Make Eyeballs Happy

People like pictures. When I started blogging over a decade ago, I didn't have pictures or images to use and I didn't want to break any copyright laws (a lot of bloggers, then and now, didn't care). Because of that, I bought a camera and started shooting pictures of just about everything everywhere I went in an age when cameras on phones weren't evolved out of the technological ooze just yet. Now, armed with a Flickr Pro account, I presently have 16,585 images at my disposal.

And it still isn't enough. And, frankly, there are sometimes better images out there than my own (hey, I'm getting better!). That's why images made available for use either through Creative Commons licensing or public domain are so worthwhile and why I've used the Creative Commons licensing - I give to the pool, I use from the pool with no worry - like the image to the right. I'm not female or blonde, but the 'Why?' seemed quite worthwhile for this aspect of the post. And through Flickr, the link code allows the image to be used while also allowing the user to see the original image. But how do you find those images on Flickr?

Finding Creative Commons Content for use on Flickr

To get to images using a Creative Commons license through Flickr Searches, you'll need to use the Flickr Advanced Search. If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you'll see a checkbox with 'Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content ' next to it. Click it.

The sub checkbox regarding commercial use is optional - and it's a bit of a grey area, as explained by this report on what constitutes commercial use. When in doubt as to whether or not your use is commercial or not, click this checkbox to be safe. That way you can be sure that the copyright license permits its use for whatever you're going to use it for. Or, if you don't check the box to see what turns up, you can contact the owner of the image to explain your use and see whether they agree it's non-commercial. The latter defeats the purpose of Creative Commons licensing and really isn't that feasible - but if you want to use a non-commercial licensed image, it's the safest way. I use the non-commercial license on my photos but I'm pretty flexible in its interpretation- particularly when my images are used in a way they gets them more views and gets my Flickr stream more exposure. But I am not everyone.

The next checkbox, 'Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon', allows you to change the image if you want and create a remix - legally. This can come in handy if you find things close to what you want but need altering. The trouble with this is that you have to attribute the original creator of the image per their license. Since I have a Flickr account, I typically upload the altered image to my account and link it to the original - also explaining that the original license supersedes my own.

Do your search and you're off. If you're not liking what you find, try using the 'Sort' at the top - you can sort by relevant, recent and interesting.

When you do find an image you like and you want to use it, click the 'Share' button above it and 'Grab the HTML/BBcode'. You're almost done - when you paste it in, you'll find that people who click the image will, by default, navigate away from your page when they do so.

You'll have to add

target="_blank"

to the link tag to open the link in a new window, or new tab. Why Flickr hasn't allowed this customization in their embedded code itself is somewhat irritating.

Wikimedia Commons

The Wikimedia Commons project also has a lot of images you can use with simple licensing as well - though they don't host the images as they do on Flickr and the licensing for the images can vary from Public Domain to the default Creative Commons license of the project. There's no embedding code either, as Flickr has.

Other Sources

Yahoo allows Creative Commons searches for images,  as does Google in advanced search.