Where do I find these free treasures?

The answer is on the web. You will find blog images on the web! But be careful, just because you find an image on the web, it does not mean you can use it on your Blog. Indeed you can get into a lot of trouble because a picture belongs to someone and unless that person has expressly given up the rights to that image, using is regarded as theft and carries financial consequences.

Unless you’re a wannabe lawyer that’s all you have to know.

In this guide I’m going to show you where to find images for your blog that have no legal issues, that are high quality and that are free.

Let’s get on and list the best sources of blog images, and their different uses.

In this blog, we will find out about Blog Images: How to Find Royalty Free Photos:
1/ Blog Images for post headers
2/ Quality REAL LIFE photos for Blog images
3/ Images of people doing stuff
4/ Retro Images
5/ Screenshots
6/ Google Images

1/ Blog Images for post headers

Header images are like shop windows. You are trying to get the reader to come into your post – These are aka featured images – (it is a WordPress feature which is used by both: theme developers and users. This eliminates the need of using an external plugin for the purpose of cropping and resizing images. Thus, reducing a lot of load on the server on which the site is running).

Basically, a header image is something you put above the post and also in the featured image so as to give it a unique look and make it stand out from the other posts.

Here’s an example on my blog:

The image can be related to many topics of the post. Indeed it evokes adventure, endeavour and an objective.

To get yourself this type of images, go to:

Pexels

Unsplash

All images under the CC0 licence you can do anything you want with. This does not require any permission.

Unsplash is a fairly well-known source of images that you can use for free however you see fit. As it is, the chances are people are already using them. So just as with any library check the new arrivals…

JayMantri.com

Furthermore all photos published on MyStock are licenced under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. In summary this means the pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. Therefore you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, without asking permission.

It is a site very similar to Pexel and Unsplash. To get a more out of this site check out  the archives.

Freepix  

For all kinds of Blog Images

With more than a million free vectors, PSD, photos and free icons, here you will find exclusive freebies and all graphic resources that you need for your projects.

All free photos published on FREEPIX are licenced under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. This means the pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. You can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, without asking permission.

Refe Free Images

The free photos published on REFE are licenced under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. This means the pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. Once again you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, without asking permission.

The photos on their site are not only header images but are good for multiple purposes. They stock technology photos – something you might be able to use on a tech blog.

There are also premium photos that require payment. But for blogging purposes just use the free ones.

2/ Quality REAL LIFE photos for Blog images

In this category, let’s focus on real life photos that have been taken by skilled photographers. This type of image is particularly useful if you want to illustrate something within your post. But you simply don’t have a quality-enough image of your own.

Images from this category are nice enough to be used on any site. But at the same time, they don’t have this corny nature that’s common among standard stock photos from sites like iStock.

Go to:

MyStock

All photos published on MyStock are licenced under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. This means the pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. You can therefore copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, without asking permission.

A small editorial team of passionate photographers supplies nearly all the photos. This site is a source good quality photos that are not available elsewhere. So you can make your content unique with original Blog images.

Most of the images will also work nicely as header images for your content.

Travel Coffee Book

All photos published on Travel Coffee Book are licenced under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. This means the pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. Hence you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, without asking permission.

As advertised on the homepage – a set of beautiful travel moments. No particular category of photos here, virtually everything you can imagine. In a nutshell, very high quality and interesting images.

3/ Images of people doing stuff

Landscapes don’t always cut it. Sometimes you need people. Whether it’s to make your blog post more personal, illustrate a given activity being done, or for whatever other reason.

Also, did you know that pictures of people are the most attention grabbing type of thing you can have on your site?

Anyway, whatever your purpose might be, here’s where to go:

Gratisography

All photos published on Gratisography have a (CC0) licence. The pictures are completely free to be used even for commercial use. You can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free.

Gratisography actually has more types of categories of images: people, animals, nature, objects, and urban environments. But their people category is perhaps the one that stands out the most. The images are of the highest quality and are weird and wonderful and quite funny.

4/ Retro Images

“Nostalgia is not what it used to be”

New Old Stock

(Photos are free because they are mostly in the public domain. However it is best to read the detailed licence.)

New Old Stock is a source of black-and-white retro images Don’t spend too much time browsing these wonderful photos. Remember you have a blog to write.

5/ Screenshots

You should be able to this without a plugin.

For Mac, just press cmd + shift + 4 and cover the part of the screen you want to capture and let go . Windows is pretty samey.

However if you like plugins then use Lightshot. It’s 100% free, and works on Mac and Windows.

Select the screen shot you like and hit the Print Screen key on a Windows keyboard (or Command + Shift + 9 on Mac).

Much quicker and easier to use than tools like Photoshop, Paint or anything else.

6/ Google Images

Great for inspiration or to see what is trending but if I were you:

Stay away from using Google to find blog images, the trouble being is in the licencing. It’s very risky to assume that the image is available for free. Most of the time they’re not and the ones that aren’t are generally not worth having.

Downloading images from Google Images is like opening a can of worms…

Did it solve your all-time question and problem?

There you have it. A bunch of sites where you can get basically ANY image you want – perfectly legally and without using Google images.

If you have any additions/comments/suggestions or thoughts – leave a comment below. Thanks!