The nice thing about public domain images is that you can do pretty much whatever you want with them — use them on your website or even commercially, use them to illustrate your book or CD, and as I demonstrate here — modify them in any way you like. Here, I’ve taken an image of a young woman holding flowers, labeled ‘Flora’ by the photographer, and colorized the image. I’m no expert with Photoshop, but even so I can create a modified version of this image that is much more attractive (in my opinion), and could be used in a variety of ways. Now the question arises, do I own the copyright to this colorized version? That is not clear. If it is different enough from the original to constitute a new work — minor changes are not sufficient — then it is a copyrightable derivative work. Is colorizing a minor or major change? Seemed minor when I did it — took about 5 minutes. In any case, if this qualifies as a derivative work, I hereby place it in the public domain. The original would remain in the public domain regardless of any derivative I might produce.

The original photograph was taken by Edwin James McCullagh of Stockton California, about 1900. Edwin was born in Michigan in January of 1870, and is listed with his wife and baby son in the 1900 census in Stockton California. In the 1920 and 1930 censuses they are found in Berkeley California. In the 1920 census 21 year old son Gavin is also listed as a photographer.