Here’s an awesome tutorial on building a 3D cityscape in Motion from Andy Neil.

This is a common question and there are several answers:

First, the Final Cut Pro Canvas usually shows titles and graphics more pixelated and lower quality than the actual quality. Render a title and play it on a real monitor – or render and export a 10 frame test to disk and view to see the true picture.

Read these articles on monitoring: http://www.dvcreators.net/tag/monitoring/ for more info.

If you are rendering to the DV codec, you will see an instant drop in quality. But don’t worry, as long as you export to a lossless codec your final project will look great.

This article shows how to export in high quality.

If you are delivering on SD DVD, you have a challenge. NTSC and PAL are not perfect formats- and SD is low resolution and fuzzy. If you’re a graphic artist used to creating crisp, clean pixel perfect graphics in Illustrator or Flash on your expensive LCD display, you’re in for a big surprise. Keep your fonts and graphics big and bold, and put a drop shadow or slight glow on your titles. Keep checking on an external NTSC or PAL monitor if your project is slated for SD delivery. Watch TV and see what graphic styles look good on your TV set- and model those.

Here’s a list of nevers:

1. Never trust the Canvas Window to show quality
2. When using Motion or Livetype, never render to a lossless codec like DV before importing into FCP – import the project or render to a lossless codec
3. Never export from FCP using H.264 or any other lossy codec – always use a lossless codec (PJPEG at 90% – 100% is an exception)

For more info, check out:

Final Cut Pro Foundations

Final Cut Express Foundations

Click the screenshot to watch a first look at the new motion tracking behaviors in Motion 3.

Click here to ask a question about Motion.

This exploration of lights in Motion 3 is now available for free download through DVcreatorsUniversity.

Click here to ask a question or make a comment about Motion.

Michael Wohl’s Motion PowerStart is a comprehensive training course for Motion containing three clear, fun, and practical hands-on tutorials plus a section on integrating Motion with other Apple programs. It was written by Michael Wohl, a member of the official Motion documentation team, along with Josh Mellicker of DVcreators.net.

Motion PowerStart excerpt 1
Motion PowerStart excerpt 2
Motion PowerStart excerpt 3
Motion PowerStart excerpt 4
Motion PowerStart excerpt 5

(We are working on an update to this product that will fully address the new features in Motion 3. This version of Motion PowerStart is 100% applicable to Motion 3, and still the world’s best way to learn Motion, but it does not cover the Replicator or 3D layers.)

Everyone knows that we learn best, and retain the most of what we’re taught, when we learn in the context of actually creating real-world projects. We also learn best when we’re having fun, and those two concepts form the basis for the style of training contained on this unique DVD-ROM. In three practical lessons you’ll learn how to master all the major features of Motion, learning in an incremental, intuitive way.

Starting with a simple project creating a TV bumper, you’ll get your feet wet gently and before you know it, you will be swimming confidently, with a solid understanding of the Motion workflow. From there, lesson two takes you deeper into the Motion aquarium. You’ll be using Motion’s powerful and unique tools such as Behaviors, Particle Systems, and Keyframing.

Finally, in lesson three you go out into open water, divemaster Mike at your side, and you’ll build a beautiful DVD menu, utilizing the skills learned in the earlier lessons, but now taking advantage of some of Motion’s most powerful features, including the Keyframe Editor, Parameter Behaviors, Masks and Custom Text Sequence Effects.

By the end of the course, you’ll have the skills and the confidence to create your own incredible title sequences, DVD menus, animated logos, and other motion graphics projects and best of all, you’ll have fun doing it!

Most importantly, though, you’ll learn by doing; by facing and overcoming the creative obstacles you will likely encounter in your own work, and understanding why the software works like it does, rather than just memorizing how it works. You’re not just going to learn how to use Motion, we predict you’re going to become addicted to it’s surprisingly fun interface. And all the while you’ll also be learning the good habits and common techniques of motion graphics professionals.

Michael Wohl’s Motion PowerStart is presented in the DVcreators.net next-generation “chunkalized” learning environment, light-years beyond any other teaching method. Unlike books and other DVDs, in Michael Wohl’s Motion PowerStart you will actually build real-world projects yourself, hands-on, step-by-step, with your virtual instructor explaining each concept, tool, and technique clearly and concisely as you go.

