royalty free images for wordpress

November 16, 2023

How to Find Royalty Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts

Are you wondering where to find royalty-free images for your WordPress blog posts?

Royalty-free images can be used on your website without having to pay royalties to the copyright holder. This allows you to use high-quality images in your blog posts and make your site more visually appealing.

In this article, we will share some of our top sources to find royalty-free images for your WordPress blog posts.

Why Use Royalty-Free Images For Your WordPress Blog Posts?

Using images on your website can increase user engagement, improve SEO, and create brand awareness.

However, if you have just started a WordPress blog, then you may not have the budget to buy royalty images for your website. These are premium images that are protected by copyright, and their owner requires payment in order for you to use them.

By using royalty-free images on your website, you can save money, as most of them are free of cost, and make your website visually appealing at the same time.

These images can legally be used for any purpose, including blogs, online courses, social media, magazines, and so much more.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best sources to find royalty-free images for your WordPress blog posts.

1. FreeImages

FreeImages is the best place to find royalty-free images on the market. It is a popular website that comes with a library of millions of royalty-free stock photos, vectors, icons, and more.

With FreeImages, you can easily discover high-quality images that can be used for any purpose on your website, including newsletters, presentations, and more.

It is an easy-to-use platform where you can use the search bar or categories at the top to find the right images for your blog posts.

All you have to do is click on an image that you like, and it will open up on a new screen. Once you are there, simply click the ‘Free Download’ button to save the image on your computer.

Additionally, the website also offers other features like an image lightbox, image filtering, a variety of download options, the ability to comment on and rate images, and more.

All of this makes FreeImages a great place to start if you are new to using royalty-free images on your WordPress site.

2. Pixabay

Pixabay is a popular destination to find royalty-free, CC-0 licensed images. The website offers a large collection of images sorted into categories and tags.

It also has an advanced search feature to help you find the perfect images for your website in no time.

Pixabay has a library of over 2.7 million high-quality, royalty-free images, videos, and audio that can elevate your blog post content and make it more engaging for your users.

Plus, the platform offers a variety of download options, including different sizes and resolutions that you can use on your website.

3. Unsplash

Unsplash is a well-known website for downloading high-quality, royalty-free, CC-0 licensed, and public domain images.

It has a great search feature that allows you to find images matching certain themes like nature, office, work, and more.

The tool has a huge library, image lightbox, and image commenting feature and even boasts a huge community of photographers who contribute to the platform on a daily basis.

Plus, Unsplash also offers a Google Chrome extension, which shows a random image in the background when you open a new tab. You can then download that image on your computer.

4. Vecteezy

Vecteezy is a popular website that provides stock vectors, icons, and graphics for free and paid downloads.

It has over 40 million files available for download, is super easy to use, and even comes with flexible licensing options.

Vecteezy also has an online editor that allows you to edit the images without downloading any software.

Plus, the tool offers an API to integrate Vecteezy content into your own applications, making it easy to add royalty-free images to your WordPress website.

5. Public Domain Pictures

Public Domain Pictures is an amazing platform that has a large collection of royalty-free images and photographs.

You can easily find great images for your website by using the search feature or browsing through categories on the platform.

Public Domain Pictures also lets you filter your images based on size, orientation, and colors and even has flexible download options.

It is a great website for finding royalty-free images because the images are free to use for any purpose and do not require any attribution.

6. New Old Stock

New Old Stock is a great website that has a collection of beautifully curated vintage photographs that are now in the public domain. These images are interesting as they give you a look into the past.

It has an advanced search feature, a lightbox, flexible download options, and over 70,000 high-resolution vintage photos, including people, landscapes, architecture, and everyday life.

New Old Stock also provides historical context for many of its photos, including the date and location of the image.

7. Pickup Image

Pickup Image offers a large collection of royalty-free photographs, images, and clipart.

The platform has a large library, an easy-to-use search feature, image filtering, and also sorts all the photographs into categories and tags for easier browsing.

8. Public Domain Archive

Public Domain Archive is another website that has high-quality, royalty-free stock photos. The site offers a mix of modern and vintage photographs that you can browse using categories or the search feature.

Plus, the website allows you to comment on or rate an image, which can help other users discover relevant content.

9. SplitShire

SplitShire is a free stock photo website that has a collection of over 20,000 unique images.

You can browse the site using a tags filter or view images in mosaic view. It also has flexible downloading options and a lightbox feature.

10. LibreShot

LibreShot is a well-known website with over 1 million stock photos and videos covering a wide range of subjects, including people, landscapes, animals, and objects.

It is super easy to use, is completely free, and has advanced search options. Plus, LibreShot also has premium images that you can buy for your WordPress site.

