When you publish articles on your website, you'll likely want to add photos and images to better capture your audience's attention and illustrate your points.
What is a Royalty-Free Image?
Some photos are protected by copyright (and therefore are paid), while others have a specific license that allows free (and thus free of charge) use of these photos. These are known as royalty-free images.
It’s important to determine in advance whether the image you’re using is free to use or if its use is protected. Be cautious when retrieving images directly from Google or elsewhere. If the photos are protected and you don’t respect the copyright, you could face a fine of up to €2,000 or more.
Royalty-free images are subject to permissive usage licenses. The authors waive their rights to their "works," making them public and usable by everyone. You can find them on royalty-free image banks. These "works" can thus be used freely and freely copied, modified, distributed, and displayed for personal or commercial purposes, provided that the source is credited.
To do this, simply add the sources of the images used in the legal notices of your website, either by mentioning the photographer's name or the name of the site from which you obtained the royalty-free photo.
Where to Find Royalty-Free Images?
There are many royalty-free image banks on the Internet. These are platforms where photographers have selected photos to make available for free.
Free platforms offer a vast number of photos, which you can select with a simple keyword search.
At EyeOnline, we regularly use three free image banks:
Unsplash primarily features artistic photographs with beautiful image collections. However, you need to have at least a basic understanding of English, as keyword searches are conducted in English, given that this tool is provided by our friends across the Atlantic.
And as it’s an American platform, it’s not accessible in Russia…
On Pexels, another American platform, searches can be done in English and (recently) also in French. With each search, when you click on a photo, the platform suggests other similar images or those from the same author.
Today, it’s one of the most well-known royalty-free image banks. It is also integrated and accessible within several email marketing platforms and website CMS (Wix, Jimdo…).
PIXABAY
Pixabay is a European tool, German to be exact, and one of our favorite platforms (perhaps due to our patriotic side 😉). This platform allows keyword searches in 26 languages, including French, Russian, and Chinese. It is also the only one accessible in Russia.
The system also offers a selection of additional keywords below the image to refine your search. Another feature of the platform is that it also offers vector illustrations and even videos. There’s something for everyone…
There are others, however, that are paid, such as Shutterstock, Fotolia, or Getty Images. But the free image banks listed above should be more than enough to find what you need!
If you’re unsure about the origin of your photos, or if you know of other royalty-free image banks, give us a call.
We’re always happy to help and share our good tips with you.
EyeOnline agency
Web marketing & operational marketing in France