Thursday, January 21, 2016

Flicker and Creative Commons

Use Flickr to find images with a Creative Commons license.


In yesterday's post I shared about Canva, an easy-to-use design application, to create header images for my blog posts. Part of my process involves locating images with Creative Commons licenses so that I can use them without having to pay royalties or purchase images.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a licensing structure designed to help you share your artistic work with other while still reserving some rights and control. Basic levels of licensing include:
  • Commercial use allowed
  • Modifications allowed
  • Commercial use & modifications allowed

Flickr

Flickr is an online photo and video sharing site. Members can upload photos and specify a number of settings for each image, including visibility and licensing. Members can add other members as contacts and share images to groups. Flickr also provides additional licensing information:
  • No known copyright restrictions
  • Flickr Marketplace
  • U.S. Government works

Advanced Search

To find images with open licensing, you will need to utilize the advanced search feature.
  1. Type a term into the search box.
  2. Click Advanced Search.
  3. Select the desired license type, in my case "All creative commons."


After browsing images, I usually find one that will work for my purposes. After clicking on image to view it, I download the appropriate size using the displayed buttons.


At Canva, the Twitter size design is 1024 x 512, so I look for an image size larger than the Canva specifications. I save the image to my Downloads folder and upload to Canva.

Finally, at the end of posts, I try to give credit to the photographer by adding Photocredit: Flickr Name "Title of Image" with a link to the image.

Flickr is free to join. Even if you never post images, I encourage you to use it as a source for images.

Title image created with Canva. Photo credit: Bill Rice - "Video Shoot."

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