Michael Wohl’s Motion PowerStart is the world’s best learning experience for mastering Motion’s unique and sophisticated motion graphics creation environment, whether you are a professional motion graphics artist, editor or new to the field.

Michael Wohl is an award-winning filmmaker, author of “Editing Techniques with Final Cut Pro” and the Apple Pro Training series Advanced Final Cut Pro manual. Michael has a unique level of experience with Motion, having worked with the Apple Motion development team since December of 2003 writing the official Apple documentation. For five years he served as one of the principal designers of Final Cut Pro and is now considered one of the world’s leading experts on digital filmmaking.

Motion PowerStart course on DVD-ROM
For new users to professional motion graphics artists
Requirements: Mac OS X, QT 6+, 1280 X 854 monitor, DVD drive
Availability: Now shipping!
Price: $79.95 SALE PRICE $30.00!

more information

Chunkalized™ learning.

In our innovative, patent pending “chunkalized” step-by-step learning environment, each section is presented as a series of clear, easy-to-understand “learning chunks”. You must verify that you comprehend and have completed each step and action in the process before your virtual instructor moves on.

Hands-on training.

To master any software, you must do, not just watch. PowerStart is the best kind of hands-on training there is- guided by expert instructors, you build the tutorial projects yourself. There are always opportunities to take time and experiment so you are actually comprehending each tool and each action you’re executing.

“In-context” learning.

Unlike other products that cover tools and concepts in a jumbled, unrelated order, each and every concept and action presented on this DVD is in the context of completing a real world task. So, when working on your own projects, you’ll immediately be able to put what you’ve learned to work.

Self-paced.

Learn at your own pace. Quickly move through sections you understand, make your virtual instructor go over difficult concepts as many times as you need without worrying about other students or the time limits of a class. You have total control.

High Quality.

We use proprietary production methods to deliver crisp, sharp, high quality visuals to your computer screen, unlike fuzzy, headache-causing DVD video discs and VHS tapes. The movies on Motion PowerStart are huge, so you get the whole picture.

No one learns alone.

No one should have to learn alone. Our “Ask a Question” button will allow you to post your question on our Motion forum for thousands of others, including our own industry-leading instructors, to answer. You can ask questions, offer advice, and share tips in a collaborative, organized online environment on the very topic that you are currently learning.

Created by the top experts.

The Motion PowerStart course was created by Michael Wohl and DVcreators.net, the world leader in desktop movie training. We have more experience in Apple digital media software training than anyone else on Earth!

Click here to ask a question about this disc or Motion.

After Effects is the software from whence a new art form, motion graphics, was born.

Motion offers many advantages and disadvantages to AE. The two can work together, AE users can use Motion to generate layers for their AE compositions.

Owners of both, before starting many projects, will have to pause and consider which program to use.

So when would you use Motion?

• projects involving interaction between elements (attracting, repelling, orbiting, bouncing much easier in Motion)
• users needing something cool-looking quickly without having to create it from scratch (because of the large library of text behaviors, particle emitter presets, replicator presets (LiveType also good for this)
• particle emitter design (because of real time playback)
• Designs with repeated elements (because of Replicator)
• prototyping (because of Motion’s real time capability with simple projects)
• easier integration with FCP (don’t have to render a movie)
• matching motion to audio (due to real time playback)
• With complex motion, using Motion behaviors and stacked behaviors is simpler than keyframes

When would you use AE?

• projects needing high quality keying (greenscreen/bluescreen)
• projects needing high quality resizing, rotation, changing tracking, etc.
• as projects get more complex, the AE interface handles projects with dozens or hundreds of layers better when moving or scrubbing the playhead, manipulating objects, adding filters etc.
• there is such a huge variety of AE plug-ins, some projects depend on them, so a project requiring a special AE plug-in will need to be done in AE
• AE is happy running on any semi-decent Mac or PC made in the last few years, Motion really requires the fastest possible computer with the very fastest video card and a lot of of RAM to be viable in a professional environment
• some features, like Motion Math, offer power to do things Motion cannot
• 2K or 4K projects for filmout
• output to .swf

This is not a comprehensive list, just a general guide. All in all, both programs are so deep and offer so much no one will ever come close to exhausting their potential.

