The Magic of Free Stock Photography Resources
For start-ups, students, and other money-grubbing folks who really need a nice photo or two.
When I was a student, I was constantly trying to find ways to make my presentations, projects, and portfolio website more attractive. I had no money, of course, so I was stuck with half-decent photos that made my projects feel incomplete and visually boring.
Any decent internet human should know that simply Googling what you want to see does not often lead you to images you can or should use. Most of the images that rank on Google are owned by somebody — so do not use them, unless you visit the website and somewhere on the page it explicitly lists the image license type that you need to not get sued. Always contact the site if there is any question on the licensing, just to be sure.
After many years of digging through Google images (or even resorting to using Bing’s sort-of-neat image license search feature) and not finding great photos, I landed a job as a freelancer creating a website, and I needed great header images, fast. Here I present my hard, late-night work finding sites to get legit, free images for commercial and scholastic use — complete with some of my favorite finds — as well as tips on searching for and editing the image you need for your project or business.
My favorite free image websites
Pexels
If you want big, bold, and modern, Pexels is the place for you. You know those photos you see on corporate sites that have the obvious stock image vibe with people staring at nothing and smiling too much? You will not find a lot of those images on Pexels. I find it especially good for nature, landscape, and macro photos.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a super large stock photo site that one of my coworkers introduced to me. I wish I had known about it when I was a student because it has lots of neat images that could help make a PowerPoint a lot more attractive. I also like that each photographer is credited with the image so that if you want to attribute it to them, you can, but you don’t have to. Unsplash is great for clear photos, and it also has a nice search engine within it that gives you nice suggestions of similar photo searches (great when you have no idea what you’re looking for).
Flikr
Flikr is great when you need something very industry-specific. Let’s say you are looking for a photo with a hospital setting, or a photo to represent health & safety concerns (maybe a hard hat or other personal protective equipment) — so many photographers, professional and amateur, upload to Flikr, that you’re bound to find it. The important thing to note about Flikr is that you have to search for the license you need. There is a drop down that says “Any License” under the search bar (after you search) and from there you can click down and pick the appropriate license for your needs. Here is a guide that explains what sort of license different photo uses require.
Google Advanced Image Search
For those dedicated Google addicts, yes, there is a relatively simple way to search for photos you can actually use, but the quality of the photos varies wildly. On the Advanced Image Search page, you can scroll all the way down and select what type image license to filter for in the “usage rights” section. This detailed search option also allows for you to search by size, color, region, and more. Advanced Image Search is definitely a good place to go if you already know exactly what sort of image you are looking for.
Pixabay
This one is sort of a cheapo’s standard. Pixabay has 1.2 million free images on their site, and another nice thing is that they offer vector graphics, which are good for creating logos and infographics. I don’t use Pixabay often — mostly because Pexels pulls their photos from there and I like their UI more — but it’s still a great resource.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The MET’s website is a great resource for those of you who need photographs of art pieces for class projects. My lovely past manager, Kelly O’Brien, mentioned this to me in a comment on this post. Their website has over 200,000 public domain images! These are great for representing various times, places, and peoples.
Image finding & editing tips
- Sometimes you find an image where 50% is what you want and 50% isn’t. Cropping is your friend. Try out a free program like Pixlr to edit your photos.
- On the editing note: sometimes one photo by itself is boring. Even without Photoshop, you can use Pixlr (or another free program) to overlay two images together and create something new that someone else probably hasn’t used before, which is great for small businesses who want to stand out.
- Choosing the right photo matters, a lot. It makes the difference between a click and a scroll. If you are unsure if a photo looks 🔥or 💀 (lit or blah) show it to a friend, with and without the context of the project. People instinctively react to photos: either they enjoy them, or they don’t. Most won’t dig deeply into the meaning behind a stock photo, so just see if they like the way it looks, or hear their specific opinions (it looks old school, too dark, etc.)
- Get creative with what you search for on the free image databases. Use thesaurus.com(or you know, a real thesaurus) to find synonyms for words you’ve already thought of. Looking for a photo of a river and not finding anything? Try stream, brook, flowing water, etc.
- Need to make cool images with text on them for social media posts, blog headers, etc.? Use Adobe Spark. Adobe Spark is a free, online photo-editing program that allows you to make limited changes to your images. The best part about Spark is that they have preset sizes for all sorts of social posts, so you don’t have to fiddle around or spend 20 minutes Googling what the ratio should be. They do have very limited fonts and shapes that you can use, but hey, you aren’t paying for Photoshop.
I spent a long time suffering because of sad visuals so that you don’t have to anymore. Thanks for reading my mini-guide on finding nice images for your projects, websites, presentations, & more.
I hope these tips and resources helped! Come hang out with me on Twitter @WritingWithZoe for more info on writing, editing, entomology, & more (or you can be professional and find me on LinkedIn.com/in/zoe-harvey) 🌿
