Written by Let’s face it: Finding non-copyrighted images on the internet can be hard!
But before we get into it, let’s explain what copyright is. Copyright is a legal term used to describe the rights that someone has over their work. For example, when you search for cat pictures on Google, most of the results that come up are owned by someone else. Therefore, if you use one of those images in your kidznet posts for example, the copyright holder may ask them to remove the post immediately. Copyright is a serious legal term, and you should take time to research it and get advice from someone other than me.
Anyways, back to the point. We know that violating copyright rules is dangerous, so I’m going to show you ways to use images for free without violating any copyright rules. The first method is using Google. When doing an image search, click on the “Tools” button to the right of the menu. From there, you will see a dropdown and click on the “usage rights” link. You will be presented with yet another dropdown and click on “Creative Commons Licenses”. I’m making it sound more complicated than it actually is, so here’s a screenshot.
While that method checks out, there is a better alternative. KidzSearch actually offers a much better alternative because they make the process much less complicated. Instead of sifting through all those dropdowns and menus, all you have to do is click on the “Copyright Free” link when performing a search on KidzSearch! It’s so simple that I don’t need to provide a screenshot, but I will nonetheless.
Finally, we’ll get to my personal favorite way to find non-copyrighted images. While searching is quicker, Pixabay.com offers access to almost 3 million high FREE quality stock photos. When I say high-quality, I mean high quality. Plus, you don’t have to click through any menus to find royalty free images, but they offer you options for the orientation, size, and color of images you want to look up!
KS Note: You can find a link to Pixabay and other copyright-free image sources at the top of the KidzNet post form. Selecting a size over 1,000px wide is suggested for good resolution on all devices. The width should be about twice the height (aspect ratio) to prevent losing content around the edges. If this is not possible and you don’t want to lose image content, you can use an image editor and place the picture in the center of a wider blank white background image, such as 1200px (w) X 628px (h). You can also try to resize an image to change the aspect ratio, but it can cause distortion. Finally, make sure to only use free images, since they often list sponsored ones mixed in with the free versions. A sponsored image will usually have a watermark, such as “iStock” all over the image and cannot be used.
That just about wraps up this tutorial, and I’ll try to continue to post daily again. If this was useful to you, please drop a rating and I will be back tomorrow!
