CAVEAT: This is an old article and using this for images may no longer work.

gettyimages®, perhaps the biggest kid on the block, has finally succumbed to image stealing on the web and announced –

“Getty Images is leading the way in creating a more visual world. Our new embed feature makes it easy, legal and free for anybody to share our images on websites, blogs and social media platforms.”

How easy is it to embed a gettyimages® into your WordPress site?

First off you have to understand that this is not like including your own image through the Add Media button. You are actually embedding a link to the image on the Getty web servers. However the process is very simple.

Step 1: Go to the gettyimages® website and find the image you like. Hover your mouse pointer over the image you like and, If you can use it, there will be a special embed icon (</>) . Some images are not included in this new option.

Step 2: Click on the icon and copy the generated embed code. It should look something like-

Step 3: Copy and paste the embed code wherever you want the image to appear.

Step 4a: To insert images into a post or page first change from the visual editor to the text editor screen (top right above the menu bars). Copy and paste the embed code where you want the image to appear. If you try to do it in the visual editor it will come out like the code in Step 2.

Step 4b: To insert images into your websites sidebar go the the left sidebar of the Dashboard and click Appearance>Widgets. Find the Text widget and decide the sidebar location for the image, Drag and drop the Text widget into that location. Now all you need to do is copy and paste the embed code into the text widget.

The image on the left sidebar and the image below are both Getty images. As you see they come ready set up with attributes and links to various social media.

Image Size

One thing to note is that images come pre-sized and this may be too big for your post, page or sidebar.

Take a look at the embed code. It includes various attributes that determines image size – ” height=”203″ width=”253″ frameborder=”0″. Simply change the height and width measurements until it fits the size you want. But please divide both by the same number (2 to make it 50% of the original), if you use different numbers the image will look stretched or squashed. Everything else in the code is left alone as it includes the attribution Getty requires

Is this acceptable to Getty? No idea but as long as you leave the attribution, and links back to their social media, I’m sure they are not going to complain.

When to pay for images.

Free is always good and the sheer quantity and quality of images you can get from Getty Image website you might think you never need to pay for an image again. However, you need to take a step back and understand why they are doing this and what they get out of it.

Fact is that stealing a Getty image was pretty easy. Find a website that had already paid for the image and copy it off that website. No cost and no watermark to show where it came from. There must be millions of stolen images on the internet. Fact is that Getty get no benefit from these stolen images and my guess is that their calculations suggest that making these images free, in certain circumstances, is not going to lose much money.

So what’s the upside for them. Every time you insert an image from them they get a free link back to their website. Almost like a no-cost affiliate scheme. Just imagine someone comes to your site and likes the image and wants to use it in a book. Click the image and they are taken straight to gettyimages® where they can make their purchase.

This nicely takes us in to when to pay for images (or even to use your own).

Option 1: When you want a photo of yourself or you have your own image/logo. Chances are Getty will not have your photo on file (unless you are famous) or possibly images of an event you have organised.

Option 2: When you want to link the image to a post or page on your website or social media. Let’s take an example. You plan a Yoga retreat and you create a page with information about the event. Including a quality image in your sidebar, along with appropriate text, is a great way to publicise the event. If you use a Getty Image the link goes straight back to Getty. If you have your own image (purchased or one of your own) it can be manipulated to link to your event page.

Never underestimate the power of images. Images can appear in Google image search and people are used to clicking on images and not surprised to be taken to a linked page. Good images are, in many circumstance, still worth the cost.