Best Free Stock Photo Sites for Designers
You’ve written your blog post or designed your web page and now all you need to do is find the perfect image to go with it. The internet is awash with images from the past and presents so it can be tempting to take the one you want and use it without a thought for copyright infringement.
Many of the images circulating on the internet are owned exclusively by the photographer or creator and are subject to usage restrictions that are protected by law. While it is important to know that you can’t legally use every image you find online, that shouldn’t stop you from finding the right free images for websites without legal risk.
When it comes to copyright, there are three categories of images available on the internet:
- Right Protected – images can be purchased in advance and used for a limited period of time for a particular project. During the set period, you will have exclusive rights to the image.
- Royalty Free – images are paid for with a one-time fee and can then be used in any way you choose, though you will not have exclusive use of the image.
- Public Domain – images are free to use for any purpose either because the creator has given permission or the original copyright has expired.
Fortunately, there is a wide range of resources offering Free Stock Photos that are not in any way restricted by copyright law.Free Stock Photos can be used for personal and even commercial projects, you just need to know where to look to get great results. Here’s a round-up of the best websites to find Free Stock Photos for designers and bloggers.
See also
Burst
Burst offers free, high-resolution images for personal and commercial use. The site is owned by Shopify and has a wide variety of images, from lifestyle shots to business-related imagery.
Pixabay
Pixabay offers a wide selection of free stock photos, illustrations, and vectors. The images are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means that they can be used for personal or commercial purposes without attribution.
Unsplash
Unsplash provides free high-resolution images that can be used for commercial or personal purposes. The site has a large selection of photos, including landscapes, food, and architecture
Pexels – Free Stock Photo
Pexels offers a large selection of free stock photos and videos, with a focus on nature and outdoor scenes, as well as cityscapes and technology.
Pixelmob
MyStockPhotos
MyStockPhotos is a stock image website that provides a platform for photographers and digital artists to showcase their work and sell it to potential buyers. The website offers a large collection of high-quality stock photos, illustrations, and vectors that can be licensed for commercial or personal use.
Free Images
FreeImages is a website that provides free stock photos and illustrations for personal and commercial use. The website offers a large collection of high-quality images that can be used for a variety of purposes, including website design, advertising, and publishing.
Stocksnap
StockSnap is a website that offers a large collection of high-quality stock photos that are free to download and use. The website was created with the goal of providing users with a convenient and easy-to-use platform for finding and downloading stock images that are both visually appealing and high in quality.
Rawpixel
Rawpixel is a website that provides a wide range of stock photos, illustrations, and other digital design resources for use in various projects. The website offers both free and paid content, with a focus on providing high-quality visuals for designers, marketers, and other creatives.
Stockvault
Stockvault is a website that provides a large collection of free stock photos, graphics, and other digital assets. It was founded in 2004 by a group of photographers and designers who wanted to provide a platform where people could find and use high-quality images for personal and commercial projects.
Photoland
Picjumbo
Picjumbo is a website that offers a wide variety of free stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website was created by Viktor Hanacek, a photographer from the Czech Republic, in 2013. The photos on Picjumbo are high-quality and cover a range of subjects, from food and travel to business and technology.
Gratisography
Gratisography is a website that offers free, high-quality stock photos that can be used for personal or commercial purposes. The website was founded by photographer Ryan McGuire in 2013 and features a wide variety of images, including whimsical, quirky, and surrealistic images. The photos on Gratisography are available for download without the need for attribution or payment, and they can be used in a variety of projects such as websites, blogs, social media, and marketing materials.
Lifeofpix
Lifeofpix is a website that provides high-quality, free stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website features a wide variety of photos, including landscapes, cityscapes, architecture, animals, and more. All photos on Lifeofpix are taken by talented photographers from around the world and are curated to ensure high quality and relevance.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is a popular stock photography website that offers high-quality, royalty-free images for personal and commercial use. The website was founded by a Polish photographer, Karolina Grabowska, in 2014, and has since become a go-to resource for designers, bloggers, marketers, and anyone looking for beautiful and professional photos.
FreerangeStock
FreeRangeStock is a website that provides free stock photos and illustrations for personal or commercial use. The website was founded in 2007 and offers a wide range of high-quality images that can be downloaded and used without attribution. FreeRangeStock has a user-friendly interface that allows users to search for images by keyword, category, or color.
