Whoops, learnt my lesson today about posting images on my blog that aren’t authorised for reuse! I have posted a few images on my blog that I have no idea whether or not they were given rights to be used … I just went on ahead and picked any ol’ picture that tickled my fancy from Google images to add a visual element on my blog posts.
Now I know that if I was to just go ahead and repeat this behavior on my website it could land me in a bit of trouble … eep. From now on, I will be careful to consider the usage rights particularly if I am pinching images straight off the net. That’s where an image hosting website like Photobucket comes in handy, giving access to free image galleries. Otherwise, there is another way through Google images. For example, for my last blog post I searched ‘social media icons’, picked an image, saved it and attached it to my blog post. This is how it really should have played out:
1. Search Google images for a subject, title, keyword etc depending on the image you’re after. I will search for ‘social media’.
2. Under the search bar there are some tabs All, Images (where we are currently located), News, Videos, Books, More with a drop down menu and finally Search tools. Click on Search tools.
3. We should now have a selection of tabs situated below giving the option to narrow the search by size, colour, type, time, and usage rights. Click on Usage Rights.
4. A drop down menu appears listing the different types of licenses associated with the images. We are currently looking at images that are Not filtered by license. We need to change this. Let’s look at our other options: Labeled for reuse with modification, Labeled for reuse, Labeled for noncommercial reuse with modification and Labeled for noncommercial reuse. I’m going to choose the last option, Labeled for noncommercial reuse.
5. Now my results have changed. A lot of the images that were visible in my browser are no longer available BUT these are also images that I have the permission to use on my blog! So I will now save an image.
So from now on I will be more conscious about the kind of visuals I will inserting in my blog posts. This one tickles my fancy for instance but on the plus side I have the permission to use it!
For more information see the Google support page: Find free-to-use images.
Paris Clipperton-Richens 