Whether you’re a web designer or content creator, free stock photos are the most useful thing for you on the internet. Businesses can easily hire a photographer to get high quality images for their products and content, but what about bloggers, startups and small businesses, who don’t have enough budget to hire a professional photographer. Online paid photo stock like Shutterstock and Getty Images sell brilliant high resolution photos on the internet, but paying per image is really a non-sense decision of a web designer and blog editor.
It’s risky to use a copyright image on your website. People like you sometimes use a copyright image in their content and link back to the source or photographer, which also known as Attribution. Many free photos on the internet has some usage limitations, like Only available for noncommercial use, No modification, or else but stock like Pixabay give you full control over the image, even you can modify, use for commercial purpose without any permission.
Following are the best sites to get free stock photos:
1. Pixabay
Pixabay is the best online resource to get high-quality photos, illustrations, and vector graphics. The photos available on Pixabay are licensed under CC0 Public Domain and you can use it free for commercial use. No attribution required, just go to the site, search your keyword and download photos in full resolution. Pixabay’s stock collection is really outstanding, and you can find images through hundreds of common categories, such as Technology, Nature, Animals, Business and more. Pixabay stock has more than 700k free images. We actually use Pixabay images in Vintaytime blog.
2. Pexels
Pexels photo stock is not bigger than Pixabay, but the photos available on the stock are all hand-picked and the site is hosting over 10k free images. When it comes to download premium and high-quality photos, I actually use Pexels. The stock is easy to navigate and all media contents are property tagged. You can explore photos through common categories like Business, Love, Nature, Technology and so on. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) and you can download the original resolution image without Login.
3. Google Images Filter License
Google Images is a destination to find photos/images from the entire internet. Beginner’s who don’t know what is image license?, they generally use Google images and use copyrighted photos in their website. But, many of you didn’t that you can filter usage rights in Google images so that you’ll only see free images in search result.
To filter free license in Google Images, Search your keyword in Google Images > Click Search tools > Click Usage rights and Select a label. Now you can feel free to use images from the results to your website or somewhere else.
4. Flickr: Creative Commons
Flickr is a whole world of photos where people like you share and organize their photos and videos and make them available for others under different licenses. Flickr photos are available under different Creative Commons license, such as Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works, Share Alike, Public Domain (CC0), and Public Domain Work. You can read the meaning of license from Flickr CC and use such photos in your content. You can find images for any keyword because the photo sharing website is hosting over 6 billion images.
5. Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a repository of freely-licensed media contents like images, music and video clips. You can find across 32 million freely usable photos and use them in your website or any other content. Wikimedia Commons is easier to navigate because it uses the same Wikipedia technology. Just go the site, select images and explore free images across thousands of subcategories. The Wikimedia content license is absolutely free, but before using a media file in your content, please see the licensee sign at the bottom-left corner, so that you can easily modify and reuse the media file for commercial use.
6. Unsplash
Unsplash serves you high-resolution photos for free and you’re allowed to copy, modify, and distribute photos without any attribution. The Creative Commons Zero license applies to all photos publish on Unsplash. The featured photos are hand-picked everyday and chosen by notable photographers. The site’s navigation is pretty simple, just browse through new photos and collections and download the original resolution image without login. To check image’s dimension and camera, you just simply click on the image and press the Info icon situated at the bottom-right corner.
7. Stockvault
Stockvault is a resource of free stock photos, textures and illustrations and the site is hosting over 85k free images. You can register on the community and upload photos, add comments, add photos to favorites and contact other members like a social networking website. Stockvault purpose is to serve high resolution photographs to their users and the moderator team makes sure all uploaded images are higher in quality. You can explore free photos through different categories or via most viewed and most popular tab. Once you select a photo, scroll down and read the usage guidelines in order to use photos for commercial use.
8. FreeImages.com
Freeimages.com is the perfect company and domain name you’ll trust to download free images. And yes!, the site serve you high-quality stock photos and graphics that you can use on your websites, product and there is almost no attribution required. Freeimages.com is a community of over 2.5 million registered users and more than 400k free images available in the stock. Registration is required in the community in order to download free images. Membership is free, and as a member you can gain access to thousands of high-resolution photos and graphics.
9. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io is the best stock on the internet to find beautiful photos which are free from copyright restrictions. StockSnap team and their contributors add hundreds of free, high-resolution images on their site and all published pictures are licensed under Creative Commons CC0. No attribution required, just go the site, search your keyword and download original resolution images without login. You can also explore popular photos by using the trending and views tab.
10. picjumbo
picjumbo is a story of a 22-year-old photographer’s name Viktor Hanacek, who stared this free image stock in 2013 when all photo stock sites rejected their photos. Now their stock is used by millions of people around the world. You can find and download across thousands of high quality, premium photos in picjumbo.
