The Fastest Way to Add Awesome Photos to Your Blog: Photo Dropper
It’s no secret that adding photos to your blog posts is one of the most effective ways to enhance your blog and attract attention to your writing.
When it comes to finding great quality images, you basically have 3 options: stealing, buying, or using Creative Commons-licensed photos. The first can get you into serious legal trouble, the second costs money, so #3 is often the most attractive.
Flickr has millions of Creative Commons licensed photos available in its database. What we’ve done is created a plugin that simplifies the entire process of finding and adding incredible Flickr images to your posts (just like the one below).
photo credit: MumbleyJoe
With the Photo Dropper plugin, you can now search millions of Flickr photos and add them to your Wordpress posts with just 1 click, all without leaving your Wordpress dashboard. Attribution links are automatically added underneath the images to comply with the Creative Commons license rules. It’s the easiest way to add photos to your blog. Period. And best of all - it’s Free!
If you run a commercial blog, please be sure to go to Options > Photo Dropper and check the box that says “Show only photos that can be used commercially” which will exclude photos marked non-commercial. You should always check the specific CC license on the source page before posting since you’re ultimately responsible for adhering to the license. Yeah, it can be a little confusing. See this article for a better explanation.
Download Photo Dropper and test it out yourself.
Questions? Feel free to leave feedback. Instructional videos coming soon…
Ben Cook Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
Simply amazing plugin! This is going to be a big time saver.
Thanks very much!
Neerav Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
Love the plugin - just tried it on a WP 2.3.2 site with the keyword “Sydney” to see which photos it found for my city and it made some good choices
Just added this URL to Stumbleupon - hope you get lots of traffic
PS Found your site via a link on Greywolf’s SEO blog - http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/wordpress-add-photos-plugin/
Jason Lankow Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
beautiful work this is perfect!
Keiron Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 1:30 am
Fantastic,
You’ve created exactly what I was discussing on my blog in my last post!!! I’ll be posting about it now!
Anne Helmond Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 1:43 am
Well done, thank you so much. This is going to be one popular plugin!
Festivals in PA Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 4:48 am
Thanks! This will save time and add value to my site. I am sure the plugin will also drive you quite a bit of traffic - so the best of luck to you!
Also found via Graywolf - http://www.wolf-howl.com/
Zak Nicola Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Great plugin, works really well. Good thinkin Graywolf, so glad someone ran with the idea.
The Crazy Colombian Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
I have not yet had a chance to test this plugin because at this stage I am hosting my blog at Wordpress.com (maybe if enough of us suggest it to them, they will add it to the standard funcitonality offered to free blogs?)
I started revamping my blog in preparation to turn it from a non-for-profit hobby into a secondary revenue stream over the coming months. As such, I have been reading Problogger and Skelliewag, and found both blogs absolutely chockers with good advice.
One of Skellie’s suggestions that I put to immediate use was to use images that are available under Creative Commons from flickr; In one of her posts (link) she explained the various types of licenses, and even gave some links to the various Flickr CC licenses search pages.
Your plugin takes her concept to an entirely new level! On behalf of the blogging community, I wanted to say “Thank you” for developing this awesome plug-in. I can’t wait to use it once I move my blog out of wordpress.com!
-The Crazy Colombian
Ps/ Does anyone have recommendations on commercial hosting sites that will allow me to host a couple of Wordpress blogs with different URLs at a minimum price? I am considering Bluehost and siteground. Comments?
Carrie Hill Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
This is the neatest thing since sliced bread (was bread ever sold NOT sliced?)
Anyway, great plugin!
~Carrie
Diego Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
Not working for older WP version 1.5.
WordPress database error: [Table ‘wpressbw.flickr_post’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT value FROM flickr_post WHERE name=’per_page’
WordPress database error: [Table ‘wpressbw.flickr_post’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT value FROM flickr_post WHERE name=’commercial_only’
WordPress database error: [Table ‘wpressbw.flickr_post’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT value FROM flickr_post WHERE name=’sortbyinteresting’
The Baldchemist Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
Only 3 options? How about taking your own? That is far more satisfying.
C’mon start working with some meaningful creative of your own! The Baldchemist
John Stevens Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 4:00 am
Very many thanks for this.