If your projects are going to be delivered on DVD or broadcast, it’s important to have an accurate studio monitor on your desk so you can see your project as your viewers will see it while you’re editing.

Why?

First, many editing programs show you a low quality “proxy” of your timeline, so you can’t judge color correction, brightness, saturation, contrast, how titles or graphics will look, or any other aspect of the picture accurately.

Can I just enable a second computer monitor to show video and that will work?

With some editing programs, you can enable a second monitor to show a pixel-accurate view of the video, which will give you a lot better picture of what your viewers will see in terms of graphics… but color won’t be as accurate. Computer video is based on RGB, not YUV color space. A computer LCD will display a different gamut of color than an LCD TV. For example, some colors are “impossible” in NTSC or PAL that show just fine on a computer screen.

In the past, for DV monitoring, I’ve always used a Sony PVM 14″ studio monitor, it seems the right size for desktop monitoring, plus it usually has a handle right on top, meaning as you go out the door to a shoot you can grab it and bring it on the set as a reference or “safety” monitor while shooting.

Here is a list of such monitors on eBay.

For DV, if your budget doesn’t cover a studio monitor, or if buying one would force you to sacrifice something more important, you might first check eBay for a used one, or, a television is still much better than nothing! A TV with an S-Video input will give you better results than a simple composite connection.

UPDATE FOR MONITORING 1080i HDV:

Professional HD monitors are still expensive.

So, here’s an idea:

You can buy an LCD TV/computer monitor (the lines are being blurred more every day) that can be used for three different purposes.

Read the whole article here.

Notable points:

• Final Cut Studio 2 will be available in May for $1,299, or $499 for the upgrade
• Final Cut Pro 6 has an Open Format Timeline that lets editors mix and match virtually any video format and frame-rate in a single Timeline without transcoding. Hope this works with nesting and media management!
• ProRes 422 format for uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes and support for mixed video formats and frame rates in a single Timeline- nice feature. ProRes 422 will run at about 18-20 MB/sec (normal quality) or 27-30 MB/sec  (high quality) for HD, or 5 MB/sec (normal) to 8 MB/sec (high quality) for SD. So, 6 – 10 times more hard drive space than HDV, but faster rendering and editing (because it’s all I-frame, no B-frame)
• Livetype is still included
• The ability to edit Motion templates with video drop zones and editable text fields directly in Final Cut Pro- this could be a real timesaver.
• Motion 3 has a "multiplane" 3D environment, meaning not true 3D, but flat layers in 3D space, lit by 3D lights and "shot" by cameras that can move through 3D space, like After Effects, which is cool. Individual (flat) letters can move in 3D, and even cooler, 3D particle systems, which could be rotated in tandem with the camera moves of the underlying footage, leading to more realistic composited particle effects.
• Motion 3 has vector based paint tools to allow editors to create brushes with color, particles, video or pictures.
• A motion tracking feature, if it works well, will be very useful.
• You can now use audio volume and frequency to affect any affectable parameter
• Optical Flow retiming means generating inbetween frames that could produce very smooth slow motion.
• From Apple’s Final Touch acquisition comes Color, a separate program with more advanced color grading than Final Cut Pro’s 3 way Color Corrector. The primaries in Color include advanced color correction tools such as gamma, lift and gain adjustments, as well as custom R, G, B and luma curves, and the secondaries provide the ability to isolate specific areas of an image with soft- edged mattes and custom-shaped vignettes. This was a $25,000 program, then $5,000 that is included at no charge in the Studio bundle.

  Professional scopes provide precise monitoring of chrominance and luminance values via waveforms, histograms and new 3D scopes. Color offers a seamless roundtrip workflow where projects can be sent from Final Cut Pro 6 directly to Color for grading, finishing and final rendering with 32-bit float 4:4:4 image processing.

• Soundtrack Pro 2 adds an interface upgrade and surround mixing tools enable users to create 5.1 and stereo mixes in the same project.

  There’s also a royalty- free library of over 5,000 professionally produced foley and sound effects, including over 1,000 surround sound effects and evocative multi-channel music tracks. A powerful new Conform tool enables users to synchronize and track changes between
  picture and sound editorial.

