Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

Help:Public domain image resources

There are a number of sources of public domain images on the Web.

Wikimedia research resources

GFDL resources
Public domain resources
Public domain image resources
Free image resources
Free sound resources
Non-PD resources
Maps
Bibliographies

Shortcuts:
WP:PDI,
WP:PDIR,
WP:PDIMG

The presence of a resource on this list does not guarantee that all or any of the images in it are in the public domain. You are still responsible for checking the copyright status of images before you submit them to Wikipedia.

Please read the policy on image use and etiquette at: Wikipedia:Image use policy.

See also:

General Collections

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Ordered by size of collection, largest first:

  • Wikimedia Commons hosts only freely licensed images, sound files, and other media. With over 13 million uploaded files, (as of June 2012), it is the largest free "images-only" repository. It contains many public domain images. Commons is the primary repository of media for all Wikimedia projects. Media on Commons can be used readily on all Wikimedia projects, just as if the media were uploaded to the projects directly. Public domain media can be found in many categories, such as commons:Category:CC-PD-Mark or commons:Category:CC-Zero.
  • Snappygoat.com- 12,748,290 Free Public Domain/CC0 Images from multiple sources.
  • LibreShot - A collection of public domain (CC0) photographs taken by photographer Martin Vorel. Photos are divided into categories and can also be searched. All photos are in Hi-Res.
  • Pixabay - 100,000 public domain photos and cliparts, exclusively under Creative Commons CC0 - free for private and commercial use.
  • Public domain vector images - growing database of public domain vector graphics.
  • PD Photo - Large collection of mostly public domain photos. Read the license for each picture before use; also, model releases may not have been obtained for all photos.
  • Photos Public Domain Thousands of high quality public domain photographs free for any use, with no restrictions. Collections included are: textures, animals, nature, and a variety of stock images for any use, including commercial.
  • PDPics.com Public domain photo collection with about 6500 high resolution pictures up to 6000x4000. All images licensed under CC0 license.
  • Picdrome - growing Public Domain picture collection: no copyright, licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. All unique items are free to download and use, without restriction. No registration, no attribution required.
  • The Wonderlusters - Free high-resolution travel photographs from all over the world under Creative Commons.
  • Alegri Photos - Public domain and Creative Commons images
  • Public-Domain-Photos.com
  • 4 Free Photos Public domain images.
  • Free Stock Image Site Collection of public domain stock images.
  • Montenegro Photo Free images of Montenegro (Former Yugoslavia).
  • PD Poster Public domain posters
  • RepublicDomain.com is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.
  • Public-domain.zorger.com features scans of art from pre-1922 books and various photos, free for any use]
  • Phototeria.com The site presents a large Collection of Public Domain images only. It's very easy to navigate Phototeria.com which benefits not so experienced users or young folks.
  • Reusable Art - An ever-growing collection of vintage drawings, illustrations and photographs from books, magazines and other printed materials. Original publication information is included with each image for copyright verification. All images meet or exceed the Berne Convention standard for a creative work to be in the public domain.
  • Karen Whimsy's Public Domain Images - Scans of engravings and other artwork from a personal collection of old books, magazines, and post cards. Updated regularly.
  • Word Processor Clipart - Public Domain clipart optimized for use in word processors. Browsable via site treeview and thumbnail pages. Complete collection also downloadable from ibiblio.
  • Project Gutenberg - 12,000+ books, only a few illustrated, but the number of illustrated books increases from week to week. There are thousands of PD images available.
  • GIMP Archive - 32,000+ Royalty-free photos, organized by keyword.
  • Open Clip Art - This project is an archive of public domain clip art. The clip art is stored in the W3C scalable vector graphics (SVG) format.
