Free Photo Fever: Five Places to Find Free Images for Marketing Materials

Desktop publishing software has made it possible for even the smallest businesses to produce their own brochures, presentations and other printed materials. However, finding stock images you can use in those desktop publishing projects can still be difficult. Many stock photography sites charge high prices for images, putting them out of reach for someone just trying to put together a brochure. However, there are several resources online for finding photographs that you can use for free.

Flickr

While not all images on Flickr are free to use, many are licensed under Creative Commons. Under Creative Commons, a photographer can choose a variety of options that allow people to use a photo for free under different circumstances. If you're planning to use a photograph for business purposes, it must be licensed under the Attribution version of the Creative Commons license and you must give credit to the photographer for the photos you use. In Flickr's advanced search options, you can choose to look only for Creative Commons images that you can use for commercial purposes.

Stock.xchng

On stock.xchng, you can find higher resolution photos that are appropriate for printing. In general, you can use photos found on the site for most purposes as long as you aren't reselling the image. However, depending on the photographer's choices when posting an image, you may be expected to notify the photographer of your use or otherwise make sure you have permission to use the image.

Public Domain Photos

By definition, photos that are in the public domain are no longer subject to copyright. In many cases, that means they're older images, but the photos on Public Domain Photos are actually generally very new. That means that the photographers who created those images chose to release them into the public domain and have waived their right to license those specific images for commercial purposes.

Wikimedia Commons

Images on Wikimedia Commons are listed under a variety of different licenses or are in the public domain. Each photo has the specifics of its licensing status, making it easier for you to decide if you can use individual images. The site also offers a guide to how you can reuse images found on the site, explaining that, in most cases, you will not need individual permission to use an image. Wikimedia Commons is essentially a catalog of images that have been used on Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia.

The National Archives Archival Research Catalog

The National Archives has an extensive collection of images, many of which are in the public domain. While it's important to check the status of individual images, most of the catalog can be used for commercial purposes. Many of the images in the archives are historical. New images are regularly added as the National Archives has not yet completed scanning and uploading all of its holdings.
It's important to double check exactly how you're allowed to use a photograph before adding it to a brochure. Different sites have different requirements and it's important to follow those instructions so that you don't open yourself up to any trouble down the way. There are other drawbacks to using free photographs - you may not have access to high quality images, making it harder to print them, for one - but the price is right. If you do find an image listed on one of these sites that is not available for free use, consider asking the photographer if you can use it. Many will allow you to use an image for small projects as long as it doesn't affect their own ability to license their work.