Top Websites for free Images and Textures

If you are beginner in creating digital Artwork or you are a professional and you do your Artwork just for fun. It is sometimes hard to find the right materials like images or textures.
Here are my favorite Website which are providing free Images. These images are under the Creative Common license and are free for private and commercial use. But wait, the meaning of"free" does variate on the different Websites especially for commercial usage.
For your own safety and the safety of your wallet always read the license text about what is allowed and what is not.

Pixabay.com

http://pixabay.com/

Pixabay has one of the friendliest license programs out there, the Creative Commons CC0 license. Which does mean that you are absolutely free to do whatever you want to do with the images.

 

Flickr.com

https://www.flickr.com/

Flickr is one of the biggest photo collections. You can filter the content by Creative Commons license. But be aware of the terms of the Attribution 2.0 Generic. Which means you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and you have to indicate if changes were made.

Textures.com

http://www.textures.com

formerly known as cgtexture.com

Beside the paid subscription you can download  15 megabytes a day. If you need a higher quality you will need to subscribe. The license is quite permissive because all free textures can be used for free, even for commercial purposes.

Freeimages.com

http://www.freeimages.com

formerly known as sxc.hu

Slightly more restrictive licensing terms, but still the pictures can be used for free in many cases

  • in digital format on websites, blog posts, social media, advertisements, film and television productions, web and mobile applications
  • in printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, product packaging
  • for decorative use in your home, office or any public place
  • or personal use

For more informations please visit the License Site of Freeimage.com

imageafter.com

http://www.imageafter.com

In the imageafter.com 'image' directory you can expect free high resolution images of objects, places, animals, mechanics, insects, signs, circuits and plants etc. All stock photos can be freely downloaded and used in you commercial or personal works.

deviantart.com

http://www.deviantart.com

There are a lot of free images on Deviantart.com but you have to be aware that you have to accept the individual terms of the contributors. Before you use images of some user on Deviantart ask for permission or read the terms of usage.

These are my prefered  sources for free images, nevertheless if you do commercial work and you are not sure about the license you should only use images provided by Image-Stock-Agencies like Texture.com, Shutterstock, Fotolia or Dreamstime to prevent any lawsuits against you which are costs a lot more money then the appropriate license for the Image.

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