Free graphics resource?

When @woofytalk asked about free, non-copyrighted photos, replies from @pty, @jbennet and @andyki pointed to several good starting places. Modern, reliable libraries that complement those suggestions include Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay and large reference collections such as Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress prints and photographs. These sources commonly provide permissive or public-domain assets, but each image must be checked individually.

Quick checklist to reduce legal risk:

• Verify the license shown on the image page (some sites use their own license, others CC0/Creative Commons). See the CC0 public-domain tool for context: CC0 1.0.
• Look for model or property release info when people or private property appear; absence of a release can block commercial use.
• Avoid unaltered resale of images and obvious trademarked logos.
• Save a screenshot or copy of the image page and license text as a project record.
• Run a reverse lookup (for example TinEye) if provenance or prior use is unclear.

Basic implementation and performance pointers:

• Resize to the actual display size, compress or convert to WebP/AVIF (tools like Squoosh help).

• Use descriptive alt text and a srcset/sizes strategy for responsive pages. Example:

  <img src="hero-800.jpg" alt="office team meeting" srcset="hero-400.jpg 400w, hero-800.jpg 800w, hero-1600.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width:600px) 100vw, 800px">

These steps supplement the links already posted in the thread and keep landing pages visually strong while reducing legal exposure.