As with searching for journal articles you must select the most appropriate databases to search and think about the most effective search terms /keywords. Most databases have help pages which explain how to search the database in the most effective way
The University of Birmingham subscribes to the following major image collections:
In addition the resources below are sources of free images:
For details of other online image collections and how to search them effectively see Finding and using Images
Not all images are available online. You may find many useful images, graphs, charts, maps, etc in printed books or archives.
A google search may be useful but it is better to use specialist databases such as Artstor and Bridgeman Education as these have gathered their images from authorised sources and indexed them with accurate descriptors and key words known as metadata.
Here are some good reasons why you should use the specialised image databases and multi-media collections in preference to using Google:
General search engines such as Google only have access to certain moving and still images even though it looks as if they have everything. Many organisations only make their images available through licensed collections or specialist image databases such as Artstor and Bridgeman Education
Specialist image databases often have more sophisticated search methods which allow you to more accurately narrow your search, such as by creator, medium, technique, location, colour etc.
It is very easy to alter images online in all sorts of ways. If you need to be certain you are looking at a faithful digital version of an image use a specialist image databases or visit the website of the gallery who owns the image.
It is not easy to tell which images on Google are in copyright and which are in the public domain or covered by creative commons licenses. When using a specialist image databases such as Artstor or Bridgeman Education you can be confident that the image has been correctly sourced and that artists and museums are fairly compensated for use of their images.
Try starting with one or two keywords. If you retrieve too many results, add more keywords to reduce the number of images.
Don’t rely on a single database. Use a mixture of specific and general databases.
Get to know your sources
Use the "About" or "Help" pages as these explain how each database works.
Most image databases rely on keywords to describe the content and context of the images but the images can be described in many different ways so think of as many terms as you can which someone might use to describe an image you are looking for. What is the subject of the image, what is the date, where was it taken, who took the photograph or painted the picture .Try using synonyms, singular/plural variations, and words from different languages. Also, you may need to specify if you are looking for particular types of image for example engraving, drawing, photograph, cartoon, etc