While it’s nice to have a photographer on hand to capture some unique images for your website, sometimes you just need a quick image to spruce up your blog article or social networking post. We’ve mentioned some of our favourite stock photo resources in a previous blog, but we wanted to highlight a feature that Google has just conveniently placed under their search tools: Google Usage Rights. This tool can let you filter your image results on Google by their licensing rights!
How to Use It
- Type your search term into Google Search
- Hit Images
- Choose “Search Tools”
- Click on “Usage Rights”
- Now choose the category you want
Decode the Lingo
Labeled for Reuse
You can copy or alter these images according to the ways specified in the license.
Labeled for Commercial Use
You can copy or alter these images for commercial purposes, according to the ways specified in the license.
Labeled for Reuse with Modification
You can use the image with alterations, according to the ways specified in the license.
Labeled for Commercial Reuse with Modification
You can use the image with alterations for commercial purposes, according to the ways specified in the license.
Note the emphasis on using images according to the ways specified in the license – we highly recommend verifying with the image creator to make sure the image is actually open to reuse, and whether there are certain terms you need to honour. No one wants to deal with those pesky headaches or other unfortunate consequences that come from making a legal blunder.
Check out Google’s memo for more details on how to use this filter.