Wikipedia:Public domain image resources

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This started out as a copy of the master wikipedia page at Meta and its entries should be kept as identical as possible. Please do not make changes to just this copy. If you change both copies please make the changes in the same place.

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Public domain image resources is a copy of the master wikipedia page at Meta, which lists 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 Wikipedia.

Please read the policy on image use and etiquette at: Wikipedia:Image use policy.

See also:

• Wikipedia:Images with missing articles
• 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 12 U.S. Government sites 13 Search Engines

[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://www.archivalart.com Victorian Historical and Catholic Graphics and Holy Cards
• 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
• 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 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.
• 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.)

[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.

[edit] 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://sunsite.dk/cgfa/

[edit] Music

• http://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/

[edit] Old photographs, photographers and their subjects

• 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.

[edit] Books

• 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://www.bookscanning.com - Scanning of public domain books without destroying them. Great source for non-destructible scanning. (This site provides scanning services of printed Public Domain Works. Customers pay a fee for an editable soft copy of the selected work.)

[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.openclipart.org/
• 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

• Public-Domain-Photos.com
• Public Domain Cliparts Over 8000 public domain cliparts.
• Photos8.com
• 4FreePhotos.com
• Web Photo Mart A large collection of Public Domain, GNU, Creative Commons & custom licensed stock photos and clip art.
• Public Domain Pictures A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files. Option to upload your own pictures and promote your portfolio
• 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(ie 1888 and before) 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 know---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.
• http://www.freephotos.lu/ Free public domain photos. For private and commercial use.
• RepublicDomain.com is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.
• Public Domain Photos - Free for commercial redistribution and alteration - Moka Gallery - All photo from this site is 100% free for use (old domain: moka.t2i.info) !
• 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.
• 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://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 of PD images available.
• 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://www.clker.com/ - Easy to search public domain images, directly usable in openoffice.org
• http://opendomain.blogspot.com/ - public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.
• 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 URI with http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

• 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.pdclipart.org - 25,000+ Public Domain Clip Art (great for printing). Categorized & searchable.
• Public Domain Image 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.

[edit] Computer-generated public domain images

• 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

[edit] Public domain image meta-resources

• Top 10 Public Domain Image Resources
• 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.

[edit] 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".
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain - Wikisource. Like Wikipedia, tends to be useful from time to time.

[edit] U.S. Government sites

• NPS Historic Photograph Collection - National Park Service
• http://images.fws.gov/ - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imagery, to be relaunched
• 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.
• http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=458&q=162298 Pennsylvania Game Commission Public Photo Gallery (Birds and Mammals)
• 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

[edit] Search Engines

• 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.