Free Images & Textures

Introduction
Free Images
Photo Communities & Resources
Free Textures
Image Searches

Introduction

There are several clip-media websites that allow you to download free images for non-commercial usage. Many of these sites allow unrestricted commercial usage as long as any content is not redistributed or resold. A few though, do not allow commercial usage.

As you can see, the licensing terms differ from site to site. Therefore, make sure you read every disclaimer or agreement on a site before you download images. This is to ensure that no copyrights are being infringed. If any copyright info is not clear or evident, you can always email a contact address on the site to find out more. If there’s no contact info available on the site, it is best to not use any content from the site.

Some content on free sites may be low-resolution. Also, some of the free content may be the work of amateur photographers. However, this may not be true all the time. I've found some amazing content from professional photographers on many of these sites.

We also look at sources for textures, which are images designed to be used as a repeated pattern.

On this page, you'll find links to various sites that allow download of free images and textures.

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Image Sites

Wunderstock is a site with over 3 million stock images.

Pixabay provides images that can be used in digital and printed format, for personal and commercial use.

The New York Public Library collection has thousands of public domains pictures available in high quality.

The Iconographic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature, and Art site contains the collection of Johann Georg Heck. These restored illustrations, including the full plates are available under the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) license.

The David Rumsey Map Collection contains more than 150,000 maps, and is available for non-commercial usage with accreditation.

Artvee provides an extensive collection of art that has been digitized by museums. This is mainly available as public domain art with a creative commons license.

morgueFile is a public image reference archive that allows both private and commercial usage of images.

Free Images (earlier stock.xchng) contains thousands of free photos that you can use for both personal and commercial purposes.

Rgbstock has over 100,000 completely free stock photos that you can use in all types of projects.

FreePhotos is among the largest collections of photographs.

At Backgrounds Archive, you can download free tileable and desktop backgrounds and wallpapers in both widescreen and regular resolutions.

Free Images is a resource of photographic images for free use on websites and printed materials.

Pexels is a continuously updated resource of free images for both personal and commercial usage.

Bigfoto provides royalty-free images for non-commercial use.

The NSSDC Photo Gallery has space related images including photographs of planets, astronomical objects and space missions.

Dreamstime provides a selection of free images.

FreePhotoBank is a resource with plenty of free stock photos.

Public Domain Photos has around 5000 free photos.

Unsplash provides you with the images you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes.

picjumbo contains both free and premium images to download.

LittleVisuals requires that you sign up to get 7 hi-res images zipped up within your inbox every 7 days.

GoodFreePhotos has over 7000 public domain photos, images, clipart, pics and vectors.

New Old Stock specializes in vintage photos from the public archives, free known copyright restrictions.

Gratistography has free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects.

FreeJPG, Cepolina, and Burning Well have more free images.

Hassle Free Clip Art provides several free to use graphics.

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Photo Communities & Resources

Flickr is an online photo community. Many Flickr users offer their work under a Creative Commons license.

Mixkit curates some amazing content including pictures and videos, that can used free of charge.

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Free Textures

You'll find over 800 tiled textures at the Ppted background archive (not free).

Textures.com (formerly CGTextures.com) has a huge collection of textures available.

High Quality Textures has downloadable textures for 3D builders and skinners in various categories.

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Image Searches

Creative Commons Search provides convenient access to web searches and filters them for content that can be used within terms of a Creative Commons license.

Google Image Search is among the most comprehensive visual searches available online.

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