how to cite a picture in your essay

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Locating and Using Images for Presentations and Coursework

• How to Cite Images
• Alt Text Image Descriptions
• AI & Images

Copyright, Public Domain, and Fair Use

• Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States from Cornell University Library
• Copyright Overview from Purdue University
• Fair Use Chart from the Visual Communication Guy
• ALA Fair Use Evaluator
• Creative Commons Licenses

Attribution

Attribution : the act of attributing something, giving credit (as of literature or art) to a particular author or artist. When you have given proper attribution, it means you have given the information necessary for people to know who the creator of the work is.

The majority of images you find are under copyright and cannot be used without permission from the creator. There are exceptions with Fair Use, but this Libguide is intended to help you locate images you can use with attribution.

***Please read about public domain . These images aren't under copyright, but it's still good practice to include attribution if the information is available.

Citation General Guidelines

Include as much of the information below when citing images in a paper and formal presentations. Apply the appropriate citation style (see below for APA, MLA examples).

• Image creator's name (artist, photographer, etc.)
• Title of the image
• Date the image (or work represented by the image) was created
• Date the image was posted online
• Date of access (the date you accessed the online image)
• Institution (gallery, museum) where the image is located/owned (if applicable)
• Website and/or Database name

Citing Images in MLA, APA, Chicago, and IEEE

• Directions for citing in MLA, APA, and Chicago MLA: Citing images in-text, incorporating images into the text of your paper, works cited APA 6th ed.: Citing images in-text and reference list Chicago 17th ed.: Citing images footnotes and endnotes and bibliography from Simon Fraser University
• How to Cite Images Using IEEE from the SAIT Reg Erhardt Library
• Image, Photograph, or Related Artwork (IEEE) from the Rochester Institute of Technology Library

Citing Images in Your PPT

Currently, citing images in PPT is a bit of the Wild West. If details aren't provided by an instructor, there are a number of ways to cite. What's most important is that if the image is not a free stock image, you give credit to the author for the work. Here are some options:

1. Some sites, such as Creative Commons and Wikimedia, include the citation information with the image. Use that citation when available. Copy the citation and add under the image. For example, an image of a lake from Creative Commons has this citation next to it:  "lake"  by  barnyz  is licensed under  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 .

2. Include a marker, such as Image 1. or Figure 1., and in the reference section, include full citation information with the corresponding number

3. Include a complete citation (whatever the required format, such as APA) below the image

4. Below the image, include the link to the online image location

5. Hyperlink the title of the image with the online image location

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / Harvard Referencing / Harvard Referencing Style Examples / How to reference an image in Harvard style

How to reference an image in Harvard style

Referencing images can be confusing. Do you reference the photographer or the subject of the image itself? Do you include where you saw or found the image? What if you took the photograph yourself? This guide will help clear up the confusion!  

Below, the guide will cover how to cite images in different scenarios, both as an in-text citation and a reference. For each scenario, you will be given a citation structure, along with examples to illustrate each case.

Online images/photographs  

Today, finding and citing a digital or online image is simple. You’ll need the following information:

• Photographer’s name
• (Year published)  
• Title of the photograph, italizised
• Available at: URL (Accessed: the date you sourced the image)  

In-text citation structure and example:

(Photographer’s name, Year published)

Photographer’s name (Year published)

B.B. King’s beautiful Gibson semi-hollow body ES-355 guitar (Joseph, 2001) ……

Reference list structure and example:

Photographer’s Last Name, Initial. (Year published) Title of the photograph. Available at: URL (Accessed: the date you sourced the image)  

Joseph, J. (2001) Lucille. Available at: http://www.jackjoseph.co.uk/photo_23456.html (Accessed: 22 August 2016)

Online images/photographs from a curated collection  

As we know, the Internet has a vast repository of curated image collections, especially on sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram, to name just a few. The rules stay pretty much unchanged in this case, as well.  

