Is Tracing a Photo Copyright Infringement?

Is Tracing a Photo Copyright Infringement?

The U.S. Copyright Office lists "a drawing based on a photograph" as a standard example of a derivative work, and the Copyright Act gives only the photo's owner the right to prepare one. So tracing or auto-vectorizing someone else's photo without permission is usually infringement in the United States. It is fine when the photo is yours, in the public domain, or under a licence that allows modification, and drawing loosely from reference is a different question again.

That last distinction is where most designers get stuck, and it is where the courts have drawn the most useful lines. A pose, a subject or a camera angle is free for anyone to use. The particular combination of those choices in one photograph is not. A trace copies that combination line for line, which is why it is the riskiest of the three methods covered below, and why the source of the photo decides almost everything.

What the photographer owns before you open the file

Section 106 of the Copyright Act lists the owner's exclusive rights. Two of them matter for tracing: the right "to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies" (106(1)) and the right "to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work" (106(2)). Section 101 defines a derivative work as "a work based upon one or more preexisting works," including an "art reproduction" or "any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted."

The House report printed with section 106 in the official U.S. Code explains how wide the reproduction right reaches. A work is infringed "by reproducing it in whole or in any substantial part, and by duplicating it exactly or by imitation or simulation," and "wide departures or variations from the copyrighted work would still be an infringement as long as the author's 'expression' rather than merely the author's 'ideas' are taken."

The same report sets the outer edge of the derivative right. The new work must "incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work in some form," and a "programmatic musical composition inspired by a novel would not normally constitute" infringement. Inspiration is outside the right. Incorporation is inside it.

The Copyright Office's Circular 14 then gives designers the plain-language version. Its list of common derivative works includes "a drawing based on a photograph" and "a lithograph based on a painting," and it says: "Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work." The circular adds that "the unauthorized adaptation of a work may constitute copyright infringement."

Put those together and you have the default rule. A copyrighted photo comes with the redrawing right attached, and that right belongs to the photographer or whoever they transferred it to. Everything else in this guide is about the exceptions: photos with no copyright, photos licensed for adaptation, and drawings that take only ideas.

That default and every row below rest on US copyright law and the licence texts as we read them on October 30, 2026. Treat them as background rather than legal advice; other countries handle some of these questions differently.

Three ways to turn a photo into a graphic, and what each carries over

Designers use the word "tracing" for three different workflows. They do not carry the same amount of the original photo into the result, so they do not carry the same risk.

Our reading of the sources is that the first two methods start from a presumption of copying. The output is shaped by the photo by design, so the only open questions are whether the photo is protected and whether you have permission. The third method is where the "ideas versus expression" line actually gets tested, and where the outcome depends on what you took.

Auto-vectorizing changes the format, not the owner

It is tempting to think that converting pixels to paths creates something new. The Copyright Office does not see it that way. Its Compendium of practices (Third Edition, chapter 900, section 917.1) says an art reproduction cannot be protected "based solely on the complex nature of the source work, the apparent number of technical decisions needed to produce a near-exact reproduction, or the fact that the source work has been rendered in a different medium." Among the works it will not register are "mere scans or digitizations of texts or works of art."

That passage is about whether you can register the result, not about infringement. It still tells you how the Office views a raster-to-vector conversion: a change of medium, not new authorship. If the photo belonged to someone else before you pressed the trace button, it still does after. Our guide to free vector graphics for commercial use shows how to spot an auto-traced file in a download, which is often the first sign that the vector's licence is not worth much.

The decision table: source photo by method

This is the core of the guide. Find the row for where your photo came from, then read across to the method you plan to use. The cells summarise the licence text or rule quoted in the sections that follow, read on October 30, 2026. Licence terms change; re-read the current page for the photo you actually use.

"Only general ideas" means a drawing in which the subject, setting, angle and arrangement are your own decisions, with the photo used to check a fact such as how a bicycle chain wraps a cog. And "Yes" in a cell answers the copyright question for the photo only. A photo can also contain a trademark, a recognisable person, or another artist's work, each with rules of its own.

What four stock licences actually say about modifying a photo

Free stock sites are the most common source for tracing, so their licence pages deserve a close read. We read each page on October 30, 2026; none of the three free sites shows a last-updated date.

Unsplash. The licence grants "an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use images from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash." Its two limits are that "images cannot be sold without significant modification" and that the licence does not include the right to compile images to replicate a similar or competing service. The licence page we read says nothing about trademarks or logos either way.

