Hello, I edit a garden newsletter for a non-profit group. I looked through your terms of use, but I could not find a specific reference to usage of photos that are on your website. We don't sell our newsletter or receive any proceeds from its distribution. I am looking for sources for botanical and garden photos. Do I have any options on your site or can you recommend another source that, if not free, would be reasonable priced with a subscription-type option?

Thank you for any advice!
Susan

All rights to each photo belongs to the person that posted the photo. You would need to contact each person individually to get their permission.

Susan, you may use photos from the American Begonia Society at www.begonias.org freely in a publication such as yours provided you attribute the photo to its contributor and source. I suspect that this is true of many of the plant society websites. You may also request permission to use photos as well as written material from www.bradsbegoniaworld.com and it will almost always be given. Finally you may sign up for the begonia chat group on yahoo and have photos sent to you almost every day; you may request use and again it will almost always be given. I suspect there are other plant chat groups on yahoo of which this is also true.

I've lost count of the number of my photos I've seen used around the internet, ebay, Amazon, Pinterest... I'm sometimes approached by people who want to use my shots and 99% of the time I'm happy to oblige provided I'm given credit. Unfortunately a lot of people don't ask!

There are some photos on this site that have watermarks. Others dont.
I feel the way Sue Taylor does. I'm glad to help,just ask.

I appreciate all your thoughts. The difficulty contacting each person is I use a bunch of photos every month and time is always a consideration. That is why I am looking for a subscription library. I use I-Clipart and they are very good, but they tend not to carry very specific plants and flowers. I may have an article on American beautyberry and I need a shot of the berries and the plant. The preference is to be able to search for that specific item and have several options to choose from.
I try very hard to keep within copyright parameters, but it is a struggle sometimes to find what I am looking for. Just an example, I wanted to use a Wikimedia image for a wildflower and the attribution was so long, I couldn't make room for it.
Again, thank you for your suggestions.

ATP does not have a photo subscription service and does not own any of the photos so they can not give permission to use them. Only the individuals who took them can give permission. Many of our members, myself included would gladly allow use if asked. As far as the Beautyberry is concerned I have some you can use if you like. You can see some of them here.

http://www.wildflowersoftexas....

Tree mail me if you are interested.

You probably only have to ask on a relevant forum here if anyone has an image of the particular plant or plant part you are looking for and that you can use, as in Jay's offer above, since it's for non-profit. Unless @dave has a problem with that that I haven't thought of. That would be less time consuming than going through the database and then hoping the photographer of what you choose will answer your Tree Mail.

I have stumbled on quite a few wrongly named plants in stock photo collections. Not infrequently, for example, are true lilies (Lilium) labeled daylily (Hemerocallis). I think errors like that would be caught pretty quickly here.

Jay, that's a pretty neat website!

Each photo saved in the ATP Plant Database has a copyright/license category.

If you find a photo in the ATP Plant Database that you want to use, expand it by clicking on it.
Then click on
"More Photo Details"
Look at the row "License".

I don't care who re-uses my photos, so I clicked on a box that seemed to mean "anyone use this freely, but give me credit".

License: Creative Commons (cc-by-3.0) (Attribution)

I forget what the other categories are, but one was "do not re-use" and something else was somewhere in-between.

Here are two I found by spot-checking:
License: All rights reserved
License: Creative Commons (cc-by-nc-3.0) (Attribution, NonCommercial)

If the "License" row says "(Attribution)" or "(Attribution, NonCommercial)", maybe you can just use them without contacting anyone?

@Dave? Can Ps40Life (the original poster) use Plant Database photos that have License = "(Attribution)" or "(Attribution, NonCommercial)" in a garden newsletter for a non-profit group without contacting the photos' owners?

jmorth said:Jay, that's a pretty neat website!

It's been sadly neglected for to long. I need to get back to updating and make some changes.

You could try using Flickr...say you want to use Beautyberry for your newsletter...

Go to Flickr and search for it by its latin name (in this case, Callicarpa americana).

That will bring you to this result page...

https://www.flickr.com/search/...

Now, look at the near top left of the screen where it says 'Any license'...
click on that, there is a drop down menu...select either 'No known copyright restrictions' or 'US Government Works' for images that have no copyright restrictions, you can use those freely, without restrictions of any kind. Now, the best images probably wont be found in those 2 selections...

https://www.flickr.com/search/...

