Commons:Free media resources/Photography

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There are a number of sources of freely licensed and 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 freely licensed and/or in the public domain: you are still responsible for checking the copyright status of images before you submit them to Wikipedia.

See also[edit]

Search engines[edit]

  • Openverse (formerly CC Search) allows you to search across many sources of freely licensed images and animations, including many, but not yet all, of the ones listed here. You can filter by licenses and types, including image type "photographs".


General collections[edit]

  • Flickr (free search) – Flickr is a big photo sharing website. It has many pictures licenced with Creative Commons Attribution License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. (Search both)
    Beware that Flickr is a problematic source – many images are acceptable, but many are not. See details on Flickr below.
  • Crowdsource – 400,000 CC-BY pictures mostly from underrepresented countries.
  • LookAndLearn.com – 1,000,000+ Free Historical Public Domain Images curated from Public Collections.
  • Snappygoat.com – 13,990,108 Free Public Domain/CC0 Images from multiple sources. Single search for images from Wikipedia Commons, Pixabay, Flickr, British Library, NYPL and others. Full image downloads without login or restrictions. Includes a meme maker.
  • Pixnio – A large collection of high resolution public domain images. Free for personal and commercial use, no attribution required.
  • Dreamstime CC0 Stock Photos – A large selection of over 2 million public domain (CC0) and free stock photos. Curated, model & non model-released photos.
  • LibreShot.com – photos in high resolution for free use even commercialy (Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain License).
  • WPclipart – Public domain clip art and photographs, student-safe but expansive.
  • Skitterphoto – Authentic public domain photos. Updated daily, all images creative commons CC0. No registration.
  • Agência Brasil – official agency of the Brasilian government, has pictures of Brasilian officials, including on official trips and meeting foreign dignitaries (use {{Agência Brasil|photo number}} template). Does not apply to content produced after 23 February 2017.
  • Archive.org compendium of Illustrations in the Public Domain - 300-page book.
  • Digital documents from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). (website is in French).
  • BurningWell.org – PD according to terms.
  • Gnu art – Media by GNU GPL licence.
  • 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.
    Beware that Project Gutenberg is a problematic source – many images are acceptable for Commons, but many are not. See Commons:Problematic sources § Project Gutenberg for details.
  • Public Domain Images – Hundreds of free images for personal and commercial use.
  • LIFE images hosted by Google – Huge collection under various copyright status. Many public domain ones, although with false copyright claims.
  • OpenPhoto.net – fairly random collection, looks like aiming to be a "stock photography" site. Be sure to check the license carefully as they also have NC/ND images! Free registration required to download full-res images
  • PublicDomainArchive.com – High quality public domain images – free for private and commercial use. All images licensed under CC0 license.
  • publicdomainpictures.net – a collection of over 83,000 free images as of August 2014.
  • Good Free Photos – Hundreds of photos of state parks, tetures, plants, and more
  • Pickupimage.com – Large collection of of high quality free stock photos and public domain pictures.
  • Topers 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. All photos herein are dedicated into the public domain.
  • cc0.photo – A growing collection of free CC0/PD photos.
  • Devostock.com - Free and public domain images collected from all around the world.
  • PhotostockEditor - Free High-Resolution Images For Personal & Commercial Use. New Pictures added Weekly.
  • DreamyPixel - A collection of free high-resolution images for personal and commercial use. Three new images added weekly.
  • Rawpixel – Over 7,000 high-resolution public domain illustrations as well as some CC0 photographs.
  • Black White Pictures – Public Domain Black and White Pictures
  • ClipartSpy: Searchable clipart images in the public domain

Objects[edit]

Aeroplanes[edit]


Cycles[edit]

Food[edit]

Furniture[edit]

Ships[edit]

Animals and plants[edit]

Animals[edit]

Mammals[edit]

Birds[edit]

Fish[edit]

Insects[edit]

Extinct animals[edit]

Plants[edit]

Crops[edit]

Fruits/Vegetables[edit]


Mushrooms[edit]

Nature/Science[edit]

Landscape features (mountains, deserts, craters, etc)[edit]

Medicine[edit]

Space (planets, stars, galaxies, etc) and spaceflight[edit]

US National Parks[edit]

Weather[edit]

Chemistry[edit]

