Where can I find free pictures for PowerPoint?

Some people think that images they find online are free because they are, well, online. This is wrong, and in many cases it is a breach of copyright law to use photos you find online without paying for them. Unless you are given explicit permission, whether it is granted to you in writing or if you have purchased a license, you shouldn’t use photographs you’ve found on the Internet in your presentation. You have to dig deeper than a simple Google image search.

This doesn’t mean there are no free images available to you. On the contrary, there are many ways to get free photographs for your PowerPoint presentations or for personal use that won’t land you in Copyright Court.

• MorgueFile is a “public image archive by creatives for creatives” that offers thousands of free images.
• Freeimages has a robust search engine and the ability to create lightboxes (collections of photos) that you can share with others.
• Pikwizard has over 100,000 completely free images on their site.
• Wikimedia Commons is a vast collection of photographs, many of which are in the public domain. This means either that the copyright has expired or the photographer has relinquished all copyright claims and you can use the photos freely. Other images are offered under the Creative Commons license, which means that you must “attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.” This is usually as simple as putting the phrase “Image © 2019 Joe Smith, “Linked name of image” via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0” on or near the image in your presentation. Scroll down the screen to determine what the copyright situation is for each image you find. And don’t forget to add links to both the image and the copyright information.
• Use your own pictures. How many of us have a smartphone that can take pictures? OK, you can put your hands down; I can’t see you anyway. If your smartphone takes high-resolution photos then why not use some of these in your presentations? Images of clouds, grass, city streets, traffic signs, and any number of subjects are just a click away. And you can submit your own photos to the free photo sites if you want to complete the Karmic circle.

One big caveat

You knew that the other shoe had to drop sometime, right?

Photographs of people require special consideration. If it’s impossible to tell who the people are, such as in a blurred image of a crowd, a hand holding an object, or a foot kicking a ball, then you don’t have to worry. But photographs of identifiable people require a model release/liability waiver — written permission from the subject of the photograph to use the image for commercial purposes (e.g., your PowerPoint presentation). You can get into legal trouble for using a person’s photograph without their explicit permission, especially if your use implies their endorsement of your product or idea.

Stock photography companies take care of obtaining model releases, but this is often not specifically called out in free photo sites so you need to check the licensing terms. If you’re using your own photographs, the same rule applies: get a model release or don’t use identifiable pictures of people.

How do you attribute photographs correctly?

Now that you’ve taken the high road and legally obtained images you can use, it’s time to tell the world where you got them and under what terms. There’s a lot to it, so click here to read another article about how it’s done.

The Takeaway

With so many free resources, it’s possible to include high-quality photos in your presentations. Just make sure you’re getting them from the correct sources and attribute them when you need to.