RGBStock
RGBStock is a website that provides free stock photos, illustrations, and videos for personal and commercial use. Users can create an account and download high-quality images in various categories such as nature, technology, people, and abstract. The website also offers a search function that allows users to find images by keyword or tag.
SplitShire
SplitShire is a website that offers a collection of high-quality free stock photos, videos, and templates for creative professionals. It was created by Italian photographer and graphic designer Daniel Nanescu in 2014 as a way to share his photos with the world and help others in their creative projects.
SplitShire features a wide range of subjects, including landscapes, nature, urban scenes, people, and abstract concepts. The website is updated regularly with new content, and all the photos and videos are free to use for personal and commercial projects without attribution.
ISO Republic
ISO Republic is a website that provides high-quality stock photos and videos for free. It was founded by Tom Eversley in 2014 with the aim of providing creatives with access to beautiful and unique imagery without the high costs associated with traditional stock photo agencies. ISO Republic offers a wide range of photos and videos, including business, nature, people, technology, and more.
Magdeleine
Magdeleine.co is a website that provides high-quality stock photos that can be used for personal or commercial purposes. The website offers a large collection of free images, which can be filtered by color, category, and license type. The photos on Magdeleine.co are curated from a variety of sources and are often unique and visually striking. Users can also submit their own photos for consideration to be added to the site.
Pickup Image
Pickupimage is a website that provides a large collection of free stock photos, illustrations, and vectors for personal or commercial use. The website offers a variety of high-quality images that can be downloaded without any registration or subscription.
Good Free Photos
GoodFreePhotos is a website that offers a wide selection of free high-quality photos, images, and illustrations. The website was created to provide a source of free stock photos for personal or commercial use. It features a user-friendly interface that allows users to easily browse and search for images by category or keyword. The images on the site are organized into various categories, such as animals, nature, travel, and more.
Negativespace
NegativeSpace is a stock photography website that offers high-quality, royalty-free images for personal or commercial use. The site’s collection includes a diverse range of photos, including landscapes, Cityscapes, portraits, abstract images, and more. The site was founded by a UK-based photographer named Sam, who wanted to create a platform that provided high-quality images to designers, bloggers, and other creatives for free.
Stockio
New Old Stock
Barnimages
Barnimages is a website that provides high-quality stock photos and videos for personal and commercial use. The images and videos on the website are created by the Barnimages team, which is composed of two photographers, Igor Trepeshchenok and Roman Drits.
Reshot
Reshot is a website that provides a platform for free stock photos that can be used for commercial and personal projects. The website has a large collection of high-quality images that are contributed by photographers from all around the world. The images on Reshot are unique and diverse, and are carefully curated to ensure that they meet the highest standards of quality.
Picography
Picography is a website that provides free, high-quality stock photos for personal and commercial use. The photos on Picography are contributed by a community of photographers who share their work under the Creative Commons CC0 license, which allows for unrestricted use and modification of the images without attribution.
Vecteezy Free Photos
Designerspics
Designerspics is a website that offers free high-quality photos for personal and commercial use. The website has a wide variety of categories, including nature, food, animals, architecture, and more.
Freestocks
Freestocks is a website that offers free high-quality stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website is run by a team of photographers who provide a wide range of photos on various subjects, such as nature, technology, business, and lifestyle.The images on freestocks are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means that they can be used, modified, and distributed for free without attribution to the photographer or the website.
Little Visuals
Little Visuals was a website that provided free stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website was created by Nic Jackson in 2013 and gained popularity for its high-quality and beautiful images that could be used without any attribution or licensing fees.
Jaymantri
Jay Mantri is a photographer and designer who has made his photographs available for free on his website, jaymantri.com. The website features a collection of high-resolution photographs covering a wide range of themes, including landscapes, cityscapes, nature, and more. The images are available for personal and commercial use under the Creative Commons CC0 license, which means they can be used without attribution or permission from the creator.
Startup Stock Photos
Startup Stock Photos is a website that offers free stock photos for startups, entrepreneurs, and freelancers to use in their marketing materials, websites, and social media posts. The website features a variety of high-quality, modern, and trendy photos that depict the startup culture and workspace, including images of office spaces, laptops, coffee shops, and technology.
