Evangelism Reps Training Program/How to find images

Having images in presentations is a very simple way to make them more lively and engaging. You need to be a very good speaker to make code or bullet points interesting and having an image to bring your point home is one of the simplest tricks in the book. That said, don't get too excited about having a slideshow of pretty images that got nothing to do with what you want to achieve. The art lies in moderation.

That said, when using images make sure that you use those you are allowed to have in your slides and play nice with the original photographers. So here are a few tips on where to find images:

Take them yourself

This might sound too simple but when you really want to make sure you have the rights to the image, take it yourself and share it on the web with a proper license. Just make sure to have them in a proper size (to avoid JPG artifacts when you show them on a high resolution) and crop unnecessary parts of them. If you use photos of people, ask them for permission.

Flickr

Flickr still is one of the best resources for images. Especially so as there is no ambiguity as to the rights you have.

Simply use the Creative Commons search in Flickr. You have various options in the advanced search, simply scroll down until you get the "Creative commons" section. You will need to tick the "find photos to use commercially" and if you want to crop or change them you also need to tick the "Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon" box.

When using photos from flickr, make sure to download the largest version (you can always create a smaller version with less quality, the other way is not possible) and to note the link to the image and the name of the owner (this could be the user name as not everybody provides flickr with a real name).

Another great resource in Flickr is the commons which has copyright free images from various libraries, museums and also NASA for you yo use.

When you use these photos you must mention somewhere in your slide deck that you've done so - best is to have a link to the Flickr page on the bottom of your slide or a big "thank you" page as the last slide.

General CC content

You can also use the Creative commons search engine to find more CC content on various services and Google image search also has a CC filter.

Archive.org

Whilst not necessarily images, Archive.org is another great resource for copyright-free content. You can download a lot of videos there and use them for demos or take stills of them.

Using the internets

Of course the big thing still are meme photos, lolcats, epic fails and the likes. The danger here is that you might not own the right to the image. As all the cheezburger network runs on the idea of people uploading an image and putting a caption on it there is no assurance that the original image isn't copyrighted - in many cases it very much is proprietary. Tred carefully and keep the icanhazcheezburger, dailysquee or whatever other branding in the photo and link to the original post to cover your backside.