• Apple today also introduced Final Cut(R) Server, a powerful new server application that works seamlessly with Final Cut Studio 2 to provide
  media asset management and workflow automation for post production and broadcast professionals.

Final Cut Studio 2 – Upgrade from Final Cut Studio

Availability: Ships in May
Price: $499.00

Final Cut Studio 2 – Upgrade from Final Cut Pro 1,2,3,4 or FCP HD

Availability: Ships in May
Price: $699.00

Final Cut Studio 2 

Availability: Ships in May
Price: $1299.00

Nattress Big Box of Tricks includes the existing filters from the discontinued Nattress Set 1 and Set 2, as well as several new filters.

The package consists of eight groups of filters, one group of generators and one group of transitions:

Blurs: These filters give you several different ways to blur your image, or parts of your image. Includes: G Cool Blur, G Directional Blur, G Horizontal and Vertical Blur, G H and V Blur Glow, and G Radial Blur.

Extra Touches: In this group you find filters that add a little something to your video. Includes: G Beauty, G Bug Eye, G Earthquaker, G FBM Noise, G Lens Flare, G Reverberator, G Split Screen, G Star, G Theartrical and G Tone Enhancer.

FixIT: Each of these filters addresses a specific problem, and fixes it. Includes G Alpha Expander, G Chroma Smoother, G Copy Channel, G Deflash, G Deflicker, G Field, and G Reinterlacer.

Image F/X: This group of filters modifies the look of your video and includes G Diffuse, G False Colour, G Monochrome, G Posterise, G Saturator, G Saturator Balanced, G Sharpen, G Surreal, G Threshold, and G Tint.

Levels And Curves: These filters are designed to give you precise control over the tones in your video, operating in either RGB or Y’CbCr space for creative control. Although Final Cut Pro has some in-built plugins for Levels and Contrast, they can be tricky to use and do not provide the creative control that these plugins offer. Includes G Contrast, G Detail Contrast, G Detail Levels, G Hyper Contrast, G Levels, G Simple Contrast, G Simple Curves, G Simple Levels, and G Super Levels.

Noise Reduction: Some useful filters to reduce/eliminate static and buzz. Includes: G Chroma Noise Reduction, G Spatial Noise Reduction, and G Temporal Noise Reduction.

Time Tools: These filters play with time and/or fields and frames. Includes G 50 Percent, and G Timelapse.

TV Effects: When you need to create the look of television, with all its quirks and faults, these filters give you the tools you need. Includes G Analogue, G Chroma Shift, G Digital, G Head Clog, G Resolution, G RGB TV, G Roll, G Scratch, G Shift, and G TV Lines.

Transitions: Here you will find several innovative ways to get from shot A to shot B! Includes G Burn, G Directional Blur Dissolve, G Dissolve, G Glow Dissolve, G Horizontal and Vertical Blur Dissolve, G Lens Flare Transition, G Long Dissolve, G Sharp Dissolve, and G Spring.

Generators: Look here for plug-ins to create animated lines for your next Indianna Jones style epic, animated video strips, countdowns, bar graphs or random symbols for alien manuscripts. Includes G Bars, G Countdown, G FBM Noise Generator, G Fields and Frames, G Laser, G Lines, G Long Lines, G Random, and G Video Strip.

Nattress Big Box of Tricks visit  http://nattress.com/

FxFactory Pro is first choice for any FxFactory user looking for the richest combination of plug-ins and features.

150 Plug-ins Included
Start with the Motion Pack (40 plug-ins) and Editing Pack (40 plug-ins), both included with your purchase of FxFactory Pro.
Enjoy exclusive access to the 70 plug-ins in the FxFactory Pro Pack.

Unique Features
Modify and create your own plug-ins for Final Cut Pro and Motion without writing a single line of code.
Solve specific tasks with custom plug-in development.
Share your plug-ins easily with other FxFactory Pro users.
Sell your plug-ins by joining the growing number of companies that are using FxFactory to deliver plug-ins for Final Cut Studio.

