Great pictures and illustrations improve every blog and every ecommerce site.
I have been involved in blogging and ecommerce for many years and I wasn’t aware of all the great public domain resources that Dr. Morganstern has listed in his post.
And Dr. Justin Morganstern of the outstanding blog First10EM – When minutes matter . . . – shares with the great resources he has found in his post Finding impactful images (for free). He uses these resources for his blog and for his lectures.
All that follows below are from his post Finding impactful images (for free) :
A few well chosen, relevant images can drastically transform the content you create. I use these sources almost every day, trying to improve the look of First10EM and the presentations I give. I think it is essential to be mindful of copy-right, which is why these resources are generally better than just performing a google image search. If you know of any other sources for free, high quality images, please share them below.
- This is my go to for public domain photos. There are a large number of very good photos that are excellent for presentations and websites, and the site is searchable.
- A searchable way to find all the free to use images on wikipedia. Most of these require that you attribute the artist, so make sure to read the permissions.
- All excellent sites with searchable, high quality, public domain photos
- These are also searchable sites with public domain photos, but I have less luck finding great photos than with the above group.
- Flickr has millions of photos, and a lot are high quality, but I rank it a little lower because although some are public domain, many are not, and it can get frustrating sorting through them.
- This group of sites has some really beautiful public domain pictures, but the sites aren’t searchable, so I find them less useful.
Medical specific photo sites
Center for disease control: Public Health Image Library
- A decent place to look for public domain health care images.
US National Library of Medicine
- A few different collections of medical images, most older, but you can find some interesting stuff in here.
- This is a US government site that has head to toe male and female anatomical cross sections from CTs, MRIs, and cryosections. Pretty cool.
- This collection from McGill University offers links to a number of other sites that contain fantastic images from the history of medicine, and more.
- If you need a picture of an eye, this is the site.
Other specific photo types
- The images produced by NASA are generally public domain, and they are out of this world.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s photos are also public domain, and there is some excellent stuff in there.
If you are looking for specific photos in other fields, there are a lot of other US government programs that have public domain photos: Department of Agriculture, Fish and Wildlife, US Antarctic Program, US Air Force Photos, Department of State