11. Skitterphoto

Skitterphoto offers high-resolution, royalty-free photographs. All images on the website are licensed under the CC-0 public domain.

The site features works from their own photographers, so you will find less used and more unique photographs.

Additionally, Skitterphoto allows you to adapt and modify images for any purpose, giving you more freedom to create unique and original content.

12. StockSnap.io

StockSnap is a beautifully curated and easy-to-use website for royalty-free photographs and CC0-licensed images.

It has a library of over 2 million images and allows you to browse them using a search bar, categories, and tags.

StockSnap even has an API that allows you to integrate StockSnap content into your own applications.

13. Wikimedia Commons

A project of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Commons is a large library of images, audio, and video files that can be freely used.

You can browse through this website by media types such as images, photographs, drawings, and illustrations or by file types like audio, video, image, and more. Images can also be browsed based on their license.

A large number of images on Wikimedia Commons are in the public domain, which means you are free to use them without any attribution. However, some images may have a Creative Commons license requiring attribution. Make sure you check the license information below each image.

14. PDPics

PDPics is another platform that offers a large collection of public domain images. At first look, the site may look very basic, but it has photos neatly organized into categories and tags.

It has over 92,000 images, is free to use, has advanced search features, and is an open-source project, making it a great resource to find images for your WordPress blog posts.

Bonus: Optimize Images On Your WordPress Blog

Once you have found royalty-free images that you want to use, it is important to optimize them before adding the images to your website.

Optimization can help improve your overall website performance and speed, reduce bandwidth costs, and even improve your site’s SEO.

To optimize your images, you have to make sure that you have chosen the correct image type.

For example, if you are using an image with a lot of colors, then you should go with the JPEG file format. However, if your image has fewer colors, then PNG is the better option because it saves images in higher quality.

You can also optimize your images by compressing them into smaller files. You can use tools like Adobe Photoshop or Affinity Photo, as they come with built-in compression features.

You can also use popular WordPress compression plugins like Optimole to compress your images into smaller files.

For more information, see our beginner’s guide on how to easily optimize images for web performance without losing quality.

We hope this article helped you learn how to find royalty-free images for your WordPress blog posts. You may also want to check out our tutorial on how to create responsive image galleries in WordPress with Envira and our top picks for the best tools to create better images for your WordPress blog posts.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Find Royalty Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts first appeared on WPBeginner.

November 23, 2022

How to Find and Insert Creative Commons Licensed Images in WordPress

Do you want to use Creative Commons licensed stock photos and images on your website?

It is important to make sure you have permission to use images in your blog posts. Luckily, there are millions of Creative Commons licensed images that you can use royalty-free.

In this article, we’ll show you how to find and insert Creative Commons licensed images in WordPress.

How to Find & Insert Creative Commons Licensed Images in WordPress

Why Use Creative Commons Licensed Images in WordPress?

Using high-quality images on your WordPress blog can boost your engagement with your users. However, purchasing images from a stock library like Shutterstock can be expensive.

Luckily, many photographers and artists release their images with a Creative Commons license. Images with this type of license can be used legally without having to pay for them.

There are several Creative Commons licenses, and the CC0 ‘No Rights Reserved’ license is best for bloggers. You can use image with this license without any restrictions. You won’t need to ask permission or give credit.

Other Creative Commons licenses will still allow you to use the images for free but will have conditions or restrictions, such as the requirement to give credit to the creator when using the image.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to find and insert Creative Commons images in WordPress. Here’s what we’ll cover in this tutorial:

Adding Creative Commons CC0 Licensed Images With a Plugin
Adding Creative Commons CC0 Licensed Images With a Page Builder
Adding Creative Commons Licensed Images Manually

Adding Creative Commons CC0 Licensed Images With a Plugin

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Instant Images plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin offers a one-click search for images contained in the Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels stock image libraries. Luckily, the images in these libraries can be used freely because every one of them has been released under the Creative Commons CC0 license.

Upon activation, the plugin starts to work automatically. Now when you are adding an image to a post from your Media library, there will be an ‘Instant Images’ tab at the top of the page.

Searching for Creative Commons Licensed Images Using Instant Images

Alternatively, you can add images directly to your Media library by navigating to Media » Instant Images.

Now you can click on one of the stock library names found at the top of the page. After that, simply search for the type of image you wish to add to WordPress. You can sort or filter the images using the dropdown menus.

In the example above, we searched Unsplash for ‘tomato’ and found 2213 images.

To add an image to your Media library, simply click on it. The image will be added along with a title and some default alt text provided by the photographer.

You can now add the image to your posts as normal.

