In A Hurry? You Can’t Go Wrong With These Three
Stock images are the means by which those of us without photographic talent can find great images to decorate our blogs. While many sites charge for the right to use that picture of a tangerine on a plate facing the beach at sunset, there are a vast majority out there that do allow free access to free stock photos that aren’t grainy or out of focus and royalty free.
Free stock images are a great resource for bloggers and web owners to source photos for their featured blog images, to use on social media and to use within articles, guides and blog posts. It’s also benefits those who have just ventured down the route of starting a blog and who need inspirational and striking imagery to make their sites look awesome from the get go.
The only thing you’ll need to pay attention to, however, is reading their licenses. Though royalty free, some have stipulations that require attribution. Also for commercial use, do check with each of the free image libraries that you can still use the images for free. So long as you don’t mind that, the free stock photo world is your oyster.
Gratisography
Taking the Latin term that now means “free”, Gratisography is a site of high-resolution photos taken by Ryan McGuire, the founder of Bells Design. Everything on the site is royalty free and free to use under Creative Commons Zero. The only thing he politely asks is money for his coffee fund. According to him, coffee allows this project to flourish, giving him the energy he needs to get things done. Images available to use for commercial purposes too. Check out Gratisography today for some truly awesome royalty free images.
Unsplash – Royalty Free Images
Providing you with 10 new, royalty free images, high-resolution photos every 10 days. Every picture posted is free to use under Creative Commons License CC0. Their website even features projects created using the free images they provide. Those interested can register for their mailing list to receive e-mails when the new photos are posted.
Picspree
Backed by Getty Images, Picspree provides a large selection of high quality stock photos completely royalty free. With easy searching and frictionless downloading Picspree is an excellent resource for small businesses and web professionals looking for high quality photos without the worry of licensing.
Burst
Burst is a free stock photo library from Shopify. There’s thousands of stunning stock images on Burst, ideal for e-commerce sites, blogs, personal websites and business websites. Find what you’re looking for with ease via Burst’s easy to navigate photo categories and image collections.
Freepik
Freepik offers a wide collection of vector graphics, stock photos, PSD files, and icons, among other things. The platform is well-known for its high-quality, professional-looking designs that cater to a wide range of design needs.
One of the key features of Freepik is its user-friendly interface that allows users to easily browse and search for the graphics they need. You can filter to search only for free to use images.
In addition to its free offerings, Freepik also offers premium plans for individuals and teams who need access to even more resources. These premium plans provide access to lots more graphics and design templates, as well as features like exclusive content and priority support.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is a popular platform for free stock photos, founded by Karolina Grabowska in 2014. The site offers a vast collection of high-quality photos covering a wide range of categories, including food, travel, fashion, and more.
One of the standout features of Kaboompics is its focus on high-quality visuals. All of the photos available on the site are taken using professional equipment, resulting in stunning images that are perfect for a wide range of creative projects.
Kaboompics offers a non-exclusive worldwide licence to use any of their photos, for any project with the exception of passing the work off as your own, implying endorsem*nt or for a competing service.
GRALLIM.com
GRALLIM.com was launched out of the need to provide good-quality royalty free images for bloggers, writers, influencers and business owners. The site offers a high quality images over multiple categories including food, travel, animals, people, and nature but the site’s main focus is on fitness images that portray real people doing real workouts as well as images of the gym and exercise equipment.
Images are 100% free to use under creative commons license CC0, no strings attached, and you can sign up for their free email newsletter to get notified when new photos and images are added. Images available to use for commercial purposes too.
Life of Pix
Yet another member of Creative Commons Zero, Life of Pix is a gallery full of royalty free images which are high-resolution. New photos are released every week. They are sourced from Leeroy Advertising Agency located in Montreal and all of the photographers tied to its network. They also offer free videos, clips and loops.
Death to the Stock Photo
Arguably, this site has the best name out of all of them. If you sign up, you’ll receive royalty free photos and images in your e-mail every month. Should that not be enough, Premium accounts give users access to all past and future photographs in addition to more monthly photos.
Pexels
Pexels has a wide range of images from sports to vivid landscapes and fashion to abstract images. The photographers features on Pexels are a good mix of amateur and professional photographers. Most images on Pexels are free to use both for personal and commercial uses.
Rawpixel
The Rawpixel platform prides itself on offering diverse and inclusive visuals that reflect the real world and its many cultures.
Rawpixel also offers a flexible pricing model, with a range of free and premium plans to suit the needs of different users. Its premium plans provide access to additional features like exclusive content, extended licensing, and priority support.
In addition to its stock photos, Rawpixel also offers design templates, mockups, and fonts, making it a one-stop-shop for all your design needs.
The free plan allows access to their complete selection of public domain images, as well as 5 images from their free selection, but you need to provide an attribution to use these images. The paid plan allows full access, and no attribution is required to use images.
Skitterphoto
Skitterphoto was founded by amateur photographers in the Netherlands. The platform offers a wide range of high-quality photos covering a diverse range of subjects, including nature, travel, people, and more.
