Resource of the Day: 48 FREE Stock Photo Graphics Sites
Updated with 15 new image resources March 21, 2015
If you have trouble looking for photos to share photos online -quality photos that are easily accessed (and mostly free), here are a list of 33 FREE photo/texture/clipart and webpage header graphics sites. If you write a blog, write articles or are putting together a book/ebook that needs images to “dress it up,” these 33 FREE/Creative Commons stock photo sites are worth checking out. All of the sites listed offer images for use for free (be sure and check the terms of use for each site). Many of them also offer photos for a fee (they are often refered to as Royalty Free which means that you don’t need to pay the photographer a royalty each time you use the image. Each of these sites are worth exploring. Be sure to read the “terms of use” before using any of the photos or graphics for commercial use.
- Creative Commons – Here you can search Flickr, Wikimedia, and other sites for Creative Commons licensed images.
- Abstract Influence is a community based free image resource. Photos are grouped by category.
- A Prettier WEB filled with girly photos.
- Bossflight offers 10 to 20 high resolution fotos daily, totally free.
- Death of the Stock Photo – delivered in a subscription format monthly.
- Dreamstime offers free and for fee photos on their site.
- EveryStockPhoto.com is a search engine for free photos. Membership is free and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos.
- FAKE MAGAZINE COVER -you can create a fake magazine cover – Put your photo on the cover of hundreds of different magazines
- Flickr – Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license
- FreeFoto.com is the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet (link back and attribution required). The comprehensive, yet easy to navigate site, offers images that are free for on-line use, with higher quality versions available for sale
- FreeImages.co.uk More than 2500 original and high quality stock photographs here; tons of great categories to choose from.
- FREE Images was formerly StockXCHNG and is filled with thousands of FREE images (be sure and check their licensing requirements as they are stricter than most free sites.
- FreePixels.com another site to Download Free Stock Photos and Images
- FreeRangeStock.com All images are at least 2400 x 1600, and photos can be used for commercial or personal projects
- FreeStockPhotos.biz is categoried to make it easy to find what you are looking for.
- Gratisography – FREE HIGH-RESOLUTION PICTURES YOU CAN USE ON YOUR PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL PROJECTS
- ImageBase you can use the images for whatever you want, personal, commercial or non-profit use for free
- Foodies feed – free food photos
- FREE FOTO – more than 130K images to use (with links and attribution)
- At FreeImages.co.uk you’ll find a library of stock photography for use on websites, printed media, products and anywhere you need a photo to help with illustration and design
- FreeWebPageHeaders.com fresh, original page graphics for personal websites and blogs
- Geek Philosopher Assorted collection of web resolution free stock photos, background graphics, and desktop wallpapers can be used in web page designs, school & art projects, blogs, FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. A link back is requested
- Google Images – just type what you are looking for in the search bar and see what shows up
- HassleFreeClipArt offers free web clip art without the hassle of pop-ups, runaround links, and annoying sign-up forms.
- Image*After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial
- MorgueFile.com Free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not!
- Multimedia-Stock.com Absolutely Free Global Multimedia Share.
- New Old Stock offers vintage free photos
- OpenPhoto offers images of the day and curated photos.
- OpenStockPhotography Millions of free images available here via Wikimedia Commons and free to use for any purpose.
- PhotoGen.com Photogen requires registration before downloading. Nice built-in search to help you find the photos you need
- Photl.com You can download up to 40 Mb of photos daily. There are from 7000 to 10000 new photos monthly
- PhotoRack.net Images are broken down into categories (no search function). Lots of images!
- PhotoVaco.com – high quality photos for free
- PicJumbo has totally free photos for your commercial & personal works
- Picography is filled with FREE hi-resolution photos you can use as you like.
- Pixabay.com -Another outstanding site for high quality photos (see example to the right.
- Public Domain Images are those curated by bloggers.
- RGBStock.com has a huge number of high quality stock photos and dazzling free graphics for illustrations, wallpapers and backgrounds.
- SplitShire – Great searchable database of FREE photos and graphics
- StockCache Hundreds of high quality free stock images; all are available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which means you can use the photos freely as long as you cite where you got them.
- StockPic offers totally free personal and commercial use photos and even emails you 10 new photos every 2 weeks.
- Stock Vault – more free photos easily searchable.
- WallpaperStop.com boasts more than 12,000 free wallpapers you can use (search by categories or search bar)
- Unsplash – High resolution images contributed by professional photographers. Great for your print projects too! Every ten days ten new photos are added. Breathtaking photography!
- Wigflip.com – you can generate various graphics adding your own text
- Wordle – You can create a word cloud using any text, colors fonts and styles you choose
- WPClipart.com is a collection of high-quality artwork and photos … Use in school research and reports as well as photos and clips that work great for commercial uses, book illustrations, office presentations, and some just for fun…
- 1001freedownloads.com – At 1001freedownloads, you can find vectors, photos, fonts, icons, wallpapers, brushes, styles, patterns and clipart to use freely in your projects
BONUS: 50 festive stock images to download for free
Heidi Richards Mooney is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of WE Magazine for Women, a WordPress Web Designer, the author of a dozen books and a social media consultant and trainer. Heidi has interviewed hundreds of experts on Social Media Around the World. In 2003 Heidi was named one of 50 women shaping the Internet by the International Virtual Women’s Chamber of Commerce. In 2009 she was named a Twitter Woman to Follow by Only2Clicks.com. She works with solopreneurs, professionals and small businesses in ecommerce, direct sales and retail. Follow Heidi on Google Plus
3 Comments
Make that 34! Just found another great resource called Clker. Clker.com is an online sharing service where users share free public domain vector cliparts, or share public domain photos and derive vector cliparts from those photos using clker’s online tracer. With Clker you can even “pin” the pictures you find to Pinterest. KOOL! Check it out at http://www.clker.com/
Heidi – The Redhead Marketer
April 6, 2012
Awesome list! thanks for sharing. I can always use a new source for pics.
July 3, 2014
Great article. Also check out http://www.goodfreephotos.com for thousands of unique public domain photos. Appreciate it if you could add it to your list. Thanks.
April 21, 2015