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17 Websites to Find High Quality, Copyright-Free Photos
Maybe you’re an aspiring photographer looking for inspiration, or maybe you’re just trying to find stock photos (generic images, illustrations, and icons created without a specific project) to add to your website. Whatever your purpose, it’s helpful to have a few stock photo websites at your disposal.
That's why today's article compiles a list of the best online stock photo websites to ensure that you have access to millions of free stock photos instantly.
These stock photo sites are great when paired with free clip art download sites , which you may find useful when you need something other than photos.
17 Websites to Find High Quality, Copyright-Free Photos
What is a free photo ?
Some websites allow you to download images for personal use (e.g. as wallpaper ) but do not allow commercial use of images (for things like printing business cards, making websites, or designing posters).
The following websites support or have a full range of CC0 (a type of free copyright license) images available for anyone to use. The owners of these images have allowed users to modify, edit, and use their images without any copyright data backlash.
Two things related to common courtesy when using CC0 images are:
1) While you don't have to credit the person who created the photo, you should do so to give credit to the artists.
2) These sites often have a Donate page or on-screen message. If you use that free image hosting site regularly, consider donating to these sites.
Here are some websites to keep in mind for finding high quality, copyright-free photos.
17 Websites to Find High Quality, Copyright-Free Photos
1. Unsplash
Unsplash is a side project started by Crew, an online marketing company dedicated to “making your design dreams come true.” Founded in May 2013, Unsplash makes images uploaded by photographers from locations around the world available to the public for free, making the platform an effective way to share your photos with a wide audience.
While this gives your photos a chance to gain more exposure, Unsplash typically doesn’t pay photographers when their photos are downloaded and used, so most photographers agree to allow their photos to be used for free without permission (or attribution) for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Most of the images displayed on the Unsplash website are actually free, within certain limits. Unlike many other online photo sources, Unsplash allows both commercial and personal use. There is no need to ask permission before using images with Unsplash’s standard license.
Meanwhile, bloggers, social media content creators, and news media outlets benefit from a huge source of valuable images for free. This might sound like a problem for traditional stock photo sites. In fact, Unsplash is now owned by one of the largest and most valuable stock photo sources, Getty Images, and charging for photos remains a viable business model.
In addition to offering free stock photos, Unsplash also features user-created graphic design work in its MadeWith section. Unsplash retains control of its image catalog and may not republish it without permission. An API is available to use the catalog feed, allowing Unsplash to control the data rate and potentially monetize the content.
2. Pexels
Pexels is a stock photo website that provides hundreds of thousands of free, high-quality stock photos and videos to users around the world. Compared to some other free stock photo platforms, such as Pixabay, Pexels is relatively new to the scene. Founded in 2014 by Bruno and Ingo Joseph, Pexels joined forces with Daniel Frese in 2015 and has strived to become the leading resource for high-quality, free-to-use stock photos ever since. Pexels has developed a reputable photo library. Pexels’ mission statement highlights what the site aims to achieve:
“We help millions of designers, writers, artists, programmers, and other creators access beautiful, freely usable photos that help them create products, designs, stories, websites, apps, artwork, and other great work. We call it: “Creator Empowerment.” (Pexels.com)
Pexels is also unique in that it doesn’t just display images on the Pexels website. It also outsources images from high-quality sites like Gratisography, Little Visuals, and many more.
Best of all, Pexels displays images in the highest quality possible. Note that you can also download high-quality videos from the site.
Pexel's biggest advantages include:
- Pexels offers a curated collection of over 500k free stock images
- Every month, artists upload over 50 thousand new images to the Pexels platform
- Pexels uses a powerful search algorithm that filters and sifts through hundreds of thousands of images quickly and easily.
- The search function includes unique options, such as by color.
- Pexels highlights top images and showcases unique categories
- Pexel's API allows for seamless integration of their images and videos into websites and other visual products
- Pexels image sources include free image sites like Pixabay, Gratisography, and Little Visuals.
- All images on Pexels are listed under the creative commons zero license, which means they are free to use for personal or commercial purposes without attribution.
- The images on Pexels are high quality and go beyond the cold, emotionless images found on other free stock photo sites.
- If you like a particular contributor's work, you can contact them directly through the platform.
- Pexels Offers a “Heroes” Program for Their Top Content Contributors
3. Flickr
While Flickr is not dedicated to free images, it does have a huge library of high quality free images.
Flickr has been around for a long time. It is one of the largest image libraries on the Internet. With over 3 million high-quality free images, you will probably run out of them in no time.
4. Pixabay
Pixabay is an integrated repository of images from other image hosting websites. It tries to collect the best free stock images for users to use for personal or commercial purposes.
Pixabay also offers easy access to camera search, allowing users to explore images based on the camera used to take the photo. This is a great resource for both beginners and professional photographers.