Noise Industries FxFactory Pro
Availability: Usually ships same/next business day
Our Price: $399

Bare Feats is at it again, with speed tests of the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros:

To separate a subject from a background, you can either:

1. shoot in front of a greenscreen/bluescreen, then key out the background in postproduction

You can also key out a background that is much darker or brighter than your subject, but it usually takes a little more work, because often your subject will have pixels that are darker and/or lighter than the background, so there there will be holes in your subject that must be “patched” with a garbage matte. If your subject is not moving much, this is much easier than if you have to do a lot of keyframing on the matte.

*NOTE: there an excellent section on lighting a greenscreen on this DVD:  

2. have a team of rotoscopers (or just you) manually “cut” the subject out of the background frame by frame

There are advanced tools that help rotoscopers, but consider how long it takes to do a decent job cutting a subject out of the background in Photoshop. Now multiply that by 30 and you have one second of footage.

So, if it takes you 5 minutes per frame, that’s 150 minutes per second of final footage. For a ten second sequence, that’s 1500 minutes, or about 25 hours of work. For a national spot, this is probably worth it!

For a minute of final footage, plan for 150 hours of work! A team of three people could get this done in a week.

If you’re using Final Cut Pro, you might need more than 8 points, sadly.

Here’s a 50 point matte plugin.

Peter Wiggins has created some interesting Motion templates for download here.

Motion is a software program from Apple that was released in August 2004.

It is used primarily for motion graphics, e.g., animated intro sequences, though it can be used for all kinds of things from special effects to be layered with video to physics demonstrations, titling, generating textures for 3D apps or whatever.

Motion is particularly strong in what it can do in real time, and also its use of drag and drop behaviors, saving a lot of keyframing work, and its excellent library of particle systems and filters.

It is deep and sophisticated, but the documentation is excellent, being written by Michael Wohl, co-designer of Final Cut Pro, a top Motion expert, and a darn nice guy.

DVcreators.net offers a Motion PowerStart hands-on training course co-authored with Michael to complement the included documentation.

How does Motion do realtime so well?
So why is Motion being heralded as a breakthrough? For one reason, unlike any other inexpensive motion graphics software, you can perform a lot of operations- moving, resizing, rotating elements, adding text, filters, effects, particle systems- while your animation is looping in realtime.

Most software traditionally utilizes your CPU (Central Processing Unit) in your computer to perform the “work”. In a later model Mac, the CPU is a G4 or G5 chip. In a Windows machine, the CPU is made by Intel or AMD.

However, as PC games became more and more graphically sophisticated, users were compelled to seek ever more powerful video cards, made by ATI and nVidia, for example, that provided a smoother, richer gaming experience by taking over a lot of the graphics processing from the CPU. Indeed, as users upgraded their video cards and demanded computers with better and better video cards, the graphic processing power on a typical video card far outstripped the graphics capabilities of the CPU, with huge “GPU” (Graphics Processing Units” chips with heat sinks and fans looking (and costing) just like their CPU brethren.

OpenGL was developed, a common language for talking to the GPU, so that software manufacturers did not have to write code for every graphics card individually. Originally, 3D apps starting taking advantage of OpenGL to give users fast feedback. Boris added OpenGL support for their plug-ins and RED motion graphics program. After Effects started being able to utilize the GPU for lights and shadows with the 6.0 version. Pinnacle’s Liquid Edition editing software utilized the GPU for many filters and effects.

Motion relies heavily on the GPU for its real-time playback, hence the demanding requirements for video cards. The more powerful your video card, the better real-time performance you will get.

Once it comes to rendering, Motion utilizes the CPU to try and exactly create what you’ve been watching on the GPU in actual image data in RAM or on disk. Depending on the effect and your video card, the final render may or may not have (hopefully small) discrepancies from the realtime version. The final render should certainly should be higher quality than the realtime preview.

When rendering, it’s all CPU- the GPU does not help here. If you are creating a RAM Preview, how much RAM you have determines how much of the animation will fit in memory.

Where is Motion going?
OpenGL provides a lot of functionality not apparent in the 1.0 release of Motion, most notably in its ability to render complex 3D scenes in real-time. For a comprehensive look at what today’s modern video cards and OpenGL are capable of in realtime, just download the demos for Halo, Unreal Tournament, or other graphically advanced game and pay attention to all the textures, motion, lights and shadows, 3D modeling, that are being generated in realtime.

