What Images are Available from the Public Domain?

Images can greatly enhance your website or blog and you can get them for free from the public domain. Whether you need pictures, clip art, cartoons, or a plethora of images, you can find them in the public domain.

What to do with Public domain Posters

You can find a variety of public domain posters on a wide range of subjects. Since they are in the public domain, you can edit them in any way you like and use them as you like. Scale them down and use them as pictures, ebook covers, make wallpaper out of them, the possibilities are endless.

Themed Posters

A search for War posters, for example, led to hundreds of government pamphlets from World War II that are in the public domain in addition to World War II posters. Can you imagine how you could use these images and pamphlets on a site or blog about World War II? The possibilities are endless! In fact, the government is a rich source for all kinds of public domain documents and images. Be prepared to devote some time to searching for public domain material because you can spend hours and hours searching and become so enthralled with what you find that you forget you had originally set out to make a quick buck!

Clip Art

You can do so much with clip art and editing and resizing it is easy too! You can add clip art to virtually anything and really make it stand out! While you will find many sources of free clip art online, not all of them are truly in the public domain. Openclipart.org states that all clip art on that site is in the public domain and they have a huge library of clip art images. However, you’ll also run across many sites that let you use their clip art images for free if you cite the source or provide a link back to the source. Make sure you realize the difference as you won’t be able to modify or sell clip art that is not in the public domain.

Pictures

Pictures can liven up blogs, ebooks, articles, and almost any form of the written word if used correctly. While the Internet is rich with free pictures and stock photos, they are not all in the public domain. Be extremely careful if you are using free pictures or images that are not in the public domain because if you decide to sell a product that contains one of those images or pictures, you could be in trouble if doing so is against the author’s rules for use. Because of this, it is best to use only those pictures that are truly in the public domain if you are going to be reproducing them or selling the work.