'Tis the season for some foraging for free stuff, and recently someone asked PS 911 where the best "free" photos and art could be found. YES ... again this is Photoshop Madness because there are some good ones -- but as usual, there are some very bad ones as well! So we're going to show you three not-so-good ones, so you'll know what to watch out for, then we'll show the top three BEST, which should actually fill all your needs ...
PHOTOSHOP MADNESS is where you practically go mad trying to find the most useful stuff for Photoshop!

Public Domain Pictures

This page is a repository for public domain images. It is maintained solely by its users, who can upload and download images for free. Some photos require a model or property release, when used commercially. This, however, is a general requirement for photos. Material can easily be browsed by various categories, including professional or seasonal photos. Image tags allow an easy search.
CAUTION: this site seems to cleverly mix in pay$$ photos with the freebies, as well as Google sponsored ads. (Location: Czech Republic)
publicdomainpictures.net

RepublicDomain

RepublicDomain is a place for free public domain photos and desktop wallpapers. Unless something is clearly marked as being copyrighted, you can assume it is free to use. But if you intend to use an image you find here for commercial use, please be aware that standards for such use are higher. Specifically, you should assume no model release was obtained. And pictures featuring products or property should be used with care.
GOTCHA CAUTION: if you click on photos in the lower half of the arrival page, you're taken to a commercial site that is NOT free. All of their photos are surrounded by Google AdSense photos and will easily be confused for public domain. (Telaviv, Israel)
republicdomain.com

Public Domain Zorger

Public-domain.zorger.com is a sub-domain site of Zorger.com. They have several domains pointing to this directory including FreeImagesCollection.com. We list this one because it's a library like archive of various images, illustrations, photos, art, cartoons, pictures, clip art, artwork and scans from old books. Ignore rude web design and misspelled words, etc.
GOTCHA CAUTION: At first this site was suspect because they're a GoDaddy site under the masked "Domains by Proxy, Inc." system, a system reportedly created by scammers, phishers and rogue cybercrime organizations in order to elude law enforcement detection.
Try a search:

GOOD GIMP : A Community-Indexed Photo Archive

The photo archive at Gimp-Savvy.com has more than 27,000 free photos and images, consisting of over 2.5 Gbytes of data. The goal is to make this archive a resource for collage and photo-montage using digital image editing techniques such as those described in Chapter 7 of Grokking the GIMP.
Example : Gimp-savvy search for "snow"
Master Keywords Page
Gimp Savvy Photo Archive

GOOD Dot Gov Watch

Probably one of the best, and most honest, copyright-free photo libraries: a blog monitoring US federal, state, and local government websites ... their slogan is : DotGovWatch Exposing the good, the bad, and the buggy
The Best Copyright-Free Photo Libraries : DotGovWatch
Try their search engine:

BEST - The Motherload: Wikipedia Public domain image resources

Public domain image resources is a copy of the master wikipedia page at Meta, which lists a number of sources of public domain images on the Web. The presence of a resource on this list does not guarantee that all or any of the images in it are in the public domain. You are still responsible for checking the copyright status of images before you submit them to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: Public domain image resources
... and the HUGE collection at Pixabay

More than you can see

The problem is finding the shot you want. There are so many images, it would take years and years to look at all of them, in fact it would be impossible! It's been estimated that ten-thousand new images are uploaded every minute of every hour of every day. So the best policy is find an index that lists the most -- and offers the best search facility you are comfortable with, and have fun. I can assure you -- we'll be covering more in these pages! It's total madness... kind of like Photoshop Madness!

Don't let Photoshop Madness get you down!

There are always lots of spectacular Photoshop images and visuals out there! Share them! We'll be back shortly with MORE Photoshop Madness ... and please -- BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU SURF ... but when you do find a great Photoshop practitioner, or a good Photoshop tutorial, please share it with us! If you create Photoshop Tutorials yourself, please post your info here so you can be considered for a Photoshop Fave!

Of course, some of our favorite editions of Photoshop Madness can be found in the legacy Photoshop Tips & Tricks web site!
See the last edition of Photoshop Madness

thanks for reading

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