Free Stock Photo Sites — 30+ Hand-Picked Sites for High-Quality Images
Are you looking for high quality photos you can use for blogging, social media and other purposes — and do so completely free of charge?
If so, you’ll find below a personally-curated list of over 30 free stock photo sites, featuring millions of amazing photographs you can use immediately.
Most provide commercial-usage rights, and don’t generally require attribution.
However, before you use a particular photograph, be sure to check the terms of the individual website and the licensing rights for the image in question.
Download this list as a free PDF summary sheet you can then refer back to:
Want to suggest a suitable site not listed here? Feel free to leave a comment and let me know…
1. Dreamstime
Dreamstime is one of the biggest free stock photo websites available.
It currently gives you access to over:
- 30 million users
- 150 million stock photos
Photos are provided royalty-free for normal online usage.
If you want to extend the license rights, you can do so in return for a fee.
Full details on the website:
2. Styled Stock
Styled Stock is purely focused on feminine stock photography.
If that fits your brand, it might be one to make a note of.
The images are high quality, and provide a different perspective from what you might find on other photo sites.
3. Unsplash
Unsplash accepts quality contributions from photographers worldwide.
According to the site, only “the finest quality images” are accepted.
It makes tens of thousands of images available for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
You can select different sizes of each image when you come to download.
4. StockFreeImages
StockFreeImages is another site owned by Dreamstime (see #1 above).
It’s not as large though, currently offering over 2 million images —which includes photos as well as illustrations — compared to Dreamstime’s 150+ million.
Images are provided royalty-free, with similar licensing terms to Dreamstime.
5. Foca Stock
Foca Stock is run by a photographer by the name of Jeffrey Betts.
As well as photography, the site also offers free video stock video clips.
Creative assets are offered under the CC0 license for both commercial and personal use.
6. Pexels
Pexels offers some incredible photos (along with artistically-oriented videos), from a worldwide contributor base.
Photographs are free for commercial usage, but check their rules first.
Visit site: https://www.pexels.com
7. Kaboompics
All the images on Kaboompics are created by a photographer called Karolina.
It’s what she refers to as a “one woman show”.
And a fairly prolific show at that.
She’s grown the collection so far to around 20,000 images. Users of her imagery include major websites such as Lifehacker, the BBC, CNN and Forbes.
Karolina even provides a hex color palette to match each photograph, very useful when using photographs as part of other creative work.
8. Freeimages
Freeimages offers hundreds of thousands of free photos and illustrations across multiple categories.
The site is owned and run by Getty Images.
9. FreeImages.co.uk
A UK-based website, FreeImages.co.uk has over 21,000 images available across dozens of searchable categories.
The site refers to a smaller but “exclusive house collection of approximately 5500 images”.
10. Picspree
Picspree doesn’t just have photographs available, but illustrations and vectors too.
Thousands of images are available to choose from.
You don’t need to register to take advantage, and no attribution is required when using images.
11. Realistic Shots
Run by a designer based in the Dominican Republic, Realistic Shots is hosted on Tumblr.
Photographs are provided for both personal and commercial use, with seven new photos added every week.
12. Picjumbo
Picjumbo was created in 2013 by Viktor Hanacek, a designer and photographer.
His photos, across a wider range of categories, have been downloaded millions of times.
13. Gratisography
Created by Ryan McGuire, an artist and photographer, Gratisography provides high-resolution photos and vectors.
Images are free for both commercial and personal use.
14. ISO Republic
ISO Republic offers thousands of high-resolution photographs under the CC0 license.
Videos are also available.
Creative assets are organized into collections with names such as Architecture, Landscape and People.
Alternatively, there’s a search facility available.
15. OpenPhoto
OpenPhoto is one of the oldest free photo sites available — it was founded in 1998 — and does look a little dated.
However, don’t let that distract you from the thousands of quality photographs available for download.
Photos are provided under Creative Commons for free. However, check the exact license for each photograph as the terms can differ between images.
16. New Old Stock
One of the most interesting free stock photo sites available.
New Old Stock offers authentic, historical photographs source from public archives.
17. Reshot
Reshot provides curated photographs, sourced from partnerships with photography communities as well as individual contributors.
Photos are free for both commercial and personal use.
18. Jay Mantri
This website is Jay Mantri’s carefully curated collection of professional-grade photographs which visitors can download for free.
19. Life of Pix
The beautiful, high-resolution photographs on Life of Pix can be used for free in both commercial and personal projects.
Photographs are sourced from a keen community of photographers, and the site has a different feel to many photo sites.
Use their search function to find the right image.
20. Little Visuals
Little Visuals is a popular free photo website, founded by a photographer who has since sadly passed away.
His family continue to look after the website in his memory, with photographs freely available for both commercial and personal usage.
21. Flickr
Flickr is of course one of the most well-known photography websites.
It boasts tens of billions of photographs, though care needs to be taken with licensing rights, as not all are available for download or free usage.
To find photos you can use for free for a commercial project, use the search function.
Once you’ve done a search, click the Any license dropdown, and select the license you’re looking for.
Even if available for free, many photographs require attribution. So again, check the terms of any photograph before use.
22. MorgueFile
Perhaps the oldest site on this list, Morguefile was founded in 1996.
It offers several hundred thousand stock photos for free, including for commercial usage.
23. Picography
In contrast, Picography is a relatively new site, with “gorgeous” high quality photographs available for use under CC0.
Along with a search function, there are a number of categories of photograph available to browse through.
Photographs are free for use without attribution.
24. Freestocks.org
Freestocks.org provides free stock photos for both commercial and personal use.
Thousands of photographs are available across a number of categories, including animals, fashion and nature.
25. Pixabay
Pixabay offers over 2 million photographs, with different sizes available when you download.
No attribution is required, and images are free for commercial use.
Visit Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/
26. Foodfeed
Looking for food-related photography?
Look no further than Foodiesfeed.
The high-quality food-related photographs are available free for use under the CC0 license.
27. Rgbstock
Created by a group of graphic artists and photographers back in 2010, Rgbstock has over 100,000 photographs available.
You can search for photos by keyword, or browser the different categories they have available, such as Family and food and Backgrounds.
You need to register before download, but photos are free for both personal and commercial use.
Some of the photographs have additional terms, so check before use.
28. Skitter Photo
Skitterphoto has thousands of photographs available for free under the CC0 license.
Search by keyword, or browse through their category listings.
New photographs are posted daily.
29. Burst
Burst is owned and run by Shopify, with thousands of free high-resolution photographs.
It’s targeted towards business owners and entrepreneurs, with photographs listed in categories such as Business, Video Call Backgrounds and Work From Home.
There’s also a search facility.
Photos are designed for use on websites and are of course free for commercial use.
30. Splitshire
A photographer created SplitShire to share his 10-year collection of photos.
So far it’s attracted 2 million downloads, with images used for things like book covers and websites like the Huffington Post and CNN.
It’s aimed at people like website designers, social marketers and bloggers, providing photographs to “help you to be awesome out there”.
31. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io provides hundreds of free high-resolution photographs across dozens of different categories.
There’s also a search facility available.
Finally…
I hope you’ve found this list of 30+ free stock photo sites useful.
I’ll periodically update it too. Just leave a comment if you’d like to suggest a free stock photo site not included here.
Don’t forget to download the list as a free PDF summary sheet you can then refer back to:
Sincerely,
Steve Shaw
EverywhereMarketer
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