Three Epic Sources for Free Images
If you want to catch the attention of the every-day consumer or browser, you need quality, relevant images. Everyone knows about Google Images, Pinterest, and Instagram. This post focuses on three not-so-well-known online sources that offer millions of images – giving you the freedom to brighten up your website, blog, and social posts. You can also use them use as background images or download and print them for offline personal or business-related reasons.
CANVA.COM
Canva.com provides website owners with free and inexpensive ($1) images. They also give us the ability to create our own images in the dimensions and quality we desire. They offer free tutorials for people who want to use their templates, fonts, and images to create powerful and memorable memes. A ‘meme’ is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea. The majority of modern memes are captioned photos that are intended to be funny or drive home an important point. If you want a chance at accessing the online world – especially if you are there for e-commerce purposes, you need to use memes in your social blogs. I used a Canva template to upload my own image, add words, and save it all as a new image to promote my children’s book. 
Canva’s tutorials include helping designers understand the basics of creating quality images and infographics (colors, shapes and , how “less is more” when it comes to image design, tips for titles, how to take advantage of different styles and sizes of fonts, and even how to create the perfect business presentation and improve our branding. I use Canva all the time.
PIXABAY.COM
Pixabay.com provides over 720,000 thousand free photographs, illustrations, vector graphics and even videos that we can use anywhere, royalty-free, without attribution. Started in 2010 by Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger, Pixabay was created with the express purpose of making it easy for people to find high-quality images that they could safely use in blogs, articles, or any other content without fear of copyright infringement and the associated fines. Beyond that, Pixabay creates a friendly atmosphere where photographers, both professionals and amateurs, can share their work with the rest of the world. Contributors receive feedback on their images and videos and which allows them to get well-deserved recognition from the Pixabay community.
Once the image or video has been downloaded, it can be uploaded to sites like Canva where you can add a phrase, quote. or another image before downloading it as your own unique, personalized image. Currently, Pixabay is in the process of creating a mobile app. It is seeking funding through Kickstarter to help pay for the expenses of creating the app. Those of you familiar with the crowdfunding process, or who want to support Pixabay in their efforts can do so here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixabay/pixabay-mobile-app.
GRATISOGRAPHY.COM
This unique website is created and designed by Ryan McGuire, and he photographed every picture on the site. The site boasts high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. Just click on an image to download the high-resolution version. New pictures, free from copyright restriction, are added weekly! Images are separated into a few genres including animals, nature, objects, people, urban and whimsical.
Ryan McGuire, in his own words, is a multifaceted creative visual artist based in Ithica, New York. Like many of us, whether we are eCommerce gurus or not, art is one of the many mechanisms he uses to connect with people. According to Ryan, “art, like music, is a bonding and inspirational medium.” You can learn more about Ryan on his website http://www.laughandpee.com/.
OTHER IMAGE SITES
Another source for free images is Picjumbo. It lets you send their images straight to your email. You can get a premium account starting at $10 a month (cancel anytime) that includes new images sent to your email every month with unlimited downloads from more than 1,500 images.
Wylio.com also lets you find and download images thanks to generous photographers from around the world. There are millions of free pictures available on Flickr under Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons licensing is an easy way for content creators to officially allow free public use of their works. Why open a complicated photo editor when all you want to do is re-size a picture? Wylio lets you re-size any image on their site with a click of your mouse. Use Wylio’s simple size slider to set a pixel perfect width or choose a “fluid” embed code to have the image automatically work within a responsive design. They’ll even create an embed code for your WordPress, SquareSpace, Blogger or any other platform for the more than a million photos at your disposal.
So get to work adding images with your own logos and memes to your website, blog, and social posts. It’s easy and, in most cases, it’s free.
