LibGuides: DSNA 114: 4D Design: Stock Photography

Stock Photos + Images in the Public Domain

Unsplash
A selection of over 850,000 free, high-resolution photographs. Includes curated collections and popular searches such as public domain images, creative commons images, and stock photos.
StockSnap.io
The images are free because only public domain or Creative Commons licensed photos that are allowed for commercial use are added on this site.

New Old Stock
Vintage photos are from the public archives, free of known copyright restrictions, and recapture history.

Public Domain Pictures

Pexels
Best free stock photos in one place.

The Getty
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.

Online Creative Commons Photography Sites

Make sure to review Creative Commons licenses so that you understand what license you want to look for when searching for images. (Otherwise, you could be violating copyright!)

TinEye Labs This link opens in a new window
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Experiment with color and photos. Use MulticolorEngine to search through 20 million Creative Commons images on Flickr by color. Search for photos by up to 5 different colors at once. You can also extract color values with MulticolorEngine Create a color palette from any image with MulticolorEngine. This demonstration identifies the top 10 colors in your image, and even finds the closest color name! Works with JPGs, PNGs, and GIFs.
Creative Commons This link opens in a new window
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Search for Creative Commons Licensed images, music, media and videos on a variety of sites.
Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link.

Photography Sites (You Make the Call On If It's Copyright-OK To Use!)

These are sites that provide images and other media, but you'll need to make the call on whether or not the item is copyrighted and if you can use it in your project. You'll have to weigh all the factors of fair use to determine if you can use it.

For most of these sites below, you also need to credit them (see individual sites for how to credit - look for Legal Terms or Terms & Conditions or About or Copyright links for that info).

If you're not sure, ask us at research@ringling.edu for help figuring it out!

Fair Use Evaluator (ALA)
A short online program of questions to help you assess your case for fair use of copyrighted content. It creates a PDF of your input that you can file with your records.