Attempting to attract hordes of visitors to your website can be a balancing feat to anyone. One must have quality and informative content, as well as graphic visuals in the form of colorful images to help keep visitors entertained and staying for long in a particular webpage.

Even though there are some folks who’d rather surf and read through pages upon pages of pure text content, you should however make each and every pages of your website attractive and appealing for your visitors. At this juncture, images can prove to be indispensable in keeping up with your audience’s attention span, and can be especially great for your link baiting campaigns as well.

There are various image resources you can use for your website, but in this article we will focus on ‘public domain images’. So, what exactly are public domain images? First, let us define what is public domain. Public domain is generally referred to as works that are either ineligible for copyright or those whose copyrights have expired. A public domain property entails that there’s virtually no copyright protection afforded for the work. As a consequence, they can be dubbed as ‘public property’, and are available for any individual to be utilized for any purpose. No permission shall be required for the use of any public domain works. The use can therefore be either private or commercial, and they can be freely copied and distributed without any permission or payment of royalties to the source.

Here are further guidelines you must know when using public domain images for your online works:

1.      Public domain images can be used without prior permission.

2.      They can be used without paying any royaltee fees.

3.      You can use these images for public, private, or business purposes.

4.      You can freely redistribute, copy in CD/DVD, republish, or even offer it for sale.

5.      You cannot copyright images taken from the public domain sources online.

6.      You can edit or modify these images to suit your needs.

7.      You can upload this images within your web servers and freely create a hotlink for them.

Now, I know you are thrilled to know what these 103 absolutely free image resources are, here they are!

 

General Collections

 

 

1. Wikimedia Commons. Features over 12 Million images and counting.

 

2. Public Domain Photos. With currently 19,000 images on its galleries. All images from this site is 100% free to use.

 

3. LIFE Images. Hosted by Google, where you can search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.

 

4. Totally Free Images. With 494,000 hi-res professional-grade royalty-free images, 100% public-domain, and free to use.

 

5. Photos Public Domain. Images consists of textures, animals, nature, and a variety of stock images for any use including commercial.

 

 

6. Free Photo Gallery. Free stock and recreational photos licensed under Creative Commons.

 

 

7. Picdrome. All items free to download and use, without restrictions.

 

 

8. Pixabay.  Find stunning public domain images here. Registration needed.

 

 

 

9. Alegri Photos. Image sharing site.

 

 

10. Public-Domain Photos. 5,000 free stock photos found here.

 

 

11. Public Domain Cliparts. 8,000 cliparts in stock at their gallery.

 

 

12. 4FreePhotos.

 

 

13. Montenegro Photo.Free images of Montenegro or formerly Yugoslavia.

 

 

14. FreeStockPhotos.biz.

 

 

15. BestPhotos.us Search millions of public domain photos.

 

 

16. Ars Publik. A great collection of public domain images from around the web, hand-selected for use in web and graphic design.

 

 

17. Public Domain Pictures. A large collection of high quality pictures for free. Possibility to contact the authors for original files.

 

 

18. US History Images. A growing collection of free images related to United States history.

 

 

 

19. RepublicDomain.com. is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers.

 

 

20. Public-Domain Zorger.

 

21. Easy Stock Photos.Collection of public domain photos organized by category in image galleries.

 

 

22. Phototeria.com. The site presents a large Collection of Public Domain images only.

 

 

 

23. Reusable Art. An ever-growing collection of vintage drawings, illustrations and photographs from books, magazines and other printed materials.

 

 

 

24. 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.

 

 

 

25. Word Processor Clipart. Public Domain clipart optimized for use in word processors.

 

 

26. Project Gutenberg. 12,000+ books, only a few illustrated, but the number of illustrated books increases from week to week.

 

 

 

27. GIMP Archive. 32,000+ Royalty-free photos, organized by keyword.

 

 

28. Open Clip Art. This project is an archive of public domain clip art.

 

 

29. clker. Easy to search public domain images, directly usable in openoffice.org

 

 

 

30. Open Domain. Public domain images from various sources in one-a-day blog format.

 

 

 

31. PD Photo – Large collection of mostly public domain photos.

 

 

32. Logo Design Web Stockphotos – Small but growing public domain stock photos released by photographer.

 

 

 

 

33. SRUFaculty - Scanned and colorised etchings claimed to be PD images.

34. SRU

 

 

 

35. Free Photos – Small personal photographic collection dedicated to the public domain.

 

 

 

36. Math Puzzle Images of pages of a 1914 book of puzzles

 

 

37. Content Lib Washington. This collection includes 417 fashion plates from 1806-1914 from some of the leading fashion journals of the time.

 

 

38. Public Domain Spain Photo Gallery. Photo archive containing a collection of free, public domain images and photos of Spain.