Getting a Pexels API Key

The first time you click the Pexels button you see a popup asking you to enter an API key. Start by clicking the ‘Get API Key’ link to sign up for a free Pexels account.

To Find Images in Pexels Using Instant Images, You Will Need an API Key

After you sign up, you need to click on the user icon at the top of the screen.

Then you should select ‘Image & Video API’ from the drop down menu.

Select 'Images & Video API' From the User Menu Then Click the 'Your API Key' Button

Next, you need to click the ‘Your API Key’ button. This will take you to a form where you can let Pexels know how you will be using their images.

You will also need to check the box to agree to the terms of service and API guidelines.

Let Pexels Know How You Plan to Use the Images

Finally, your API key will be displayed.

You will need to copy the key to the clipboard and then return to your website.

Copy the API Key and Paste It Into the Field on Your WordPress Website

You should see the same popup as before. Simply paste the API key into the field and then click the Verify button.

You will now be able to insert Creative Commons licensed images from Pexels.

Adding Creative Commons CC0 Licensed Images With a Page Builder

SeedProd is the best drag-and-drop WordPress page builder for businesses, bloggers, and website owners. It lets you easily add commonly used design elements such as images.

The Plus plan and above includes a library of 2 million stock images for use on your site. These images are royalty free and optimized for the web.

To learn how to install and use SeedProd step by step, check our guides on how to create a landing page and how to easily create a custom WordPress theme.

When using SeedProd’s visual editor, simply drag an Image block onto the page.

When you click on the image block, its settings will be displayed in the left pane.

Under ‘Choose New Image’ you will see two buttons, one to add your own image and the other to add a stock image.

You need to click the ‘Use a Stock Image’ button.

Press the 'Use a Stock Image' Button in SeedProd

This will bring up a search form for the SeedProd stock images library.

Simply type your search term to find the image you need and then click the ‘Search’ button.

You Can Now Search the SeedProd Stock Image Library

You will now see previews of each matching image.

Simply click on the image you want to add to the page.

Now you can use SeedProd’s image settings to add alt text, change the size and alignment of the image, or add a link.

Adjust the Image's Alt Tag, Size, and Alignment

You can change the style of the image by clicking the ‘Templates’ tab and choosing a style.

These templates change the border and spacing of your image.

You will find additional options on the ‘Advanced’ tab.

Adding Creative Commons Licensed Images Manually

If you prefer not to use a plugin, then you can find Creative Commons licensed images manually. To start, you need to visit a stock image library site. Once you find an image you want to use, you can download it and then upload it to your site.

For sources of free stock images, see our guide on sources for free public domain and CC0-Licensed images.

Once you’ve downloaded the royalty free stock images you need, you’ll need to upload them to your Media library or blog post.

The easiest way to do this is to add an ‘Image’ block to the WordPress editor, click the ‘Upload’ button, and then find the Creative Commons image on your computer.

Adding Attributions to Creative Commons Licensed Images

Some Creative Commons licenses require that you add an image credit and provide proper attribution to the original work.

For example, the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) license requires attribution. The license states, ‘You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.’

Some Creative Commons Licenses Require Attribution

It’s important that you give proper image credit to comply with the copyright laws and avoid infringing upon someone’s rights.

Doing so can protect you against legal issues and liabilities, and it’s also a way to show respect for other people’s work and creativity.

If you’re not sure whether you need to give attribution, then you should carefully check the wording of the image’s Creative Commons license.

It’s very easy to credit the creator, too. In the image below, you can see the Creative Commons attribution is simply included in the image caption. For more information, see our guide on how to add image credits in WordPress.

Creative Commons recommends you include:

the image’s title
the name of the author with a link to their profile page
the source of the image with a link to the original photo
the license used with a link to the license deed

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to find and insert Creative Commons licensed images in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to create a custom Instagram feed, or check out our list of tips on how to increase your blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Find and Insert Creative Commons Licensed Images in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 19, 2022April 15, 2024

How to Use AI to Generate Images in WordPress

Do you want to use artificial intelligence tools like DALL.E to generate images in WordPress?

AI-generated images can be a good alternative to create images for your WordPress blog posts without worrying about copyright.

In this article, we will show you how to use AI to generate images in WordPress.

Using AI tools like DALL.E to make images for WordPress websites

Why Use AI Tools to Generate Images for Your WordPress Website?

There are a ton of paid stock image websites offering images to use on your WordPress website for a small fee.

However, the cost of these images is an extra expense. Most bloggers and small businesses don’t have the budget for that.

There are certainly many websites that offer royalty-free images like Unsplash or Shutterstock‘s limited free library.

But those images are highly overused and often too generic.

