Hello there!
I can see that you are a new user and that very likely you still don't know many things and are learning on the way, so please take the following just as a friendly advice.
Steemit support and value the most original content. By this being said, it doesn't mean only textual part of the published article but as well the photos and illustrations that we use to make our posts more appealing.
Therefore, if you don't have your own photos that you would use, please take care to use those that are truly free to use and above all free to use for commercial purposes (what Steemit is considered to be because we earn some real money with our published articles here).
In other words, try to avoid by every mean infringing someone's copyrights.
In that sense try to avoid searching for photos through Google as (especially if you are not 100% sure how to do it the way to find with it free to use, manipulate, and free for commercial purposes usage images), most likely (in 99.99% of cases), your search would end up with wrong one which actually is not free.
As well, keep in mind that all, so-called "Royalty free images," most often are not, in fact, free of charge images.
In concrete case (of this article), the image you used is cropped and modified version of the original photo published (for sale) on Shutterstock where someone bought it, modified it and published it on its website (according to the license terms), where you find it.
So, as you may see the image is not free to use (and licenses are not transferable).
Leaving aside possible very high fines that could be charged for a single such action, more importantly for your publishing on Steemit is to know that because of that (if one of so-called Steemit Police accounts came across, and sooner or later they would if you keep doing it),) your post can get downvoted to zero (and your other efforts would be for nothing and unpaid), your reputation score would fall, and above all you might get blacklisted.
Therefore, and to avoid such unwanted scenario, I'm leaving you here the links to the sites where you can find free to use, manipulate, and free for commercial purposes usage photos.
Although otherwise linking the source for somebody else's content used in our posts (citations, excerpts, and images if they are free to use) is mandatory, above listed sites even don't require such attribution.
Despite that I would suggest you to do so, not only to stay on the safe side but as well because of some courtesy to the author.
Never the less, consider to check the rules and licenses of each site, as they might slightly differ.
I hope this would help you for your future publishing and keep you out of trouble.
Just keep in mind that the rules and applicable laws for offline and online publishing don't differ at all!
Posted using Partiko Android
Hello. Thank you for the advice and I am aware the rules you refer to. The pictures I'm using for my posts come from those sites always. The one in this post is from Pexels and is free to use and modify (I modified the image myself) Please Check for yourself that the original picture I used for this post is on Pexels.
https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-apple-beside-the-green-apple-159240/