Pexels. The page says: "You can modify the photos and videos from Pexels. Be creative and edit them as you like." The prohibitions include "Don't sell unaltered copies of a photo or video, e.g. as a poster, print or on a physical product" and, the one that matters for logo work, "Don't use the photos or videos as part of your trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name or service mark." Pexels also says identifiable people "may not appear in a bad light or in a way that is offensive."

Pixabay. Its licence summary allows you to "modify or adapt Content into new works." It forbids selling or distributing content "on a Standalone basis," which it defines as use "where no creative effort has been applied to the Content." Like Pexels, it says "you cannot use any of the Content as part of a trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name or service mark," and it restricts commercial use of content that contains recognisable trademarks, logos or brands.

Adobe Stock. The Adobe Stock Additional Terms (last updated September 15, 2023, per the document) grant a Standard licence "to use, reproduce, archive, modify, and display the Work" (section 3.1(A)). Merchandise is barred unless "the Work has been modified to the extent that the new work, as incorporated into such merchandise, is not substantially similar to the Work and can qualify as an original work of authorship," or the merchandise's primary value does not lie in the Work (3.1(B)(2)). Section 7.1(C) forbids you to "register, or apply to register, a trademark, design mark, service mark, sound mark, or tradename, that uses any Stock Asset (in whole or in part)." Section 2 adds that no ownership in the asset transfers to you. Editorial-only assets are stricter: you must not "modify these Editorial Works, except for minor adjustments for technical quality or slight cropping or resizing" (7.2(B)).

The pattern is clear. Free and paid licences alike let you trace or vectorize for ordinary design work. Most of them shut the door on the single use designers most often have in mind when they trace a photo: a logo. We could not read Shutterstock's licence page, so it is not in this table; check its current licence before tracing one of its images.

Creative Commons: the word that decides it is "requiring"

Creative Commons licences turn on one defined term. The 4.0 legal code defines Adapted Material as material "derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor."

The last clause is easy to skim past. A trace or an auto-vectorized copy of a CC photo is almost certainly Adapted Material, because redrawing the photo's composition is the kind of change that needs the photographer's permission. A drawing that borrows only an unprotected idea from the photo, such as the general concept of a cyclist against a sunset, may not be Adapted Material at all, in which case the licence conditions never attach.

One clause looks like a loophole for auto-vectorizing and is not. Section 2(a)(4) lets you "make technical modifications necessary" to use the work "in all media and formats," and says such modifications "never" produce Adapted Material. Saving a photo as a PNG or embedding it unchanged in a PDF fits that clause. An auto-trace is a different thing: it is not necessary to use the photo in a vector file, since the raster can be placed as it is, and it redraws the image as simplified shapes. Our reading is that a trace is an adaptation, not a format change, and the safer course is to treat it that way.

Once you know you have made Adapted Material, the licence elements apply in this order:

• BY. Credit the creator and, under section 3(a)(1)(B), "indicate if You modified the Licensed Material and retain an indication of any previous modifications." A line such as "Vector illustration based on a photo by [name], CC BY 4.0, traced and recoloured" does both.
• SA. If you share the adaptation, "the Adapter's License You apply must be a Creative Commons license with the same License Elements, this version or later, or a BY-SA Compatible License." A traced BY-SA photo used as a client's illustration means the client's illustration goes out under BY-SA too, which most clients will not accept for a brand asset.
• NC. NonCommercial means "not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation." Client work, merchandise and a product's marketing all fail that test on any ordinary reading.
• ND. The BY-ND grant lets you "reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and produce and reproduce, but not Share, Adapted Material." You can trace an ND photo for practice; you cannot publish the trace.

Our Creative Commons licences guide has the full table of the seven tools and what counts as a modification under ND, including recolouring and cropping. The point for tracing is narrower: a trace is a modification, so read the licence as if you were remixing, not reusing.

Public domain photos: free to trace, thin to own

A photo in the public domain has no copyright to infringe, so any method in the table is open. Whether a particular photo is in the public domain is the hard part. It depends on publication date, notice, renewal and, for U.S. government images, who took it. Our companion guide on how to tell if an image is public domain works through those tests and the year cut-offs, so they are not repeated here.

Two things follow from tracing a public domain photo that people rarely expect.

First, your version gets very little protection. Circular 14 says "the copyright in a derivative work covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work," and that using public domain material "will not prevent anyone else from using the same public domain work for another derivative work." If you auto-trace a 1920s photograph, a competitor can trace the same photograph and you have no claim against them.

Second, a faithful trace may get none at all. Compendium section 313.4(A) says the Office "cannot register a work that has been merely copied from another work of authorship without any additional original authorship," and gives "a photocopy or scan of a photograph" as an example. A clean auto-trace sits close to that line. The protectable part of your work is what you added: the simplification choices, the new colour palette, the elements you drew yourself.

