Objective:

Learners will find, save and use pictures that help enhance their professional work, and meet Fair Use guidelines.

Background

Photographs, clip art, and drawings are all useful for clarifying concepts. There are just times when a picture says it best – especially if you are an art teacher. Here we will look at places to find pictures, ways to store them, and ways to use them.

Activities

Sources for pictures

There are many, many places to go on the Internet for pictures. If you are only using your resources in your classroom, you may use just about any picture you find, under Fair Use, as long as you identify the source of your picture (I include the URL, or web address, of the source on any handout using a picture, and include sources on the last page of a PowerPoint presentation). For more on Fair Use, see the Copyright and Fair Use PowerPoint presentation.
Here are some easy sources for pictures . You can search using keywords or phrases just as you search in Google.

• Google images
• Bing images
• Flikr

Here are some sources which don't have as many copyright issues, but you still need to identify the source. If you or your students are planning to publish the work including a picture (including publishing on the Internet), you will want to use one of these sources, and follow their guidelines. Remember that creating work for the classroom is one thing - publishing for the world to see is another.

Ever wish you could just get a copy of part of what you see on the computer screen, and then use it like any other picture? You can. You can use a free program called Jing which allows you to define just what you want to save and then if you want to just copy and paste it into a document/PowerPoint or if you want to save it with your other pictures. You can install it on your home computer at home, but you'll have to ask Anthony V. to install it on your school computer. More information and the way to download is at http://www.jingproject.com .

A way to get a copy of the entire screen varies by computer, but it’s worth experimenting. This is especially useful if you find something you need to report and need a copy of; you can make a copy of the URL (Internet address), but having a copy of what’s actually there is often even better. How to do it? First find the Prt Sc (print screen) key, upper right on most keyboards. Then try holding down the Prt Sc key while you press the Alt key (lower left). Then open a Word document and see if you can paste the screen you copied there (and don’t forget to save the Word document). If Prt Sc + Alt didn’t work, try Prt Sc + Ctrl, and Prt Sc + Shift. Experiment and see what works for you. This only works on PCs, though, not on Macs.

How to save and use pictures

Once you find a picture you like, then what?

• Open the full-size picture by clicking on the thumbnail picture. The "thumbnail" you see in a group with a lot of other pictures in Google and Bing does not have the resolution you want. You will probably have to click on the picture again to get the picture to show in its full size.
• Right click on the picture and click on Save As . There are times when you can copy the picture right into where you want, but many times this just won't work, so you’ll need to save it.
• If you haven't already set up a folder for pictures you find, do it now. If you're working on your home computer, this will probably go under My Pictures. You may save pictures here at school, too, but recognize that it doesn’t get backed up (but also be advised that the school doesn’t have room for pictures on the network drive, so don’t save your pictures there.
• Then Save As your picture into the folder. If you just do a Save, it might get saved where you don't want it/can't find it. Give it a name that is meaningful - some people give it the name of the website where they found it so they can give attribution.
• Repeat for as many pictures as you want - but each picture will need a unique name.

Using the pictures now that you’ve stored them:

• Now that you have pictures , suppose you want to add a picture to a PowerPoint. Click on the Insert tab and click on Picture. You'll have the opportunity to navigate through your folders looking for the folder with the picture you're looking for. If you only see names of pictures, go to the top of the page, where you can change how the contents of the file are displayed. Pick one that will show the small versions of actual pictures called thumbnails.
• When you find the picture you want, click on it, and it will be inserted into your PowerPoint. You can resize the picture by clicking and dragging one of the handles at the corner of the picture. (If you use the other handles, the picture will become distorted.)
• In Word, you'll find the picture the same way, but once you start working with it, you'll need to handle it somewhat differently. Once you've inserted the picture, you'll see that the ribbon (top of page) has changed to allow you to format the picture. You may need to click on Text Wrap to tell the program to wrap text around the picture, and/or place it on the right or left of the text. You can also resize the picture by clicking and dragging one of the corner handles.
• Don’t forget to identify where you found the picture (placing the URL where you found a picture under the picture, or at the end of a presentation are both acceptable). Remember, you want to model good behavior, and fair use requires that you identify where the picture came from.

Now, assess yourself.

· Can you locate a picture you want to use on the internet and save it on your computer?

· Can you find it later when you want to use it? Are you using the picture correctly under Fair Use?

· Can you resize the picture so that it’s the size that’s most useful?  

Checklist

· Find pictures

· Save pictures

· Retrieve and use pictures