Freely
Skitterphoto
Skitterphoto is a website that provides free, high-quality stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website was founded in 2014 by amateur photographers who wanted to share their work with others. Skitterphoto features a wide variety of photos, including landscapes, nature, architecture, people, and more. The website is updated regularly with new photos, and users can browse by category or use the search function to find specific images.
Evergreen Photos
Fancycrave
Fancycrave is a website that offers a wide range of high-quality stock photos and videos for free. The website was created by Igor Ovsyannykov, a designer and photographer based in Latvia, with the aim of providing free, high-quality visual content for use in personal or commercial projects.
Streetwill
Cupcake
Pxfuel
Pxfuel is a website that offers a large collection of free stock photos and illustrations for personal and commercial use. The images on Pxfuel are high-quality and cover a wide range of topics, including nature, business, people, animals, food, and more. Users can search for images using keywords or browse through categories.
LibreShot
LibreShot is a website that offers free high-quality stock photos, mostly focused on nature, architecture, and technology. The website was created by Martin Vorel, a photographer and designer based in the Czech Republic. All of the photos on LibreShot are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means they can be used for personal and commercial purposes without attribution or permission from the photographer.
Pixexid
Freebiespic
BucketListly Blog
BucketListly Blog is a popular travel blog created by a photographer and traveler named Pete Rojwongsuriya. The blog focuses on adventure travel, with a strong emphasis on photography and stunning visuals.
Stockified
Realisticshots
Free Nature Stock
Travelcoffeebook
Jeshoots
Jeshoots is a website that offers free stock photos for personal and commercial use. The website features a wide range of high-quality photographs that are available in various categories such as business, food, nature, technology, and more.
Moveast
Vintage Stock Photos
The Public Domain Review
Iwaria
The Pic Pac
Picalls
Photostockeditor
Flickr Commons
Flickr Commons is a section of the photo-sharing website Flickr that hosts a large collection of public domain and openly licensed images from cultural heritage institutions and archives around the world. These images are free to use and share for non-commercial purposes, and often provide a glimpse into historical events, places, and people.
Freeforcommercialuse
Refe
GetRefe is a website that offers a collection of free, high-quality stock photos and images that can be used for personal or commercial projects. The images on GetRefe are sourced from photographers around the world and cover a wide range of topics, including nature, food, people, and more. The website allows users to browse and search for images, and offers a simple and straightforward download process.
Image Finder
Albumarium
Albumarium was a website that offered a collection of free high-resolution photos for personal or commercial use. The photos were organized into different categories, such as nature, people, urban, and abstract, making it easy to find the type of image you were looking for.
Freephotos.cc
Pxhere
Pxhere is a website that offers a large collection of free-to-use, high-quality images that can be used for personal and commercial projects without the need for attribution. The images are contributed by photographers and artists from around the world, and cover a wide range of topics and styles, including nature, landscapes, cityscapes, people, animals, and more.
Nature Pic 4 Free
MyPhotoPack
Foodiesfeed
Foodiesfeed is a website that provides free high-quality food photos for personal or commercial use. The images are taken by Jakub Kapusnak, a food blogger and photographer from Czech Republic, and cover a wide range of food types and styles, from traditional meals to more modern and exotic dishes.
Shotstash
Nappy
Nappy is a slang term that is often used to refer to an Afro-textured hairstyle that has not been chemically straightened or altered in any way. The term is most commonly used within the Black community as a positive and affirming term for natural hair.
Fancycrave
LibreStock
Hubspot
Moose
Duotone
Everypixel
Everypixel is a stock image search engine that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to help users find high-quality, relevant images for their projects. It searches through multiple stock image websites and provides users with a comprehensive list of results that they can sort and filter based on their needs.
Stock Up
Nomad Pictures
Openverse
Openverse is a project by Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that advocates for open access to creative works. Openverse aims to build a search engine for openly licensed content, including images, audio, and video. The project aims to make it easier for people to find and use openly licensed content, while also helping content creators get more exposure for their work.
photoAC
Good Stock Photos
Hippopx
Snappygoat
Freedigitalphotos
Createherstock
IvoryMix
IvoryMix is a company that provides stock photos, graphics, and social media templates to bloggers, entrepreneurs, and online business owners. Founded by Kayla Butler in 2014, IvoryMix offers a membership program that provides access to thousands of images and templates that can be used for blog posts, social media, and other digital content.
