Help:Public domain image resources

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Wikimedia research resources

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

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

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 Wikimedia Commons.

See also:

• Commons:Licensing
• Creative commons
• Commons:Picture requests
• Wikipedia:Copyrights
• Image upload page for registered users

Contents 1 Wikimedia operated 2 History 2.1 Historical images 2.2 Specific periods 3 Art 3.1 Visual arts 3.2 Music 3.3 Old photographs, photographers and their subjects 4 Books 5 Logos and flags 6 Postage stamps 7 Culture 7.1 Religion 7.1.1 Christianity 8 General collections 9 Computer-generated public domain images 10 Public domain image meta-resources 11 Uncategorized links 11.1 U.S. Government sites

[edit] Wikimedia operated

Wikimedia Commons hosts only freely licensed images, sound files, and other media. With over 3.5 million uploaded files (Nov 2008) it is the largest free images only repository and it contains many public domain images. Media on commons can be used automatically on all Wikimedia projects just as if the media were uploaded to the projects directly. Commons is the primary repository of media for all Wikimedia projects.

[edit] History

[edit] Historical images

• 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://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/ - public domain images of American Political History
• Copyright free, high-quality scans from pre-1920 books - Categorized and searchable. Click "free images" on the left navigation.
• 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 NewYork Public Library. Over 500,000 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.

[edit] Specific periods

• World War II Poster Collection over 300 posters issued by U.S. Federal agencies
• Photos of the Great War many images of World War I, scanned in from public domain resources. Slight usage notice, which is probably compatible with GFDL (requires attribution and link, as does GFDL, requests e-mail notice of usage).
• The Heritage of the Great War has several colour pictures from World War I (likely all PD, since the effort taken to scan/reproduce them probably fails to qualify for being a derivative work).
• World's Armed Forces Forum (gallery for images taken from the French Ministry of Culture's website) hosts more colour images of World War I (likely all PD, since the effort taken to scan/reproduce them probably fails to qualify for being a derivative work).
• http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/ Child Labor in America 1908 - 1912 by Lewis W. Hine
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum Thousands of on-line, copyright free photographs of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Great Depression and the New Deal, and World War II.

[edit] Art

• http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/contents.asp - Images of the works of more than 2,600 realist painters many in the public domain, check catalogue for dates of works and artists.
• http://photos.raniasplace.com - Free photos for public and commercial use. Organized by countries and type.
• http://www.famouscollection.com/ - Paintings in public domain and creative commons of living artists.

[edit] Visual arts

Note: Accurate photographs of 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.Template:Dubious

• http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/
• http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/
• http://www.vintageartdownload.com

[edit] Music

• http://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/

[edit] Old photographs, photographers and their subjects

• Vintage Pixels A collaborative database of found vintage photos. Free for use in amateur and commercial projects.

[edit] Books

• http://books.google.com - Scanned in books & historical documents. Keyword searchable. Great source for diagrams/illustrations. Restricting a search to "Full View" will return mostly pre-1923 books whose images are public domain in the United States.
• http://gutenberg.net - Scanned in books. Searchable.
• http://www.bookscanning.com - Scanning of public domain books without destroying them. Great source for non-destructible scanning.

[edit] Logos and flags

• http://www.wpclipart.com/flags/index.html 436 flags, countries listed alphabetically, also US State flags, historical and others. All in PNG format.
• http://www.sodipodi.com/index.php3?section=clipart/flags&area=flags 376 (at last count) public-domain flags (many national, some regional) in SVG format. (Apparently no longer actively maintained, with expansion handed over to http://www.openclipart.org/cgi-bin/navigate/signs_and_symbols/flags )
• https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html CIA World Factbook

[edit] Postage stamps

Commons:Stamps/Public domain

[edit] Culture

[edit] Religion

[edit] Christianity

• http://www.theworkofgodschildren.org Collection of high-resolution Roman Catholic images of the Saints and the events in the history of Salvation. All pictures have been released into the public domain.
• http://www.coolnotions.com/PDImages/pd_StoryOfTheBible.htm Collection of Public Domain pictures from the Bible.

[edit] General collections

• Photos8.com - Large collection of High Resolution photos and wallpapers, Thousands of high quality public domain pictures, easy to search, You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial.
• FREEres.info - Comprehensive listing of sites offering public domain and free stock images, plus other free design resources.
• 4 Free Photos - High quality stock and public domain images, free of charge for commercial and personal use.
• Freerange Stock - Many thousands of free stock photos, licensed free for commercial or private use.
• Web Photo Mart - Free photos and illustrations released under various free licenses.
• www.sunipix.com - Free photographs for personal and business use.
• Moka - Free for commercial redistribution and alteration - Free Photos for public and commercial use - Copyright-Free.
• BurningWell.org - Free high quality public domain pictures for any use - Sorted in categories and ability to search by keywords.
• Public Domain Pictures - Free high quality public domain pictures for commercial and personal use - Sorted in categories, ability to search by keywords. Todays photographs, no old scanned pictures or low resolution images
• Scans of art from pre-1922 books and various photos, free for any use
• Pointie.com - Free high resolution photos for commercial and personal use
• 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.
• ReusableArt.com - Free Public domain illustrations, photos, and drawings sorted in categories and with a search function. The collection is compiled with crafters in mind and is updated frequently.
• PicFindr.com - Searches the "free-stock-photosphere," including public domain image sites
• http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/ - Scans of engravings and other artwork from a personal collection of old books, magazines, and post cards. Updated regularly.
• http://www.wpclipart.com - Public Domain clipart optimized for use in word processors. Browsable via site treeview and thumbnail pages. Complete collection also downloadable from ibiblio.
• http://yotophoto.com - Free image search engine including public domain, Creative Commons and GFDL images. Currently indexing over 130,000 free images.
• http://www.burningwell.org - Repository of public domain photos.
• http://www.gutenberg.net/catalog/ - Project Gutenberg: 12,000+ books, only a few illustrated, but the number of illustrated books increases from week to week. There are thousands upon thousands of PD images to be had, with a wee bit of legwork and a modicum of serendipity.
• http://backgroundsarchive.com - Thousands of public domain images organized by category, color and brightness.
• http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/ - GIMP Archive: 32,000+ Royalty-free photos, organized by keyword.
• http://www.openclipart.org/ - This project is an archive of public domain clip art. The clip art is stored in the W3C scalable vector graphics (SVG) format.
• http://opendomain.blogspot.com/ - public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.
• http://www.pixeleye.com Pixeleye.com - Pictures from the Montafon Valley. Collection of public domain photos organized by category.
• http://pdphoto.org/ - 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.
• http://www.logodesignweb.com/stockphoto/ - Small but growing public domain stock photos released by photographer.
• http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/public/public_domain.htm - Scanned and colorised etchings claimed to be PD images.

