Free Digital Photos
Free Nature Stock
Picograp
Albumarium
Stockvault
OpenPhoto
Photo RackSkitterphoto
Barn Images
Realistic Shots
MMT Stock
Flaticon
MagdeleineStartup Stock Photos
Photocollections
Kaboompics
Big Foto
Some of these platforms are completely free to modify or use the images, while some might impose the conditions. For each image taken, check their conditions (written in description). Their formats, sizes or colour options depend on each website. Some even have videos.