Images for your website: where to get them and what you can use

Images make half the impression a website gives, and they cause most of the rights problems small businesses run into: a photo pulled from Google, one from a photographer with no contract, one of a customer who was never asked. Here's where to get images, what you may do with them and what you may not.

Why not just take images from Google

A photograph is protected by copyright from the moment it's taken, without registration and without a © symbol. Appearing in Google Images changes nothing: Google shows images from other websites; it doesn't grant rights to them.

Unlicensed use isn't a theoretical risk. In the US, the owner of a registered work can claim statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work without proving any actual loss, and up to $150,000 if the infringement was wilful. Smaller claims can also go to the Copyright Claims Board, a cheaper tribunal with a $30,000 cap. And there are companies that scan websites for unlicensed images and send payment demands on behalf of photographers and agencies.

Free stock libraries: Unsplash and Pexels

The most popular free sources have their own simple licences:

Even where the Unsplash licence is silent, the people and brands in a photo have rights of their own: don't present someone as recommending your business, and don't turn someone else's photo into your logo. Unsplash also has a paid collection, Unsplash+, with a different licence; those images are marked and need a subscription.

Free stock has an image problem too: the same "smiling team in the office" photo is on hundreds of websites. Visitors recognise it, and the site looks like a template.

Creative Commons: what the letters mean

Creative Commons licences are read by their letters:

NC is the one most often misread. A website presenting a company's services is commercial use, even if nothing is sold on it directly.

Paid stock and hired photographers

Paid libraries (Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Getty) sell licences, not photos. A standard licence usually covers websites and social media but has limits: print runs, use on products for sale, "sensitive" uses of the people pictured. Keep the invoice and licence; if you ever get a payment demand, they're your proof.

With a photographer you hire, watch the contract. Under US law, photos taken by an independent contractor generally belong to the photographer unless there's a written assignment or licence. Get in writing the right to use the photos on your website, social media and ads, without a time limit. The same logic applies to the website itself, as explained in website subscription vs one-time payment.

People in your photos

Copyright belongs to the photographer; the right to control the use of a person's likeness belongs to the person. In the US, most states protect it through right-of-publicity laws, and in the EU a recognisable photo is also personal data under the GDPR. For photos of customers, patients or staff, get consent, ideally a written release that says where the photo will appear.

A few common cases:

• staff: get a separate release, not buried in the employment contract; when someone leaves, remove their photos or ask them;
• customers at an event or in your venue: a wide shot of a full room is different from a portrait; for portraits, ask;
• patients and clients of sensitive services (clinics, therapists, lawyers): professional rules may be stricter, see our medical practice website guide.

AI-generated images

Image generators solve a lot: backgrounds, blog illustrations, product images in varied settings. Two things to know:

1. You probably don't own the copyright. The US Copyright Office concluded in January 2025 that material generated by AI without sufficient human control isn't protected, and on 2 March 2026 the Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving the human authorship requirement in place. You can use the image under the generator's terms, but you can't stop others using it.
2. Don't use them as evidence. A generated photo of "happy customers", a team that doesn't exist or work you didn't do misleads customers. In the EU, the AI Act also requires realistic AI images that could pass as real to be labelled as generated since August 2026; see our EU AI Act guide.

Your own photos work best

For a local business, no stock library beats real photos. People want to recognise the place when they arrive, see who will serve them and how the work looks. Worth photographing:

• the front and entrance, so you're easy to find;
• the interior, in natural light;
• the team, at work, not just in portraits;
• the work or products, before and after where it fits;
• the details that set you apart: a tool, a material, a corner of the place.

A recent phone, daylight and some patience are enough to start. For the home page and team photos, a day with a photographer is money well spent.

Technically, images go on the site in modern formats (WebP or AVIF), at the size they're displayed, with alt text describing what's shown. Heavy images are the most common cause of a slow site, see why your website is slow, and alt text is part of accessibility.

On the sites we build, we use the business's own photos and tell you what else to shoot; where photos are missing, we use properly licensed images or illustrations, never pictures that pass themselves off as real. Details are on our web design page.