If you are looking for images for your blog or a PowerPoint presentation, don’t go to Google image search. Search Flickr instead, using one of these three excellent search tools.

Google image search returns lots of hits, but the results can only be sorted by image size. Even the advanced image search option lacks one important option: You have no way of knowing if the image copyright rights are reserved or not.

Creative Commons licensed photos

On Flickr, users have the option to tag the images they upload with a Creative Commons license.

There are several Creative commons licenses and they all indicate that the photographer want to share the photos for free as long as you credit them for the creation. Then there are several more restrictive licenses that allow only non-commercial use, that allow no derivatives or that require you to share the work under identical terms.

All six types are explained here.

More than 80 million photos on Flickr are tagged with a creative Commons license and this number is growing day by day.

But Flickr’s own search engine may not be the best way to find the photo you want with the license that is right for you. Here are three great ways to search Flickr.

CompFight

CompFight is a third party Flickr search engine with a simple yet advanced interface. Here’s how to make the most of it:

By clicking a button next to the search box, you can choose to search just the photo tags (for more precise results) or all text associated with a photo (if searching just the tags didn’t provide enough results).

Below the search box, you can choose to search all Creative Commons licensed photos or only those with a license that allows commercial use of the images.

A very convenient feature is “Seek Original”. When you use this option, blue bars on the photos indicate that Flickr is holding an original. Linger your cursor over the image to display dimensions. There is also a safe search option.

FlickrStorm

FlickrStorm works by looking for more than what you enter to find related and more relevant images. In spite of the very simple start page, there are several useful options.

Clicking the link named “advanced” below the search box, you may search for images labeled with all kinds of Creative Commons licenses.

When you do a search the search results are presented as thumbnails. Scrolling to the bottom of the list, you get access to links that help you to refine your search.

When you see a thumbnail of an image you like, click on it! The image is then displayed in a larger size on the right hand side of the screen along with information about what kind of license it is labeled with and links for downloading it, see it on Flickr, and add it to tray.

The tray is a place to stack images you like and then download them all in one batch.

Along with each photo, you also get information about the username of the photographer, a link to his or her photostream on Flickr and a link to a contact form.

FlickrStorm also stores your history, so you can browse the photos you have clicked on during a session. Once you navigate away from FlickrStorm, this information is forgotten.

One disadvantage is that not all the hits for a search phrase are shown.

Flickr Search

If you are already on Flickr, browsing the categories of Creative Commons photos is an option, but given the enormous amount of photos available, this quickly becomes confusing.

In stead, try the Advanced Search option, which is by far the most advanced way to search Flickr. This page gives you a lot of different search criteria and at the bottom of the page, you can choose to search only photos with Creative Commons licenses.

You can also choose to search within those photos for images that may be used commercially or that may be modified, adapted or built upon.

On the search results page you can choose to view the most relevant shots, the most recently uploaded or the most interesting (”interesting” here is a composite of popularity criteria applied by Flickr).

You can display the photos with detailed descriptions (default), as a list of thumbnails (for browsing through large amounts of photos) or as a slide show.

Recently, a 3D browsing option is also available through a collaborative effort with CoolIris. Point your mouse to any photo on Flickr and click on the little arrow icon that appears. You can now scroll through the photos in a three dimensional interface using the arrow keys on your keyboard. This requires a high speed Internet connection.

See also:
Xcavator photo search for searching professional databases
Free online image search tutorial
Are there search engines for image, sound or movie content?
Live Image Search lets you search for faces