You will just need to direct the viewer/reader to the source where you viewed or uploaded the image. You may cite relevant information about images sourced from such Internet collections as follows:

• (Year published)
• Title of the photograph/collection, italicized

Photographs by Gustavo Grandissimo (2015) …

Grandissimo, G. (2015) The heights of abstraction. Available at: https://instagram.com/theheightsofabstraction (Accessed: 10 August 2012)

Images without a listed photographer or artist  

You may cite information about images without a listed creator. You’ll need the following information:

• Title of the photograph, italicized

As you can see in the image of the controversial protest rally ( Up in arms , 2019) …

Title of the photograph (Year published) Available at: URL (Accessed: the date you sourced the image)  

Up in arms (2019) Available at: http://www.therevolutionbeat.com/protests/2019/image_34567.html (Accessed: 10 March 2019)

Prints or slides

A print refers to a printed reproduction of a popular work of art or image. A slide, on the other hand, is a transparent photograph that consists of chromogenic dyes mounted inside a plastic frame to be projected onto a large screen.  

Information needed:

• [Photograph]
• Place of publication: Publisher’s name, if available

The expanding mushroom cloud from the resulting blast was captured on that fateful day (Tanaka, 1945)

Tanaka, N. (1945) The day Fat Boy fell to Earth [Photograph]. Hokkaido: Kurosawa Publishers  

Images photographed by you

It is not necessary to provide a reference to a photograph or image if you are the creator. However, check with your tutor about the most appropriate way to present original images or photographs in your work.

If you need to reference an original image, you can use the following citation structure:

• Your name (Year published or taken)

…lays emphasis on the fact that the sun doesn’t need to be the focus of a picture (Koenig, 2019)

Your Last Name, Initial. (Year published) Title of the photograph [Photograph]  

Koenig, K. (2019) The sunset [Photograph]  

Published October 29, 2020.

Harvard Formatting Guide

Harvard Formatting

• et al Usage
• Direct Quotes
• In-text Citations
• Multiple Authors
• Page Numbers
• Writing an Outline
• View Harvard Guide

Reference Examples

• View all Harvard Examples

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MLA Style (9th ed.)

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If you are referring or describing an image, but not reproducing the image in your paper , you still need to include a citation in your Works Cited page and provide the in-text citation. This helps your readers to find the image you are referring to if they want to see it. When reproducing the image in your assignment, apply the guidelines outlined under Tables and Illustrations .

How to cite

Additional resources can be found on the MLA Style Center and Purdue Owl .

• Last Updated: Oct 28, 2024 9:51 AM
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How to Cite an Image or Photo in MLA Format

If you don’t know how to cite an image in MLA format, it’s easy to learn. For images or photographs you find online, the most recent edition of the MLA style guide (the 9th) recommends that you include the creator’s name , image title , name of the website hosting the image , date of origin , and URL , in that order.   Give your writing extra polish Grammarly helps you communicate confidently Write with Grammarly Those of you familiar with how to write a research paper or how to write a report already know that citations on the works cited page must follow a specific format. If you found a picture online—whether a photograph, digital image, or any other visual—follow this formula for citing a picture in MLA format: 

Last name of creator, First name. “Image title.” Website name , Day Month Year of posting, URL. 

Note that the image title may be in italics instead of quotation marks if the work is a painting or photograph. If the image has no title , you can write a basic description of the image, without quotation marks, in its place.

If you found the image online, writing the URL is a necessary part of how to cite a photo in MLA format. A helpful tip to stay organized is to write down the URL in your essay outline when researching so you don’t have to go back and search for it later. In MLA format, you drop the “http://” or “https://” from the URL and start with “www” or whatever text comes first. 

In practice, your works-cited-page citation should look like this: 

Hertzberg, Karen. “Star Wars vs. Star Trek.” Grammarly Blog , 8 Apr. 2022, www.grammarly.com/blog/star-wars-vs-star-trek-you-cant- force-good-writing .

As with other sources used in academic writing , you need to include in-text citations for images referenced in your paper. This remains true even if you’re paraphrasing the source material, although in that case it’s recommended that you run your excerpt through a plagiarism checker . 

In-text citations for images and photos in MLA format simply list the creator’s last name in parentheses, like so: 

(Last name of creator)

(Hertzberg)

As long as you found your image online, those are the basic formulas for how to cite a picture in MLA format. Note that this formula applies to both primary and secondary sources . 