Have trawled through Flickr via CreativeCommons.org search, but this is definitely excellent and a timesaver, as long as you don’t just keep playing with it!
Any chance of making this into a plugin for MTOS (Moveable Type Open Source) as well?
Only kidding. Well done and many thanks for excellent work.
XIII Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 5:24 am
Brilliantly simple idea, those are usually the best.
Diseño Web Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Well done work, many people have this on mind.
PT from Prime Time Money Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 9:03 am
Can you search for images that can be edited? Can you edit the images within WP?
J. Pisano Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 9:23 am
This is exactly the time-saving program I was looking for. I wonder if this can be done for yoto-photo too? Thanks for a great, easy to implement product.
J. Pisano -mustech.net
iantrepreneur Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 10:01 am
wow this is what I am looking for finally something simply and easy
Coqui Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Plugin sounds cool.
But you still have to be careful with the Creative Commons photos as the owner can specify different options.
Take for instance the photo in this post, The owner has specified
Attribution.
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works
Sio if you are making money with your site (asdsense etc.) then you should not use a phot with this CC.
Is there a way with the plugin to specify the exact creative commons licence that you want to search?
admin Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 10:39 am
@PT: No, it’s only meant to be a quick way to add photos. If you want to search for editable photos and modify them, you still have to do it the old fashioned way - there’s no way around that.
@Coqui: In the plugin’s settings there’s an option to specify that your blog is commercial which will exclude non-commercial licensed photos. I’ll try to make that more apparent in the instructions.
Missy Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:32 am
Oh this is a true keeper, i use photos on every blog post and i have several blogs. So you can imagine the time this will save me.
Great job on coming up with this awesome WP Plugin for us bloggers. Will stumble, digg, and promote it as best i can. Thanxs!
Missy.
Erin Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:59 am
Great tool, thanks so much. There are a lot of really useful plugins coming out, and this tops the list!
Prof Kienstra Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
Great plugin! One thing if i may make a suggestion? some people (for ex. myself) use darker backgrounds, in that case the CC is not presented as nice as it can be. Maybe an option in your plugin? I’ll be changing it for me. However.. Great work!
admin Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
@Prof: Good call. I should probably replace the graphic with a transparent png or gif.
UPDATE: I have replaced the CC image in the newest version with a transparent png. That should be better (and I’ve aligned it to be centered with the text).
Your suggestions are always welcome. Thanks!
Joel Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Lately, I was thinking somebody should be writing a plugin where they can search and add photos …something like tag suggester…you can have photo suggester….and there you go….
Great plugin….
Live Crunch Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Hey thanks for the plugin, I was looking for something similar but never had time to code it my self
Anwayas I used it , trackback to here and also did a demo picture of wordpress.
Copes Flavio Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
Good work, really well written and useful! I don’t have any more excuses not to use images in my blog
Matt Collinge - the 604homesguy Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Another thing to make me wish I used WP.
Bruce Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Amazingly cool!
I’m already putting images with my posts based on an excellent how-to post by Skellie on SkellieWag. However, this saves me oodles of time.
Once again, great plugin.
James Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
Any chance of this making it into a Live Writer Plugin?
Looks very handy!
Warren Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
I’m borderline giddy about this. If it works as promised, this will be a huge help to a lot of bloggers.
Ryan McFarland Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Great idea for a plugin. I’m a little concerned though. I like my photos on Flickr to be used by others. But I specify in the description that attribution should be directed to my personal site and not my Flickr profile. I don’t want to change the license of all of my photos — but I sure hate all that pagerank juice just pointing to Flickr.
Mary Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
I love this, it’s heaven sent. I only wish it would allow me to have more of a say of placement with the image. I’ve tried tinkering with the code for the first image I used, but I can’t align it to align/combine with the text (sorry if I don’t have the right lingo :))
I did check to be sure that the photo owner allowed public usage and as Flickr allows one to leave a comment to the photo owner, I did so to thank him for providing it, and how it was used.
Marenda Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
wow I love it can’t wait to try it out thanks
SuMu Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 2:17 am
Great plugin, brilliant idea, thanks!
colbert Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 5:38 am
great plugin. I used to have trouble finding good free pics but no more. thanks again
Richard St.Cyr Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Can you use Photo Dropper with Type Pad?
