Blog image resources

A few people have asked me where to find free images and graphics they can use for their blogs. So I thought I would list a few of the ones I've found and use.

• MorgueFile: Tons of free images and pictures you can use for both personal and business purposes. All of the images are tagged for easy searching. And searches return easy to see thumbnails. This is where I usually go to find images. It's not required, but most of the images have an email address where you can email the the photographer who posted the image and let him/her know that you are using the image.
  
  
• Stock.XCHNG: Much like MorgueFile, stock.xchng has tons of images in an easily searchable format. Again, all images are available for personal and commercial use on your website or blog.
  
  
• YotoPhoto: This site indexes free images from many different sites, including the morguefile site listed above. You can easily do a search for any topic, and the results will be listed in thumbnail form along with the license the image was released under. Make sure you pay attention to the license, as some licenses are more restrictive than others. What I like about this site is that each license is listed under the thumbnail as a link to the license definition. So if you aren't sure about what restrictions a particular license has, you can simply click on the link.
  
  
• ImageAfter: Tons of images in an easily searchable format. ImageAfter also has many textures and patterns in its database that you can use. Again, all images are available for personal and commercial use on your website or blog.
  
  
• Wikimedia Commons: Wikimedia has images and graphics on nearly any topic you can imagine. Most of the photos on this site are public domain. So you are free to use them for anything you want. Again though, make sure you read the license before just using them.
  
  
• Uncle Sam's Photos: A massive index site of US government photos. All in the public domain. Very useful.
  
  
• Public-Domain-Photos: A huge collection of public domain photos in easy to navigate categories.
  
  
• PD Photo: Another large collection of public domain photos. All organized in easy to navigate categories.
  
  
• Flickr: If you go to the advanced search page and scroll to the bottom, you can select searching for images with creative commons licenses. Again, there are several different CC licenses, so pay attention to the license. But if you are using the image for a personal blog or website, you can usually use any CC licenses image. Just make sure you read the terms for possible restrictions.