Most people think that any image that is visible on the World Wide Web is fair game for use by anybody for any reason, legit or not. Of course, this is not true; when in doubt, assume any image, graphic or photo on the WWW is copyrighted.
On the other hand, there are still LOTS of free sources of imagery available on the Web. Sometimes you may have to acknowledge the source of the images, that is, note where you got it with, usually with a link. Sometimes, you don't have to. Be sure you read the conditions of use, if any, under which you can use the graphics the web site is letting you use. It's only fair...
Below are some links to useful educational collections of photos, videos and graphics which you may use for free - if you use them for educational purposes. Please be sure to check for the following items at any site like this you come across:
Listed below are the sites which offer free image downloads, in alphabetical order.
Associated Press International Image Bank (AP Images) - Instructional Resources and Technology has purchased a subscription to the Associated Press International image bank of over 100,000 photographs. The image bank contains current and historical pictures. Current event collections include: Sports, International News, Financial News and U.S. Domestic News. These collections are updated continuously throughout the day. This service is available free to ACC faculty, staff and students. The image bank can be searched quickly and high-quality images can be downloaded to your desktop computer for use in PowerPoint or Web presentations or for handouts or other course-related projects. Each picture has a 15-20 word caption attached to it.
APImages also includes photo collections from many contributing magazines and news sources including Women’s Wear Daily, Ebony, The UK Press Association and many local newspapers around the country.
Special features of this resource include an Event Calendar, Photos of the day and Press Releases. Major world events such as the 2008 elections and the Beijing Olympics are featured as special, in-depth collections. The AP Images Special Events Calendar displays significant events each month, from celebrity birthdays to key dates in history. Selected events link to collections of images relevant to the subject.
There is no need to login when using an on-campus computer. If you are using an off-campus computer, please contact a member of the IDS Staff to obtain login info: http://irt.austincc.edu/ids/staff.html
AP Images Quickstart is a PDF document you can download which explains how to use the various features AP Images has to offer.
American Memory - from the Library of Congress provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
Please note: Although the Library of Congress provides some copyright information about the items in this collection, "...it is the researcher's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the Library's collections."
Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) is a personal, non-profit project of its author, art historian and visual resources curator Allan T. Kohl. AICT is intended primarily to disseminate images of art and architectural works in the public domain on a free-access, free-use basis to all levels of the educational community, as well as to the public at large. The images displayed on this site have been photographed on location by the author, who consents to their use in any application that is both educational and non-commercial in nature.
ARTstor - ARTstor is a digital library of approximately 550,000 images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences. ARTstor is an incredible resource - if you are writing an essay or preparing a Powerpoint, ARTstor will give you access to many images you will not find anywhere else. And unlike your typical Google or Yahoo image search, ARTstor actually cites the sources for its images, meaning that they can be used for scholarly purposes. Please note that ARTstor images are for educational use only, and you cannot post them anywhere on the web. If you are trying to access ARTstor from off-campus, you will be asked to log in using your ACC information.
Calisphere is the University of California's free public gateway to more than 150,000 digitized items — including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts — in the history and culture of California and its role in national and world history.
The Earth Science World Image Bank is a service provided by the American Geological Institute (AGI). This Image Bank is designed to provide quality geoscience images to the public, educators, and the geoscience community.
FreeFoto.com is a collection of free photographs for private non-commercial use on the Internet. The comprehensive, yet easy to navigate site is free to private non-commercial users and for sale to other users.
Images & Sound - List of links from ACC's Library Services Visual Communication Resources; Compiled by ACC Librarians.
The Internet Archive's Moving Images Collection of movies, films, and videos. This collection contains thousands of videos which range from classic full-length movies, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to user-uploaded videos of every genre.
Microsoft Office Clip Art and Media - Microsoft provides some of the most widely used royalty-free stock images in the industry. In addition to the well known Clip Art, you can also narrow your search by photos only, or even animations and sounds. Because Microsoft photos are used so frequently, many of them have become cliche, so be selective about the ones you choose.
PicFindr searches the Web (Well, OK, not "THE Web," as in ALL of it - just the parts that have really nice photos you can use for free) for stock photography that is completely free to use commercially. Several licensing arrangements have recently emerged as alternatives to copyright (sometimes called "copyleft") and PicFindr makes sense of them all by helping you find images based on what you have to do to use them. PicFindr can even find free images you can use commercially without requiring permission or credit of any kind!
PicFindr requires the Flash 9 browser plug-in. If you don't already have it, PicFindr will prompt you and install it for you.
Smithsonian Images - from the Smithsonian Institution - is administered and maintained by Smithsonian Photographic Services, the main photographic office for the National Museum of American History Bering Center, National Museum of Natural History, and National Air and Space Museum. As such, the Office maintains an archive of over 2.5 million contemporary and historic images from these museums.
The Smithsonian specifically encourages the use, without charge, of these images by students, teachers, and schools.
They are available for downloading and use in reports and class work, as well as on class-related student and school web sites. Credit must be given to the photographer and the Smithsonian Institution.
In addition, individual photographic prints in a variety of sizes are also available for purchase through this Photographic Services web site.
For more information on restrictions and use see the full Copyright Policy.
Stock Xchng (Stock Exchange) is a free stock-photography site with downloadable high-resolution images suitable for print. The hundreds of thousands of photos featured on the site are searchable by keyword. This is the favored site of many graphic and web designers in the industry. The site requires a one-time free registration in order to download photos, and some photographers list additional restrictions on using their work.
Wikimedia Commons - Wikimedia Commons offers public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips). The Wikimedia Commons database is vast, containing several million media files. Everyone is allowed to copy, use and modify any files freely as long as the source and the authors are credited and as long as users release their copies/improvements under the same freedom to others. The Wikimedia Commons database itself and the texts in it are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