A scan or photo of a public domain painting is a further trap. Compendium section 909.3(A) says a photograph that is merely a "slavish copy" of a painting, drawing or other work "is not eligible for registration," but the museum or archive that supplied the file may still impose its own terms of use as a contract. Read the download page before tracing.

Rentmeester v. Nike: what a tracing case actually decided

The Ninth Circuit's 2018 opinion in Rentmeester v. Nike is the case designers cite most often on photo reference, and it is often cited for more than it holds.

The facts, as the court accepted them from the complaint: in 1984 Jacobus Rentmeester photographed Michael Jordan for Life magazine, leaping toward a hoop in a ballet-inspired pose on a grassy knoll, shot from below against the sky. Nike saw the photo, then commissioned its own photo of Jordan in a similar pose, from a similar angle, with the Chicago skyline behind him. In 1987 Nike created the Jumpman logo, described by the court as "a solid black silhouette that tracks the outline of Jordan's figure as it appears in the Nike photo."

Note where the trace happened. Nike's logo traced Nike's own photograph, not Rentmeester's. The question was whether Nike's photo, and therefore the silhouette taken from it, copied too much of Rentmeester's.

The court held it did not, and it explained what a photographer owns:

• Individual elements are free. Photos "can be broken down into objective elements" such as "subject matter, pose, lighting, camera angle, depth of field, and the like," but "none of those elements is subject to copyright protection when viewed in isolation."
• Even an original pose. The court accepted that the pose was Rentmeester's own invention, yet said "he cannot copyright the pose itself and thereby prevent others from photographing a person in the same pose."
• The combination is protected. "What is protected by copyright is the photographer's selection and arrangement of the photo's otherwise unprotected elements."
• Shared ideas were not enough. The two photos shared Jordan dunking in a grand jeté pose, an outdoor setting without most basketball trappings, and a low angle against the sky; Rentmeester "cannot claim an exclusive right to ideas or concepts at that level of generality, even in combination."

On the logo, the majority said that isolating Jordan's figure from the Nike photo "and rendering it in a stylized fashion make the Jumpman logo even less similar to Rentmeester's photo than the Nike photo itself." Judge Owens dissented on the Nike photo, arguing that substantial similarity was a factual question not suited to dismissal, but he agreed on the logo: "the outline of a pose isolated from a photograph enjoys, at best, 'thin' copyright protection," and even assuming Nike traced the logo from its own photo, which was based on Rentmeester's, the logo was not "virtually identical" to the image of Jordan in Rentmeester's photo.

What that means at the drawing board

Read narrowly, the case supports drawing from reference: a designer may borrow a pose, a subject or a viewpoint, and build a new composition around them. It does not support tracing someone else's photo, for a simple reason. The selection and arrangement the court protected is exactly what a trace reproduces. Nike won because its photographer made different choices of setting, framing, lighting and timing, and then traced the result of those choices.

The case is also a Ninth Circuit opinion decided on a motion to dismiss, about photos of a recognisable subject; footnote 2 says the court did not decide whether the same principles apply to more abstract photographs. Other circuits have their own tests.

When a famous artist used a photo as reference

Two more cases show how unsettled the "reference" end of the scale is.

Warhol v. Goldsmith (Supreme Court, 2023). Lynn Goldsmith photographed Prince in 1981. In 1984 she licensed one photo to Vanity Fair as an "artist reference for an illustration," for one-time use, and Andy Warhol made a silkscreen portrait from it. Orange Prince is one of 16 works, now called the Prince Series, that Warhol derived from that photo. When the Warhol Foundation licensed one of them, Orange Prince, to Condé Nast for a 2016 magazine cover, the Supreme Court held that the first fair use factor did not favour the Foundation. The syllabus puts it this way: "Even though Orange Prince adds new expression to Goldsmith's photograph, in the context of the challenged use, the first fair use factor still favors Goldsmith." The Court decided only that one factor, for that one licensing use.

Two lessons carry over to everyday design. A distinctive style applied to someone else's photo does not by itself make the use fair, especially when the result is used for the same kind of purpose as the photo and earns money. The fan art guide applies the same fair use reasoning to merchandise. And "artist reference" licences exist: Goldsmith's licence to Vanity Fair is a real example of a photographer licensing a photo specifically to be drawn from, for a fee and a limited use.

Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg (Ninth Circuit, pending). Photographer Jeffrey Sedlik sued tattoo artist Kat Von D over a tattoo based on his photo of Miles Davis. A jury found the tattoo, a sketch and four social media posts were not substantially similar to the photo, and found that four "process" posts, which the artist agreed reproduced the photo, were fair use. A Ninth Circuit panel affirmed on January 2, 2026. On June 9, 2026 the court ordered the case reheard en banc and vacated the panel opinion. As far as we could find on October 30, 2026, the en banc court had not ruled, so the panel's reasoning is no longer precedent and the outcome is open. A hand-drawn image closely based on a single photo is exactly the situation the full court is now reconsidering.

Client-supplied photos: whose permission you are relying on

Client work adds a link to the chain. When a client sends a photo and asks for a vector illustration of it, your permission is only as good as theirs. Three common situations:

1. The client took the photo, or an employee did as part of the job. The client most likely owns it, and their request is the permission you need. Our guide to design copyright ownership and work for hire explains when an employer owns an employee's work.
2. The client paid a photographer. Paying for a shoot does not by itself transfer copyright. The photographer may have kept the copyright and granted a licence, which may or may not cover making an illustration from the photo. Ask for the licence or the assignment.
3. The client found it online. This is the same as the bottom row of the decision table, with the client's name on the request. A client's instruction does not make the trace lawful.

The practical defence is paperwork. Our freelance contract clauses guide covers the client-materials warranty, under which the client confirms they have the rights to what they hand you. A warranty helps you allocate the cost of a dispute; it does not stop the photographer from having a claim. For a one-off job, an email asking "Who took this photo, and do you have the rights to have it turned into an illustration?" and keeping the answer is a useful minimum.

Worked example: one café, three ways to get a cup logo

No real café is behind this example; it exists to run one brief through the decision table. A café owner sends a designer a Pinterest pin of a steaming latte, photographed from above on a wooden table, and asks for a line-art logo "like this."

Route A: auto-trace the pin. The image came from a pin, so its source is unknown; the pin itself is not a licence. Tracing it copies the photographer's overhead angle, the crop, the shape of the latte art and the steam pattern. That is the bottom row of the table, a "no" in every column. Even if the photographer later agreed, a logo built from a traced photo carries a weak copyright for the café: only the designer's additions are theirs.

Route B: license a stock photo and trace that. The designer finds a similar latte on Pexels. The Pexels licence permits modification but forbids use "as part of your trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name or service mark." A café logo is all of those. Pixabay uses the same list, and Adobe Stock forbids registering a trademark that uses the asset in whole or in part. Route B fails for a logo even though it would be fine for a menu illustration.

Route C: photograph and sketch it yourself. The designer orders a latte, photographs it from three angles, and sketches the cup from a slightly raised side view, with their own steam shape and a simplified saucer. They trace their own photo and draw the rest by hand. The table's first row applies: yes in every column. The general idea of a cup with steam was always free, and the specific image is now the designer's own, which also makes it something the café can own outright under a written assignment and protect as a mark.

Route C takes longer. It is the only one of the three that ends with a logo the café can register, defend and stop competitors from copying. Our guide on whether a logo can be copyrighted explains what simple marks can and cannot claim once they exist.

How close is too close when drawing from reference

No published test gives a percentage or a number of changes. The Ninth Circuit's language in Rentmeester points to the question to ask instead: did you copy the photographer's selection and arrangement, or only individual elements that anyone could use? These working habits keep a reference drawing on the ideas side. They are our suggestions, built from the cases above, not rules from any court.

The opposite habits are the warning signs: one photo, the same crop, the same light, the same moment, the photo on a layer underneath while you draw. At that point the "reference" label does not change what you are doing.

Owning your own trace

Designers ask the reverse question too: if someone copies my vectorized artwork, can I stop them? It depends on what you added.

Circular 14 says that to be copyrightable, a derivative work must incorporate preexisting material "and add new original copyrightable authorship to that work," and that copyright protection "will not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully." So a trace of a photo you had no right to use gives you nothing to enforce in the borrowed part. A lawful trace, of your own photo, a CC BY photo or a public domain one, protects only your additions.

When registering such a work, Circular 14 tells applicants to use the "material excluded" and "new material included" fields to separate the source from the new authorship. Our copyright registration guide walks through the application and its fees. If someone else traces your original illustration, the DMCA takedown guide covers getting it removed from a platform.

Before you press Image Trace

Five questions, in order, settle most cases. If any answer is "I don't know," stop until you do.

