Freely Use Images With Google's Advanced Image Search - Week 11

Google is our friend in so many ways. It’s always there to help us when we need, gives us answers we didn’t know before, is there for us 24/7 - 365 days a year. Although it gives and gives, we as users have to be cautious about how we use what we find. Take searching for that perfect image to add to your presentation or multimedia project. We can search for an image on Google and it will find it for us in a flash. Yet, many of the images that come back in a Google Image search are copyrighted and belong to commercial sites that have paid to take that photo or have created that graphic so we can’t do whatever we please with those. In order to freely use images you find online, they have to be public domain (meaning not subject to copyright) and not require attribution (meaning you do not have to give credit).

There are some fabulous sites out there you can use to find public domain images such as:

Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, FreeImages.com

Sometimes though, you just want to stick with tried and true, Google Images. Good news: You can still use Google Images to find your images without worrying about restrictions. Here are a few ways to do this.

Google Images Advanced Search To Find Free-To-Use Images

Option 1: Tools Button

• Go to Google.com
• Click Images (on the top-right corner).
• Type the image you’re looking for. i.e. “globe”
• Click Tools
• Click Usage Rights
• Click Labeled for reuse with modification OR Labeled for non-commercial reuse with modification 

• Filter your image search even more
• Size - Large, Medium, Icon
• Color - Any Color, Full Color, Black & White, Transparent 
• Type - Face, Photo, Clipart, Line Drawing, Animated
• Time - Anytime, Past 24 Hours, Past Week, Custom Range

Option 2: Settings Button + Advanced Search

• Go to Google.com
• Click Images (on the top-right corner).
• Type your what kind of image you’re looking for. i.e. “globe”
• Click Search
• Click Advanced Search

You can narrow your search results by image size, colors in image, file types, etc

Important!

• MOST of the images come from sites that allow you to freely share, copy, modify, reuse the image. 

• SOME of the images come from sites that still require attribution.

If you hover your mouse over the images, you can see the site that the image is coming from.

If you want sites that do not require any attribution, look for images that come from the sites listed above such as Pixabay. You might find images that come from different sites. Simply look for the license requirements. Click on the image from your search result > click Visit Page.