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How to Use Free Photos from Flickr for your Blog Images

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Adding photos or graphics to your blog post not only helps to break up the text of your article, but it also can make your article more interesting, more memorable, or easier to understand. If you are writing a blog post about a specific product, take a picture of that product and include it in your blog post. That's an easy scenario. But what about those blog posts where you don't have a picture (and can't easily take a picture) of something that is relevant to your content? That's where Flickr comes in handy.

Flickr is a popular image hosting website for users to share their personal photographs. And you can use {some of} the photos for free on your blog! Here's how:

Sign Up for a Flickr Account:

1. Go to http://www.flickr.com/ and click on "Sign Up" in the top menu.
    
2. Sign in with your Yahoo ID - or click "Create New Account" to signup for a new Yahoo ID. (You can also sign in with your Facebook or Google login instead.)
   
   
    
3. Type in a screen name for your Flick account and click "Create a New Account"
   
   
    

Download Images to use in your Blog

Did you notice earlier in this article where it says you can use some of the photos for free? Those photos would be the images that some Flickr users have chosen to offer under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Basically, this means you can use their images on your blog or website, as long as you properly credit the photographer. So let's do a search for only those types of images.

1. Search for images with a Creative Commons Attribution License here: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/
    
2. Search for a photo that will work for your blog article. For example, if your blog article is about living on a budget, you might do a search for "money". Enter your search word or phrase in the text box at the top and click on the Search button.
    
3. Click on the thumbnail of the photo you want to use.
    
4. In the "Actions" drop-down menu above the photo, Click on "View All Sizes".
   
   
    
5. Above the photo you will now see the different sizes available. Click on the size of the photo you want to use and then click on the "Download" link above it. (In the example below, I first clicked on "Medium 500" and then clicked on "Download the Medium 500 size of this photo.) Save the image to a folder (or your Desktop) on your computer.
   
   
    
6. Do not navigate away from this web page just yet! You will need it in a future step below in order to properly credit the photographer.
    

Use the Image in your Blog Post:

1. Insert your new photo in your blog post. You may want to resize or edit the photo in your photo-editing program first.
    
2. Underneath the photo in your blog post - or at the end of your blog article - add a photo credit. Type something like: "Photo by [photographer's name or username]"
    
3. Link the photographer's name to their Flickr photo page. You can find this link on the Flickr image page where you downloaded the image from. Right-click the photographer's Flickr username and select "Copy Shortcut" to retrieve the Flickr website address of the photographer.
   
   
   
   An example of this is included in the "Photo Credit" at the bottom of this blog post.
    

And that's how you can use free photos from Flickr for your blog images!
 

Photo Credit: stevendepolo