A good image earns its place in a proposal. Today you'll learn three ways to get one: from your own phone, from a licensed Creative Commons library, or from an AI tool. You'll also learn how to read a licence properly, disclose AI images honestly, and size and wrap the image so it actually helps the reader instead of getting in the way.
We'll walk through the phone-to-document route in detail together, because it's the cleanest and most useful option when the thing you're pitching actually exists somewhere you can get to. The Creative Commons and AI routes will be covered as worked examples afterwards, so you can pick whichever route suits your project in independent practice.
Think of the last time you saw a document, poster, or CV that used a photo. Did the image actually help you understand the message, or was it just there for decoration? What's the difference between an image that earns its place and an image that doesn't?
Three sources, three sets of rules. Before you insert anything, know where it came from and what you're allowed to do with it.
| Concept | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Own photo — a picture you took yourself with your phone or camera | It's yours. No licence to read, no attribution to add. The cleanest route when the thing you're pitching actually exists somewhere you can get to | A photo you took of the shopfront at a local bakery where you'd like to do Work Experience |
| Free-to-use licence — a rule on the image's page that tells you what you can do with it. Creative Commons (CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0) is used on Wikimedia Commons; Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay use their own royalty-free licences (similar idea, different wording) | Using an image without checking the licence is still copyright infringement, even if it was free to download. Reading the licence takes 20 seconds and covers you legally | A Wikimedia Commons photo of Dublin Port used in a research page about freight and logistics apprenticeships — the CC BY-SA licence needs a credit line in the caption |
| AI-generated image — an image invented by a tool like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Midjourney or similar | AI images aren't real — the place, person, or object doesn't exist. If you let a reader assume it's a real photo, that's dishonest. Labelling it as AI-generated is not optional | A stylised illustration of a workshop interior for a pitch about a trades course — caption it “AI-generated illustration” so the reader isn't misled |
| Text wrap — controls how the document's text behaves around the image | The wrong wrap setting pushes your paragraphs off the page or leaves ugly gaps. Square or Wrap text lets your paragraphs flow neatly alongside the image | Your proposal has a paragraph about the bakery and a photo of it — Square wrap puts the photo on the right and the text on the left, side by side |
| Aspect ratio — the original width-to-height proportion of the image | Dragging a side handle instead of a corner handle squishes people's faces and makes the document look amateur | — |
For every image you add to a document, record three things: the filename, where it came from, and its licence or disclosure. This protects you and tells anyone reading your portfolio exactly what they're looking at. Here's a worked example of what the log should look like:
| Image file | Source | Licence / Disclosure |
|---|---|---|
| bakery_front.jpg | My own photo, taken on placement visit | Own photo — no licence needed |
| dublin_port.jpg | Wikimedia Commons — “Port of Dublin at dusk” by J. Murphy | CC BY-SA 4.0 — credit shown in caption |
| workshop_illustration.png | Generated with ChatGPT image tool, prompt: “stylised illustration of a joinery workshop” | AI-generated — labelled in caption |
Follow the steps below to move a photo from your phone to your cloud storage, insert it into a document, size it, and wrap text around it. This is the phone route — the most common one. The Creative Commons and AI routes use the same insert/resize/wrap steps, and we'll cover those in the next section.
You just walked through the phone route in detail. The same insert, resize, and wrap moves work for the other two sources — what changes is how you find the image, what you write in the caption, and what you record in your Image Source Log.
Open the image's page on the site you're using. The licence line is almost always near the title or in an Information/Licensing panel below the image. Here's what it looks like on Wikimedia Commons:
Quick rule of thumb for what each licence asks of you:
| Licence on the image page | What to do in your caption |
|---|---|
| CC0 or “public domain” | Use freely. No credit needed (though adding one is polite) |
| CC BY | Credit the photographer and link back to the original |
| CC BY-SA | Credit the photographer AND note the licence (so anyone reusing your work keeps the same rules) |
| Unsplash / Pexels / Pixabay licence | Free to use for school or commercial work. Credit is appreciated but not required on most of these sites — check the specific image page to be sure |
Sample attribution caption: Photo: J. Murphy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. That single sentence covers the photographer, the source, and the licence — everything a reader needs to verify your image.
If the licence isn't stated plainly on the image's page, don't use it. Pick a different one.
Open ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or another AI image tool and describe the image in plain words. The more specific your prompt, the more usable the result.
Three example prompts for LCA Something Real projects:
To save the generated image: either use the tool's built-in download button, or {{menu:Right-click -> Save image as}} to save it to your computer. Then upload it to {{code:Digital_Portfolio}} like any other image and insert it using the steps you just practised.
The caption MUST include the words “AI-generated” — no exceptions. A reader who later realises they were misled won't trust anything else in the document.
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| The image looks stretched or squashed after I resize it | You dragged a side handle instead of a corner handle. Click {{kbd:Ctrl+Z}} (Windows/Chromebook) or {{kbd:Cmd+Z}} (Mac) to undo, then drag a corner handle only. Corner handles preserve the aspect ratio. |
| My text is above and below the image but not beside it, leaving ugly gaps on the page | The wrap setting is still “In Line with Text”. Click the image, open Wrap Text (Word Online) or the Wrap text icon in the floating toolbar (Google Docs), and choose Square or Wrap text. |
| I can't find the licence on an image page, or it's not stated clearly | If the licence or usage terms aren't stated plainly on the image's page, assume the image is NOT free to use and pick a different one. Check the specific usage terms on each image page — Wikimedia Commons shows a Creative Commons licence; Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay show their own royalty-free terms. |
| The photo I uploaded from my phone isn't showing up on my laptop | Refresh the cloud storage page. Uploads from phone to OneDrive or Google Drive usually take 10–30 seconds to appear elsewhere. If it still doesn't show after a minute, check the upload completed on the phone side. |
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