1. Where exactly did this photo come from? Name the page and the person who took it. A pin, a search result or a screenshot is not a source.
2. What licence or rule covers it? Your own, a named stock licence, a CC licence with its version, or a verified public domain status. Save a copy or screenshot of the licence page with the date.
3. Does that licence allow modification for this use? Check the logo and trademark clauses for brand work, the NC element for paid work, and ND for anything you will publish.
4. What else is in the frame? Another artist's work, a product's packaging, a recognisable face or a brand logo each bring their own rights that a photo licence does not clear.
5. What will you need to show later? File the source URL, the licence copy, the date, and a note of what you changed beside the artwork. Our design asset licensing checklist gives a template for that record.

If the photo fails at step 2 or 3, the reliable fallback is the one in Route C: take your own photo, or draw from several references with your own composition. When the image will carry a brand or appear on products, ask a lawyer who practises copyright to look at the specific source and plan.

Tracing and vectorizing questions

Is tracing a photo illegal if I change it a little?

Small changes do not usually help. The House report on section 106 says a work is infringed by copying it "in whole or in any substantial part," including "by imitation or simulation," and that wide variations are still infringing if the author's expression is taken. Recolouring or simplifying a trace leaves the photo's composition in place. What changes the picture is permission, or drawing your own composition so that only general ideas come from the photo.

Is there a percentage rule, like changing 30 percent?

No. Neither the Copyright Act, the Copyright Office's circulars nor the cases above use a percentage. Courts compare the protected expression in the two works, which for a photo means its selection and arrangement of elements.

Can I trace a photo for practice?

Tracing for private practice, never published or sold, is a common study method. It is still a reproduction in a technical sense. The risk comes from sharing or selling the result, which is also where licences such as CC BY-ND draw their line: you may produce adaptations but not share them.

Is auto-vectorizing safer than tracing by hand?

No. Auto-vectorizing usually copies more of the photo than a hand trace, and the Compendium treats a change of medium as adding no new authorship. If anything, a machine trace is harder to defend as your own work.

Can I use a traced stock photo in a logo?

Usually not. Pexels and Pixabay forbid using their content as part of a trademark, design mark, trade name, business name or service mark, and Adobe Stock forbids registering a trademark that uses an asset in whole or in part. The Unsplash licence page we read does not address logos, but a logo built from a photo anyone can download is a weak brand asset whatever the licence says.

Does Rentmeester v. Nike mean I can trace any pose?

It means a pose on its own is not protected, so you may draw a person in the same pose. It does not mean you can trace someone else's photo of that pose, because a trace also copies the angle, framing, timing and other choices the court said are protected in combination. Nike traced its own photograph.

Do I need to credit the photographer if I trace a free stock photo?

Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay say attribution is not required. CC BY and its variants require credit and a note that you modified the work. Credit never replaces permission: crediting a photographer whose photo you had no right to trace does not cure the infringement.

Is tracing a public domain photo always safe?

Copyright-wise, yes, once you have confirmed the status. But the file you downloaded may come with an archive's terms of use, and the photo may show a trademark or a person whose rights are separate from the photo's copyright.

Primary texts behind each row

• 17 U.S.C. 101 (definitions), United States Code, 2024 Edition, U.S. Government Publishing Office: govinfo.gov, read October 30, 2026.
• 17 U.S.C. 106 (exclusive rights), with the House Report No. 94-1476 notes printed beneath it, 2024 Edition: govinfo.gov, read October 30, 2026.
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 14, Copyright in Derivative Works and Compilations, reviewed July 2020 per the document; read October 30, 2026. The circular notes that its registration practices are superseded by the Compendium.
• U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition: chapter 300 (section 313.4(A), mere copies) and chapter 900 (sections 909.3(A) and 917.1), pages dated January 28, 2021; read October 30, 2026.
• Rentmeester v. Nike, Inc., No. 15-35509 (9th Cir. filed February 27, 2018): opinion PDF from the Ninth Circuit's site, read October 30, 2026.
• Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, No. 21-869 (U.S. decided May 18, 2023): slip opinion from supremecourt.gov, syllabus read October 30, 2026.
• Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg, No. 24-3367 (9th Cir.): panel opinion filed January 2, 2026 and order granting rehearing en banc and vacating it, June 9, 2026, both read October 30, 2026.
• Creative Commons 4.0 legal code: BY-ND, BY-SA and BY-NC, read October 30, 2026.
• Unsplash License, Pexels License and Pixabay Content License Summary, read October 30, 2026; none shows a last-updated date.
• Adobe, Adobe Stock Additional Terms, "Last updated September 15, 2023," sections 2, 3.1, 7.1 and 7.2; read October 30, 2026. We could not open Adobe's legal index page to confirm that no later version has replaced it, so check Adobe's current terms before relying on a clause.
• Shutterstock's licence page did not open for us, so its terms are not quoted; state right-of-publicity laws and law outside the United States are also beyond this guide.