Buy copies of Halo for everyone on your network and put your people to “work” evenings researching realtime graphics. I have found these hours very productive in learning about OpenGL, though some relationships have become strained when team members do not return home until after midnight. But you must admire the dedication to their craft.

I would hope at least simple 3D, like compositing 2D layers in 3D a la After Effects, will be added to Motion fairly soon (3.0?). Also, one would have to guess customizable keyboard shortcuts are coming soon (Shift S for the Arrow tool? That’s crazy!)

Hopefully as the code is futher optimized and refined we’ll see advances in realtime performance and general interface performance. (Or, maybe we’ll have to wait for the 4GHz G7).

Download this compatibility checker and run it.

Apple recommends one of the following graphics cards:

• ATI Radeon X850 XT
• ATI Radeon X800 XT
• ATI Radeon X600 XT or X600 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9600 XT or 9600 Pro
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
• NVIDIA GeForce Quadro FX 4500
• NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 and 6600 LE
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
• NVIDIA GeForce Go5200 or FX 5200 Ultra

Different cards work in different computers.

When moving footage is not available, don’t forget about still photos! You can animate still photos with motion and scale, crop them, apply filters (like sepia, B & W, color tint) and sometimes stills can fill empty spots in your timeline as well or even better than a video clip. Also, many stock photos are automatically HD res!

http://tutorialblog.org/25-places-to-find-awesome-stock-photos-%E2%80%94-free-and-cheap/

Here is a monster list of sites with free photos:

Wikipedia Commons
Stock Exchange
Morguefile
Image After
Free Photos Bank
OpenPhoto
BigFoto
USDA
NASA
NOAA
NPS
Earth from Space
FWS1
FWS2
Picture Station
Geek Philosopher
Free Images
Pixel Perfect Digital
FreeFoto
Image Base
Cepolina
Amazing Textures
Texture Warehouse
PDPhoto
Image Blowout
Piotrpix
Mandragora
Fotogenica
Mayang
Free Photo Station
Cromavista
Afflict
Creativity 103
The Photo Repository
Aarin Free Photo
Stockvault
Designpacks
Unprofound
Four Bees
Insect Images
Free media Goo
Burning Well
A digital Dreamer
Freestockphotos.com
Freewebpics
Lightmatter
Majestic Imagery
Triparalbum
Twice Pix
AboutPixel
Woophy
Pixelquelle
PIX
tOfz
Fontplay
Orangetrash
ArtFavor
ImageTemple
LogoDesignweb
Fotodatebank
Bajstock
PhotoCase
NPS Digital Image Index
Gimp-Savy
DeviantArt

Public_domain_image_resources @ wikipedia.org
Long page of links to websites hosting public domain images.

pixelquelle.de
Some 20,000 free images. You are not allowed to build (commercial) online databases or galleries.

Photoshop Tutorials Blog
An extensive list of over 50 free stock photos resources.

Yoto Photo
yotophoto is a search engine for finding free photos. The nice thing about it is that it searches multiple photo collection sites, so it may make a good starting point when you’re looking for something specific.

Finding Images Online
a Directory of Web Image Sites

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

morgue file
This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.

Pixel Perfect
PixelPerfect? Digital is an image archive with over 4,000 images sorted in 146 categories free for commercial and non-commercial use. The newest files appear on the gallery home page and randomly selected images on the bottom of the page. You can stay on top of the newest files by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Open Photo
The Open Photo Project is a stock photo community and framework devised, implemented and supervised by Michael Jastremski. Its purpose is to allow photographers to share and protect their works through Creative Commons licensing where you can view photo thumbnails by license.

Image After
Image*After is a free online photo collection. Download and use any image or texture from the site to use in person or commercial work per the terms of use. At the top is a drop-down list for browsing images and textures by category or you can use the search box. This well-organized library can be sorted in different ways and the thumbnail pages include the image’s dimensions, number of hits and file size. Plus, you can select how many images to display on each page and even make the thumbnails larger by clicking on the magnifying glass.

PDPhoto.org
PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public domain photos. It contains about 2,000 photographs under a many categories. One person has taken most of the photos.

