I thought it would be useful to have a sticky thread with links to sites that contain public domain images, ones we can use in our GIMP creations without attribution, for commercial and non-commercial applications. Please contribute your favorites to the list.

http://pixabay.com/
http://clker.com/
http://public-domain-photos.com/
http://freedigitalphotos.net
http://imagebase.net
http://pdpics.com/
http://pdphoto.org/
http://www.4freephotos.com/
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov
http://photorack.net
http://morguefile.com/archive

Chinese Site With Cool Depth Maps and Other Art
http://www.nipic.com/design/25/12.html

a search engine to find CC images on several sides

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://zentextures.com/ - download entire collection of 400 + textures for 29 dollars or one at a time free. I prefer 1 at a time.

http://texturemate.com/ - i believe there is a limit to daily downloads on this site however.

Great thread idea.

I'd start with the obvious http://www.cgtextures.com and http://www.deviantart.com

Very good thread!
Until now I had been borrowing the images found from Google. Now I will try to use some of these free images.
Thanks all for the links!

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the J Paul Getty museum in California, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC provide downloads of thousands of works in their collections.

NOT http://www.deviantart.com most images there are strictly copyrighted,
even most of the "stock" has restrictions on the use that may be very severe, some even absurd
anyway there is only a little percentage of CC works

and many of them seems have used CC license by misunderstanding :
you may see often works with huge centered watermarks , or with severe warnings respect of copyright , in images licensed as CC on Deviantart)

Yeah, you just gotta be careful the images are actually Public Domain. Check the license they are released under before you use.

yes but we are listing here sides for public domain images , deviantart may be searched for CC images ,but is the same for any other side.

One amazing source of CC or anyway Public Domain images

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Flickr commons

http://www.flickr.com/commons

I may add link for Google image search restricted for Public Domain and similar but are all directly accessible ,as buttons from the first link i posted http://search.creativecommons.org/

Thanks for url's, I add a new section called
Public Domain Pictures, to my Gimp-surfr.scm file help assistant
and added all these sites.

The USC-SIPI Image Database
http://sipi.usc.edu/database/database.php

The home of Lena.

I didn't know this links , really excellent, thank

the most amazing for easy use and direct accessibility of the content is the Rijskmusuem (that offer even virtual galleries to host and share derivative works ) followed by National Gallery of Art in Washington .
Paul Getty M has also excellent material but the access to hi res version slowed down by form to fill each times (just 2 question to answers but that slow much down and is a bit irritating , if has to be done several times )

The Getty only just created their open archive a week ago and it is still a work in progress. They plan to improve access and collaboration with other collections and are open to suggestions on how this should best be accomplished.

Also for those who might be interested, the Getty has contributed over 11,000 public domain books on art and artists to the Internet Archive.

If I'm not using my own captures, I nearly always get me play images at the Free Photos Index.

http://www.fontplay.com/freephotos/

Another way to use Google Image Search.
Google Image Ripper
More info, Handy Systems Makes Google Image Search Easier To Use
(Of course permissions still apply.)

Kalev Leetaru has been culling public domain books in the Internet Archive and extracting the images from the original scans (BBC story). He has thus far uploaded over 2.6 million images to Flickr.

While most of the images comprise prints made from plate engravings (such as you'd see on paper currency) and are monochromatic, the collection spans over five hundred years and provides broad coverage of how imagery has been used.

That is a pure gold collection.

1.4 Million Free Graphic Files for Download (Vectors - Photos - Icons)

http://www.freepik.com/

Thanks Tux. Got the lion head tattoo from the site but I first couldn't open the EPS file in GIMP. Had to get help since I've not had a need to open an EPS file since I got my new computer. lol