  • https://cactus.nci.nih.gov/gifcreator/ Will generate (copyright kosher) GIFs or PNGs from molecular description files of may formats. Use {{CACTVSGIF}} for copyright on image page. Valid input formats include: MDL Molfile (or SD files), PDB, JCAMP/CS, CIF (Chiron interchange format, not Crystallographic formats), MDL RXN (Reaction file), RDF (Reaction Data File format), XYZ, SMD4, SMD5, CTX, CACTVS (binary, ascii, cbase), SMILES (including SMARTS subset), Compass, 441, Gaussian/Input, Gaussian/Archive, SCF, SHEL-X, XTEL (XTELPlot input format), Cerius (Ascii exchange format of CeriusII Toolkit), Sharc (SHift ARChives format), Alchemy, Hyperchem, Molconn-Z, Sybyl, Sybyl2, SLN (Sybyl line notation).
  • German mirror to the above: http://www2.ccc.uni-erlangen.de/services/gifcreator/

History[edit]

Historical images[edit]

Specific periods[edit]

People[edit]

Historical costumes[edit]

Movies[edit]


Locations[edit]

Machine-readable raw map data[edit]

Maps[edit]

Australia[edit]

Botswana[edit]

Bulgaria[edit]

Brazil[edit]

Canada[edit]

Czech Republic[edit]

  • Peplum.cz – photos from Roztoky parish – architecture, people, clergy, liturgy… (CC-BY-SA)
  • Bubenic.cz – personal photos – landscape, architecture, people, nature, liturgy… (CC-BY-SA)

Finland[edit]

Germany[edit]

Some chapters of German parties, federal, state and communal level, or politicians release photos under free licenses on Flickr:

Bündnis90/Die Grünen
SPD
Die Linke
Piratenpartei

India[edit]

Japan[edit]


Mexico[edit]

Middle East[edit]

Iran[edit]

Israel[edit]

Panama[edit]

Portugal[edit]

Normally all images are declared as protected by Copyright. It will be necessary to see case by case which ones are already in the public domain or with expired Copyright (e.g. old photographs and reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works).

Puerto Rico[edit]

Russia[edit]

South Africa[edit]

Switzerland[edit]

Thailand[edit]

United Kingdom[edit]


United States[edit]


West Indies[edit]

Zambia[edit]

Zimbabwe[edit]

Art[edit]

 Info Since August 2008, Commons policy allows the uploading of faithful reproductions of 2D public domain works of art, regardless of any claim to copyright made under local law to the contrary.

Logos and flags[edit]

Military[edit]

Miscellaneous[edit]

Flickr[edit]

See also: Commons:Flickr files

Free search:

Free tags:

Institutions[edit]

Other[edit]

Uncategorized links[edit]

U.S. Government sites[edit]

Other sites:

Computer-generated public domain images[edit]

Public domain image meta-resources[edit]

  • Yahoo! Image Search. On the search results page, set the license filter to "Public Domain".
  • Dover Publications has many, many books of copyright-free illustrations. Search on "copyright-free", "clip art" or "Pictorial Archive". These are hard copy and would have to be scanned, but they cover everything. You have to buy the books or borrow them from the library; the art is free. Here are just a few examples:
    • Plants: 2,400 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Flowers, Trees, Fruits and Vegetables
    • Animals: 1,419 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Mammals, Birds, Fish, Insects, etc.
    • Ready-to-Use Illustrations of World-Famous Places: 109 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Illustrations of Pets: 96 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Illustrations of Appliances and Electronics: 98 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Portraits of Famous People: 121 Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Mammals Illustrations: 98 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Illustrations of Marine Animals: 96 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Authentic Civil War Illustrations: 245 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Bird Illustrations: 98 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Flower Illustrations: 96 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Endangered Animals Illustrations: 96 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Ready-to-Use Medieval Herb, Plant and Flower Illustrations: 294 Different Copyright-Free Designs
    • Airplanes of the Second World War Coloring Book 46 accurate illustrations copyright-free.
    • Weapons and Armor, 1400 copyright-free illustrations of battle-axes, bows & arrows, cannons, more
    • Transportation, 525 copyright-free illustrations include trains, trolleys, cars, ships, airplanes, many other vehicles.
  • http://openclipart.org/wiki/Clipart_Acquisition