To avoid licensing fees, we recommend selecting images that are in the public domain, carry a Creative Commons license, or are royalty-free. For more details on these three designations, we invite you to participate in the Cognella webinar titled “Creating a Figure Program,” offered monthly. Ask your project editor for upcoming dates and details about the session.
A Note on Images Found Online
Images found through Google image searches or on public websites typically can’t be used due to copyright restrictions. This is true of images found on blogs, websites with or without paywalls, and even educational sites. If selected for your project, these types of images will often need to be replaced, which slows down the pre-production and production of your book. To minimize rework and delays, do your best to select images from sources provided by Cognella or create your own images.
Suggested low- or no-cost image sources that we recommend include:
All-Purpose (Try These First!)
Wikimedia Commons*
Deposit Photos**
Pixabay
Flickr Creative Commons*
Stock Images
Unsplash
Nappy
Scale by Flexiple
Reshot
Pexels
Burst
FreeImages
Kaboompics
StockSnap.io
Historical
Library of Congress*
Smithsonian Open Access
New York Public Library*
British Library*
Medical
National Institute of Health
SMART Servier Medical Art
Maps
Historical Maps: University of Texas Libraries
MapChart
The World Factbook—CIA Maps
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (C-band data for North American and South America are available to the public)
U.S. Geological Survey Maps
*This site contains copyrighted images, though most are available to use for free. Be sure to check the licensing information listed for the specific photos you’d like to use before adding to your image log.
**Deposit Photos requires an account to download images, but not to search. You do not need to create an account or pay for the images you are selecting. When using this site, add the source information for each item you want to select to your image log, and your publishing team at Cognella will download them for you.