How 2 find legal pictures

I learned about creative commons at a presentation by Michelle Lantz at the Ohio Tech-Free Convention in January 2010. You can watch her presentation at THIS link

Creative Commons is a good starting point for finding free-to-use photos - this link list started with Ms. Lantz's materials and has expanded since then (and will probably continue to expand). I found many of these sites from THIS article on TutorialBlog.com.

I didn't include EVERYTHING from either source, the list below are those sites that were easy to navigate, free to use, and easy to determine and properly attribute licensing credits.

Google Image Search - now has an option to search only those images that are labelled for reuse. Click on "Advanced Search" and scroll to the bottom of the next screen to find the checkboxes.

Creative Commons - this is the one-stop searching shop from the nice folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Flickr/Commons - this is a collaboration between Flickr and the Library of Congress. It contains a VERY large collection of public domain photos, all of which are free to be used in any way, many of them are posted in the hopes that people might be able to identify the people or places in them.

Compfight - this photo search engine has the ability to limit search results to images that have creative commons licensing right at the top of the screen.

Stockvault - this website has hundreds of free and free-to-use stock photos of generic "things" and scenes. You can download the pictures without signing up but will need to create an account in order to bookmark, email or comment on the pictures, or to upload your own.

MorgueFile - another website with lots of free and free-to-use photos. Pictures here have no licensing at all and do not need to be attributed.

FreeRange - this site is loaded with free and free-to-use stock photos. You'll need to register for a free account in order to download photos.

EveryStockPhoto - this one is more of a search engine for looking for photos. Use Advanced Search to make choices about license, resolution, account requirements, etc. It does not currently have a checkbox for creative commons licensing, but it does have a box that will display the licensing used by the photographer.

StockXChng - huge site. All photos are free and free-to-use.

OpenPhoto - another huge site full of free and free-to-use photos. You only need to register if you want to upload and contribute your own photos.

PhotoRogue - this site takes free and free-to-use to the next level. You can actually make a REQUEST for a particular image you would like to use and their network of photographers will go to work to make it happen for you - all for free!

Geek Philosopher - this site offers log-in, but does not require it. Photos are free and free-to-use with artist attribution (you give credit to the photographer)

PhotoRack - this site offers free and free-to-use photos without required log-in. What's especially cool about this one is the EXTENSIVE heirarchy of categories on its home page which makes it very easy to find exactly what you want. Don't use the right-click download trick....look for the link to download without the watermark.

FreePixels - another site free and free-to-use photos. This one also has a nice heirarchy of categories and also has a tags cloud on the homepage to help you find what you're looking for.

DesignPacks - this site offers up free and free-to-use photos that are organized into coordinated groups of photos. You download a zip file and get a bunch of pictures that would all work together in the same project because they have the same values, color schemes, etc.

FreeFoto - this site uses Creative Commons licensing, asking for link-back and attribution. Many photos also ask that you don't manipulate the images to create new ones. They explain it all in an easy-to understand rules page and each image has an easy button-link to display the license for that particular file.

PixelPerfectDigital - I didn't see anything on this site about licensing for their stock photo collection - but I also didn't see anything restricting use of their images. One thing I liked a lot was the information and news about digital photography in general, which is a nice mix of guru-geek-speak and every day language.


FreeDigitalPhotos - this site offers web-quality images for free, and high-quality printable images for a price. They ask for attribution and even provide the html code to create the link that includes the artist's name.


PublicDomainPhotos - this site has a large collection of free and free-to-use photos and clipart. No attributions are required, but users are warned to be careful about images that include logos (like a picture of a storefront).

HistoricalStockPhotos - this site offers free and free-to-use web-quality photos for email and personal websites. If you want printables, they provide a link to another site, and the prices there are not low.

NationsIllustrated - this is a Canadian site that houses free-to-use photos (non-commercial use is allowed) from all over the world. Registration allows you to upload, rate and comment on pictures. When you see a picture you like, you add it to a download list, and then download all of the photos you've chosen as a zip file.

KaveWall - this site specializes in very close-up images of common things. They use Creative Commons licensing asking for attribution and non-commercial use. Web-quality images are free, and high-resolution images are available for purchase. The site also sells t-shirts and offers graphic design services.

ImageBase - this site says on its homepage that you can treat all images as public domain (free and free to use). It includes not only images but also powerpoint templates and offers even high-resolution downloads for free.

Cepolina - this is an international collection of free and free-to-use images that asks for attribution to the website. Many levels of resolution are available for free download and the homepage includes a nice category list to help you with your browsing.

Image*After - this site offers both images and textures (each listed in its own drop-down menu from the homepage) and allows ANY use of its pictures except creating another webpage like theirs. No attribution required. The images looked kind of amateurish (like someone's vacation snapshots), but the texture images definitely did have that "artsy" quality to them.

ZenTextures - this site was mentioned in a comment to the TutorialBlog article. There is a terms of use link on the homepage that says you are free to do anything with the images except sell them as your own work or host them on your own site. and the textures are beautiful.

FreeStockImages and RoyaltyFreeImages - these two websites are owned and operated by the same person. Not much in the way of organization or searching with tags, but very pretty texture images that are probably worth the browsing time, especially since they're totally free and free-to-use-however-you-like.

Whew!!! Did I miss your favorite source? Tell everyone about it in the comments!