Library: Research Help: Images for Educational Use

Online image collections

Always check the terms and conditions of each site for copyright and attribution requirements.

Compfight Compfight is an image search engine tailored to efficiently locate images for blogs, comps, inspiration, and research.
Creative Commons Search Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Our free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.
every stock photo We are a search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos. Membership is free and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos
flickr Commons The key goal of The Commons is to share hidden treasures from the world's public photography archives.
Google Advanced Image search Narrow your results by selecting the appropriate Usage Rights filter. E.g. "free to use, share or modify, even commercially."
NASA photos and Images
Clip Safari
Pexels Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to discover through our discover pages.
PhotoPin Search millions of Creative Commons photos and add them to your blog posts easily.
Photos For Class Teachers have told us they need a place to access safe images that are available to be used in the classroom and for educational purposes. Plus they want accurate image citations. We’ve heard you and created “Photos For Class” to meet your needs for images! Safe G Rated Images - All images are appropriate for school setting thanks to Flicker safe Search and our proprietary filters Automatic Citation - Downloaded images automatically cite the author and the image license terms Creative Commons - All photos shown are to the best of our (and Flickr's) knowledge Creative Commons licensed for school use
PikWizard
Pixabay Pixabay - a repository for stunning public domain pictures. Your source for free vectors, free drawings and free photos. You can use any Pixabay image without attribution in digital and printed form, even for commercial applications.
Unsplash
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All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.
More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.
Wikimedia Commons A database of continually updated, freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
Wikipedia:Public domain image resources Public domain image resources lists a number of sources of public domain images on the Web.
85 Free Stock Photo Resources – How to Use Them Article by Jake Rheude on Red Stag Fulfillment, 2017
100+ AMAZING Free Stock Image & Photo Resources for 2018 From SaleHoo.
The Gender Spectrum Collection
The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models

History, Science and Technology

Always check the terms and conditions of each site for copyright and attribution requirements.

Museums Victoria
National Museum of Australia "At the core of the National Museum and its exhibitions is the National Historical Collection, more than 200,000 objects which represent Australia's history and cultural heritage. "
Western Australian Museum online collections "The Western Australian Museum have developed a number of collection databases and collection-based online resources for the benefit of the public."

Art, Fashion and Design

Always check the terms and conditions for each site for copyright and attribution requirements.

Art Institute of Chicago "The Art Institute, founded in 1879, now has approximately 300,000 works of art in its permanent collection"
British Museum - Collection Online "There are currently 2,171,256 records available, which represent more than 3,500,000 objects. 868,320 records have one or more images."
Fashion Institute of Technology NYC Browse by era from 18th century to modern fashion
Louvre Museum (Paris) Official Website
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) Enjoy the collection online.
Museum of Modern Art (New York) Browse the online collection.
Powerhouse Museum Explore the Collections.
Tate (Britain, Modern) "We hold the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art. Our collection includes over 70,000 artworks by over 3,000 artists and grows every year"
Victoria and Albert Museum (London) World's leading museum of art and design.

Featured images from Britannica Image Quest

Britannica Image Quest

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images / Universal Images Group

Britannica Image Quest

C. DANI-I. JESKE / De Agostini Picture Library / Universal Images Group

Britannica Image Quest

DR KEITH WHEELER / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Universal Images Group

Britannica Image Quest

Scott Barbour / Getty Images Sport / Getty Images / Universal Images Group

Britannica Image Quest

LAGUNA DESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Universal Images Group

Britannica Image Quest

Britannica Image Quest is a database of images which have been rights-cleared for non-commercial, educational use. That means that you can use them in your assignments and teaching.

You must always give a citation with each image you use, which is provided with each picture.

TEACHERS PLEASE NOTE: This resource will be phased out in early 2023 so any images used in teaching resources will need to replaced by then. Unlike an image stock site subscription, we do not own downloaded Britannica images in perpetuity.