  • clker - Easy to search public domain images, directly usable in openoffice.org
  • Open Domain - public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.
  • Logo Design Web Stockphotos - Small but growing public domain stock photos released by photographer.
  • Free Photos - Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.
  • Images of pages of a 1914 book of puzzles
  • ImgMart.com - Collections of free high resolution royalty free indian stock images for personal and professionals use.
  • Public Domain Footage - Public domain archival stock footage and newsreels.
  • Public Domain Clip Art- 25,000+ Public Domain Clip Arts (good for printing). Categorized & searchable.
  • Public Domain Depot A collection of public domain photos and resources with many original photos from the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
  • Free Images Collection A collection of free, copyright-free, high resolution images.
  • Open Galleries A community source of free photography, hosting several galleries with photos from all over the world.
  • http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.com/ - Articles providing old photographs with sourced research as to their origins and history.
  • The Best Copyright-Free Photo Libraries -search for images on government sites
  • http://www.unclesamsphotos.com a detailed directory of the US Government's public domain image galleries
  • http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/clipart.html (a lengthy list of categorised links to other public domain image sources, many of those links don't work though)
  • Clip Art/Public Domain A list of links to sites with public domain clip art from DMOZ
  • XPASE Public Domain - A directory of various public domain resources.
  • Vacations.info - Travel related photos
  • The Public Domain Review - A Blog by the Open Knowledge Foundation to easily access public domain resources.
  • Easy Stock Photos - Royalty free stock photos, pictures, images and information in the public domain - Collection of public domain photos organized by category in image galleries.
  • FreeStockPhotos.biz A large collection of Public Domain, GNU, Creative Commons & custom licensed stock photos and clip art.
  • Public Domain Pictures A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files. (For some photo you have to be "premium membership" a.k.a. you have to pay !)
  • SchoolPhotoProject.com - Collection of daily subjects royalty-free stock photos made available for students and general public. (99% of photos are totally free and only a few photos you need to pay to download them)
  • My Public Domain Pictures - A growing collection of amateur pictures released into public domain. You can use their pictures for any purpose and they do not require anything in return. Their collection includes travel pictures, pictures of animals and plants, background designs and many more being added everyday. They also include a collection of high resolution public domain pictures segregated according to topics including etchings of public domain pictures. The site also includes macro photography.
  • Good Free Photos -- Hundreds of free photos of landscapes, textures, plants and more. All free for personal and commercial use.
  • Toper's Photos - Toper's Photos is a collection of photos taken by the creator from his trips around the United States as well as from outside the US. All photos in this collection are released into public domain so readers may use these photos for personal or commercial purpose. Photos are classified according to subject such as Animals, Plants, People, Places, Statues, etc,. More pictures are added everyday so this collection is gradually growing in number. Photos are high resolution so you will find high quality images in this collection.
  • Public Domain Images and Textures -- A collection of Pictures and Textures released under public domain that can be used for personal and commercial use.
  • 1 Million Free Pictures - All pictures covering various topics are released into public domain. These pictures are originally created by the owner therefore these pictures can be used for personal and commercial use.
  • Stockpile Images - download public domain photography with no subscription required.
  • Photostock - beauty free stock photos.
  • Freejpg Fondos - download Hundreds of public domain stock photos. 4K and HD sizes.
  • FreeSVG.org - over 50,000 SVG images in public domain

