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Free Media for Creative Use

Audio, image, and video sources that are free of copyright restrictions

Frequently Used

Unsplash
Online repository with 200,000 high-resolution images.

Sources for Diverse Images

AllGo
Plus-size stock photos
Disability:IN
Disability inclusive stock photography
Disabled and Here Collection
Photos and illustrations celebrating people of color with disabilities.
The Gender Spectrum Collection
A stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models

More Stock Photos

Flickr Creative Commons
Search Flickr images with Creative Commons licenses, which may be used under certain conditions such as attribution.
Pexels
Provides free stock photos from its own community or sourced from free image websites.
Wikiview
A visual explorer for the millions of public domain images available on Wikimedia Commons.
Picography
High-resolution, royalty-free, stock photos
Pikwizard
Some image categories available, but most useful via keyword search.
Burst
Free stock photos and images for commercial use.

Licensed by Columbia College Chicago

Artstor This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Transitioning to Artstor on JSTOR | JSTOR Images. This resource will migrate to a new platform on June 1, 2024. Features images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists. It is a comprehensive image resource, with many rare and important collections available nowhere else.
Artstor on JSTOR | JSTOR Images This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
New Artstor platform. Features images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists. It is a comprehensive image resource, with many rare and important collections available nowhere else.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
The foremost scholarly art encyclopedia, covering both Western and non-Western art.

Adobe Stock
Part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Use your single sign-on (Office 365) email and password to access.

Vectors & Illustrations

Open Peeps
A hand-drawn illustration library with vector elements that can be remixed.
Freepik
Includes vectors that are available for free use, with attribution. Does contain ads and pop-ups, so be careful where you click.

Thematic Collections

Travel Coffee Book
Collection of travel photos for creative use.
Foodies Feed
High-resolution food and beverage photos.

Historical Resources

National Archives
Online public portal providing access to nearly one million electronic records currently in the Electronic Records Archives (ERA), which allows users to refine searches by material type. Material types include moving images, photographs, and sound recordings. Use "Additional information about this item" to check use restrictions.
John Margolies Photographs of Roadside America
This collection from the Library of Congress features more than 11,000 photographs of vernacular commercial structures, including restaurants and theaters, along U.S. streets and highways, 1969-2008.

Digital Collections from Museums & Libraries

Art Institute of Chicago: The Collection
Filter to "Public Domain" to discover works you can freely use.
Google Arts & Culture
Includes online collections from partner institutions.
The Getty, Los Angeles
Filter by "Open Content Images."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Filter by "Open Access Artworks."
Smithsonian Open Access
Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Use the search "Everything" dropdown menu to search specifically for photos or other types of media. Many, but not all, images have no known copyright restrictions. Enlarge images of interest. Under "About this Image" see "Rights Advisory" for more information.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
NGA Images is a collection of open access digital images.
The Louvre
More than 480,000 works in the Musée du Louvre and Musée National Eugène-Delacroix.
British Museum Collection Online
The majority of the 1.9 million object images are available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons 4.0 license.
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Users can create their own online galleries.

Free Media for Creative Use Research Guide by Columbia College Chicago Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.