How to Cite an Image in APA, MLA and Chicago (With Examples)

To cite an image, you need its creator, the date it was made or posted, its title (or a short description if it has none) and where you found it, such as a website and URL, a museum or a book. Each style puts those details in its own order, so this guide shows each style with the same two real images: a NASA photograph and Grant Wood’s American Gothic.

TL;DR

• Credit the person or organization that made the image, not the site that displays it or Google Images.

• APA: Creator. (Year). Title [Photograph]. Site or Museum. URL

• MLA: Creator. Title. Date. Website, URL.

• Chicago: Creator, Title, date, medium, location, URL, usually in a note or caption.

• A citation gives credit. It does not give you permission to reuse the image.

What do you need before you start?

• Creator: the photographer, artist or organization responsible for the image.

• Date: the year it was created or posted. For artwork, the year it was made.

• Title: as the source gives it. If there is no title, write a short description instead of inventing one.

• Where you found it: the website, museum, book or database.

• URL: the address of the page that holds the image, not the image file itself.

Our two examples show why the details matter. The NASA photo is widely known as “Earthrise,” but NASA’s library titles it “Apollo 8 Mission image, Earth over the horizon of the moon,” and no photographer is credited, so NASA is the creator. Cite what the source says.

How do you cite an image in APA?

APA 7 lists the creator as the author, then the year, the title in italics and sentence case, a description in square brackets, and the source. The APA Style artwork page says to always include that bracketed description, such as [Painting] or [Photograph].

A photo online

NASA. (1968). Apollo 8 mission image, Earth over the horizon of the moon [Photograph]. NASA Image and Video Library. https://images.nasa.gov/details/as08-14-2383

In-text: (NASA, 1968)

Artwork in a museum

Wood, G. (1930). American Gothic [Painting]. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic

In-text: (Wood, 1930). APA uses this format for paintings, photographs, sculptures and other museum works, with the museum and its location as the source.

An image from a book

Usually you cite the book itself and point to the page in your citation, for example (Author, 2020, p. 45). You only need extra detail if you reproduce the image, which the next section covers.

An image with no creator or date

APA’s missing information guidance moves the title into the author position and uses “n.d.” for no date:

Title of image [Photograph]. (n.d.). Site Name. URL

If the image has no title either, describe it in square brackets: [Photograph of a flooded street in Manila]. (n.d.). Site Name. URL

How do you reproduce an image as a figure in APA?

If you place the image in your paper, it becomes a figure. Give it a bold figure number, an italic title in title case, the image, and a note below it. When the image needs credit, the note holds a copyright attribution, which replaces the in-text citation. Following the pattern on APA’s clip art and stock image page, the NASA photo looks like this:

Figure 1

Earth Rising Over the Lunar Horizon

[the image]

Note. From Apollo 8 Mission Image, Earth Over the Horizon of the Moon [Photograph], by NASA, 1968, NASA Image and Video Library (https://images.nasa.gov/details/as08-14-2383). In the public domain.

Include the image in your reference list too. NASA says its images are generally not subject to copyright in the United States, which is why the note ends “In the public domain.” For a Creative Commons image, end with the license name instead, such as CC BY 2.0. If a stock image’s license says no attribution is required, APA says to give no reference, citation or attribution at all.

How do you cite an image in MLA?

MLA 9 starts with the creator, puts the title of a visual work in italics, and treats the website or museum as the container. When an organization is both the creator and the publisher, as NASA is here, MLA starts with the title.

Photo online: Apollo 8 Mission Image, Earth over the Horizon of the Moon. 1968. NASA Image and Video Library, images.nasa.gov/details/as08-14-2383.

Artwork on a museum website: Wood, Grant. American Gothic. 1930. Art Institute of Chicago, www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic.

Artwork seen in person: Wood, Grant. American Gothic. 1930, Art Institute of Chicago.

In-text citations use the creator or a short title: (Wood) or (Apollo 8 Mission Image).

For an image in a book, the MLA Style Center says it is usually enough to cite the book and give the figure and page in your citation, as in its own example: (Dodwell, fig. 45, p. 169). For an untitled image with no creator, start with a description and add an access date if the page is undated, as in MLA’s example: Jigsaw puzzle image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Liberty Puzzles, www.libertypuzzles.com/wooden-jigsaw-puzzles/mona-lisa. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018.