Governmental Resources

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If any page or image seems missing, replace http://www.sru.edu/depts/cisba/compsci/dailey in its URI with http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

Subject-based Collections

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Ordered by subject, alphabetically:

Art

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Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.

  • http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/
  • http://bestarts.org - Bestarts.org is an archive of artists, paintings and museums. Biographies and Galleries arranged by art movements, artists, styles and museums.
  • http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ - The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) is an American art catalog compiled by the Smithsonian Institute. It has many reproductions of American paintings. However, it is known to have a number of factual errors, so it should be used with great care.
  • http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artistindex.php - Images of the works of more than 2,600 realist painters, many in the public domain; check catalogue for dates of works and artists. Note: Accurate photographs of two-dimensional visual artworks lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.
  • http://www.thefamousartists.com - Growing resource with biographies and selected works of artists whose works are all in the public domain.

Automotive

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  • The Crittenden Automotive Library. Not all are PD! The image detail page will state the status, PD images will be marked "Public domain" or by year of publication if before 1922.

Buildings

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  • Public Domain Pictures of Buildings - A growing collection of amateur building pictures taken mostly in the United States. These building photos are released into public domain so these photos are available for download free of charge. There are no requirements when using these building photos.

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Computer-generated

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Game Development

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  • http://opengameart.org/ - User-contributed art for game development, such as textures and pixel-art, all under free licenses. Public domain can be searched by checking CC0 in the filter options.

Gold & Silver

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History

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  • http://ushistoryimages.com - Public domain images from United States history.
  • http://www.acliparthistory.com - Public Domain images of the History of the World. Also Natural History and Fancy letters suitable for school projects
  • http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html Library of Congress American Memory site (Check copyright information for the separate items before deciding to use them!)
  • http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngillus.htm Images from The Newgate Calendar. Mostly crimes and criminals from the 18th century. Also other works at http://www.exclassics.com
  • http://www.fromoldbooks.org/ Collection images scanned from various old books that are now in the public domain. Searchable. Used to be under http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/
  • http://www.john-leech-archive.org.uk/ John Leech sketch archives 1841 until 1864 from Punch magazine The page states they are long out of copyright and that they are believed to be public domain.
  • http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/ Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library's online collection of digital images. Most will be {PD-art}. 90,000 images from rare books and manuscripts, search by keyword.
  • http://digitalgallery.nypl.org New York Public Library. Over 700,000 images scanned from books. Including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more. There is a per-image usage fee even for public domain images.
  • http://www.oldbookillustrations.com/ Images scanned from old books. States that images on the site are the works of artists who "...have been dead for over seventy years, which makes them part of the public domain in many countries". Searchable by keywords.
  • America As It Was - a huge resource for vintage postcards in the U. S., organized by state. Any postcard first published in the U. S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD. Lots of photos, aerial views, and maps of many U. S. locations.
  • "The Secret Museum of Mankind" - collection of anthropological photographs published in a 1935 book without copyright. Scanned and released under a CC-NC license, but images should be public domain, at least in the US, since they are faithful reproductions of PD images. (Warning: strong 1930's racist P. O. V.)

Specific periods

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Literature

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Logos and flags

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Mexico

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Music

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New Zealand

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  • Free New Zealand Photos Free photos of New Zealand under Creative Common license.
  • DigitalNZ, a repository of reusable images from New Zealand galleries, libraries, archives, and museums.

Postage stamps

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Religion

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United States

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Florida

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Michigan

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Photographers

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  • See c:Category:Photographers and artists by year of death
    • Most works go into the public domain 70 years after the death of the creator. For works first published in some countries like Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Canada, copyright lasts 50 years after the death of the author. That copyright period is longer in some countries, with copyright lasting 99 years after the creator's death in Ivory Coast, 95 years after the death of the creator in Jamaica, and 100 years after the death of the creator in Mexico.

Search Engines

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  • Wayback Machine Search 150 Billion web pages preserved by the Internet Archive.
  • Google advanced search can search for free licensed or PD works
  • http://images.google.com - this still requires one to check the copyright status of each image.
  • everystockphoto.com - Searching over 4.3 million public domain and creative commons photos including wikipedia and NASA. Free user accounts with drag and drop collections, and other features.
  • PicFindr.com - Searches a hand picked collection of public domain-, free stock photo-, and photo community sites. Includes the ability to search by rights! (whether you need to give credit, ask permission or not)
  • Spffy.com[dead link] - Searches one billion stock photos and video, including free images, public domain, creative commons, royalty-free and rights-managed.
  • Recherchephoto.com - Searches public domain, and creative commons photos to use on your website.
  • Bing.com - Has an Advanced Image Search, that offers images in different resolutions and also categorizes images. Allows free querying of the bing Image Search API up to a certain limit per day.
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