Royalty Free Images - For Free

negligence

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I just saw a post which prompted me to post this method. I got sick and tired of paying $20 for an image that 13,000 other people have already posted, so I found a way around it.

Many of you have used iStockPhoto, ShutterFly, and other companies to buy images. Although this isn't a surefire method, it does work a lot of the time.

If you find an image you like, open it up and save the image or copy the image's url. From there, load up Tineye.

Tineye is a reverse image search. Basically, you provide Tineye with an image, and it scours its database to find images that are close to it, or where else that particular image is used. It works very well.

Anyways, you can either a) upload the image that you saved, or b) paste in the image's url, and hit search. Tineye will typically pop up a handful of results. Some of them are the watermarked ones that you provided, some of them are images that look VERY similar but aren't the same image, and some of them are the image you're looking for -- no watermark, and unaltered. You just saved yourself anywhere from $1 to $who-the-hell-knows.

Links:
Tineye.com
Tineye.com/plugin

Code:
http://www.tineye.com
http://www.tineye.com/plugin
 
Do you know if the graphics sites ever go looking for people that didn't pay for their images? Like ask to see a license?

My backup plan is to just tell them I had someone else create the graphic for me and i don't if they paid for it or not. Not sure if that would fly or not though.
 
Do you know if the graphics sites ever go looking for people that didn't pay for their images? Like ask to see a license?

My backup plan is to just tell them I had someone else create the graphic for me and i don't if they paid for it or not. Not sure if that would fly or not though.

I have personally spent over $5,500 at iStockPhoto over the years and have never been asked to verify that I purchased the image. That doesn't even take into account Shutterfly and the other providers...

I can't say yes or no, but that's my personal experience.
 
I use images from iStockPhoto fpr my websites without paying a dme. It says royalty free, so I thought it was okay to use them, considering the fact they get credit for the use. All the images read (istockphoto) in between. Should I remove them? any advice on this.
 
I have been sent invoices from ghetty images for violating their copyrights. They will come after you if they find images you dident pay for.
 
I have been sent invoices from ghetty images for violating their copyrights. They will come after you if they find images you dident pay for.

Yeah specially the bigger sites. I remember a few years back on the warrior forum there was a few threads were people got caught and pleading ignorance eg. 'my designer created the graphics' doesn't fly.
 
For 10$/month I have 500 free photos downloads/day on photoexpress...It's more than enough for my needs. :)
 
The same way you used TinEye to find a copy of the image without a watermark, some of the image owners use TinEye to find who is using their images without paying a license fee.
 
idk...

Many people do use tools like digimark to track their images but, here's the problem...

You buy an image from istockphoto... They don't license it to a particular domain. I don't think they have any way to know if you paid for it or not.

One simple solution... Robots.txt and block spiders from your images folder. Also, google around for spiders like digimark's ip addresses and block them with .htacess from your server entirely
 
For 10$/month I have 500 free photos downloads/day on photoexpress...It's more than enough for my needs. :)

Do you have a url? I only found photoxpress. com and their $10/mo plan only gives you one download per day.
 
For 10$/month I have 500 free photos downloads/day on photoexpress...It's more than enough for my needs. :)

Well.. if you pay $10 monthly for it , it's not free ;)
 
Do you have a url? I only found photoxpress. com and their $10/mo plan only gives you one download per day.

That is the site, but there are two types of photos: premium and free. The free ones are up to 500/day and premium ones 1/day. But the free ones are cool as well...

Yes ron, not free, but 10$/month? Come on... :)
 
Block them with .ht access and robots.txt
what do you mean by this?

does anyone know how to get Getty images for free (and without the watermark) and other sites as well?

is there a .robot txt that bi passes this? I was thinking of spoofing the website but forgot how to do it,

anyone know how to download images on premium image websites that you need an account in order to download from?
 
That is the site, but there are two types of photos: premium and free. The free ones are up to 500/day and premium ones 1/day. But the free ones are cool as well...

Yes ron, not free, but 10$/month? Come on... :)

Hi,I didn't found free photos,all I found was premium,can you tell me how to find the free photo?

Thanks!
 
This site is free as long as you put their link. That's the only thing they need for you to use their image. I put a text like [Photo Credit] at the bottom of the article.

Code:
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

I'm also using the site below to search for flickr images. I only use those considered as creative commons.

Code:
http://compfight.com/

I use Tineye to find images but I only use those with more than 5 results.

I'll try to use

Code:
http://www.photoxpress.com/

as suggested by kappa84
 
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