Visual Literacy: Find Images and Visual Info
Subject Guide
Campus Resources
- Visual Resources CenterDigital images, slides, and other media
Visual Search Tools
Most image search engines rely on keywords to find images. These don't. Try them out to find images by color, visual content, texture, and other visual properties.
- Multicolr SearchSearch for images by color(s)
- TinEye Reverse Image SearchUpload a photo and see where it's been used before on the web
- PicsearchAgain stock photos, some royalty free, some not.
Image Databases
- ARTstorOver 1 million digital images in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, and history of science.
- Digital Media CenterAn OhioLINK product, the Digital Media Center (DMC) provides widespread access to images, sounds, video, numeric data, and other types of media information for the community and the world. Contents are supplied by members of the OhioLINK community. Currents collections include: Foreign Language Database, Encyclopedia of Physics, Social Sciences Database, Historic and Archival Materials, Sandborn fire insurance maps, Art and Architecture Database, Landsat 7 satellite images
- Unesco PhotobankUNESCO’s online photolibrary displays thousands of photos on the Organization’s activities. You can choose the images that interest you and see the information you need for each one of them on your screen
- Getty ImagesSome royalty free images, some proprietary.
Web Resources
Could add more to this (esp. other stock photo sites)
- FlickrMillions of photos and videos. Can limit search to items with Creative Commons licenses
- Wikimedia CommonsMillions of images and videos that can be freely used
- Stock.xchngRoyalty-free stock photos. Must create an account to download. Some images are free, but some aren't.
Historical Sources
- American MemoryHistoric American materials. See the section on photographs.
- Internet ArchiveMoving images (classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts), audio and texts.
- Ad* AccessOver 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955.
- Emergence of Advertising in AmericaOver 2,800 advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States.
- AdFlipAds from 1940- present. Includes top e-greeting cards. Not copyright free, parts subscription, parts free after registering.
- AdCouncil AdsHistoric PSA announcements. Including Smoky the Bear and Keep America Beautiful (crying Indian).
- Greater Cincinnati Memory ProjectCincinnati images
- Ohio MemoryImages and documents.
- Images of the American Civil WarImages of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera provides a vivid visual history of a nation in crisis. Thousands of dramatic images from the fields of battle, the home front, politics, and general society allow students and researchers to experience and bear witness to the events, both monumental and mundane, of the war that tested and defined the core meaning of America.
- British Library Images OnlineImages covering the breadth of British history. Searching is free. Cost for reproduction.