Using images in your blog posts is an essential way to improve them and break up the text as people respond well to images. Finding suitable images is not always that easy though – one way is to search through Flickr using the advanced search parameters to make sure your searching for photos licensed under a creative commons license. You have to also make sure you give the proper attribution to the phorographer by linking back to them.
A new plugin I found aims to make this process a lot easier, the free Compfight plugin adds a new button to your post editor that allows you to search from within WordPress and add the images with correct linking. Lets take a look at it …
Install The Plugin
Download the plugin and unzip the file, then in your WordPress admin, visit “Plugins” > “Add New” > “Upload” and upload the file.
Activate the plugin, you wont see any new menus or anything – it has just added a new camera icon on your post editing screen next to the upload / insert icon:
Searching for Images
Click the camera icon when you are writing a post and a popup window appears – make your search and thumbnail results will be listed :
Once you have located the image you like, click either the S, M or L to choose which size image you’d like and the plugin will insert the image into your post :
You will see the plugin has inserted the proper attribution which includes a link to the creative commons license, a link to the photographer and a link back to the Compfight website :
Conclusion
I think this is a brilliant plugin – for people who use a lot of images in their posts it should save them loads of time. The search is amazingly quick and the auto-attribution is great – I do a lot of image roundup posts for my other blog and it’s so time consuming adding an image, then copy and pasting the URL and the author’s name. The plugin does add a link back to Compfight, which is the search engine which provides the results so its up to you whether you leave that link in or not.
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13 Comments
I like the idea of this plugin; it’s simple and useful!
Thank you very much Oliver.
The photo of Wat Arun in BKK caught my eye as I live close to it. Looks like a great plugin too. Can’t wait to give it a try.
Nice plugin that help me a lot while adding images on my posts. I download this and now i am looking forward to give it a try to my blogs.
Nice info here! this will be useful :)
nice post, very useful for protecting our artworks/dsigns :)
Does it only display pictures you can use for commerical work? Or does it allow you to search by that option. Or would you have to insert, click on the credit and see if you can use for commerical work?
Creative commons is usually for non-commercial work,
You would need to contact the photographer to get an extended license
More on the licenses here – http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Oli, I am aware of the various different Creative Commons licenses. The Attribution license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en allows for commerical use. Flickr allows you to search for photos that can be used in commerical work.
So you’re saying that there is no way with this plugin to add only photos that can be used for commerical work, correct?
Yael, there is an option in Compfight’s settings that allow you to choose what type of images should be shown in the result.
see the image :)
Awesome advice, shame that creative license isnt everyone’s cup of tea.
Wow this is really a great useful one,I appreciate your great effort for making this creative post and share here with us…Keep it up..
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