Before you do anything else, read Jennifer Gonzalez’s blog post on how to find and use images legally. Gonzalez provides an excellent overview of the subject. Below we highlight some key resources, principles, and strategies.
Using Images
Do not pepper your posts with “eye candy”—images selected merely to attract attention. All images should be relevant to your argument and appropriately sized, positioned, and contextualized. To contextual an image, refer to it in your text, explaining its significance.
Finding Images
Search Creative Commons for public domain images that you can use and adapt for non commercial purposes. While the images are free to use you still need to adhere to any citations requested by the owner or creator of the image. Do not just steal images from a Google search because you may be violating copyright, endangering yourself, me, and Davidson College.
Alt Text
As soon as you upload an image into, add “alt text” describing the image for users with visual impairments. The description should be very short, and you can find guidelines for alt text at WebAim: Web Accessibility in Mind. This is essential reading for anyone publishing online:
There’s a Wave evaluation tool you can install in Chrome and run on different pages to assess their accessibility, and WordPress on your Domain comes prefigured with a Web Accessibility plugin designed to highlight errors.
Sizing Images
WordPress allows you to edit images once you’ve uploaded them to the Media Library, but I’ve found this function is not very reliable. As a Mac user, I prefer to edit the image in the Preview app before I upload it. In Preview, you can crop; adjust the color, size, and brightness; and even add text.
Once you’ve inserted an image into your post, you can adjust its size, location, appearance by clicking on the image and working with the sidebar options. If you want a small image to appear larger when clicked on, choose the option to link to the Media File. (Alternatively, you can link the image to a Custom Link, linking it to the site where you found it.)
Linking Images
If I’ve found an image or video online that I want to use on a website and it’s not in the public domain or licensed through Creative Commons, I will cite the image according to MLA Style and take the extra step to edit the image in my post and insert a Custom URL linking the image to the site where I found it. That way, if someone clicks on the image in my post, they’ll be taken directly to the source of the image. You can also create an i-frame for the image, which makes it appear as if it’s in your post, but you haven’t taken it out of its original location.
Citing Images
Consult the OWL at Purdue for instructions on citing images and other common sources, such as interviews, lectures, TV shows, films, songs, podcasts, etc.).
Captions also offer a way to provide information about the image, but the caption function can produce weird results, depending on your theme. Always Preview or View Post before publishing to make sure your image is appropriately sized, positions, captioned, and cited.
