Real Reference Photos, Not AI. Shot in Real Places.

Reference exists to be correct

AI image tools are good at mood and fast ideas. But they can invent details: a roof with no way to drain, a staircase that leads nowhere, a window in the wrong style for the region. When you use an image as reference, you are trusting that each detail really exists. A photograph of a real place gives you that.

Take the Ancient Medieval Nepalese Town. It is 613 photos of one town near Kathmandu that dates back about a thousand years: old Nepalese buildings, temples, small shops, narrow streets and stone-paved roads. The photos were shot at 6000 × 4000 pixels on a Sony A7C. If a doorway or a roof edge looks strange, you can find the same spot from another angle and see how it really works.

One place, photographed many times

Image search gives you one good view each of many different places. A Fotoref pack keeps you in one place and shows it from many positions. That is what you need to understand how a location fits together.

• Bali Rice Paddies: 216 ground and drone photos of Balinese rice farming. You see the same fields from above and from eye level.
• Cambodian Stilted Fisherman Village: 254 photos of a village built on tall stilts to stay above the floods of the rainy season. Good reference for how a whole village is raised above the water.
• Himalayan Mountain Range Helicopter View: 136 photos of the Annapurna range, shot from a helicopter. Villages, glaciers, rock formations and snowy peaks in autumn light.

Artists who built work on these packs

Working artists already use these packs in finished pieces:

• David Edwards, matte painter and concept artist, used Vancouver Aerial Photography for his matte painting "City of Silence". He used Masada Ancient Fortress Ruins for a "Lost Temple" 3D environment.
• Evgeny Rodygin, UI and FUI artist, worked with a ground 3D scan from the Gray Mud Pinnacles pack.
• Anton Tenitsky, 3D educator, used Bubbling Bursting Mud Pools for "Mudworld: Patrol" and the Angkor Temple pack for another project.

What the license lets you do

Every license is royalty free, covers unlimited projects and never expires. You can paint from the photos, photobash with them, and build your own 3D models, photogrammetry meshes and textures from them. You cannot resell the packs or the photos themselves. Some photos show identifiable people, vehicles or buildings. In those packs, these photos sit in a separate Editorial folder. You can use them as reference, but not in advertising or on products for resale.

For a closer look at how each pack documents its source, read how we record location, camera and photographer.

Frequently asked questions

How can I check that a pack is real photography?

Open the product page. It names the photographer and, for almost every pack, the location, the camera and the resolution. Packs are uploaded by the 50+ contributors who shot them. Because a pack holds dozens or hundreds of frames of the same place, you can compare angles and see that the details agree.

Can I try a pack before I buy one?

Yes. The free reference photo packs are real Fotoref packs at full resolution. The Limestone Arch, for example, has 41 photos of a natural arch on the Great Ocean Road, shot at 6000 × 4000.

Why do pack sizes vary so much?

Each pack covers what the photographer found at one location. Masada Ancient Fortress Ruins has 83 photos of eroded stone walls and interiors. The Ancient Islamic Walled Desert Town in Khiva has 734. The exact count and file size are on each product page.

Can my team use these packs on a commercial game or film?

Yes, with the right license. An Individual license covers one person. A Small Studio license covers an art team of up to 10 people, and a Large Studio license covers larger teams. Contractors count toward the team size.