Free Textured Backgrounds

There are a a great many sources of free textured backgrounds Online.  While these days I generally make my own, in the past and sometimes still today, I go on a hunt for the perfect texture or background to use in my art and design.  I’ve also collected textured backgrounds and modified them to suit my project.

Firstly, I would like to offer up some free textured backgrounds of my own creation.  I offer these images under an Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons license.  So, you can do whatever you like with them on a non-commercial basis as long as you give credit to photoluminary.com.

A great source of free textured backgrounds in DeviantArt, if you can get past the pervasive tween, teen and early twenty something culture there.  Personally, as a 37 year old female artist/photographer and mother, I can tend to grow weary of that aspect of the site.  However, if I just stick to my original purpose when browsing there, which is typically the acquisition of good artistic resources, I don’t mind much.  There are a vast number of free textured backgrounds to choose from, and more are submitted each and every day.  In addition to textures and backgrounds, there are many other categories of free stock, which you may find useful.

Flickr is another great resource of free textured backgrounds, among other things.  I much prefer the culture at Flickr, which seems to be less “youth” obsessed and more about serious artists and photographers of all ages, who want to share their work and network with others.  I do enjoy interacting with the Flickr community, as well as sharing and collecting resources.  It’s a great place to share your more artistic photography for feedback.  Recently, a printing company spotted a few of my vineyard shots there and used them in their 2011 calendar.  So, I see my photography all over Napa County now hanging on walls in various retail establishments.  Yay!  A pleasant and unexpected perk from my involvement with the Flickr community.

Texturevault is a great site for textured backgrounds to be used for commercial purposes.  While not free, you can get an image at the highest resolution for only $6.00 and the smallest version for only $2.00.  Like iStockphoto, Shutterstock and other premium stock image sites, every texture at Texturevault must be approved by a reviewer prior to being posted at the site.  As a contributor at Texturevault, I have often found them to be a little more strict than iStockphoto and about as strict as Shutterstock.  The site is very easy to navigate and has an attractive interface.  The fact that all the images are moderated also means that you won’t be wading through page after page of substandard textured backgrounds in order to find a few good ones.