Looking For FREE Quality Images & Photos To Use?
If you are setting up a Blog, Newsletter or Website you can find many images and photos that are licensed under Creative Commons, but they may have restrictions. Another option is Public Domain, these images are usually free of even the smallest restrictions that may be in a Creative Commons license.
Sometimes Public Domain gets a bad rap because it is associated with materials that are old. They were under a copyright at some time, but have existed for so long, the copyrights have expired.
While that may be true, and there are a lot of quality old, formerly copyrighted material that can be found, it is also true that much newer works are released freely into the Public Domain or as "Royalty Free" by the original artists everyday.
These artists may be giving work away to build their reputation, trying to build traffic for their websites, or they just really believe in Free Culture and the Philosophy of the GNU Project.
Whatever their reasoning, the material is there to use, often under very minimal guidelines, you just need to find it.
(Image by a_glitch from Stock.XCHNG the leading FREE stock photo site!)
Use Public Domain Images?
Searching For Public Domain Images
If its for free, its for me!
I usually use Google, let's face it, they are the largest search engine, but you can follow this on most any search engine.
Let's say I want a Public Domain image of a Chinese Dragon. I just type in "public domain chinese dragon":
I get over 37k sites to look over. Not all of them will have pictures I'll want to use, but along the way, I'm sure to find resources for future projects.
Sure enough, what follows are some blogs, and links to sites that have huge selections of images, Public Domain or Royalty Free.
(Note: Some of the following sites had nothing to do with the search, they were actually linked to sites I did find from the search)
Public Domain Clip Art
a guide to better quality more plentiful public domain royalty free copyright free high resolution images, stock photos, jpgs and clipart free for commercial use
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byLatest free stock images at freeimageslive
Free images is a high quality resource of digital stock photographic images for use by all.
All images in our collection are free to use on websites and printed materials, Terms Apply.
freeimages.co.uk
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byPhotos8.com
This is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers. Large collection of High Resolution photos and wallpapers,
Thousands of high quality public domain pictures, easy to search, All photos on Photos8.com are public domain.
You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial.
Please enjoy them.
Photos8.com
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byPublic Domain Images From Karen's Whimsy
Copyright-free public domain images for you to use in your artwork.
Public Domain Images From Karen's Whimsy
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bystock.xchng - recently uploaded stock images
Not Public Domain - By joining for free, you get access to a very large selection of Royalty Free images
"Whether you just want to browse our huge image gallery or want to share your own photos with others, this is the site for you!"
stock.xchng
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byCheck Out These Links To Public Domain Images!
- The online royalty free clipart 20617 - vector clip art online, royalty free & public domain
- Clker.com - vector clip art online, royalty free & public domain
- PDClipart.org - Public Domain Clip Art
- PDClipart.org is a HUGE collection of public domain clip art. The collection is FREE and NO REGISTRATION is required.
- PD Photo - Free Photos And Pictures (public domain, stock pictures, wallpaper, royalty free, clip art, etc)
- PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public domain photos. Unless something is clearly marked as being copyrighted, you can assume it is free to use. But if you intend to use an image you find here for commercial use, please be aware that standards for such use are higher. Specifically, you should assume no model release was obtained. And pictures featuring products or property should be used with care. The photos are here to be used, but I don't want you to get either of us in trouble over it.
- Public Domain Pictures, Free Pictures, Royalty Free Stock Photos
- Royalty free stock photos. All pictures are free for commercial and personal use.
If you intend to use an image you find here for commercial use, please be aware that no model release was obtained and pictures featuring products or property should be used with care. - NachoFoto - galleries, foto, photo, pictures, image, slideshows, slide shows
- Popular galleries in all categories page
- 5000 Free Stock Photos
- All photos on this web site are public domain. You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial. But if some photo contains logos and products you need to be careful. someone else's trademark commercially can get you sued.
- Wikimedia Commons
- A database of 5,023,983 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
- Incredible Clip Art & Images
- The most comprehensive list of free clip art & photos links on the internet!
More Help Finding Free Images
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Searching For Images
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Are you having trouble finding images to use in your lenses? Are you having to resort to hastily scribbled doodles and photos of yourself with no make-up and tangled hair? Worry no longer! This lens is going to tell you everything you need to know...
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Free Images and How to Use Them
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This is a listing free image resources to use on your lens or website. Also, it includes several detailed How-To sections on how to add the necessary HTML to control and enhance the images in your pages (or lenses). Examples included. If you do fi...
Free Image Editing
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GIMP Tips Tricks & Tutorials
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For a free program, GIMP sure delivers on features, functions, and just all around usefulness. It may seem like learning another language at first, but once you start working with it, it gets easier to understand things. I find it is easier to expla...
Free Culture & the Philosophy of the GNU Project
I will freely admit to finding these links via Leo Babauta's "Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content"
- == Free Culture ==
- Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of America's most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus is the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies. In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet.
Now, in FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they're inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation. - Philosophy of the GNU Project - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- This page lists a series of articles describing the philosophy of the free software movement, which is the motivation for our development of the free software operating system GNU.
- Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content
- I'm not a big fan of copyright laws anyway, especially as they're being applied these days by corporations, used to crack down on the little guys so they can continue their large profits.
Copyrights are often touted as protecting the artist, but in most cases the artist gets very little while the corporations make most of the money. I'm trying this experiment to see whether releasing copyright really hurts the creator of the content.
I think, in most cases, the protectionism that is touted by "anti-piracy" campaigns and lawsuits and lobbying actually hurts the artist. Limiting distribution to protect profits isn't a good thing.
Comments? What Do You Think About Public Domain Images & Pictures?
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- Laniann Laniann Oct 3, 2009 @ 8:11 am
- Public Domain is a great resource. Thank you for sharing such valuable information. 5*s and fav
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- Michey Michey Sep 26, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
- Excellent resource to find public domain picture
Thanks fav 5*
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- Joan4 Joan4 Sep 14, 2009 @ 5:00 am
- Super resource for all of us! Thank you!
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- OhMe OhMe Sep 13, 2009 @ 11:48 pm
- Thanks for all this great information about Public Domain. I will definitely be back to this lens for further exploring.
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- mukunda22 mukunda22 Sep 12, 2009 @ 7:06 am
- I love the Public Domain, and you have certainly done the topic justice here!!
Thanks for sharing it with all of us!!
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- BevsPaper BevsPaper Sep 8, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
- Great resource Dan! Bookmarking it for the future!
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- Mickie_G Mickie_G Sep 8, 2009 @ 5:19 pm
- Thanks for even more resources!
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- mysticmama mysticmama Sep 8, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
- Thank you! Great info!
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- kimmanleyort kimmanleyort Sep 8, 2009 @ 8:07 am
- I am bookmarking this one. Lots of valuable information.
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- MeltedRachel MeltedRachel Sep 8, 2009 @ 1:28 am
- Great resource, Dan! Thanks for the feature :) Lensrolling to Searching for images :)
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Original content:
How To Find Quality
Public Domain Images & Photos
by CleanerLife
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License.
by CleanerLife
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