Cranial Soup

New Art and a New Blog

2012-02-29T06:25:00.001-05:00

I recently redesigned and moved my old RussoGraffix art site to Blogger. From now on I'll be posting all my art releases there, instead of here.

To celebrate the occasion, I have released 6 new CC-BY licensed works for you to use.
Click the images to visit the pages and get the files.

Free Website Banner Graphic: Night Sky

Free PSP Vector: Cube of Spheres

Free PSP Vectors: Dice

Free PSP Vector: Balloons

Free Images: Gold Coins

Free PSP Vector: 4-Leaf Clovers

Tons of Free Stock Photo Sites – Commercial Use OK – No Credit Required

2010-03-27T05:59:00.001-04:00

When you are a blogger, web designer, developer, or creating a product for resale, you might need photos for your posts, templates, and other designs, but you can't just use any photo you find on the internet. That would most likely violate someone's copyright and get you into a heap of legal trouble.
So what are you supposed to do if you don't have a camera or any photography talent?

Stock photos? Sounds good, but most stock photos cost money.

Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr? That could be good too, but that requires a link back and there may be restrictions against commercial use. Can you imagine having to put a long Flickr URL on every t-shirt and mousepad you make? How would you go about giving proper credit on a small 125x125 ad? And if you are making web templates it might not be the best idea to trust people that use your templates to keep the credit links intact.

So where can you get a whole bunch of great photos to use, that don't require a credit link, won't cost you a dime, and allow for commercial use, too?

Fortunately for you, I have done some research into this and found quite a few sources.

Fotolia has a section on their site where they give away free stock photos. The selection is limited, but they change the photos offered on a regular basis. Good for web use. Files must not be displayed in a size bigger than 640x480 pixels. Can not be used in items meant for resale (no printed t-shirts, web templates, etc)

freestockphotos.biz has tons of photos with varying licenses, many of which allow for commercial use, including items meant for resale. Check the license terms included on the page with each photo.

BurningWell.org has nothing but public domain photos. You can do anything you please with them, including items for resale.

Creating Online has free stock photos that are 400x600 pixels in maximum dimensions at 72 dpi, ideal for web use, and the selection of free photos is at the discretion of each photographer. To learn if a photo has a free download version, check its preview page. New free photos are added daily, so check back often. All free photos are covered by their standard license.

Crestock gives away one free stock photo each day. If you hit the site every day, you can build quite a collection. Sometimes they even give away a vector instead of a photo. All material they give away is covered by their standard license agreement. They also have a plugin for Wordpress, that allows you to use many of their photos for free in your blog posts, but it does link back to their site.

Dreamstime offers some free photos (RF-LL), but their standard license doesn't allow redistribution, and they consider print-on-demand items, t-shirts, web templates and other merchandise to be redistribution. They also have an additional limitation for the free photos: the number of copies is limited to 10,000 copies. If you need more than that you have to purchase the photo under the full standard license.

Free Media Goo provides free images, audio files, textures and flash files that you can pretty much do whatever you please with them except use them in propaganda, pornography, or anything suggestive, according to their license.

freerangestock offers photos you can use for just about anything. They request that you give credit, but they also say it isn't required if you don't want to. There is a credit and link requirement if you use their photos as part of a web template, though.

Image*After lets you do anything you want with their photos, as long as you don't use them to set up a stock photo site that competes with theirs.

iStockPhoto gives away one free stock photo each week, under their standard license. They also give away a free vector, video file, and audio track each month. Free membership is required.

KeyStockPhoto has a number of photos and retro images available. Photos are approximately 5" x 7" at 72dpi. They are suitable for all you web and graphic needs. They can be used on your web site, newsletter, advertising, articles, brochures, presentations, reports, promotional materials, print ads, mailers, handouts, packaging, greeting cards.

Morguefile has some very generous license terms that even allow you to sell the images, as images, as long as you have altered it so that it isn't identical to the original.

PDPhoto.org has some really nice images that you can do whatever you please with, as they are all dedicated to the public domain. There are a few sections containing photos that are not public domain, but that collection is a rather small part of the site.

Photogen has images that are good for the standard commercial uses that don't involve redistribution or printing on products for sale.

Photo Rack says there are no limitations on the use of their images.

Pixel Perfect Digital has lots of great images, but you can't use them for items for sale or redistribution, and that includes not using them in web templates.

Public-Domain-Photos.com has images you can do anything you want with, no restrictions.

PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can do anything you want with them, but keep in mind that none of the photos have model or property releases. If you want that type of photo, they do sell some cheap, in the bottom section of the main page.

Unprofound.com was created by designers, for designers and will pretty much let you do anything with their photos except redistribute them as stock photos. The only payment they want is the pleasure of knowing what their work has become. All they want in return is to be able to see what you have done with them, which means either sending them a photo of your product, screenshot of your software, link to your website or template, or whatever other way you can show them what their images have become part of.

Pixmac has a selection of images that you can use, but not in anything considered redistributable (like mousepads, t-shirts, etc.), and at a max of 400x400 resolution on the web. There is an exception to the redistributable rule which would allow for use in web templates, providing they are made for use by one specific client. In other words, you can't use their images in web templates you plan on offering to the general public, where more than one person or company could download and use them.

Do you know of a stock photo site that I might have missed that will allow you to use their images commercially, without credit? Leave me a link in a comment.

The Most Powerful of All Human Rights

2009-06-22T17:59:00.004-04:00

The heroic photojournalist that is responsible for this incredible iconic photo
has been missing since Wednesday. He is believed to have been arrested.
UPDATE: He has been released!

There is one right that every human being on this planet has, that can only be taken away by death.

