Images are an effective way of making your website attractive and distinctive; finding high quality, relevant images which you have the right to use can be a challenge. While we do not recommend any specific image sources, the following are some sources that our users have found useful:
- Pexels [free] Pexels is a good source of rights-free images. The majority of the images for this site were obtained from Pexels.
- Unsplash [free] is similar to Pexels and also offers rights-free images. As with all image services, we recommend reading the licence page before using an images on your site.
- Wiki Commons [free] has a large collection of images on Creative Commons licences.
- Flickr creative commons [free]. Flickr helpfully allows users to search by licence type.
- Oxford university images [charged]. This exists primarily to sell Oxford images to the world at large: University members get a small discount.
- iStock photos [charged]. Although these aren’t free they have a large catalogue of images and are often quite reasonably priced.
There are many more sources of images on the web, some of which are listed in this Visual Learning Centre article.
Of course you also have the option of using your own photos.
A note about using images under Creative Commons agreements
Caution should be taken when using images under a Creative Commons licence as many of these images are only free of charge under certain restricted conditions. As a result, you should take care to check the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons licence before using one of these images. You are responsible for ensuring the images you use are appropriate for the circumstances where they are being used.
Further information about using, licensing and commissioning images can be found in the Public Affairs Directorate's Best Practice Guide.