HOWEVER...if from the same drop down menu you select 'Commercial Use and Mods allowed'...

https://www.flickr.com/search/...

Now the results that come up are much better and you can use any of them as long as you credit the photographer, which will be shown clearly on the photo's page when you click on one you like...for example we'll use the first picture that comes up in this search...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...

In this photos case, you are allowed to use it provided you clearly show credit to 'Forest and Kim Starr' along with tagging it with the same usage license. For a better understanding of what license is needed for any photo simply look to the right under the photo, just under the Taken on' date. In our examples case, you see it says 'Some rights reserved'. Click on that link and it will tell you in clear term how you may use the image and what you need to do on your end if you do.

I hope this was not overly complicated, once you are used to the way the system works, it's fairly easy to use.

Wikimedia commons is also useful in this way of finding free, usable images.

RickCorey said:Can Ps40Life (the original poster) use Plant Database photos that have License = "(Attribution)" or "(Attribution, NonCommercial)" in a garden newsletter for a non-profit group without contacting the photos' owners?

Yes, they would simply need to provide the proper attribution.

I appreciate all the comments. Since several of you have said you wouldn't mind photos being used, maybe I will try that more often. If I can get quick responses, and it seems that folks here would respond quickly, then it would make it easier.

@robertduval14: It seems you have some insights into using photos, so maybe you can give me some hints. For attributions, one of my biggest problems is long references. I don't have room for a big line of text, and honestly, it takes away from the aesthetics of the newsletter. How small a font can I use and is there a way to abbreviate, maybe by creating a link, with the photographers name only, but that links back to the picture's original posting site? The final product is a pdf file, and when I create links, they are active.

In this example above, "https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/2494878952...": , am I correct in assuming that all I have to include is the photographers name--"Forest & Kim Starr" because it says in the license area: Under the following conditions: Attribution - You must credit the photographers "Forest & Kim Starr".

Just trying to understand my responsibility. The example above seems simple if I am reading it correctly, but some are more complicated and can be confusing.

Susan, my photos should all be designated with the Creative Commons rights: use as you will with attribution and as long as it is for non-commercial purposes. Otherwise, I want a cut! If any of mine are useful for you and there are any issues with copying from the ATP database, let me know and I can treemail them to you. Debra

When I first joined ATP I marked my images as copyright - do not use. But I know better now. You can have any of my plant-related images...but keep in mind that some images added to ATP by me (greene) are from Wikimedia Commons or from other photographers who had given me permission.

Ps40Life said:I appreciate all the comments. Since several of you have said you wouldn't mind photos being used, maybe I will try that more often. If I can get quick responses, and it seems that folks here would respond quickly, then it would make it easier.

@robertduval14: It seems you have some insights into using photos, so maybe you can give me some hints. For attributions, one of my biggest problems is long references. I don't have room for a big line of text, and honestly, it takes away from the aesthetics of the newsletter. How small a font can I use and is there a way to abbreviate, maybe by creating a link, with the photographers name only, but that links back to the picture's original posting site? The final product is a pdf file, and when I create links, they are active.

In this example above, "https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/2494878952...": , am I correct in assuming that all I have to include is the photographers name--"Forest & Kim Starr" because it says in the license area: Under the following conditions: Attribution - You must credit the photographers "Forest & Kim Starr".

Just trying to understand my responsibility. The example above seems simple if I am reading it correctly, but some are more complicated and can be confusing.

Yes, you would have to credit the photo in that manner and include a copy of the license used (or a link to it as they do on the Flickr site). It need not be big, it need not be immediately under the photo. The attribution can even be added as notations at the end of your newsletter.

Thanks, Dave!

Dave said:
>> it need not be immediately under the photo. The attribution can even be added as notations at the end of your newsletter.

Susan, this is just my opinion, but I think it would be a kindness if you also mentioned ATP in the attribution.

The copyright owners are the ones that need to be acknowledged, but something like "displayed in the All Things Plants database" and a link would let your readers know where to go for more such photos, and also introduce more people to ATP.

Thanks for the acorn, Greene!