One of the standout features of Skitterphoto is its community-driven approach. All of the photos on the platform are submitted by amateur photographers, making it a great resource for discovering new talent and unique perspectives.
You are free to use the photos for personal and commercial projects without having to pay for a license.
Pixabay
Pixabay is one of my many favourite free image resources. The photography is consistently stunning and visually stimulating. If you’re looking for an striking image for a blog post feature, the Pixabay will probably have what you need. There’s over 1.6 million royalty free stock photos and videos that have been shared by Pixabay’s talented and generous community of photographers.
ScatterJar
If you have a food / cookery blog, then Scatter Jar is a great resource for you! Scatter Jar is a royalty free food & drink photography resource for modern creatives. Beautiful high-resolution photographs of food and drink are published on the site each week, from scrumptious cakes to fresh fruit and vegetables. You can download any of the photographs and use them for both personal and commercial projects, free of charge. ScatterJar has an extensive range of food related copyright free images, so please go and check them out today!
StockSnap.io
StockSnap is another major player in the free image niche. They have hundreds of new royalty free images being added each week by their community of photographer from all over the world. This is a fast growing curated collection of images and covers all sorts of categories from fashion, beach and dog photos to cityscapes, food and nature images. It’s easy to find images to with StockSnap’s image search functionality. Find what you want quickly.
All images on StockSnap have been released underCreative Commons License – CC0 license. This means you can download, copy, modify, and distribute the photos for commercial and personal use. You do not need to ask permission to use these images.
Picography
Picography offers a curated selection of high-quality photos that are visually stunning and unique. The images are taken by professional photographers and cover a diverse range of subjects, including nature, architecture, and people.
All the images on the site are free, and it’s a simple process to download the images. No attribution is required to use any of the images provided on the site.
ISO Republic
ISO Republic was founded by photographer Tom Eversley in 2014. The platform offers a vast collection of high-quality photos covering a wide range of categories, including business, technology, and lifestyle.
One of the standout features of ISO Republic is its focus on visual storytelling. The platform offers a curated selection of photos that are visually compelling and tell a story, making them perfect for use in advertising, social media, and other creative projects.
ISO Republic offers a simple and intuitive user interface, making it easy to search and browse through the platform’s collection of photos. It not only offers photos, but also a collection of free to use videos too.
New Old Stock
New Old Stock is every vintage photo lover’s dream. They have a very distinctive style and they are all copyright free images available to download!! Hooray!!. They scour old vintage photographs and share the ones that do not have any copyright restrictions. Anyone can submit an old vintage photo they have or have found in addition to donating to the coffee fund.
Getrefe
Getrefe is a site run by Refe, a company solely built on providing clients with modern photos of people interacting with technology. Luckily, Getrefe is a bit more than that. From food to exotic locations, the images provided are shown in smaller resolutions but can all be downloaded as high-resolution images.
Picjumbo
This free stock photo site ( Copyright Free Images ) is one of the larger collections on the web today. Most of its support comes from ads but those that want to give directly can sign up for a Premium membership for extra photos. While this may be tempting, the sheer volume of free content is enough to help everyone find what they need.
Little Visuals
Little Visuals is a very simplistic site that sends you seven copyright free photos every seven days. While it has only been up for about 13 weeks, everything it has posted is available to get in a handy .zip file based on week of release.
Negative Space
Negative Space are another royalty free resource, where all the images on the site are covered by a creative commons licence and free for the public to use.
The images here are all high quality, and you can search for images easily using any search term, as well as searching by the image color or category. It is a very easy site to use, and if you sign up to the daily e-mail you can get images sent directly to your inbox.
SplitShire
Daniel Nanescu is the brainchild behind SplitShire. A site devoted to showing off and giving away his photos for free, it has seen over 80,000 downloads since its inception. Those looking to show a little support can sign up for a Premium account which also provides access to additional prints.
Best Stock Photo Free
Best Stock Photo Free is a collection of beautiful, high quality photos under Creative Commons license. The website was created as a hobby. Every week there are new pictures added.
MorgueFile
MorgueFile was founded as a way to provide artists of all types access to free reference material. Simplistic in set up and design, all pictures are high-resolution and free to use under creative commons cc0. It is named after a term commonly used in newspapers as the denotation of a file that holds past issues flats.
Public Domain Archive
Run by Matt, Public Domain Archives came into existence when he realized there was no one hub where all public domain images could be searched. Since then, it has grown into a place where you can find what others have come across as well as post your own findings. Support comes from both donations and contributions.Images released under CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain.
Conclusion
With so many joining the cause supporting free resources, there is no longer any reason to pay lots of money for awesome high-resolution photographs. Simply reach out to the internet and the internet will give to you what you seek in the form of great free stock images.
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Jamie Spencer
My name is Jamie Spencer and I have spent the past 10 years building money making blogs. After growing tired of the 9-5, commuting and never seeing my family I decided that I wanted to make some changes and launched my first blog. Since then I have launched lots of successful niche blogs and after selling my survivalist blog I decided to teach other people how to do the same.
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