Find And Use Free Images For Your Blog Posts In Less Than 5 Minutes

It’s no secret, using images in your blog posts can add to the value of your work. Of course, the images have to be used properly to have the desired effect.

Finding the right image is not easy, though.

In fact, it’s pretty damn difficult to find the right image, at the right price, with the right restrictions.

If you are not great at finding these images, you could end up wasting hours that could be used for other blogging activities.

Luckily, there are tools created just for bloggers to help find free images.

Check it out.

Photo Pin

Here’s how Photo Pin describes its free service:

PhotoPin helps bloggers find photos for their blog and makes adding them to their post fast and easy.

Just search for any topic using the search box (ex: passion, puppies, etc.), preview the photo, and click “get photo” to download the photo as well as the proper attribution link. If you prefer to pay for the photo rather than linking to it, the results at the top will take you to a partner stock photo site where you can buy the photo (currently fotolia).

Basically, Photo Pin uses its terribly simple interface to access Creative Commons Flickr images and makes them available to you in seconds.

These images are free to use and only require a link back to the original upload.

The great thing about this is that finding the right licensing terms of an image is usually the most time consuming part of the entire search.

Not with Photo Pin, though.

Here’s how I use it.

I write my article

One thing I’ve learned from traditional education (English Composition, Speech, etc.) is that writing has to be approached strategically.

When I say “writing,” that applies to everything from the title, introduction and conclusion section, and every other component making up the overall content.

As you have probably realized, it’s not always best to create your post title before writing the content.

How many times have you changed the title after writing the post?

Likewise, choosing images is sometimes best if postponed until after the content is created.

That way, you can maximize the relevance of your image using your content to fine tune the image selection process.

So, I write my article first and then read it in its entirety to see what “vibe” I am left with once complete.

I search Photo Pin for a relevant image

I then use the vibe from my post to come up with keywords or key phrases that I can use in Photo Pin.

This is the homepage of Photo Pin. This is about as simple as a user interface can be, if you ask me.

This makes it easy to use.

Simply enter your keyword or key phrase into the search box and… search.

Immediately, you’ll be smacked with a grid layout of image thumbnails for you to choose from.

In a single, unobtrusive row across the top of the page, you will see relevant paid images requiring no attribution.

Forget that, though. There’s no reason to pay for images in basic blog posts.

All other images on the page are free to use with an attribution required.

Here’s my search for the term “accounting.”

As you can see, the majority of the results are extremely relevant.

However, you will even have the option to sort by recency, relevance, and interestingness.

At the very bottom of the results, there will be a link to load more images. This is a great feature considering the number of images loaded at once is limited, making the user experience even better.

Update: No more “Load Images” button. Photo Pin now has infinite scroll (think Pinterest).

After spending entirely too much time surfing the images like a kid in a candy store…

I select an image

When I find a thumbnail that interests me, the first thing I do is preview it.

There’s no need to open up all kinds of other pages if the thumbnail looks a million times more appealing than the full image.

No page loads necessary!

When you hover over the thumbnail, you’re given the option to “preview” or “get photo.”

Choose preview to instantly open a lightbox for easy viewing.

Update: An instant preview feature has been added! Now, all you have to do is hover over the preview icon.

Fortunately, this is exactly what I hoped it would be! I now have an image that I’d like to use.

I’ll close the lightbox and select “get photo” from the same thumbnail.

This is where the magic happens.

I insert the image into my post

A new lightbox will open on the same page with a link to the image, HTML for easy embedding of the attribution, and download links for all sizes of the image.

As you can see, everything you need to get moving is in one location.

You can download the desired image size, upload it to your WordPress post, and paste the embed code anywhere on your post.

Keep in mind that you can edit the photo attribution HTML code.

As long as credit is properly given, all is well.

Downloading the image and uploading it to your blog is oftentimes the best choice because you will never have to worry about the image link breaking if the uploader chooses to remove the image from Flickr.

I typically paste this code to the very bottom of my blog posts if I use Photo Pin.

That way, the attribution is still given but it doesn’t disrupt the flow of my content.

Thumbnails

Another cool part of getting the photo is the option to download square thumbnails.

Many bloggers use “teaser” thumbnails on their main blog page that displays any number of posts. The top two download links are perfect for thumbnails.

I style the attribution with CSS

In a perfect world, we’d all be able to share everything without having to worry about attributions.

However, this is the real world and you must give credit where it’s due. You can face legal actions if you choose not to do so.

The great thing about it is that you still have the freedom to decide how you will give credit, within reason.

As appreciative as I am that someone took the time to capture a great image and make it available to me for free, I still don’t want the image itself to link directly to the source. Nor do I want the attribution link to look exactly like my content.

So, I use a simple CSS class to change the look of my attribution so that it is a different size and link color than what is used in the main part of my article.

Here are the CSS rules I have created in my CSS file:

p.attribution {font-size:.7em;}
.attribution a {color:#999;}

Now that I have the CSS, I have to edit my HTML to reference the CSS.

While on the “Edit Post” page for your new blog post, select the “HTML” to view the raw source code for your blog post.

Scroll down to your attribution HTML. It should look similar to this:

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/user/#####/">User</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

When you view the HTML code for your blog post, understand that paragraphs are automatically created by line breaks in your content.

Therefore, there are no paragraph tags <p></p> around your paragraphs. You can add them yourself, though, and it will not hurt anything.

So, to reference your new CSS rules saved in your CSS file, you will need to wrap your attribution code in paragraph tags with a class attribution of “attribution” as declared in your CSS file.

Your new code will look like this:

<p class="attribution">photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/user/#####/">User</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a></p>

Your attribution text is now referencing the CSS rules and should look different from your content.

In my honest opinion, this tactic manages to draw attention to the attribution without taking attention away from your content at the same time.

Weird.

How easy was that?

There are a number of tools out there to help with image searches.

However, I have found Photo Pin to be the easiest to use. Also, its creator, Max Spiker, seems like a cool dude. So, I support his work.

If you know of any other great tools for finding images, feel free to describe them in the comments below.