Now, the best way to create images for your website is by making your own images or using your own photographs. But not everyone is a professional photographer or digital artist.

This is where artificial intelligence comes in.

AI tools like DALL.E can generate unique artwork from text descriptions provided by the users.

These images are not only unique but highly creative and artistic.

For instance, here is an image of an office desk with a sunset backdrop generated by DALL.E 2. It mimics the style of generic stock image photos that you can find on hundreds of websites.

DALL.E 2 mimicking generic stock photo style

Now, take a look at this example of an artwork created by DALLE.2.

This one is artistic, more colorful, and in a comic book style.

You can see the variety of styles, topics, and ideas you can use on the DALL.E homepage.

The best part is that you are free to use these images for your blog posts, articles, and even landing pages.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily use AI-generated images in WordPress.

We will be showing you three methods using three different AI tools; you can choose one that works best for you by clicking on the quick links below:

Generate AI Images for WordPress with DALL.E 2
Use SeedProd to Generate AI Images in WordPress (Premium Plugin)
Use Imajinn to Generate AI Images in WordPress (Free Plugin)

1. Generate AI Images for WordPress with DALL.E 2

DALL.E 2 is an artificial intelligence tool made by OpenAI. It is quite popular for its artistic rendering, surrealism, creativity, and versatility.

Built on the GPT-3, it is a text-to-image model using deep learning technologies to generate images from natural language descriptions.

It is similar to ChatGPT, which also uses GPT-3 but responds in text. In the generative AI industry, these descriptions are called prompts.

You can create AI images on the DALL.E 2 website and download them to your computer. After that, you can upload those images to your WordPress website.

First, you need to visit the DALL.E 2 website and sign up for a free account, which gives you 50 credits for your first month.

Upon signing up, you’ll see the DALL.E dashboard with a prompt field and some recent artworks generated by DALL.E.

In the prompt field, type a text description of the image you want to generate. You can be as descriptive and creative as you like.

Click on the ‘Surprise Me’ button to see some examples of prompts you can generate.

Once you click on the ‘Generate’ button, the AI will generate images based on the prompt you provided and show you four results.

You can download all of them to your computer if you want. You can also click on any of the generated images to edit them.

The image editor in DALL.E allows you to expand the frame or pan in. You can also erase or retouch an area of the image.

Click on the ‘Generate’ button again for AI to regenerate the image based on your changes.

Once you have downloaded the images to your computer, you can switch back to the admin area of your WordPress website.

You can now upload the image to your WordPress media library by visiting the Media » Add New page.

You can also add an image directly to your WordPress posts and pages. Simply edit the post or page where you want to display the image.

On the post edit screen, add the Image block and then upload the image from your computer.

Adding image to WordPress post and pages

Automatically Generate AI Images in WordPress with DALL.E and Uncanny Automator

If you are looking for a plugin to integrate DALL.E 2 directly with your WordPress website, then you can use Uncanny Automator.

Uncanny Automator is one of the best WordPress automation tools on the market. It offers support for OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E models to easily generate AI text content and images in WordPress.

You can use the simple recipe builder to create an automation that uses a WPForms submission form to send text and image prompts to GPT and DALL-E.

Send OpenAI text and image prompts using a submission form with Uncanny Automator

Then, you can create a new post in WordPress using Uncanny Automator’s tokens to automatically pull the data from the text and image generation.

For example, you can use a response token to set the featured image as the AI image you created:

Use Uncanny Automator action token to set featured image as AI generated image

This will turn the text and image prompts from your submission form into a new blog post in just a few clicks.

Uncanny Automator even adds the DALL-E image directly to your WordPress media library, so you don’t need to do it manually.

AI generated blog text and featured image using Uncanny Automator

For more details, see our guide on how to create automated workflows in WordPress with Uncanny Automator.

What is the License Used for Images Generated by DALL.E 2?

You retain the copyright for the images generated by the prompt you provided to DALL.E 2.

You can use the images anywhere you want, including your WordPress website, YouTube videos, eBooks, magazines, and more.

2. Use SeedProd to Generate AI Images in WordPress (Premium Plugin)

For the first method, we will use SeedProd to easily generate AI images in WordPress.

SeedProd is the best drag-and-drop theme builder for WordPress. It allows you to create custom WordPress themes, page layouts, and landing pages without coding.

It also comes with a powerful AI Assistant that uses DALL-E to help you generate AI images in just a few clicks.

To get started, you need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. If you need help, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is a free version of SeedProd available. However, you need to buy the premium version of SeedProd to access the AI Assistant. You’ll also need to buy AI credits by clicking the link in your SeedProd account dashboard.

