Posted: Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm. Filed in Widgets.
Tags: images, photos, PicApp
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Free Access to Premium Images
We all love adding great images to our blog posts, and today we’ve enabled a new WordPress.com Shortcode that adds millions of available premium images to the mix, all for free.
The Shortcode is for a service called PicApp, which offers up to the minute sports, news, and celebrity images from some of the top photographers and agencies throughout the world.
Looking for that shot of Eli Manning of the NY Giants throwing a perfect pass during this weekend’s NFL game ? A search for “Giants” brings up a few good ones:
What about a photo for your political post about Obama:
Or do you need a recent photo from Stella McCartney’s fashion show in Paris this week?:
To add these and other great images, just locate the “For WordPress.com” Shortcode when viewing an image on PicApp and paste it into your post:
Here is also a brief video overview of how it all works:
done
The related-images strip you see embedded at the bottom of each photo links to pages on PicApp.com that help support the photographers and agencies involved with these images. For more details on the related-images strip, modifying the image size, and how to copy the WordPress.com Shortcode, please read the documentation in our support area.
And for self-hosted WordPress sites, be sure to grab the plugin at WordPress.org.
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October 6th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
hmm..interesting! thanks wordpress team! another great addition.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Rock on, this is a great addition!
October 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Another milestone…..
keep it up WP.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Cool! Love this.
Thanks WordPress!
October 6th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Just to make sure that I understand this correctly: By using this feature I am guaranteed that I am allowed to use those pictures on my blog without having to worry about any copyright issues?
If so, that is certainly agreat service from wordpress!
However, if there is a caveat that wordpress is not responsible for possible copyright infringements, then I’m afraid, I will still be loath to embed pictures in my posts if I risk to be sued by someone who has a different understanding of the legal situation than wordpress. There have been a few quite spectacular cases of people being sued who used pictures they were sure they were allowed to use.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@Andreas — If you find an image on PicApp, then you don’t need to worry about copyright infringements since they have deals with all the photo owners for the images they display.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
awesomeness
October 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I like. Thanks!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Wow, and they’re free?? I’ll have to try this to see how it looks.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
i still have little confuse in using this. so we dont upload our photoes in PicApp? We just make a photostream with photoes available @ PicApp , right?
October 6th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
@Dhimas — You simply embed photos that you find in PicApp on your blog post.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I’m too excited! WordPress you’re the best. All we need is the ability to allow advertisements…please consider. Thanks!!!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I checked it out…Swwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeet!!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
ok, THIS is a new feature beyond cool!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
This is splendid, but please do something with embeddding .swfs!!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Yeah, Nice shoot
October 6th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
what a cool addition, thanks
October 6th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I already use daylife.com – which supplies NY Times, Guardian, Dawn and many others.
But, every little bit helps. BTW – whichever source you use, I recommend crediting the photo source if it starts out from one of the biggies like AP, Getty or Reuters.
Here’s an example at one of my posts:
http://eideard.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/vaccine-panic-turns-out-to-be-absolutely-unfounded/
Newspaper industry tradition even suggests the credit line in italics as shown.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Sweet! Will definitely be using this application.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
wow. this is good!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Thank You So Much
October 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
You guys are the BEST!!!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Oh this is a great feature, shame my blog has no need for pictures…..maybe I will reconsider
(P.S. just had to say, that is not Stella McCartney)
October 6th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
@lune — good catch. Meant to say from her fashion show. That’s now corrected
October 6th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
thats a great feature. already testing it: http://hungrygoat.wordpress.com
October 6th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Wow! This is very exciting. I can’t wait to try this out. Thanks, WordPress!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
This is a great feature! Thanks a lot!
October 6th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
This is a wonderful addition.
Quick WordPress story… When I decided to go and start my own blog I did what most newbies do, I searched around the net looking for a free service. It didn’t take too long for me to come across WP. As I looked around WP there was something different, can’t say that I can put my finger on it, but it just felt more welcoming than other blog sites. And most importantly… user friendly. Even a complete idiot like myself could figure out how to use many (not all) of the tools.