However, if you didn’t find your image online, it’s a different story. If you’re citing images you found in a museum or art gallery or images from a book or journal article, you use a different set of MLA citation guidelines. Likewise, if you want to reproduce an image in your paper and give proper credit to the source, you also follow different guidelines. Below we explain how to cite a photograph in MLA format in all these situations.  

Here’s a tip: Citations can be difficult, but they don’t have to trip you up. Grammarly’s Citation Generator ensures your essays have flawless citations and no plagiarism. Try it for tricky MLA image citations like book or  magazine covers , or graphic novels .

How to cite an image from a book in MLA format

When citing an image in MLA format from a book, the first question to ask yourself is whether the creator is the same as the book’s author. 

If the creator and the author are the same , you can cite the image by using the formula for citing the book —although you have to also include the image’s figure number in an in-text citation. 

(Last name of author, fig. #, p. #)

(Seuss, fig. 3, p. 12)

However, if the author is not the creator , you use this formula: 

Last name of image creator, First name. Image title . Year of origin for image. Book title , by First name Last name of author, Book publisher, Year of publication, p. # of image.  

In practice, your citation should look like this: 

Kusama, Yayoi. All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins . 2016. Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts , by Debra DeWitte, et al., Thames & Hudson,  2018, p.1. 

The in-text citation uses only the creator’s last name in parentheses . You don’t need to include a page number because the page number is already in the citation on the works cited page. 

(del Sarto)

How to cite an image from a journal article in MLA format 

Just like with images from books, the rules for how to cite an image in MLA format from a journal article depend on whether the image creator is also the article author. If so, cite the image following the standard guidelines for citing journal articles, adding the figure number for in-text citations (see the above section). 

If the image creator and the article’s author are different , follow this formula for citations on the works cited page:

Last name of image creator, First name. Image title . Year of origin for image. “Article title,” by First name Last name of author, Journal name , vol. #, no. #, Month Year, pp. #–# of the article, URL or DOI, p. # of image.  

Just to be clear, the first set of page numbers is for the entire article, and the last page number is for the image. If either the volume or issue number isn’t available, feel free to skip over it. In practice, it should look like this: 

Wyler, Otto. Maloja . 1917. “Contemporary Swiss Art,” by Paul Ganz, The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly , vol. 8, no. 2, Apr. 1921, pp. 9–27, www.jstor.org/stable/26459449, p. 14.

Again, in-text citations require only the creator’s last name in parentheses . 

How to cite an image from a museum or gallery in MLA format 

Images viewed in a museum or art gallery, both in person and through the venue’s website, can also be cited as reference sources. 

If you viewed the image in person, use this formula to cite images in MLA format: 

Last name of creator, First name. Image title . Year of origin, Name of museum or gallery, Location.

When formatted correctly, it should look like this: 

Klimt, Gustav. The Kiss . 1909, The Belvedere, Vienna. 

If you viewed the image on the museum’s or gallery’s website, use this formula instead:

Last name of creator, First name. Image title . Year of origin. Website name , URL. 

Your citation should look like this: 

Klimt, Gustav. The Kiss . 1909. Belvedere , sammlung.belvedere.at/objects/6678/der-kuss-liebespaar.

In-text citations still require only the creator’s last name in parentheses .

How to reproduce an image in text with MLA format

If you want to include a copy of the image in your paper, MLA format has some special guidelines. For starters, image captions are labeled as figures, using the formula “Fig. #.” After that, there are two methods for writing caption citations:

• Give the full information for the source next to the caption and do not include the source on the works cited page. 
• Give partial information for the source next to the caption and include the full citation on the works cited page. 

In the first method, you give the full citation for the source below the image in your paper and do not include it on the works cited page. After the figure number and a period, simply cite the source exactly as you would on a works cited page, with one exception: the creator’s name is written as “First name Last name.”  

In practice, your image caption should look like this: 

Fig. 1. Andrea del Sarto. The Madonna del Sacco . 1525. A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture , by Clara Erskine Clement, Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1887, p. 106. 

The second method uses a shorter, simpler citation for the caption but still includes the full citation on the works cited page. Simply follow this formula when writing the caption below the image in your paper: 

Fig. #. First name Last name of creator, Image title , Year of origin. 

A final caption citation using this method looks like this: 

Fig. 1. Andrea del Sarto, The Madonna del Sacco , 1525.