Intracellular biosynthetic nanomaterials offer tremendous opportunities for chemical biomedical imaging. A wide range of biologically active tissues are available for biosynthesis, including cells, bacteria, plants, and viruses. Nanomaterials synthesized by intracellular biomineralization with outstanding biosafety and optical properties attract unique attention. Herein, an overview of biosynthetic tunable nanomaterials within active biological tissues for chemical biomedical imaging is presented. The synthetic mechanisms and nanostructures of biosynthetic nanomaterials are summarized from the perspective of different active organisms. The ability of biosynthesis is commonly used for green synthesis of metal nanoparticles compared to those synthesized by physical or chemical methods. The tunable characteristics of these nanoparticles make it possible to utilize them as fluorescence imaging, surface-enhanced Raman spectral mapping, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, and other biomedical photonics tools. Importantly, current issues, insights, and future tendencies of development are presented based on current biosynthetic optical nanomaterials for chemical biomedical imaging. This paper provides the summary of biosynthetic optical nanomaterials and a critical assessment of potential biomedical imaging applications in this emerging field, laying the foundation for future studies.