Thanks
Richard
Stephen Hopson/Adversity University Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 8:56 am
I’ve downloaded this heaven sent plug in. Thank you! It’ll be a huge time saver, I’m sure, as I’m always using Flicker photos for my blog.
What I’m wondering is if there’s a way to find previously used photos in the same way we can find new photos? For instance, I use some photos over and over again for my gratitude posts (i.e. I use gratitude related photos).
Can this plug-in be modified to go in my photo database within Wordpress to select previously used photos? I wonder….
Thanks!
Ben Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 11:51 am
If you use Photo Dropper, will it display a link back to the photo owner like “photo credit: MumbleyJoe” above?
benc 008 (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net
wpmu user Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 11:53 am
Does it work on Wordpress Multiuser????
Lane Said,
February 24, 2008 @ 8:04 am
I also am having trouble with placement. Adding align=”right” to the first img code lets the text wrap around the image, but then the credits sticks out beside the image, rather than below. I don’t know HTML well enough to fix it.
Shanker Bakshi Said,
February 24, 2008 @ 11:56 am
NOT WORKING
When i change parameter in Admin > Option it says
Cannot redeclare flickr_post_install() (previously declared in C:\Domains\shankerbakshi.com\wwwroot\wp-content\plugins\photo_dropper\flickr-post-plugin.php:18) in C:\Domains\shankerbakshi.com\wwwroot\wp-content\plugins\photo_dropper\flickr-post-plugin.php on line 17
Scooti Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 8:47 am
Hey,
Just wanted to let you know that there is a great way to post quality, recent and legal pictures on your blog with a new platform called PicApp (www.picapp.com).
Although currently in Beta, you can get a username and password by emailing: discover@picapp.com
Try it! You might just get hooked on it…
thanks Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
Thanks, extremly function!
marika Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 9:25 am
This is a beautiful plug in. Thank you!
A suggestion
I’m wondering if there’s a way to publish specific photos?
For instance, I have some photos in flickr. I have to be searching again and again until they show up. If could probably just put the flickr url (in another box maybe under search) and have it published by the dropper
I wonder….
Bill Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
Running into a bit of a problem… displays my write page I see the search box, then the entire page goes blank. Ideas?
Сергей Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Блог о веб-хостинге расскажет вам как правильно выбрать хостинг. Здесь вы можете узнать последние скидки и акции хостинг-провайдеров и информацию о доменах. Зная последние новости хостинга, вы сможете без труда выбрать оптимальный веб-хостинг для своего сайта!
Owen Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 4:41 am
Great work mate! .. This plugin is indeed essential! It’s going to save me loads of time whenever I need an image on my post!
Solo Programmer Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 11:08 am
@Lane you need to use a span around the image and caption and apply the float style to the span. I just figured this out and post some more details on my blog about how to do it.
@Bill are you going to the photo dropper search box, entering some text and then pressing enter? That doesn’t work (and I find myself doing it all the time). You have to actually click the submit button in the photo dropper area.
hipslu Said,
February 29, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
same problem as reported by bill - post-new.php loads, then it reloads to a blank page. source code of the reloaded page shows only an IFRAME with id=”iframeshim” and a blank src.
Jens Filipsson Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
Hey, I really find this plugin interesting and useful, but I’m a little concerned about what will happen if the photographer takes the photo down? Is there an option to host the image yourself or does it have to link to the image at flickr?
Thank you!
// Jens.
Donna Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
great idea but is there any way to align the photos with the text automatically? It’s annoying to have to go into the post’s code and add ALIGN=”left” or ALIGN=”right” or whatever.
marge Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
bill, the same thing is happening to me except instead of a blank page it just acts like i presssed the save button
Silvia Said,
March 2, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
I installed and activated the plugin in my WordPress blog (version 2.3.2). After I type in a keyword in the search box, I am getting the following error message:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/u1/langwitches/html/blog/wp-content/plugins/photo_dropper/flickr-ajax.php on line 65
Any idea why the plugin won’t work? Any help is appreciated.