So thanks for making my choice easier, and tanks for the tools you keep providing.
Gio-
October 6th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Can we use this application as a widget?
October 6th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
@doctoratlarge — Yes, you should be able to use the Shortcode in a text widget.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
hah.. great!
October 6th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
This looks great!
October 6th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Brilliant addition – really, really useful. As much as the likes of flickr creative commons are useful, to have free access to professional shots is really very exciting. We all know how good photos can help a blog.
The fact that we can access recently-taken shots, not just old stock, is even better.
I’m really looking forward to using this function – it will certainly help more news-y posts stand out.
Thanks WordPress!
October 6th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
An interesting feature.
Thanks
October 6th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Nice feature to have.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
@eideard – no need to do any extra crediting. all the picapp images are fully credited (try to mouse-over the image ) and have full editorial caption – which is also a nice SEO tool
much thanks for the interest & enjoy using picapp!
October 6th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
OMG, that’s awesom
Do you mean that we’ll get access to images of BBC and Cricinfo.com like sites?
October 6th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
This is great! Finding non-copyrighted free use pictures is crucial to blog post…
October 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Great – no longer taking the camera with me
October 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Great news. The cartoon they created on the PicApp site is fun to watch. I can’t wait to get started looking through their catalog. Thanks for helping us keep our blogs fresh and (now copyright worry free)!
October 6th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Now you’ve got me wondering how I might incorporate this into a blog like mine. This will take some thought, but it is possible. Have a great day coming up with even more ideas.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
thanks
October 6th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I like this idea, it’s a quality-feature and it’s very useful.
Thank you WordPress.com.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
too intense I like this =)
October 6th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
doesn’t hurt to have more pictures!
October 6th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I have been reviewing picapp for awhile. They have improved and have a ways to go. If you have a .org site, you can use the Apture plugin to search picapp and many other image repositories.
The downside is when something happens to their servers (which has happened – read their forums), you lose you photos – quite annoying.
The other downside of course is the ADS!! A little hideous for most, but we’ll see how readers respond to them.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I agree, great addition.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I prefer to roll my own, but PicApp is a great feature addition to the WordPress.com blogging experience. Thanks!
October 6th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
The blogs I’m interested in reading–and writing!–are all about an individual point of view, with a definite sense of place. Celebrity shots are pretty much irrelevant to that approach.
I like the improvements in the theme previewer, though.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
wow. that’s one of the best additions yet!
October 6th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Great! For me, this new WordPress.com Shortcode allows for more time blogging and less effort tinkering with uploading/inserting/adding and editing images.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Awesome!!!!
October 6th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Thanks, makes things more convenient I guess. And we don’t have to worry about copyright issues.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Great stuff. Have you considered getting wp.com blog access for a fee for more up to date news photos?
October 6th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
@pedestrian — any service in particular ? I find the PicApp photos pretty up to date since they were work with Getty, Corbis, and the other big agencies.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I’ve used Picapp for a couple of months on my offsite blogs, and it works really well. They get terrific images, and the little bar that slides across also retracts, so you can see the whole picture. It’s very slick.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
very cool, thanks!
October 6th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
This is Awesome.
Does it cost to use this feature? Is it a part of the premium package of WordPress? Thanks.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
@swdesigns — these images are free for you to use.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
@Raanan Thank you for the fast response. That is awesome that it is a free program
October 6th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Great feature!
October 6th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
aweeeeesome.. thanks wordpress!
October 7th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Oh wow this is awesome, that Obama picture is so crisp. This will be great for my political blog.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Just what the doctor ordered. Very easy to use. Thanks!
(By the way, I couldn’t get the “Wrap” setting to work. It wrapped one line of text but that was it.)
October 7th, 2009 at 4:56 am
@11krause — thanks, we’ll take a look re: the “wrap” not working.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:59 am
All right! This should replace Zemanta.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:42 am
For non- news/celebrity blogs, there are a lot of photos of stuff. I found a yam, a collection of veggies, candy bars, lollipops… just choose the “creative” button next to the search bar (the “editorial” button is default).
