Stormbringer's Thunder

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen A few years ago, I wrote an article with a passel of links to free images that claim to have no copyright restrictions. Although I targeted it toward Christians so we do not get a bad testimony for using stolen images (just because it is online does not make it up for grabs), any blogger can benefit. You can read that one at " Images on the Web: An Appeal to Caution ". Credit: Pixabay / Arek Socha The safest way to use an image in your weblog is to take your own artwork or image, avoiding recognizable people and identifiable brands. I believe that the main point of that is to avoid showing them in a bad light, or that an article might reflect poorly on them. Identifiable children are, for me, right out. In addition, we must be careful to avoid making it appear that the person, brand, image supplier, and so on are not endorsing an article or site. Landscapes, wildlife, things like that are great, but some of us need something more. Reputable

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Although money makes the world go around (just check the tracking and advertising reports about major companies, for example) there are still some good-hearted and generous people around. Much of what gives voices to many is free or low-cost. Sometimes I return the favor by mentioning products or giving image credits, but I don't get one red grotzit for doing so. Left image: cropped from Freeimages / Leena Naidoo The image on the right is the left image modifed with FotoSketcher Sure, some companies and individuals will sell stuff at different levels such as the free, pay more for some features, pay a lot more for all the features. I use a wagon train-load of free materials (most notably Open Source and Freeware), but I admit that I've been burned by a few bad risks. To reduce these, I check reviews and if I download something, I can scan it with my free versions of Malwarebytes and the Avast! antivirus scanner — both of which were highly rec