Find Public Domain and Creative Commons Search Results here to access some of the best photos online with limited or no copyright restrictions.

Briefly, when using Creative Commons licensing...

Attribution means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike means:
You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

Pictures of Food in the Public Domain

Pictures of Education in the Public Domain

Pictures of Faces in the Public Domain

The Library of Congress Photo Stream on Flickr

Smithsonian Institution Photo Stream on Flickr

Pictures of Seasons in the Public Domain

Backgrounds shots in the Public Domain

Wikimedia Commons hosts only freely licensed images, sound files, and other media. With over 10 million uploaded files (April 2011) 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. Media tagged with the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark can be found here

Historical images

• 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.)
• http://www.yestercards.com/ - a very large free database of vintage greeting cards and postcards published in the U. S. Indexed. Organized by category.

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.

Specific Region

Mexico

• PlayaDelCarmenMexico.org Public domain photos of Playa del Carmen.

New Zealand

• Free New Zealand Photos Free photos of New Zealand under Creative Common license.

United States

Florida

• Florida Memory Project Contain Public Domain images taken in Florida.

• Florida Historical Society Contains historical photographs of Florida.

• State of Florida Library Contains many photographs and documents dealing with Florida.

Michigan

• Ann Arbor, Michigan Photos of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus.

Art

• 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

Visual arts

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://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.

Music

• http://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/

Old photographs, photographers and their subjects

• Dated Images A blog with weekly postings of dated public domain images.
• http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.com/ - Articles providing old photographs with sourced research as to their origins and history.
• Vintage Pixels A collaborative database of found vintage photos. Free for use in amateur and commercial projects.

Books

• http://archive.org - Scanned-in books, maps, manuscripts, and historical documents; Public Domain; available in a number of formats including epub, kindle, and daisy; Searchable.
• http://openlibrary.org - Project of the Internet Archive to provide a web page for every book.
• http://books.google.com - Scanned-in books & historical documents. Keyword searchable. Great source for diagrams/illustrations. (not all public domain, many still in copyright) Books google believes are in the public domain are available for download as pdf. see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.
• http://gutenberg.net - Scanned-in books. Searchable.
• http://catalog.hathitrust.org - Scanned-in books from partner universities. Searchable.

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.openclipart.org/
• https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html CIA World Factbook

Postage stamps

• Commons:Stamps/Public domain

Culture

Religion

Christianity

• http://www.theworkofgodschildren.org Collection of high-resolution Roman Catholic images of the Saints and religious imagery. 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.

General collections

• Free Photo Gallery Public Domain Images - Free stock and recreational photos licensed under Creative Commons, usable for commercial and non commercial purposes.
• Picdrome - Public Domain growing picture collection, no copyright, licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. All items free to download and use, without restriction.
• Pixabay - Public domain images without any limitation (private and commercial use)
• / Alegri Photos - Public domain and Creative Commons images
• Public Domain Photos - Free for commercial redistribution and alteration - From January 1, 2011, public-photo.net was moved to a new domain: publicphoto.org. All photo from this site is 100% free for use. The site has more than 1,300 galleries, in over 17 thousand unique photos, and at least three galleries are added daily, that is up to 30-40 photos per day. Each images can be downloaded at least four dimensions: thumbnail, normal, large and very large. Photos are up to 4752 x 3168 maximum resolution. (old domain: moka.t2i.info - Moka Gallery) !
• TotallyFreeImages.com - Totally free public-domain images - Largest archive on the Internet with over 494,000 hi-res professional-grade royalty-free images, 100% public-domain and ok to use with Wikipedia
• Public-Domain-Photos.com
• Public Domain Cliparts Over 8000 public domain cliparts.
• 4 Free Photos Public domain images.
• Free Stock Image Site Collection of public domain stock images.
• Montenegro Photo Free images of Montenegro (Former Yugoslavia).
• FreeStockPhotos.biz A large collection of Public Domain, GNU, Creative Commons & custom licensed stock photos and clip art.
• BestPhotos.us Search millions of public domain photos or browse the best
• Ars Publik - A great collection of public domain images from around the web, hand-selected for use in web and graphic design.
• Public Domain Pictures A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files.
• Google images hosts a large repository of LIFE images, Time claims blanket copyright to everything but this is simply untrue. (see here and also see here) Anything more than 120 years old (i.e. - before 1889) is generally safe. (exception is if the original author died less than 75 years ago--45 years after these PD pictures have been taken--, the author lived in a state with Common_law_copyright, and the name of the author is known---and in that case Time itself is most likely in copyright violation.) You must remove the watermark if you use the larger image.
• http://ushistoryimages.com/ - A growing collection of free images related to United States history.
• RepublicDomain.com is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.
• Scans of art from pre-1922 books and various photos, free for any 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Logo Design Web Stockphotos - 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 URI with http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

