I've been browsing through the Inspiration Gallery and there are many beautiful images there. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post your photos for others to use and draw from.

However, some of the photos may not belong to those who posted them so I thought I would go over the basic guidelines of what to post in this Gallery.

1. The photograph must belong to you. That means you must have taken it with your own camera and hold the rights to it.

2. If you post a photograph from another internet site, you must have written permission from the photographer or creator to use it on Drawspace or anywhere else.

3. All images on other internet sites are not free for the taking and posting them on this site can be construed as infringement of copyright. Even if you use an image from a 'free' site, you should still check the fine print on that site to see if you are able to post that image somewhere else online. Use of images is often restricted.

4. This Gallery is for photograph reference images, not drawings. Please put your drawings in the Members Gallery.

I understand that the Inspiration Gallery, says just that - things we should be inspired by. You can choose to link to a beautiful image in the General Discussion thread and credit the site and photographer without risking problems. Problems are unlikely if you are using images for educational purposes, but why bother risking it?

Just ask first! Better still, create some of your own photographs and share them.

Is it Ok to post images with my copyright sign on them or if I share them here they become public domain?

If you chose to share them here and allow others to use them for whatever use they wish, there is no need for a copyright watermark on your image. You will always retain copyright over your images, but you may choose to let others make use of them.

they might very well wish to sell them(anybody can create an account and have access to photography and art) and the copyright sign would prevent that while allowing them to draw or paint a landcape from a distant country or a collection item.As long as we don't allow to reproduce phtography from the internet on this site why the holder of the copyright of a photo who is a member here should not be able to protect his work he is displaying for free. Nobody should be bothered with a signature of a photo as long as he/she can draw the subject.And this goes for the weekly challenge too. I have great photography of historical sites around the world which i think offer many challenges for drawing and by allowing me to put my initials will enhance the dull subjects of the same tulip flower and babyface.A good photo these days costs between $100-300, and i think is fair enough that i want to share it with artists on condition of carrying my signature.I don't understand why is Ok for my drawing/painting to carry my signature and not my photography. Photography is an art as much as the fine arts.Yet more likely to be appropiated or manipulated especially when is digital. Why members photography should not be protected on this site?