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

• http://www.pachd.com/free-images/ - A growing collection of free images nicely categorized.
• http://www.freephotos.se/ - Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.
• http://www.mathpuzzle.com/loyd/ Images of pages of a 1914 book of puzzles
• http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/sacredspiral/ - Public Domain Pagan Clipart
• http://content.lib.washington.edu/costumehistweb/index.html - This collection includes 417 fashion plates from 1806-1914 from some of the leading fashion journals of the time.
• http://publicdomain.photopress-spain.com/ - Public Domain Spain Photo Gallery. Photo archive containing a collection of free, public domain images and photos of Spain.
• http://www.PublicDomainFootage.com/ - Public domain archival stock footage and newsreels.
• http://www.vintagepixels.com/ - Large public domain database of high resolution vintage images.
• http://www.cepolina.com - Over 5000 public domain images from Europe, Usa and Asia.
• http://www.freephotobank.org - Thousands of Creative Commons pictures.
• http://freephotos.stevestedman.com - Dozens of free public domain photos.
• Elftown's Reference Pictures - Elftown's Reference picture archive is targeted at painters, photo-manipulation artists and drawing-tutorial writers.

[edit] Computer-generated public domain images

• http://www.pointie.com/free_photos/free_photos.htm - Free photos for commercial and personal use
• http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl US Census Bureau TIGER Mapping service
• http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/mapit/ - Automatic public domain map generating program
• http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cin/index-e.html - Canadian Illustrated News, 1869-1883
• http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/ProxyServlet?objectHandle=Search&actionHandle=clear&nextPage=chemidheavy.jsp - Chemical structures (images) and 3D ball-and-stick representations (Java application) for 381,741 records
• http://www.vintageartdownload.com - Unusually diverse and artistic high resolution images for instant download--nouveau, posters, ads, fine art and more.

[edit] Public domain image meta-resources

• 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)
• http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Graphics/Clip_Art/Public_Domain/ (a list of links to sites with public domain clip art)
• http://www.graphicsngraphicdesign.com/freestockphotos-graphicdesigners/
• http://images.google.com - search for images on government sites; this still requires one to check the copyright status of each image.

[edit] Uncategorized links

• http://content.cdlib.org/search?style=oac-img;sort=title;relation=ark:/13030/kt5b69q5bc — Oakland Public Library. Not all are PD! The image detail page will state the status, PD images will be clearly marked "Public domain".
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain - Wikisource. Like Wikipedia, tends to be useful from time to time.

[edit] U.S. Government sites

• http://home.nps.gov/applications/hafe/hfc/npsphoto.cfm - National Park Service
• http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml - A portal to US Government images and photos. "Most of these images and graphics are available for use in the public domain"
• http://memory.loc.gov/ - U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive. (Some images are still under copyright, so caveat emptor.)
• http://pictures.fws.gov/ - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pictures
• http://images.fws.gov/ - More U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imagery
• http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/ - NOAA Photo Library
• http://images.usace.army.mil/main.html - United States Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library
• http://photolibrary.usap.gov/ - Antarctic Photo Library
• http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/opchomea.htm - USDA Online Photography Center
• http://photogallery.nrcs.usda.gov/Index.asp - USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Photo Gallery
• http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/ - USDA Agriculture Research Service Image gallery
• http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/nhcorg11.htm Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center Photographic Section
• http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=458&q=162298 Pennsylvania Game Commission Public Photo Gallery (Birds and Mammals)
• http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/ - DoD Defense Visual Information Center (High-resolution US military imagery; use with {{PD-USGov-Military-DVIC}} license template.)
• http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/ - Current DoD publicly released image
• http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/ -Great resource for electron microscopy and histological images. Includes general biomedical and science-related images, cancer-specific scientific and patient care-related images, and portraits of directors and staff of the National Cancer Institute.
• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/index.html History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine. Most but not all of the exhibitions are PD. Clicking on "Metadata" near the bottom of the page will generate a popup window with information that includes Rights usage for each page.
• http://nationalatlas.gov Lots of .GIF image maps, such as Congressional District maps, all in the public domain.
• http://www.gpoaccess.gov/pictorial/index.html The Congressional Pictorial Directory, also available in book form.