Why should I add images to my videos?

Using images in videos has been shown by research to be good for learning! For more information on how you can use images in a way that is most effective for learning, see our article on making video that is effective for learning.

What are some ways I can add visuals to my videos?

• Are you recording a PowerPoint presentation? Simply add in your images and/or video clips as relevant.
• Adding still images or video clips to a video is a fairly simple function in most video editing software. For example, if you have recorded a “Talking Head” style video (see our list of styles of video commonly used in teaching and learning), you don’t need to show your face the entire time you talk, but rather can superimpose a relevant image or silent video clip to fill the whole screen for several seconds at a time, as you talk about what you are showing.

How am I allowed to use a given image or video clip?

Some of this information is the same as our article “I found a video. Am I allowed to use it?”, but this has some differences as we are talking about using images or video in another video, not sharing a video as-is with your students.

• Some images and videos online are published with a license that allows you to use them for free as part of your video. For example,
• Royalty free / public domain / CC0: you may use images or video clips labeled with these terms in any way you’d like, for free.
• Creative Commons licenses, or “open” licenses, specify what limitations the copyright owner has placed on your use of the image or video clip.
• The license may specify attribution, non-commercial usage, that you must share the product with the same license, and/or that you may not use the product commercially. As long as you abide by the limitations, you may use these as part of your video for free.
• If the license specifies that you may not create derivatives of the image or video, you may not combine it into your own video.
• Make sure that you read the license terms and abide by them, and that you trust that the site offering the image or video actually owns the rights to the image or video. Not everyone on the internet is honest and truthful!
• Fair Use theoretically allows for free usage of copyrighted images or videos in certain situations. For information on Fair Use in educational settings, see
• Fair Use: Four Factor Test
• Copyright and Intellectual Property Toolkit: Fair Use
• If there’s a specific image or video you need to incorporate into your own video and it is not provided with a license that allows you to use it for free, you may contact the copyright holder and ask for permission for your specific use case. They may require a fee to agree.
• If you cannot figure out who owns the image or video, and it is not clearly labeled with an open license, you may not use it.
• For more information on whether you are allowed to download and redistribute (and in some cases edit) a video, see the “Can I Use It?” section of the Copyright and Intellectual Property Toolkit LibGuide from Pitt’s University Library System.

Where can I start looking for images or video footage to use?

Note: make sure that you read any licensing information attached to any images or video clips you find and ensure that you comply with their terms.

• Pixabay – free
• Adobe Stock – only some of these are free
• Pond5 – paid, however there is a public domain project with free resources
• Shutterstock – paid, but weekly free photo and vector available.
• Getty Images – must pay for license unless embedding the media
• Dissolve – paid; however, the dissolve user community uploads content that is free. There are terms of agreement you must agree to before doing so.
• Google Image Search with Usage Rights tool to filter for Creative Commons images – free as long as you comply with the terms of use listed
• Wikimedia – free as long as you comply with the terms of use listed
• Unsplash – free
• Pexels – free
• US Government websites (ex: NIH.gov) – images and videos produced by branches of the US federal government are free (public domain). Make sure they made it and didn’t borrow it from someone else!
• Open Access journals