StockVault
Stockvault is a stock photo resource which offers medium-sized images for personal and non-commercial use. Stockvault has evolved from stock.b-man.dk and features images from various photographers, both professional and amateur.

Buzznet
Buzznet.com is an online photo-sharing community that allows its members (registration free) to upload images from mobile phones, and post, syndicate and republish digital photos in their blogs. For RSS feeds, look at the bottom of each user page, gallery, community gallery and friends listing.

Flickr.com
Flickr.com, bought by Yahoo, is one of the best ways to store, search, sort and share your photos. This online software application and image resource has super features and a community of world contributors, plus it’s s easy to use. Each person publishing images on Flickr can select and specify the type of licensing to be applied to those pictures — from fully reserved copyright to any of the Creative Commons licenses. So look carefully for the explicit author permissions specified on each individual photo page.

Ourmedia.org
Ourmedia is a (still in alpha) non-commercial free clearinghouse for all rich-media content for sharing, re-use and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Jupiter Images

Frimages Royalty free images.

Multimedia @ all the web

Pro Corbis

galerie photos @ l’internaute

Freefotos
Self-proclaimed largest collection of free photographs for private non commercial use.

Creative Commons Search
The Creative Commons Search engine specializes in finding different content on the Web, which have been published with a Creative Commons license allowing re-use, and in some cases even modifying the work.

Gimp Savvy photo archive
The photo archive at Gimp-Savvy?.com contains over 27,000 free photos and images. The images come from three sources: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Though the photos are copyright free, be aware some restrictions apply.

DHD Multimedia Gallery
This isn’t a fancy site, but its photos are free for personal and commercial use. However, be sure to read its terms and conditions. You can browse collections by category, new entries and best photos. Each photo includes information on the date added to the collection, size, image type and rating. Also, the photo details page has the photo’s copyright information.

Free Photographs Network
Free Photographs Network is a resource for royalty-free stock photographs available for non-commercial use. If you use any of the photographs from the site, you’re agreeing to abide by international copyright law. Its terms of service outlines the rules for using the photos from the site. You can browse collections by category or use the search tool.

Free Stock Photos
FreeStockPhotos?.com is a resource for free photography for personal or commercial use. There are some restrictions in using photos from the site such as retaining the domain name when using the photo on the Internet, in a Web page, in printed publications or in any product, advertising or packaging. Categories include animals, Christian, Egypt, Israel, Near East, Rome, scenery, sky/weather and wildflower/plants.

Free Images UK
FreeImages?.co.uk has over 2500 stock photos. To ensure following the Web site’s rules for using its images, read the terms and conditions to ensure following the Web site’s rules for using its images. The home page lists the top three galleries, which is currently the home, financial, and flora.

Free Images.com
FreeImages?.com has over 2300 stock photos. Note this one is FreeImages?.com and it’s not the same site as the one from the UK. You can read the terms and conditions to verify the rules for using the site’s photos.

Big Foto
bigfoto.com is a repository of photos organized by categories and sub-categories. Each sub-category has a brief description about the category. The main categories are America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Pacific, Themes and Miscellaneous.

Geek Philosopher
Geek Philosopher has a collection of photos, backgrounds and wallpaper organized in nine main categories with subcategories. If you use an image, the site requires you to include a link to GeekPhilosopher?. According to the site, you are free to do whatever you want with these photos except redistribute them.

Barry’s free photos
Barry’s Free Photos has over 2300 free and royalty-free stock photos organized by many categories and subcategories.

Holyland photos
Holy Land Photos has over 2400 photos related to the holy lands. The photos represent a diversity of religions with photos sorted into three categories: daily life and artifacts, people and region. Regions cover Jordan, Lebanon, Italy, Israel, Turkey and Greece.

Aar In Free Photo
Aarin Free Photo and Digital Images offers over 950 free photos and images for personal and commercial use. You may download and use the images on your Web site, print ads, brochures or any other end products as long as you display the copyright information per the Web site.

Photo Rogue
Photo Rogue has a unique concept — if you can’t find a picture you need, submit a request to Photo Rogue and you might see your request fulfilled. The site relies on volunteer photographers. Before submitting a request, review the Guidelines. While the service is free, there are no terms on the site regarding the use of photos.

