Hints and Ideas to Surf Web Images
The Web has billions of photos, graphics and illustrations posted by professionals and amateurs. Web-hosted images used on your website, blog, presentation or brochure, must follow copyright and licensing laws to ensure that you have the proper permissions to use the images. Follow these tips to find hints and ideas to surf Web images.
Other People Are Reading
-
Copyright and Fair Use
-
Copyright is an exclusive set of rights for authors and creators of an original work. Photographers and graphic artists hold the rights to their images and artwork, and you must ask permission to use their images. "Fair Use" is a limitation and exception to the copyright law. "Fair Use" allows you to use copyrighted images for the use of a commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and for scholarship.
Search Engines
-
Use search engines to look exclusively for images. Select images when you are searching within a search engine, so that the only results that populate are images. From there, you can click on the image, which will show you the website where the image is hosted. You will also be able to see the image dimensions. You must research each image to determine its copyright status.
-
Paid Images
-
Some websites allow users to buy royalty-free stock photos, vector art, illustrations and flash graphics. The images are available in several different sizes, depending on the quality that you need. Some paid image websites are on a subscription basis, while others allow users to purchase one image at a time. Once you have purchased an image from these sources, you hold the rights to use it however you would like. A few of the favorite paid image websites are iStockphoto, Fotolia, Jupiter Images, Dreamstime and Photos.com.
Creative Commons
-
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization, which encourages digital sharing across the Internet. The organization works with more than 100 affiliates to provide an alternative to full copyright. There are four types of licenses: attribution, noncommercial, no derivative works and share alike. An attribution license lets others use your copyrighted work, but only if they give you credit. A noncommercial license lets others use your work, but only for noncommercial purposes. A no derivative works license allows others to use your work in its exact form, and no changes can be made to the work. A share alike license lets others use your work under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
Photo-Sharing Websites
-
Flickr is the largest photo-sharing website with more than five billion images. The Yahoo-owned company, along with other well-liked photo-sharing websites such as Snapfish and Photobucket, allow users to set up free accounts. Users can upload images, and share them with friends around the world. Users can select their privacy settings to share their images with everyone on the Web, with just their friends, or not at all. Check the licenses and fine print on photo-sharing websites to determine the legality of using these images.
-
References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
