Research Guides: Images in the Health Sciences: Decorative Images

Sample Decorative Images

Image from Pixabay/StockSnap is licensed under CC0

Image from Pixaby/irenne56 is licensed under CC0

Image from wallyir is licensed through Morguefile

Light bulb by Satisfactory from the Noun Project is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Decorative Images

Decorative images used to liven up a presentation or other project may not need to be specifically health sciences related. The sources that follow are good options for decorative images. Copyright applies here too. So be sure to know whether the images are copyright protected, Creative Commons licenses, or in the public domain. Additionally, see the Privacy & Publicity Rights section of this guide.

CC Search
CC Search was developed by Creative Commons to help locate CC licensed materials. See individual images for information on how it is licensed, the original source, and a credit line.
The Noun Project
Offers a collection of icon images and a growing collection of photos. They offer fee-based services for some uses.

Read their terms of use for more information about how icons and photos can be used.

Flickr
The photo sharing site Flickr allows for narrowing searches by CC license.

Filtering instructions:

Enter search terms.
On the results page, locate the drop down menu next to the Any License option.
Change the drop down to All Creative Commons. The feature attempts to filter the results to show only CC licensed images. (Do not rely solely on the filter.)
Click on a given photo to check for sure that it is CC licensed and to determine which license it uses and thus what options for reuse are available.

These images are NOT in the public domain nor Creative Commons licensed. These sites provide images that are free to use under their own licensing agreements.

Morguefile
This site is a free image exchange for creative professionals and teachers. The images are not in the public domain but are licensed under the Morguefile license.

Read the Morguefile license to learn how images can be used, and read the full license for more information.

Pixabay
Offers images that are free to use for commercial and non-commercial purposes and you may use the images with or without modifications, but the images are not in the public domain. (At an earlier time, the images on Pixabay were licensed under CC0. So you may see instances--including on this guide--where Pixabay images were used while they were licensed under CC0 rather than the Pixabay license.)

Read the Pixabay license to learn the full set of terms for using Pixabay images.

Unsplash
Free images that are not in the public domain, but are licensed under the Unsplash license.

Read the Unsplash terms to learn how their images can be used.