This one right, at it's most extreme, takes the most courage to exercise but can cause the biggest changes. It's powerful and those with power fear when people feel compelled to use it.

It is the right to say "No", a word that exists in every language and is usually among the first words a child learns to speak. It is a word more powerful than tanks, or guns, or bombs, and when combined with the voices of many others, shouting it in unison, it is possible to wage war and win, without ever striking or attacking with any other weapon.

Citizens of Iran, keep saying "No"!

Whatever it is that the government wants, keep saying "No", unless and until it is what YOU want.

You can and will win, as long as you keep saying "No".

Do not allow yourselves to be silenced.

Keep saying "No"!

Free Buttons: Top Ten (CC-BY)

2009-06-15T13:25:00.002-04:00

A long time ago I created a set of buttons for use on my old art website, to number pages.

Back in those days, I was kind of careless and stupid concerning saving the original templates for my artwork. Instead I saved one blank button with a black background, to match that site, which means I can only use those buttons on sites with black backgrounds.

I really liked those buttons a lot, so I recreated them from scratch today, in much better quality than the originals.

(shown actual size)

With transparent backgrounds, they can now be used on any color website. I also made a set with a slight drop shadow, so they would stand out more on lighter backgrounds.

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, suitable for both personal and commercial use. Just give credit by linking back to this site on any page that you use them, or in your about box if you use them in a desktop application.

Besides using them to number pages, I think they would be great for numbering items in all those “Top 10” lists that so many bloggers seem to be fond of.

And in case you want to do a top 20 list, I have included .psp and .psd source files of both versions, so you can edit and make more buttons (or change the font).

This item has been moved to my art site.

font used on buttons: Adorable

Free Bird Icons (CC-BY)

2009-06-13T18:21:00.003-04:00

Perfect for linking to your Twitter profile or any other purpose in which you’d need a bird icon.
In 16 assorted colors, so you can dare to be a little different and match the colors of your website.

Also included in the full set, are the original Paintshop Pro vectors (.psp).

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, suitable for both personal and commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Blue Bird by app103
Make a custom t shirt on zazzle

Free Header Graphic: Peachy

2009-04-05T05:31:00.001-04:00

Just messing around again, and created another graphic for you to use.

The sample is shown at 50%. Click to see it full size (800x250).

The font used is Aldridge Script SSK.

Zip file includes PSD, PSP, PNG (blank), and JPG (blank).

Download link can be found on my art site.

Free Website Graphics: Header Images

2008-09-23T17:51:00.000-04:00

Playing around in Paintshop Pro again!

Inspired by the trend on a lot of the design blogs to use flourishes and swirly looking things, I decided to take a crack at it and create a pack of images that would be suitable for anyone that designs Wordpress themes, website templates, or just if you want to use it on your own website or blog. Commercial use is OK, do as you wish, just don't offer them for download (together or individually) or claim you made them. You have to make something with them.

There is a total of 60 PNG images in this pack:

1 image with a transparent background
1 image with a white background
29 images with various gradient backgrounds
29 matching gradients images to be used as page or element backgrounds.

Sample shown at actual size:

Samples with some of the gradients (reduced size):

Download link can be found on my art site.

Font used for sample text is Adorable.

Free Clipart: Foodstuff

2008-09-12T11:19:00.003-04:00

I decided to make some clipart and share it. Perfect for a food related site or blog, you may use these any way you wish. Use them to decorate your site, create a logo, make a banner, insert them into posts, printed newsletters, restaurant menus, etc.

There are 26 different images, each with dropshadow, png format, each in 2 styles, both transparent and white backgrounds.

If you like these, let me know and I'll make more. If you use them on your site or blog, share a link so I can see.

Shown at 50% of actual size:

Based on Bon Apetit Font

Download link can be found on my art site.

Barbie Wants to Code

2008-08-20T10:06:00.004-04:00

I thought the idea of branding was taken a bit too far when I saw this, but I think we can take it to an absurd distance and territories completely unknown, by proposing a fun little exercise for your 1337 Photochop skills.

Now that Hello Kitty has her own antivirus (how can you take a product like that seriously?), Barbie is jealous and wants her own programming IDE...and she wants YOU to design it for her.

Your assignment (if you choose to accept it):

Take a screenshot of your favorite IDE.
Drag it into the photo editing software of your choice.
Dress it up Barbie style...all pink, flowery, and quite girly.
Make it look like something Barbie would be proud to code in.
Show it off by posting a link to your creation(s) in a comment.

Here is one I quickly did to give you an idea of what I mean and get your creative juices flowing. I am sure you can do much better than this, with a little thought and effort.

Delphi 6 for Barbie:

How can I make an ad or logo image for my blog if I have no talent?

2008-07-26T06:01:00.008-04:00

You have set up a blog and have been posting to it for a bit.

You have decided to monetize your blog with some ads, like Project Wonderful.

After earning money for awhile, you begin to realize that you could earn even more if you had more traffic. You could have more traffic if you advertised.

After all...

He who has a thing to sell
and goes and whispers in a well,
is not apt to get the dollars
as he who climbs the hill and hollers.

So you have decided to place your own ads on other sites and now need a 125 square image.

The problem is, you are just not that skilled, have no art talent, and you don't want to have to buy or learn something expensive and complicated like Photoshop, just to make a little square ad.

So what can you do? How can you have an attractive ad that doesn't look like a five year old created it in Microsoft Paint?

Well, you could head over to Free 125 Cards and make one with their generator.

No talent or expensive software needed and it only takes a few minutes.

Just select a background from their collection, type in the text you want, choose the font, pick the text size, drag to position it, and click the save button when you are done.

It's that easy. And did I mention that it's free?

Don't just sit there...go make that ad image and get some more traffic!