 

 

 

39. Public Domain Footage.Public domain archival stock footage and newsreels.

 

 

 

 

40. Public Domain Clip Art. 25,000+ Public Domain Clip Arts (good for printing). Categorized & searchable.

 

 

 

 

41. Finally Creative Gallery. Hundreds of categorized photos free for public use. Images added frequently.

 

 

42. Public Domain Depot. A collection of public domain photos and resources with many original photos from the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

 

 

43. Free Images Collection. A collection of free, copyright-free, high resolution images.

 

 

 

44. Open Galleries. A community source of free photography, hosting several galleries with photos from all over the world.

 

 

45. 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.

46. Dated Images. A blog with weekly postings of dated public domain images.

 

 

47. Photo Sleuth. Articles providing old photographs with sourced research as to their origins and history.

48. Vintage Pixels. A collaborative database of found vintage photos. Free for use in amateur and commercial projects.

 

 

 

49. Free Public Domain Images on PlanetEarthForFree.com.

 

 

50. The Best Copyright-Free Photo Libraries. Search for images on government sites.

 

 

 

51. Uncle Sam Photos. A detailed directory of the US Government’s public domain image galleries.

 

 

 

52. Princetonol. (a lengthy list of categorised links to other public domain image sources, many of those links don’t work though).

 

 

 

53. Clip Art/Public Domain. At the Open Directory Project (a list of links to sites with public domain clip art)

 

 

 

54. Google Images. This still requires one to check the copyright status of each image.

 

 

 

55. XPASE Public Domain. A directory of various public domain resources.

56. 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)

 

 

 

57. US Government Archives. Government Documents scanned by the Internet Archive.

 

 

 

58. NPS Historic Photograph Collection. National Park Service.

 

 

59. FWS. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imagery.

60. Usace. United States Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library

 

 

 

61. U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive. (Some images are still under copyright, so caveat emptor.)

 

 

 

62. National Atlas. Lots of .GIF image maps, such as Congressional District maps, all in the public domain.

 

 

 

63. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Photo Gallery.

 

 

 

64. U.S. Antarctic Program Photo Library.

65. TerraServer. 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.

66. Cancer Visuals Online. 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.

 

 

 

67. USDA Agriculture Research Service Image gallery. A “complimentary source of high quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.”

 

 

 

68. U.S. Census Bureau Photo Services.  All images in the public domain but a photo credit is requested.

 

 

 

69. DefenseLink. Current DoD publicly released image

 

 

 

70. DOD Media. DoD Defense Visual Information Center (High-resolution US military imagery; use with {{PD-USGov-Military-DVIC}} license template.)

 

 

71. The Congressional Pictorial Directory. Also available in book form.

 

 

 

72. Naval Historical Center Photographic Section.

73. 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.

74. NOAA Photo Library

 

 

75. Senate and http://www.house.gov. Congressional sites have a broad variety of public domain images, especially photographs of representatives and senators.

76. 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”

 

 

 

77. USDA Online Photography Center.

 

 

78. Vacations.info. Travel related photos

79. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Pathology and histology slides made by the US Government.

80. 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.

 

 

 

81. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

 

 

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

 

 

83. The Public Domain Review. A Blog by the Open Knowledge Foundation to easily access public domain resources.

84. Open Image Bank – Free photos and images for any use. No registration required.

Art

85. iBiblio.

86. SIRIS – Art Inventories. The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) is an American art catalog compiled by the Smithsonian Institute. It has many reproductions of American paintings.

87. Art Renewal. 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.

Automotive

88. 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.

Computer Related

89. Pixabay. Public domain images without any limitation

90. Woodshole. Automatic public domain map generating program

91. Ian Macky . Set of public domain country maps

92. Collections Canada.  Canadian Illustrated News, 1869-1883

Specific Periods

93. World War II Poster Collection. Over 300 posters issued by U. S. Federal agencies.

94. 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).

95. 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).

96. 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).

97. Child Labor in America. Child Labor in America 1908 – 1912 by Lewis W. Hine.

98. 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.

 

Literature

99. Archive. Scanned-in books, maps, manuscripts, and historical documents; Public Domain; available in a number of formats including epub, kindle, and daisy; Searchable.

100. Open Library. Project of the Internet Archive to provide a web page for every book.

101. Google Books. 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.

102. Gutenberg. Scanned-in books. Searchable.

103. Hathitrust Catalog .Scanned-in books from partner universities. Searchable.

There you go, we hope that  you will create visually appealing websites, and use colorful images using these great wealth of image resources on the web. Remember: they are all 100% FREE, and you can take advantage of them today!

If you have free public domain image resources you want to share, just leave us a comment here.

 

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Filed under: Logo Designer by impactlogo on Monday, March 19, 2012 | Social tagging: Copyright-Free Image Resource > Copyright-Free Images Online > Copyright-Free Images Resource > Creative Commons > Public domain > Public Domain & Copyright-Free Images > Public Domain Image Resource > Public Domain Images > Royalty-free > Stock photography > Wikimedia Commons