October 7th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Interesting concept, but it is a shame it has to be at the expense of having the other images from PicApp offered at the bottom, which you have no control over (and in the first image I looked at using covered an essential part of the image (and yes I know it can be collapsed, but readers are not likely to bother).
The other thing I was concerned seeing, was in the image details in PicApp, some images were clearly tagged
**USA USE ONLY**, and ***FEE MUST BE AGREED PRIOR TO USAGE*** UK OFFICE: 131 557 7760/7761/7762 US OFFICE: 1 310 261 9676 Content © 2009 Pacific Coast News All rights reserved.
So I would take from this that it isn’t all plain sailing and free access to all images after all – carefully read all the info supplied with each image before deciding to use it. Unless WordPress advises that my concerns are unfounded of course!
October 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
@Stuart — I checked with PicApp on this question. Their response:
“All of the current images are available for use for all users and geo-locations. We get all images and their meta data via FTP, some of our image contributors add internal data to the image description.
This is not relevant to PicApp use of the images, all images on our service our approved. We are working to actively remove these messages from all current and future images as they do not apply to PicApp usage”.
So you should be safe.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:50 am
great feature addition for blogging experience. Thanks WordPress Team
October 7th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Great option to add images without worry about copyright issue. thanks
October 7th, 2009 at 2:36 am
wow! great addition! i <3 WP!
October 7th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Great. Is there any plan to allow our pictures from disk or flickr and make an album like this and publish on wp.com blogs? That would be awesome.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not aware of any current plans.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:23 am
Thanks for that, wordpress! Very nice!
October 7th, 2009 at 3:32 am
damn! this is great!
October 7th, 2009 at 3:33 am
good feature, but definitely not for my blog.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:40 am
nice feature… thanks…
October 7th, 2009 at 3:48 am
This should be useful. Thanks!
October 7th, 2009 at 4:10 am
Thanks, WordPress !
Can i set the strip minimize by default?
October 7th, 2009 at 4:55 am
@kansir — the default is with the related strip open, although you can select a smaller sized image which doesn’t have the strip at all, just a small gallery icon in the lower left corner.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:44 am
This is really a surprise package (at least for me). Until now, my blog hardly has a couple of images (afraid of copyright issues). Now, I know I could play with images. Thanks a bunch to WP team!
October 7th, 2009 at 9:07 am
It’s above awesome. 2 days ago, while I was adding videos from dailymyotion and youtube I was wondering how is it possible to link a slideshow as we do with videos. Here it is. Magic
Gaelle
October 7th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
thanks, I agree with POTHI, same happens to me, plus I´m new at blogging so this makes it more fun!
October 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Thanks WP. Now i can embedd fresh image easily and no worry about copyright issue
October 7th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
This looks like a great feature. I can’t wait to try it. Thanks.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
wow! I didn’t even know I needed this! now I see how useful an addition it will be! yippee!
October 7th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Thanks!
October 7th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
The nice thing about being a legal blogger is that you can be quite comfortable about your use of images copyright wise but I’ve rarely had much of a chance to use any. Dry reams of text FTW?
October 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
thanks….
“ROCK TODAY !!!”
October 7th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I think I love you. THANK YOU!
October 8th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Raanan, we are not for profit, lobbying for improvements in how we deal with alcohol abuse. So, we need to access really recent images relating to under age drinking, alcohol related violence, mainly in Australia and UK, where it is out of control.
Again let me say, what a great service. Very, very happy with WordPress.com.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:41 am
This is fabulous. Thank you!
October 8th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Thanks WP for this great feature. Just used this feature at my blog godnagendra.wordpress.com
October 8th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Cool! I love this new pair of shoes. Thanks.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Thanks for this UP-grade.
cp.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:29 am
This is a great great feature!! Thanks.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Thanks WordPress.