Free Photos
FreePhotos?.com offers over 1000 royalty free photos with no usage restrictions for Web site or print work use. The site doesn’t ask for reciprocal links or credits.

Free Stock Photos
Free-StockPhotos?.com is a collection of (what else?) free stock photos available for use in personal and commercial design projects as long as the terms of use are followed.

tOfz.org
tOfz dot org is one photographer’s collection of everyday urban life. Jeremie Zimmerman, the person behind the site, sorts his photos by location and categories. He shares his favorites. The site uses the Attribution-ShareAlike? 2.0 Creative Commons license and free art license (Copyleft Attitude) from License Art Libre. This site is available in English and French. A small, but respectable collection.

Free Media goo
FreeMediaGOO? has a collection of royalty free images, audio, textures, and Flash available for commercial and private user free of charge except for propaganda, adult or suggestive materials. Credit for the images is not necessary.

AMG Media Works, Inc. Free Photos
AMG Media Works Inc. is a design and photography service company that offers free stock photos for your use as long as you give credit to the photographer, Ernest von Rosen.

US Agricultural Research Service
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) image gallery is a complimentary collection of over 2,000 high quality digital photographs related to agriculture.

Creating Online
Creating Online Stock Photos Gallery is a free stock photo gallery of over 500 photos, most of which have been taken by Pamela Auer Roth. Photos are free for personal or commercial use as explained in the Terms of Use.

Woophy.com
Woophy has a collection of over 23,000 photos from around the world and over 4300 cities are represented. You can search by city, country, category keywords or member to find photos. The categories are animals, culture, landmarks & buildings, objects and people.

Image Base
ImageBase? is a collection of over a few hundred photos on nature, people, city, and objects taken by presumably one person, David Niblack. Though a small database in comparison to others, you can expect to find quality photos here. The site clearly states that “all images are 100% free to use.”

Free Stock Photos from Cepolina Photos
Free Stock Photos from Cepolina Photos contains over 1900 photos by three photographers covering mostly nature and geography.The photos are free (see FAQs for details) as long as the site is credited and that you don’t link directly to the images of the web site as that’s stealing bandwidth.

From Old Books
Pictures from Old Books is a unique collection of over 800 images scanned from old books that are public domain (copyright-free or out of copyright) unless otherwise noted. The site has many pictures of castles, abbeys and old houses.

Majestic Imagery
Majestic Imagery has a collection of over 400 royalty free photos organized by categories. The terms of use require that those who use photos give proper credit with a link back to the site.

Photocase
Photocase contains a repository of photos and a community that includes forums, polls, buddy lists and user profiles. Photos from this site may be used for commercial and noncommercial self-contained original work. You can download up to three photos per day.

Visipix
Visipix is an art museum, clip art, and photo gallery with around 100,000 exhibits. If you publish the photos, the site requires crediting the authors and Vispix.com somewhere near the pictures. Per the copyright page, all copyrights are free. However, they can’t be used in the sex industry or in the promotion of tobacco and alcohol.

BurningWell.org
BurningWell?.org is a repository of over 1400 public domain images for your use. You’re allowed to download, copy and use the photos for any purpose. Photos from from photographers around the world. The site has eight top-level albums (categories) and 27 in total ranging from activities to textures.

Art Favor.com
ArtFavor? has a collection of vector and flash clipart, sounds, fonts, photos, pictures and images that the site indicates, “All artwork and sounds are absolutely free and you can use them in commercial applications.” You can download files in their original or zipped format.

freedigitalphotos.net
Freedigitalphotos.net has over 2000 free images for use in commercial and non-commercial work so long as you don’t claim the works as your own, redistribute them or offer them for sale.

Ixuz.com
Travel the world in pajamas with Ixuz Travel, which is dedicated to collecting photos from around the world. The site has a Korean version of its pages. Currently, the collection has over 2700 pictures sorted in 85 albums and 18 categories.

High quality & free photos

Free photos gallore

Absolut Vision

Fotolia.com

Totally Photos

WebReviews.ca

Pixel Load

Media lytecube

Wikipedia:Public domain image resources

The above sources come to us courtesy of Revolution in Education

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Here is an interesting site with some low cost photos:
http://www.blish.com