Can I draw from someone else's photograph and sell the result?

This comes up constantly and is widely misunderstood. Two beliefs do most of the damage: that changing the medium makes it a new work, and that a percentage of alteration makes it safe. Neither is how UK copyright works. What matters is whether a substantial part of the original creative expression has been taken, and substantial is judged by quality and importance, not by percentage.

Safety

Step by step

1. Recognise that the photograph is itself a protected work.Copyright arises automatically when the photograph is taken, with no registration needed. In the UK it generally lasts for the photographer's life plus 70 years. Being freely visible online gives you no rights over it at all.
2. Understand what copying means here.Copyright covers reproducing the work in any material form, including in a different medium. A painting made from a photograph can be an infringing copy of that photograph. Not tracing it is irrelevant to the test.
3. Ask what you actually took from it.If you took the specific composition, the lighting set-up, the pose, the crop and the arrangement — the choices the photographer made — that is likely to be a substantial part. If you took only a factual matter, such as what a particular breed of dog looks like, that is much weaker ground for a claim.
4. Use your own photographs wherever you can.It removes the question entirely. For anything you will sell, exhibit or publish, this is by far the simplest route, and it usually gives you better reference as well.
5. Use reference sources that grant permission.Stock libraries with a licence that covers derivative artwork, photo-reference sites set up specifically for artists, and images released under permissive Creative Commons terms. Read the actual licence — some forbid commercial use, some require attribution.
6. Ask the photographer.Most amateur and many professional photographers say yes, often happily, sometimes for a credit or a small fee. Get it in writing, even just an email, and keep it.
7. Treat commissioned pet and family portraits carefully.A client sending you a snapshot they took themselves is fine. A client sending you a professional portrait taken at a studio is not — the studio owns that photograph, and the client normally has only a licence to print it.
8. Remember there is a second right in play with people.Copyright is about the photograph. Separately, using an identifiable person's image commercially can raise data protection, privacy or passing-off issues. For an ordinary portrait commission this is not a concern, but for advertising it is.

Tips

• Composites of many references, where nothing comes wholesale from any single image, are much safer ground and generally make better artwork anyway.
• Keep a note of where each reference came from and any permission you obtained. If a question ever arises, this is what resolves it quickly.
• The rules on parody, caricature and pastiche exist in UK law as a specific exception, but it is narrower than people assume and is not a general escape route.
• Copyright in a photograph of a two-dimensional artwork — a museum photograph of a painting — is legally contested and varies by country. The underlying painting may be out of copyright even when the photograph claims not to be.

Common mistakes

• Believing that changing 30 per cent, or 10 per cent, makes it legal — There is no such rule anywhere in UK copyright law. The test is whether a substantial part was taken, assessed qualitatively.
• Assuming a different medium creates a new work — Reproduction in any material form is covered. A drawing from a photograph is a copy in law if it takes a substantial part.
• Treating anything on a search results page as free to use — Search engines index copyright works. Visibility confers no licence whatsoever.
• Accepting a professional photograph from a portrait client without asking — The client rarely owns it. A polite question at the enquiry stage avoids an awkward conversation after the work is made.

Questions people ask