To place an image in an MLA paper, label it “Fig.” with a number and a caption directly below it: Fig. 1. Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930, Art Institute of Chicago. If the image is only illustrative, MLA says the caption can carry the full publication details.

How do you cite an image in Chicago?

Chicago’s notes and bibliography style gives the creator, title, date, medium, size and location in a note. The Manual is subscription only, so these examples follow university guides to the 18th edition, such as Red Deer Polytechnic’s image page.

Note, photo online: 1. NASA, Apollo 8 Mission Image, Earth over the Horizon of the Moon, December 24, 1968, photograph, NASA Image and Video Library, https://images.nasa.gov/details/as08-14-2383.

Note, museum artwork: 2. Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930, oil on beaver board, 78 × 65.3 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic.

Short note: 3. Wood, American Gothic.

Note, image in a book: 4. C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Cornell University Press, 1982), 169, fig. 45.

Chicago often leaves artworks and images out of the bibliography, and the University of Queensland’s guide notes that the details can usually go in your text instead. If your instructor wants an entry, use: Wood, Grant. American Gothic. 1930. Oil on beaver board, 78 × 65.3 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic.

Does citing an image give you permission to use it?

No. A citation tells readers where the image came from. Permission to reuse it depends on its copyright and license. Public domain images and many Creative Commons images can be reused if you follow their terms, while other images may need the rights holder’s permission, especially in anything published, such as a journal article, a thesis in a repository or a website. The MLA Style Center adds that when you have permission, the credit line must be worded the way the owner asks.

How do you cite an AI-generated image?

Check first whether your instructor or journal allows AI images at all. Then follow each style’s current guidance:

• APA treats the company as the author and cites the chat or tool that made the image, describing your prompt in the text rather than in the reference. Its AI reference page gives this format: Company. (Year, Month Day). Title of chat [Generative AI chat]. Tool name. URL

• MLA does not treat the tool as an author. Its example starts with the prompt: “Pointillist painting of a sheep in a sunny field of blue flowers” prompt. DALL-E, version 2, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, labs.openai.com/.

• Chicago cites AI content in the text, a caption or a note, not usually the bibliography. McMaster University’s guide gives a caption in this pattern: Fig. 1. Image generated by [tool], [model], [date], from the prompt “[your prompt].”

What are the most common mistakes?

• Crediting the hosting website or Google Images instead of the creator. MLA notes that a thumbnail in search results is not enough, so click through to the page that posted the image.

• Treating a citation as permission to reuse an image.

• Leaving out the bracketed description in APA, such as [Photograph].

• Linking to the image file instead of its page. For Wikimedia images, MLA recommends the commons.wikimedia.org file page rather than the upload.wikimedia.org address.

• Inventing a title for an untitled image. Describe it instead.

Can a tool build the citation for you?

Yes, with a few details from you. The AnswerThis image citation generator reads the page metadata from a link, then asks you to add the creator, image title and creation date, since a web page rarely states them reliably. It starts in APA 7, and your first three sources are free per browser, shared across our citation pages. Its page lists the same two mistakes this guide warns about: crediting the hosting website instead of the creator, and treating a citation as permission. For the books, articles and websites in the rest of your paper, use our APA, MLA and Chicago citation generator.

FAQs

How do I cite an image from Google Images?

Don’t cite Google Images. Click through to the page that posted the image and cite that page and the image’s creator.

Do I cite images in a presentation the same way?

Yes. MLA says to cite images in slides as you would in a paper. In APA, the figure number and title are optional in a presentation, but a copyright attribution is still required when the license asks for one.

Do I need an access or retrieval date?

Usually not in APA. MLA and Chicago add an access date when the page has no date of its own.

If I include an image as an APA figure, do I still need a reference?

Yes, when the image needs attribution: the copyright attribution goes in the figure note and the image also goes in your reference list. Images whose license says no attribution is required need neither.

Which citation style should I use for images?

Use the style your course or journal requires for the rest of the paper. If none is set, our guide to which citation style to use explains which fields use which.

When you have a link to the image, start with the image citation generator, then check the creator, title and date against the page before the citation goes into your paper.