When looking for free images available on the web (screenshots of movies or TV series, music album covers, book covers, etc.), it is very important that the photo is copyright-free (add photo credit), in fairly large format (minimum of 720 x 720 pixels), of good quality (neither pixelated nor blurry) and conforms to MSN rules.
- Several book publishers and car manufacturers offer high-resolution multimedia promotional visuals on their sites, so those are worth checking out.
- To get screenshots of movies and TV shows, here are two free sites that might help you with your research:
– fancaps.net
– movie-screencaps.com
Otherwise, the easiest way is to do a search with Google Images, or a search with Google Lens to find the best version of an image.
Search with Google Images
1. Go to Google Images and search with the appropriate keywords. (Tip: If you’re looking for a screenshot from a TV show or movie, add film still or publicity still for quality promotional photos.)
2. From the results, select the image you want. You will see it appear on the right side of your screen. When you hover your mouse over it, the aspect ratio will be displayed in pixels in the lower left corner.
3. If the photo looks large enough (over 720 x 720 pixels), open it in a new tab to verify that it is of good quality.
4. To check the image format, you can also open the “Tab” or “Window” menu. The pixel dimensions of the image are displayed in parentheses after the window/tab title.
5. If the image is large enough and of good quality, you can now copy and paste the URL of the page into your Word document. Don’t forget to add the photo credit (more on this below).
Search with Google Lens
1. When the aspect ratio is less than 720 x 720 pixels or the image definition isn’t great, you can do a Search with Google Lens. All you need to do is right click on the image you want, then select “Search image Google Lens for image”.
2. In the new opened window to the right, click on “Find image source.”
3. Then click on “All sizes.”
4. Then choose the best image from the displayed results.
(Open it in a new tab or window, then copy and paste the page URL into your Word document, with photo credit.)
Film and TV series credits (IMDb)
1. To find the production company (or companies) for a movie or TV series, go to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Open the “All topics” tab.
2. Click on “Company credits.”
3. Copy and paste the production companies into your Word document for the image credit. (A maximum of two to three companies is more than enough. E.g., Warner Bros./Legendary Entertainment)