Jopwell
Shutteroo
Crow The Stone
PicMelon
Canva
Pikwizard
Pikwizard is a website that offers a vast library of high-quality stock photos and videos, completely free for personal and commercial use, with no attribution required. The platform features over 1 million images and videos, including a large selection of diverse and inclusive content. Pikwizard also has an easy-to-use image editor that allows users to edit photos and create graphics directly on the platform.
Scatter Jar
Visual Hunt
VisualHunt is a free stock photo search engine that allows users to search and download high-quality images for personal or commercial use. It has a vast collection of images sourced from various websites, including Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, and provides users with advanced search filters to help them find the perfect image for their needs.
Freeimages
Altphotos
Styled Stock
Styled stock refers to professionally styled and photographed stock images that are designed to be used in marketing, advertising, and branding materials. These images often feature beautiful, trendy props, such as flowers, coffee mugs, and office supplies, arranged in a visually pleasing way. They may also include styled flat lays or mockups, where products are placed in a setting to give a sense of how they would look in use.
Pond5
Pond5 is a digital marketplace for stock footage, music, images, and other media assets. It was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in New York City. Pond5 has a large collection of high-quality content, including over 25 million video clips, 17 million images, and 1 million music tracks. The platform allows content creators to license their work to customers around the world, with prices and licensing terms set by the creators themselves.
Userstock
Piqsels
Piqsels is a website that offers a wide range of high-quality free stock photos and illustrations that can be used for personal or commercial projects without any attribution required. The images on Piqsels are submitted by various photographers and artists from around the world, and cover a diverse range of topics such as nature, food, technology, business, and more.
Wallpaperflare
Wallpaperflare is a website that offers a wide variety of free high-definition (HD) wallpapers for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. The site has a vast collection of wallpapers in different categories, including nature, animals, cars, sports, abstract, and more.
Science Image
The website scienceimage is a platform that showcases scientific images and illustrations produced by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is an Australian government agency responsible for scientific research. The images on this website cover a wide range of scientific disciplines, including agriculture, health, climate change, energy, and many others. These images are available for use under a Creative Commons license, which means that they can be used for educational, personal, and commercial purposes as long as proper attribution is given.
Skuawk
Saxifraga
Wallpapercave
WallpaperCave is a website that provides a wide range of wallpapers for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. The website offers a variety of categories including nature, anime, cars, sports, and more. Users can search for wallpapers based on their preferred resolution, and can also upload their own wallpapers to share with others.
Visualsofearth
Artvee
Artvee is a digital platform that offers a large collection of high-quality public domain images and artworks from various museums and archives around the world. The platform aims to provide easy access to free, high-resolution images that can be used for personal or commercial purposes without any copyright restrictions. Users can search and browse through the collection of paintings, photographs, and illustrations, and download the images in different sizes and formats.
Openphoto
Openphoto is a project that was launched in 2009 to create a free and open-source photo management platform. The platform allows users to store, share, and organize their photos online. It is designed to give users control over their photos, while also providing a way to share them with friends and family.
Yandex
Depositphoto
123RF
This Model Does not Exist
Aisplash
Lummi
Stockcake
Premium Stock Image Websites
Stocksy
Stocksy.com is a website that offers royalty-free stock photos and videos that are high-quality and curated by a community of photographers and artists. The website was founded in 2013 and has since grown to become a popular source of stock media for designers, businesses, and individuals.
Getty Images
Getty Images is a paid stock image website that offers a large collection of high-quality photos, illustrations, and videos. The website offers a range of pricing options, including a subscription service and individual image downloads.
Morguefile
Morguefile is a website that provides free high-quality stock photos that can be used for personal or commercial projects. The term “morgue file” originally referred to a file of reference materials that journalists and editors would keep on hand for future use. The website was named after this practice, as it provides a repository of images that can be used for design, illustration, or any other creative purpose.
Eyeem
Cavan Images
Cavan Images is a stock photography agency that offers a wide range of high-quality, creative, and unique stock images for commercial and editorial use. The agency was founded in 2001 by founder and CEO Trish Hughes and is based in Dallas, Texas.