• Free Photos - Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.
• http://www.mathpuzzle.com/loyd/ Images of pages of a 1914 book of puzzles
• 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.
• Public Domain Spain Photo Gallery - Photo archive containing a collection of free, public domain images and photos of Spain.
• 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.
• Finally Creative Gallery Hundreds of categorized photos free for public use. Images added frequently.
• 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.
• Free Digital Photos Over 240 different categories each containing royalty free large photos and images that are in the public domain. Free to use for personal or commercial purposes.

Computer-generated public domain images

• http://pixabay.com/ - Public domain images without any limitation
• http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/mapit/ - Automatic public domain map generating program
• http://ian.macky.net/pat/map/country.html - Set of public domain country maps
• http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cin/index-e.html - Canadian Illustrated News, 1869-1883
• http://1photos.com/ - More 11000+ professional public domain images free for use.

Public domain image meta-resources

• Free Public Domain Images on PlanetEarthForFree.com - PlanetEarthForFree free public domain images page
• 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 at the Open Directory Project (a list of links to sites with public domain clip art)
• http://www.graphicsngraphicdesign.com/freestockphotos-graphicdesigners/
• http://images.google.com - this still requires one to check the copyright status of each image.
• XPASE Public Domain - A directory of various public domain resources.

 Uncategorized links

• Oakland Public Library. Not all are PD! The image detail page will state the status, PD images will be clearly marked "Public domain".
• 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.

U.S. Government sites

• USCITES.gov - Endangered species photos, illustrations and video provided by the U.S. Delegation to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (commonly referred to as CITES)
• http://www.archive.org/details/USGovernmentDocuments Government Documents scanned by the Internet Archive
• NPS Historic Photograph Collection - National Park Service
• http://images.fws.gov/ - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imagery
• images.google.com - use the advanced search feature to return images from the site or domain ".gov". {{PD-USGov}} may apply to such images.
• http://images.usace.army.mil/main.html - United States Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library
• U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive. (Some images are still under copyright, so caveat emptor.)
• http://nationalatlas.gov Lots of .GIF image maps, such as Congressional District maps, all in the public domain.
• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Photo Gallery
• U.S. Antarctic Program Photo Library
• http://terraserver-usa.com/default.aspx - free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States originating from USGS. {{PD-USGov-USGS}} may apply to such images.
• 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.
• USDA Agriculture Research Service Image gallery
• U.S. Census Bureau Photo Services - all images in the public domain but a photo credit is requested.
• http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/ - Current DoD publicly released image
• http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/ - DoD Defense Visual Information Center (High-resolution US military imagery; use with {{PD-USGov-Military-DVIC}} license template.)
• The Congressional Pictorial Directory - also available in book form.
• Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center Photographic Section
• 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.
• NOAA Photo Library
• http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov - Congressional sites have a broad variety of public domain images, especially photographs of representatives and senators.
• 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"
• USDA Online Photography Center
• Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Pathology and histology slides made by the US Government.
• MedPix Medical Image Database Hosting by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The terms of use of the site state that the original submitter may retain copyright. Nearly all of the submitters are US Government physicians. The status of the submitter is available to verify that an individual image is in the public domain.
• Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Search Engines

• Wayback Machine Search 150 Billion web pages preserved by the Internet Archive.
• Google advanced search can search for free licensed or PD works
• 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 - 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.