Some Copyright Free Image Resources

A (not) so few words on copyrights:
Everything created by another person, be it texts, images, photos etc., are copyrighted unless the original copyright holder expressly makes their work available for others to use. The creator does not need to put a © on their work to protect it. The protection lasts for several decades although the exact number of years may vary between countries. I’d suggest counting any artwork or design younger than a century as protected, just to be on the safe side.

There are plenty of stock image sites online, some of which require you to pay before using their images, others requiring that you give them credit and perhaps provide a link back to their site. There are also sites that have collected public domain images. If an image has been placed in the public domain, it is no longer copyright protected and it’s free to use. (That is assuming it’s the copyright holder who placed it in the public domain and not an image snitch wanting to present a good-sized image collection – so beware!)

Using images, sculptures and other artwork by other people as reference may mean that your work becomes a derived work. By law, only the original copyright holder has the right to make derived works of their own art, so be careful how you use references.

A good rule of thumb is that you should not follow references so closely that it’s obvious what reference you used (unless you’ve created them yourself, say by photographing a friend or model). It’s better to reference a hand here, and a hairdo there, than to use one single reference for an entire image. You should also strive to make the end result look different from your reference(s).

Some Copyright Free Image Resources (updated 2nd of May 2023)
(Use the links contained and maintained in this post rather than those in any subsequent posts which may be outdated or broken)

www.morguefile.com/
painting.about.com/od/artistreferencephotos/
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page
pixabay.com/
pixnio.com
www.public-domain-photos.com/
www.textures.com/ (Formerly cgtextures.com)
www.imageafter.com/images.php
lostandtaken.com/gallery
texturelabs.org/ (Free to use textures and photos for personal and commercial use (check the license page) - (Includes materials for 3D, spec, bump etc)
ambientcg.com/ (3D materials/substance materials, HDRIs, and model assets)
renderman.pixar.com/category/117-texture (Pixar 3d textures released under creative commons license)
images.nasa.gov/
texture.ninja/
www.freeimages.com/
unsplash.com/
www.rgbstock.com/ (Various stock images - requires registration to download)
www.publicdomainarchive.com/ (various stock photos)
gratisography.com/ (Various stock photos)
nos.twnsnd.co/ (vintage photos)
travelcoffeebook.com/ (Landscapes/environments)
gumroad.com/l/reference (Noah Bradley - Various landscape/environment)
cubebrush.co/tomlopez/products/9tgcpq/free-ref-pack-iceland (Tom Lopez - Iceland pics)
gumroad.com/l/800text (Joost Vanhoutte - Textures)
gumroad.com/l/motor (Joost Vanhoutte - Motorcycles)
publicdomaintextures.com/
www.ihdri.com (Free 16k and 4k HDRIs for personal and commercial use)
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LQeYk2Ji...NNnskvfvjoFOM39U7TmS (Free sky photo library produced by mattepaint.com, details in the post here: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/general-...unts?start=260#38007 )

www.shutterstock.com/blog/free-downloads? (Shutterstock Blog section with free image resources, check licensing)
freeforvideo.com/shutterstock-free-images? (Scroll down page for links to Shutterstock free image sets)


Procedural/AI generated photo portraits:

thispersondoesnotexist.com
generated.photos/faces


Not free but cheap packs of high quality images:

www.photobash.org/



Here’s a link to where Adam Hughes discusses how he works with references and in particular how he used them for his cat woman cover for IFX issue # 67 (in 2011): www.deviantart.com/adamhughes/art/Imagin...-67-How-To-196343843

Nice list, here's some others that may be of use (check the terms of use before downloading):

www.textures.com/ (Formerly cgtextures.com)
www.imageafter.com/images.php
www.mayang.com/textures/index.htm
lostandtaken.com/gallery

I have some more bookmarked somewhere that I'll dig out.

texturelabs.org/

Free to use textures and photos for personal and commercial use (check the license page). (Includes materials for 3D, spec, bump etc)

Pixar has released an old pack of textures (updated to include bump and normal maps) for free here: community.renderman.pixar.com/article/11...ne-twenty-eight.html

(released under creative commons license)

www.episcura.com/

Textures, HDRI, and random ref photos.

NASA have apparently made their entire image/video/audio library free to use (as in copyright free, but still check their guidelines): images.nasa.gov/

uhm hasn't it been, for years?

Charlotte wrote:

uhm hasn't it been, for years?

I believe you may be correct. I saw a post on Twitter linking to an article which appears to be a little behind the times. I didn't see a link to the library here though, so I thought it worth posting.

true that

Textures: texture.ninja/