Free Stock Photo Handbook

the Free Stock Photo Handbook © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 2 The contents of this book are reproduced with the kind permission of cover image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1246846 Micah Burke All images in this book were sourced from free stock photo sites © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 3 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................. 4 PUBLIC DOMAIN ............. 24 Disadvantages of using PD Images 26 LICENCE TYPES .................. 5 Creative Commons License 5 Public Domain 5 Royalty Free License (RF) 6 SPECIALITY IMAGES ........27 Royalty Free Extended License 6 Travel 27 Free Images Have Hidden Costs 7 Christmas and Festive 29 Halloween 30 CREATIVE COMMONS ...... 8 A godsend for those looking for free photos 8 GLOSSARY .......................31 Sources of Creative Commons Images 9 Creative Commons Samples 11 STAY UP TO DATE ............. 34 Latest Freebies 34 FREE PHOTO SITES ........... 15 Broken Link / Add Listing / Feedback 34 Disadvantages of Free Sites 22 Free Photo Search Services 22 © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 4 INTRODUCTION discover Welcome to the stockarch.com free stock photo handbook the Sometimes, finding stock photos is harder than it looks, Best especially finding images for free! Awkward search systems, sites tying to up-sell you their premium collection when all you want is a simple background to drop Free into a blog post... Sounds familiar? We have compiled this guide packed full of image libraries Stock Photos ready to provide you with just what you are looking for. © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 5 LICENCE TYPES Creative Commons License To those new to the industry all the license terms and jargon Creative commons licenses are a series of license types that used to supply stock photography can be a little confusing! were setup my a non profit organization to help photographer here’s a little help: easily license their work. Creative commons licenses allow photographers to protect their work in simple to understand Free Images are still bound by licenses and copyright so the terms while still providing it for use free of charge to image meaning of these licenses is still important to understand. users. Creative commons license always require an attribution (a credit to the image creator) and in a lot of cases require A license is the agreement that a photographer or agency that derivative work be ‘shared alike’, images are often not provides and that the image user agrees to when they available for commercial use. More about creative commons download an image for use - even if the image is free you are licenses usually bound by some kind of license agreement. Public Domain There are several types of license available for free images, all are “royalty free images” (you pay no royalties for individual This is usually an absence of license agreement, the image use) but that does not mean that all royalty free images are creator has placed their work into the ‘public domain’ for use “free/gratuit”! by anyone in whatever way they like. photo: silven001 http://www.sxc.hu/ photo/1145531 © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 6 Royalty Free Extended License An extended license extends the terms of a standard royalty free license so that an image can be used in derivative Editorial Use products (e.g. mugs, t-shits, website templates) there are Images which feature logos, brands, recognizable products, usually limits on the number of products that can be produced/ events or celebrities are licensed as editorial use meaning they sold. It sometimes works out cheaper to license an RM image can only be used as part of newsworthy stories. Editorial images for such usage, but microstock agencies generally offer a cannot be used in any form of advertising or commercial cheaper option to low volume use. application. Copyright Free? Royalty Free License (RF) Most people are familiar with the term copyright, and often search for ‘copyright free images’, that phrase is Royalty free has become the default license type of selling a bit of a misnomer, very few images are truly copyright stock images (and a search for free images on google often free; those images are known as ‘public domain’. The vast returns a series of royalty free sites - as mentioned earlier royalty majority of images are copyrighted and that copyright free refers to not paying for each image use, it does not mean is owned by the author/photographer. You can still use the image is actually ‘free’). It allows flexibility to the designer a copyrighted image, indeed that’s what buying stock in that an image only needs to be purchased once for use photography is all about, every image at a stock photo in unlimited applications. There are however some license agency website is copyrighted, when you ‘buy the limitations, you can usually print up to 1/2 million copies of the image’ you in fact license it for use either in a specified image in a publication but you cannot create a derivative way in the case of rights managed, or for unspecified products using the image (one where the image forms a part use in the case of ‘royalty free’. Always check the license of the products reason for existence e.g. a poster, calendar or terms to make sure that your application is covered t-shirt) for that you need an extended license. All microstock under the license agreement. images are licensed as royalty free, there are also a lot of full priced or macrostock agnecies We’ll details each of these licence types, and plenty of sites that offer variations based on the terminology above over the next few chapters. © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 7 Free Images Have Hidden Costs • Poor search options • Conditions Apply It can take a long time to find a free image when a In terms of free when referring to stock photography, good usable one off the shelf can cost $1. the word invariably refers to you not having to pay for the image, that said there are often some hoops to • Limited choice jump through when using free stock images, they might Free is not always ‘free’ when you find an image you will need an attribution (i.e. a credit/link) where you use the need to check the license terms are suitable, especially images. They might only be available free of charge for if you use a search engine to find images, they might non commercial or non-profit use. In many cases you not even be available for use (i.e. they are copyright need to register (for free) on a website to download the and no usage license is available from the copyright full resolution version of the image. Clearly all of these holder / photographer). Sometimes only the low free websites support themselves in one way or another, resolution version of the image is available free, the high this is usually in the from of promotional messages or resolution may cost money. advertising - some good work can be found on free sites but clearly it’s more likely that you will find quality images on a paid site even if only at a cost of a few dollars. © 2014 stockarch.com image: stockmedia.cc StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 8 CREATIVE COMMONS A godsend for those looking for free photos “You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.” Creative Commons images are a special subset of ‘free images’. Creative commons came about as way to simplify the minefield that is ‘free’ content (see later chapter) and “You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a allow photographers to provide (‘license’) their work for license identical to the license that governs your work.” free under easy to understand terms which benefit both the photographer and the user. The good people at creativecommons.org explain this “You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work better, but CC allows photographers and illustrators or — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial creators of any content to clearly license their work, and purposes only.” tag it in such a way that it can be found online easily. For the image user creative commons makes it clear if “You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only the images can be used in commercial applications, if verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based changes can be made and in ALL cases an attribution as upon it.” specified by the creator must be included when the image The above information was sourced from the creative is used. The details of this attribution are usually displayed commons licenses information page. Creative commons is along with the image on the source web site often in a just one of several license types that are commonly used in series of icons or a link to a licence page: as an example: the stock photography industry to allow photographers and buyers to use and control image use The “Disadvantage” of Creative Commons (if you could call it that) is that you need to attribute the image i.e. mention the The above icon specifies that you can use the specified author of the work in return for getting if for free. content for free in non-commercial applications, provided that you attribute (link back) as specified. © 2014 stockarch.com StockArch.com Free Stock Photo Handbook - 9 Sources of Creative Commons Images insectimages.org Yes Yes 1500px 330 I’m not certain on the exact figures but with services like specialist Entomology site featuring creative commons images of insets and flickr allowing users to easily license their images as creative creepycrawlies commons it seems that there are more CC licensed images lightmatterphotography.com Yes No 900px 600 out there than there are on free photo sites with their own limited selection of travel images from aaron logan attribution US 3.0 license bespoke licenses.

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