free images?

[CIulian]

I want to design a leaflet. I am not a graphic designer, but have a software that is pretty straightforward to use and my needs are quite basic. However I want to use a picture on the background and not sure where I can find one. loads of websites claiming their pictures are "free to use", but as I intend to put them on a flyer, it becomes "commercial use", and with so many people harassed by Getty, I'm reluctant to use these so called free sources, what do you guys use?

 

[Deleted member 162294]

When you find one you like then you can do an image search on google to see who else is using it, you just click the camera icon and upload the picture you want to check out

http://www.google.com/imghp

 

[Peanut Butter Man]

If your just designing a leaflet maybe as a one off, why not pay the £1 fee and buy a professional image that will suit your needs while looking top notch.

 

[Spock]

www.istockphoto.com should do the trick. You will need medium or large for print though, depending on how big the image will be on the flyer.

 

[Mike W]

istockphoto is good but can be expensive.

Cheaper options include 123rf and Pixmac, among others.

Bigstock is good for large images.

Hope that helps.

Mike

 

[Gensmann]

Stock.XCHNG, has loads of free images. Most can be used commercially, with few limits

Due to me being new on the forum i can post the url directly but it is:

www dot sxc dot hu

You can also find it by searching google for "free stock photos". It's usually one of the first results.

If you don't mind paying a small sum for the images i would recommend colourbox

www dot colourbox dot com

 

[bluelk]

I have some content for commercial use that I've never used. What kind of background are looking for exactly?

 

[Nuno]

When you find one you like then you can do an image search on google to see who else is using it, you just click the camera icon and upload the picture you want to check out

http://www.google.com/imghp

This doesn't necessarily check for copyright. Tin Eye misses the copyright on images sometimes too.
Ignoring copyright leads to perdition.

 

[altwebdesign]

www.sxc.hu they have some basic free ones just check the license terms.

probably better off going somewhere like istockphoto.com where they have a much better and wide range of images.

 

[mangoprint]

Hey there, shuttertstock.com is also a good one to use.

 

[bluelk]

We always work with photo and video content, and photodune.net and 123rf.com have the same images that shutterstock and istockphoto, but with lower prices.

These sites are only platforms, users are those who sell the content based on the platform conditions.

So, "Peter", sells a photo in shutterstock for $25 dollars, "Peter" sells the same photo in Photodune for $1.

Cheers.

 

[CIulian]

thank you all for your replies. bluelk, I am designing a property leaflet for a letting firm, so, basically I'm after pictures of houses, keys, anything that suggests the property industry really. Although I do not mind paying for a photo, I wish to have full rights after purchase, but that is never the case, you are limited in terms of use, I looked at shutterstock before, and they're one of the worst rated. Also heard stock.XCHNG has been bought out by Getty a few years ago, and don't care about people saying their images are still free, I don't trust anything with the word "Getty" in it.

 

[ethical PR]

If you are designing a leaflet on behalf of a client they pay for the image not you and something like istock is absolutely fine for these purposes. Or if you want just buy the credits yourself and you can use for various clients....however I wouldn't have thought they'd be happy if you let them have a similar look and feel to their competitors

By the way on a separate subject you mentioned you recently graduated from a marketing degree - where did you study and would you recommend it. Have a friend's son who's interested in doing the same.

 

[CIulian]

thanks ethical PR, I'll check istock. It's not that I don't want to pay for the image, I'd more than happy to do so as they cost very little, it's the usual limitation of use that put me off. I haven't actually looked at istock, I'll see how they compare to others in terms of licencing.

Now to answer your question, I studied Marketing Management at University of Birmingham and I graduated in 2011. The degree hasn't been of much use, although I did enjoy the course, the marketing I learnt just didn't, and still doesn't have any workplace applicability. Luckily I was in a decent job (not degree related), but that enabled me to pay for further training in London, so I went ahead and learn property marketing, and now I do various jobs for letting agents (write marketing material, press releases, e-mail marketing). I knew that if I ever wanted to do marketing, I had to pick a niche.

Would I recommend a University marketing course to anyone? No. Which isn't to say that it doesn't help, or that some students haven't benefited from marketing degrees, I'm sure they have. But University doesn't teach you SEO, or how to successfully apply Social Media, or how to carry out a great PR campaign, how to write good marketing material, and even more importantly, how to sell a product or a service.

If you're friends son is looking for a fun course, not very challenging in terms of exams, that can be interesting at times (I learnt how an icecream maker made millions in sales by using pregnant nuns in his advertising), then by all means... to me though it felt like I would have learnt more sitting at home researching marketing material on Google.

In any case, best of luck to him, University costs 3 times more now than 2 years ago, so my advice is to pick a course carefully, not just because it's fun and easy to complete (which my course was).