Once the plugin is activated, you can use the drag-and-drop builder to create a custom WordPress theme or landing page. For step-by-step instructions, you can follow our tutorials:

Then, you can use the AI Assistant to generate original images for your website pages.

Simply edit the page, drag an Image block from the panel on the left-hand side, and drop it into the live preview area on the right.

Next, click on the Image block to open up the block settings panel on the left side of the screen.

Then, click on the ‘Add with AI’ button.

This will open the image prompt panel. Here, you can type a description of the image you want to create for your site or use one of the suggested prompts.

After that, click on the ‘Generate Image’ button.

Type a description of the image you want to generate

SeedProd will take a few seconds to generate the image.

When it’s done, you’ll see a preview of the image, and you can click the ‘Insert’ button to add it to your page.

Insert the AI image generated by SeedProd

After the image has been added to your page, you can also edit the AI image and generate variations of the same image.

Just click on the generated image from the SeedProd builder and select ‘Edit with AI’ in the block settings panel.

Next, you’ll see the different editing options that are available.

First, click on the ‘Variations’ button.

Options for editing AI generated images with SeedProd

From there, hit the ‘Generate Variations’ button.

This will tell the AI Assistant to create multiple variations of the image.

If you like one of the variations better than the original AI-generated image, you can click the ‘Insert’ button to add it to your page.

Otherwise, you can select the ‘Back’ button to keep the original image and return to the edit options screen.

SeedProd will create multiple variations of your AI image

The ‘Edit Image’ option allows you to use a brush tool to edit specific areas of the image. Simply erase the area that you want to edit and alter your original prompt to describe the changes you want to make.

Then, click the ‘Generate new image’ button.

Erase an area of the AI image and edit it with a new prompt

After a few seconds, SeedProd’s AI Assistant will show you two variations of the image with the changes you described.

You can click on the ‘Insert’ button underneath the variation you like the most to add it to your page.

Once you are happy with the image, just hit the ‘Save’ and ‘Publish’ buttons.

You can find them in the top right corner of the SeedProd builder.

Now, your AI-generated image will be displayed on your WordPress website.

Here’s how it looked on our demo site:

Example of AI generated image created with SeedProd

What is the License Used for Images Generated by SeedProd?

You own the images you create with SeedProd’s AI Assistant.

You’re free to use the AI-generated images anywhere on your WordPress site.

3. Use Imajinn to Generate AI Images in WordPress (Free Plugin)

For this method, we will use Imajinn AI to generate images in WordPress.

Imajinn AI is similar to tools like DALL.E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. It generates images using artificial intelligence based on the prompt you provide.

First, you need to install and activate the Imajinn plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: The base plugin is free and gives you 10 credits. After that, you can buy more credits from the plugin’s website.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Media » Imajinn AI to configure plugin settings and generate images.

First, you need to sign up by providing an email address and password to create your account.

After that, you will be able to start generating images using Imajin AI.

Simply provide a detailed prompt describing the image that you want to generate.

You can also choose from a list of styles, artist style, style modifier filters, and aspect ratio to further customize your prompt.

Below that you can choose to click on the ‘Summon’ button to launch the Prompt Genie tool.

The tool will suggest further prompt ideas based on the prompt description you provided to generate the best possible image.

You can click on the ‘Generate’ button to use a suggested prompt, or continue writing your own prompt by copying ideas from the suggestions.

Once you are satisfied, click on the ‘Generate’ button to continue.

The plugin will now start generating images using the AI tool running on the cloud. Once finished, it will display four variations of images for you to choose from.

Below each image, you’ll find options to share the image, repair faces (The AI is not great at generating human faces), or touch up the image.

You can also just click on the ‘Save’ button to store an image in your WordPress media library.

To use the image in your WordPress posts and pages, simply edit the post or page where you want to add the image.

On the post-edit screen, add the Image block where you want to display the image and then click on Media Library.

Next, you need to select the image you saved earlier from your Media Library and provide an alt text for the image.

After that, go ahead and click on the ‘Select’ button to insert the image.

The plugin also comes with an Imajinn block that you can add to your posts or pages.

It allows you to generate an image inside the block editor.

What is the License Used for Images Generated by Imajinn AI?

All images generated by Imajinn AI are provided under the free domain or CC0 license.

You are free to use them on your website as you see fit.

Bonus Resources:

AI can be used to help you write content, create images, and more. Here are some more resources to upgrade your AI skills:

We hope this article helped you learn how to use Artificial Intelligence to generate images for your WordPress website. You may also want to see our ultimate image SEO guide and these easy tips to optimize images for speed.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Use AI to Generate Images in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.