Thank you
Bill Said,
March 3, 2008 @ 9:28 am
@Solo Programmer: The post form loads and then as soon as the loading is finished the entire screen goes blank. It is definitely an IE 7 behavior because it works fine in FireFox.
marge Said,
March 3, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
ive restarted it at least 5 times, uninstalled and reinstalled it, and it still isnt working
help please
NBWeb.it Said,
March 4, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Great idea, but it does not work for me
I am using WP 2.3.3 with IT localization.
When i click on “search” it returns a blank “write page”, like if i was just starting to write a new post. No images at all.
Any help will be appreciated.
Regards,
Nicola
CircleReader Said,
March 10, 2008 @ 2:24 am
Hi, Solo!
1. Brilliant plugin; really simple, really useful function to add to WordPress. Congrats! And thanks!
2. Definitely needs features to make positioning and styling the photos & credits as easy as finding and adding them. Maybe on the options page you could add some “insert before” and “insert after” fields for the photo and the credit, so that users could specify
etc. as desired? Your instructions on doing that manually are great, but I want to use this plugin to avoid fiddling with code for my post-photos. I just want to be able to set it and forget it…and still have good-looking photos.3. How about checkboxes to filter for the other Creative Commons attributes, not just the “non-commercial” attribute? And putting a field for a Flickr url to a specific photo (Marika’s idea in comment #44) would be sweet!
4. Re: #50 from Jens - What about adding an “import” link that would grab the photo from Flickr and attach it to the post? (That would make two options for each size, hotlink to Flickr or import, plus the link to the photo’s page.)The credit information might be added into the description field? Or could it add the credit links in a way (new fields?) that would let them be inserted automatically with the photo from the post editor? [Sorry if this is just the crazy-talk of a non-coder…;-) ]
Dan Said,
March 15, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
Problem was on my end, please disregard. I got it fixed. I can use your great plugin again!
Paul Left Said,
March 25, 2008 @ 2:05 am
A great plugin - thank you. I had a small problem with my wordpress not validating at W3.org, and it seemed to be the way the plugin gives the CC icon the ‘absmiddle’ tag. When I changed this to ‘middle’ the site validated okay. So I made a simple change to the code to avoid this problem… see:
http://www.verso.co.nz/tools/60/photo-dropper-for-wordpress-validation-problem/
Thanks again for a really useful plugin!
Paul
admin Said,
March 25, 2008 @ 10:07 am
Thanks for the heads up, Paul. Trent brought that to my attention too recently. Will have to change it in the next update.
Eric Said,
March 27, 2008 @ 12:18 am
Thanks for writing such a great plugin! It must have been my luck because I found you need to add the function flickr_replace to escape single quotes in $photo[’owner’] and in $owner[’person’][’username’][’_content’].
Dana Huff Said,
March 30, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
Just an FYI, and maybe you are already aware, I couldn’t get this plugin to work with WP 2.5. When I searched for a picture, what happened instead was that my post saved, and no pictures were ever returned at all. Love the plugin, by the way. I used it a lot, especially for my classroom blog.
Logineo Said,
April 10, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
Hi,
Very nice plugin, very useful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work anymore with WP 2.5, for the moment I have the same problem as Dana Huff (comment #62)…
admin Said,
April 10, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
@Dana, @Logineo: please download and install the latest version (1.0.5) - it’s been upgraded to be compatible with WP 2.5
Steve Said,
April 21, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
You said…
“If you run a commercial blog, please be sure to go to Options > Photo Dropper and check the box that says “Show only photos that can be used commercially” which will exclude photos marked non-commercial.”
Can you please tell me where the “Options” box is so I can change it so it will only show photos that can be used commercially? I’m new at this and don’t see that ‘Options’ box anywhere?
Thanks for this plugin. I am looking forward to using it.
Thank you very much!
admin Said,
April 21, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
@Steve: which version of Wordpress are you using?
Fotoalbum Said,
April 23, 2008 @ 2:25 am
Ihr eigenes Online Fotoalbum. Es ist einfach und umsonst!
bill yao Said,
April 28, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work anymore with WP 2.5.
silvius Said,
April 30, 2008 @ 4:09 am
not working for WP 2.2.1
> WordPress database error
admin Said,
May 1, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
The newest version works with 2.5 - please upgrade your Photo Dropper installation to 1.0.5 (from the download page)