Using a compelling photo in your ad is a great way to inspire people and possibly speed up your ad's fulfillment time.
Overlaying graphics or text on your ad's photos is not allowed on Civic Shout.
The best photos illustrate the theme of your ad's copy and include people—ideally cropped in tightly on their face/s when possible.
Flickr is one of our favorite options for great, free-to-use photos without copyright protections.
Visit Flickr.com and type a search term related to your petition in the search field at the top of the page. For example, if your petition is targeting Congress, you could search for "capitol building." Or if your petition is about protecting grey wolves, you could search for "grey wolves."
On the left side, click where it says "any license" and select "no known copyright restrictions." This step is absolutely vital, since it ensures that you’re able to use the images without limitations
Scroll down and click on the image you’d like to use
Click the down arrow on the bottom right to download the photo
OpenVerse is another great option for finding images for your Civic Shout petitions.
Visit OpenVerse, click "all content" and select "images"
Type a search term related to your petition in the search field and click the magnifying class icon
On right side of the page, click filters and select the first two options:4. Click on the image you’d like to use.
Save the image directly from the website
And of course, we can’t forget about Google image search.
Head to Google and search for terms related to your petition
Click the "Images" tab right below the search box
Then a little further to the right of the images tab you just clicked, look for the "Tools" link. A list will expand below it...
Click the "Usage Rights" dropdown and select "Creative Commons licenses"
Most of the images that show up will have Creative Commons licenses, so they should be fine to use. Some won’t, so just pay attention to which ones you decide to grab