Research Guides: 3 Minute Thesis (3MT): Images

Live Help

Tools for Finding Images

Remember: even if an image is in the public domain, you should still cite it! For the 3MT slide, the citation text can be small and out of the way.

TRU Library image databases - permitted to use images for educational purposes

CCCA Canadian Art Database
The CCCA Canadian Art Database, established in 1997 by Bill Kirby, Director of the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, is now permanently housed at Concordia University, under the auspices of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, which is a Research Centre within the Faculty of Fine Arts. Includes artists, writers, designers, curators, and CCCA documentation projects, and art images.

Public Domain Images

Public domain: the copyright on public domain photos (and other works) has either expired or otherwise doesn't exist. You may use public domain work without worrying about getting permission, but you should still cite them, because they are not your work!

Getty Open Content Program
You can find these images by conducting a search on the Getty Search Gateway and then filtering your results by checking the box next to "Open Content Images", which is the second option in the Highlights section of the filters in the left menu. All images found through this program should be credited as "Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program"
Google Images
Use Advanced Search / Usage Rights / "Creative Commons licenses"
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images that are in the public domain will be marked as such.
NASA Image Library
NASA still images, audio files, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format, generally are not copyrighted.
Pixabay
See FAQ under Help for information regarding re-use of images.
Public Domain Review
a collection of images, books, films and audio files that are available in the public domain. The collection can be browsed by medium, time period, tag and source.
Rijksmuseum
Images on the Rijksmuseum website are fully searchable and downloadable. Each item that has entered the public domain includes this information in the section of the item description entitled acquisition and rights.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Image Gallery
Because the images were mostly taken for the government, virtually all are in the public domain. Any images that are not in the public domain are marked as such.
Wikimedia Commons
Freely usable media files (images, audio, video). Check the image summary for details on permitted use.
Yale University Art Gallery
You can find more information on properly attributing images on the Art Gallery's Terms of Use page.

Creative Commons Images

For more info on creative commons, click here.

Creative Commons Search
Search a variety of media.
Compfight
Refer to "Learn about Photo Licenses" for information about re-use of images.
PhotoPin
This image search engine returns both Creative Commons and non-Creative Commons images. When you download any image, you can also download the necessary HTML to appropriately attribute the image to its creator.
Bucketlistly
Devoted to CC BY-NC licensed travel photos.
Europeana, 1914-1918
Europeana is an online collection of content from European libraries, archives, museums and other institutions. Once you run a search in their search bar, you can limit your results to items that are freely usable or available under a Creative Commons license using the facets under Copyright in the left menu.
The Stocks
This website collects sites that offer access to high-resolution images available for use under Creative Commons licenses. Most of the sites offer the images under CC0 licenses and all of the sites clearly state how their images are licensed.
Multicolr Search Lab
allows you to search for Creative Commons-licensed images by color

Vector & Raster Graphics

Vector based images (.ai, .eps, .svg, and some .pdf) are based on a mathematical equation. For example, if your image is a circle in vector format, that circle is simply a mathematical formula. If you resize that circle by 1000x, the mathematical formula would still calculate that circle in proportion. This means that no matter how you resize vector images they will scale properly and there will never be any pixelation.

Raster based graphics, (.bmp, .jpg, .png, .gif, .tif, etc.) are based on a grid of pixels or dots. The pixels represent certain colors that make up a bigger image and are resolution dependent. When you resized a raster graphic, they eventually start to pixelate due to the pixels being “stretched” beyond their original size.