Well, until now! Getty Images announced this week that they have offered up hundreds of millions of images to content creators, for free. This was so unthinkable, that I didn’t believe it until Mashable.com confirmed it on Facebook. But their explanation makes sense – the images are being used anyway. With the good news, also comes some bad news however. Although you can use the Getty images to embed onto websites, blog posts, and social media posts, you cannot include them in PowerPoint presentations not intended just for personal use (and what PPTs are just intended for personal use, other than the ones my 4th grader creates?!), nor can you include them in any curriculum or resource materials that will be distributed to the public. [Cick here to visit the Getty webpage with info on how this all works.]
To test this process out, I went to Getty’s site and searched for a picture of a sheep. It did take a few minutes before I found a photo that I liked, and that I was “allowed” to use (the embed sign popped up with the other options). Here’s the image:
So there’s obviously some give and take here. While allowing users to embed certain images into their online content, Getty is also identifying the source of the content, and adding in some shareable buttons for good measure. If you don’t mind the way this might look on a blog post, or your website, then Getty could be a good new source of free images for you.
But there are other options out there! Pixabay / Flickrs Creative Commons to name a couple. And their images are already free to download and use.
Do you use other royalty free image sites not mentioned here? List them in the comments!
~Jamie