Where can I find free photos online that I can use to practice my Photoshop retouching?

November 15, 2008 10:28 AM

Where can I find free photos online that I can use to practice my Photoshop retouching?

Hi all. I'm looking to improve my Photoshop skills and would like to try my hand at retouching photographs of female models, in the style of something you might find on the cover of a fashion/beauty mag.

Is there anywhere online that'd have a stock of untouched but 'studio shot' photos? I think random, candid photographs gleaned from the net might be unsuitable. I'd naturally like a free source, but would be willing to pay for a source that allowed me to post the retouched images on like a personal blog or site to get crit/feedback.

Thanks!

posted by Chorus to clothing, beauty, & fashion (6 comments total)

Flickr is a great resource, since many users upload full-size images and are available for free under a creative commons license.
posted by jeffrygardner at 10:50 AM on November 15, 2008

I might be blasted for this, but I'm saying it as a photographer.

If you're not going to display the shots anywhere, don't even worry about the creative commons part and just go grab some photos. If you hang around the recently updated part, people are always uploading portraits.
posted by theichibun at 11:25 AM on November 15, 2008

Both answers so far are pretty spot on. The only advantage of going for Creative Commons licensed pictures is you can access the full resolution version, whereas copyrighted images are usually capped at a certain size.
posted by daboo at 12:16 PM on November 15, 2008

I found these the other day on the Retouchpro forums.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 1:05 PM on November 15, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

sxc.hu - Free stock photos, and you can browse by category.
posted by afx237vi at 1:45 PM on November 15, 2008

the Stock Exchange has amazing photos, this is where i get most of mine. The web address is http://www.sxc.hu
posted by shesaysgo at 2:13 PM on November 15, 2008