Week 13 Page 12: Finding Graphics and Copyright

Finding Graphics for your Web Pages and Knowing the Copyright Laws

Pencils by Nicolas Buffler from Flickr (Creative Commons)

It's so easy to find images/photos on the Internet that it's tempting to just download whatever you want. However... is this legal? Here's a quick overview of where to find images/photos and how to use them legally.
  

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Finding graphics/photos for your screen designs

You have a variety of options for finding graphics for a design:

• Use a scanner
• Use a digital camera
• Create your own artwork
• Use (free or commercial) stock photos and graphics
   

Stock image/photo sites:

There are a variety of stock photo/image sites. While some offer free downloads, most charge for the photos/images at their sites. Sometimes it's worth the cost of purchasing a better quality image and depending on what the use is, they can be fairly cheap. However, if you plan to use the image in a commercial setting, a downloaded image might be costly. Here are a few free and not-so-free image sites:

• Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com/ Links to an external site. Stock photography with various licenses
• MorgueFile: http://morguefile.com/ Links to an external site. Free photos for downloadhttp://www.sxc.hu/
• Free Images: http://www.freeimages.com/ Links to an external site. Free high resolution photos for download
• Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/ Links to an external site. Images at this site are controlled by the people who upload them. They set the licensing restrictions and download size. You can search for Creative Commons licensed images at this site. Typically, creative commons images are free to use and alter but you have to give attribution to the original artist too.
   

Vector Art and Clipart sites:

The clipart at free sites tends to be very low quality and low resolution -- it's not worth bothering with!! However, clipart subscription sites like Getty Images or Clipart.com can have high quality illustrations and photos for a reasonable price. There are some great sites that offer free vector images.

• Clipart.com: http://www.clipart.com/en/index Links to an external site. Subscription service for clipart
• Gettyimages.com: http://www.gettyimages.com/ Links to an external site. Subscription service for clipart and photos
• Free Vector Sites: http://designscrazed.org/websites-download-free-vector/ Links to an external site. 
  I have had good luck at these two sites: Vecteezy. http://www.vecteezy.com/ Links to an external site. and Freepik http://www.freepik.com/ Links to an external site.

Google and other image search engines:

Google and the other search engines are a great resource for finding images but... beware... these images are copyrighted!! You can't just download images from other people's web sites! That said... you can use Google Advanced search settings to designate image size, type, color and licensing.

Here are some search engine links:

• Google Advanced Search:
  http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search?hl=en  Links to an external site.
• Fagan Finder: Meta Image Search Engine: http://www.faganfinder.com/img/ Links to an external site.
  Fagan finder allows you to search a variety of search engines using the same keywords.
• GoGraph: http://www.gograph.com/ Links to an external site. 

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Copyright Issues

All text and artwork appearing on the Web is protected by copyright. You cannot reproduce or use it in your own pages without written permission from the copyright holder. Most clipart archives have copyright-free images and post their copyright restrictions very clearly. Be sure you know who owns the material you're using. Royalty-free is NOT the same as Copyright-free!!

Creative Commons:

Creative Commons is a licensing system that allows image owners to select the level of licensing they want to apply to their images. You may find Creative Commons images without any copyright restrictions or with minimal restrictions. Here's the link to the Creative Commons site and the Creative Commons search engine:

• http://creativecommons.org/ Links to an external site.
• http://search.creativecommons.org/ Links to an external site.