5. Wikimedia
Wikimedia offers a truly stunning archive of images, of everything from beautiful landscapes to historical events.
With over 34,000,000 freely available media files, including video and audio, Wikimedia is an essential tool for graphic designers , photographers, and artists looking for free, high-quality images. Wikimedia is also part of a larger organization dedicated to free images, education, and information.
6. Vecteezy
Vecteezy is a great royalty-free stock photo site with a wide variety of options. Vecteezy has a wide range of stock photos, but what sets it apart from other royalty-free sites is its vector section, which features a wide variety of pure vector images in a variety of styles and types. You can also see what’s trending on the site and use that information for the stock photos you download.
Like other royalty-free image sites, Vecteezy has a Pro License subscription model, which allows them to offer free stock images. Vecteezy’s free images are clearly marked, and you can use the Free License search tool to focus on what you want.
7. Openverse
If you’re looking for a royalty-free image search engine, Openverse is for you. Developed and maintained by WordPress, you can use Openverse to search the Internet for copyright-free images. Even better, you can use Openverse to search using different Creative Commons licenses, such as CC BY (attribution) and CC BY-ND (attribution, no adaptation allowed).
One thing to note with Openverse is that you have to click on the image site to find the exact license displayed, not just use the Openverse URL (which doesn't count).
8. Adobe Royalty Free Images
Adobe is one of the biggest names in the creative industry, with the world-leading Adobe Creative Cloud trusted by countless creators and businesses around the world. However, the platform is also notoriously expensive, which is why it might surprise you that Adobe maintains a collection of royalty-free images that are available to anyone.
Adobe licenses allow for most uses, but become more difficult to navigate when you're using the work for editorial purposes. But Adobe's database of royalty-free images is easy to search, very high quality, and covers a wide range of subjects, etc. The large number of royalty-free transparent background images is also really useful, as you can find lots of people doing gestures, in specific poses, etc.
9. Freerange
Once you sign up for a free membership at Freerange, thousands of high-resolution stock photos are at your fingertips at no cost to you. All images on the site can be used for personal or commercial projects. For photographers, Freerange also offers a Google AdSense revenue share when you contribute.
In addition to thousands of unique images, the site also has around 20,000 CC0 photos, most of which have accurate keywords and descriptions.
10. Life of Pix
There are people who spend hours searching for beautiful photos on Life of Pix.
Created by Montreal advertising agency LEEROY, Life of Pix is a haven for free stock photos. Even better, the Life of Vids site also features stunning stock video footage , and it’s completely free too!
11. StockSnap
StockSnap offers a fantastic library of free stock images. With hundreds of high-quality photos added weekly, StockSnap is no ordinary photography repository.
Every image on StockSnap is free for you to use. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better stock photo repository than StockSnap.
12. Burst
There are some things that work so well that you barely notice them, and that’s exactly what Burst offers. Like Unsplash, Burst not only offers a sleek interface to explore, but also a huge selection of images and categories to choose from. Even better, it offers both low- and high-quality image options, depending on whether you’re adding images to a website or using them for graphic design.
If you need a large online repository of high quality images, bookmark Burst right away.
13. KaboomPics
KaboomPics is a truly stunning site. From user interface designs to images of stars, you will find all the images you need.
You can select the appropriate images in KaboomPics. Then, use both the color search tool and the color palette for that image!
That changes the face of what KaboomPics has to offer. From images to informative blog posts, this is one of the most impressive free stock photo sites.
14. Gratisography
Looking for something a little different? Need a new free high-resolution photo? Then Gratisography is the place for you.
This site has tons of copyright-free images that are “truly unique, always free,” and will allow you to add a unique touch to your next project.
15. Libreshot
Libreshot is another useful resource for finding slightly unusual royalty-free photos. Every photo on the site is the work of owner Martin Vorel.
Vorel uploads his amazing photos from all over the world to Libreshot, allowing you to use them for free. Martin Vorel only asks that if you use one of his photos, please consider adding a link back to his website.
16. Negative Space
Negative Space offers thousands of stunning royalty-free images, spanning a wide range of categories. Like some of the other top royalty-free image sites, you can search Negative Space using the color of the image you want rather than a specific search term or category.
New free images are added all the time, so be sure to check out Negative Space for your next project.
17. Reshot
The final option for finding royalty-free stock images is Reshot. If you want truly unique stock images, Reshot is one of your best options.
The development and creative team will check every copyright-free photo uploaded to the site, ensuring only the best of the best are available to you. That means the photographic standards at Reshot are high - and that will be reflected in your work.
The great thing about Reshot is that you can also use it to find unique icons and illustrations for your next project, as well as search for images using different orientations.
Thanks to tools like the ones listed in this article, it’s easier than ever to view, enjoy, and use high-quality photos for free. However, there are some common courtesy you should follow for the benefit of the creator.
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