Archives
Our collection holds a growing number of images which we have categorised as “Archives”. The images, some of which are unique to Alamy, include the following subject areas:
- Historical figures and modern-day celebrities
- Art and crafts, sculpture, architecture, archaeology and religion
- Historic collections of photographs, illustrations, paintings and film stills
- Science, medicine and war
- Press and reportage archives
- Astronomy and aerial photography
One of the main differences between these images and the rest of the Alamy collection is that the files available may be as small as 5MB. For this reason, they may only be suitable for small print or web use.
Due to the origin of the images you may also find that some exhibit one or all of the following imperfections: small scratches, poor exposure, dirt and dust visible. We consider this to be acceptable due to the intrinsic value of the images and, for this reason, this collection is excluded from our normal quality control checks.
All search results will include Archive images unless you opt to filter them out. You can choose your preference to remove Archive images or small files from your browser session, from the image comp or Advanced Search.