You might get tired of seeing same stock photos again and again, mostly the picture of people in suits shaking hands. They are not interesting at all and according to the new web design trends, they can degrade your reputation and brand value. And yes, they also cost money. Bottom line? Stop using traditional stock photos and offer your visitors something new.
The good news is, there are plenty of online sources that provide thousands of fresh high definition pictures without costing anything. For people who are struggling to find perfect photos for their latest project, we are presenting a few websites with beautiful free high quality stock images, for both personal and commercial use.
Read the license carefully before using them.
Table of Contents
Public Domain Archive
It’s a large collection of modern and vintage images. All pictures are nicely categorized or you can search them directly through a search box. Overall, it’s an amazing place for photographers to explore and discover treasures by other great photographers.
Jay Mantri
Jay Mantri is the man behind this great photography website. He uploads 7 new pictures every Thursday, under Creative Commons license.
Stockvault
Stockvault is a photo sharing website where students, designers and photographers can share their images or graphic work with each other for free.
Cupcake
All the images present on Cupcake are captured by Jonas Nilsson Lee. Although the collection is not too big, but you can find some really awesome pictures of objects, nature, landscape and animals.
Magdeleine
Magdeleine contains handpicked free photos for your inspiration. Here you can search through categories, tags, search box, license or by dominant colors.
Dotspin
Dotspin has a great photo bank that contains breathtaking pictures, all available under CC license. You can also buy these pictures ($1 per image) in case, if you don’t want to credit author(s).
Freerange Stock
Just sign up for free membership at Freerange and get thousands of high resolution pictures at no cost. All images are at least 2400*1600 and can be used in both personal and commercial projects.
Raumrot
Get free high resolution photos for your personal as well as commercial projects. Here you will find images of different sectors, different color and style. Most of the images are captured by Markus Spiske and distributed under CC License.
Google LIFE
This is a huge collection of LIFE photo, stretching from 1750’s to today. Here, you can search from millions of pictures. All photos are available for personal and non-commercial use only.
Foodie’s Feed
This website is absolutely made for foodies. Here you will find some amazing pictures of almost all kinds of foods. There is a separate tag for “free download”.
Gratisography
Gratisography contains thousands of free high quality pictures for both personal and commercial use. All photos are captured by Ryan Mcguire and free of copyright restrictions. Just click on the image to download the high resolution version.
DesignerPics
Get free high resolution pictures for personal or commercial use. Drill down through several categories or use the search box to get what you are looking for. No attribution required.
Startup Stock Photos
As the name suggests, here you will find fresh pictures related to startups (especially software related). Take them for free and make your project more amazing.
Jeshoots
Jeshoots is packed with cool and free photos in high resolution for business or personal use. You can use the search bar or narrow down the results through category.
Pexels
Pexels is a perfect place to find free stock images at one place. All images are licensed under Creative Commons Zero license. The site includes over 1800 photos and every week they add 35 new collections (5 images daily).
Lock & Stock Photos
A big collection of free stock photos (taken by AJ Montpetit) under the Creative Common License ShareALike 4.0. The author of the site publishes a new picture every day.
Compfight
Compfight is an image search engine that efficiently locates images blogs, inspiration and research. You can filter the image results by license, safe/unsafe and tags. Furthermore, it makes good use of Flickr API (not an affiliate).
New Old Stock
The website (created by Cole Townsend) contains vintage photos from the public archive. So, if you are searching for old retro pictures for your next project, you know where to look at.
LittleVisuals
The site publishes new high resolution photos every 7 days, under CC license. You can sign up their email newsletter to get zipped images direct in your inbox.
Getrefe
This is a small Tumblr blog that offers free refe real life photos. Here you find mostly nature or environment related photos for desktop as well as mobile devices.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is a great place to get breathtaking pictures for business or personal use. You can use the search box, click #tag under the images or select category to find out what you are looking for.
SplitShire
SplitShire contains delicious free stock photos by web designer Daniel Nanescu. You can browse through category or by timeline.
Snapwire Snaps
Yet another Tumblr blog that provides 7 snaps every 7 days, all for free. Most of the pictures are distributed under Creative Common license. Moreover, mobile stock photographers can submit their images to answer several requests made by others.
Picjumbo
Here you will find totally free pictures for your commercial and personal works. All photos are captured by the site owner himself. All he asks in return is proper attribution.
Snapographic
Snapographic includes fresh and free stock photos for personal and commercial use. All pictures are taken by Thomas Mühl (free of copyright restriction).
Read: 10 Best Photoshop Alternatives (Free Tools)
Unsplash
Unsplash consists of thousands of free high resolution images. They upload 10 new photos every 10 days. Subscribe their email newsletter to get new images direct in your inbox.
IM Free
This is a large collection of free resources for commercial use, by IM Creator. All images, icons and templates are nicely categorized. Read license carefully as some pictures require attribution.
morgueFile
morgueFile hosts over 300,000 free high-resolution digital stock photographs for either corporate or public use. The image gallery features a cropping tool and you can also hotlink the pictures from your site.
Life of Pix
Life of Pix offers free high resolution pictures with no copyright restrictions. All images are donated to the public domain which means you can use them in personal as well as commercial projects. New photos are added weekly.
Superfamous
Superfamous (Los Angeles based studio) is a large collection literary and visual content. Here, you can search under different collections. All pictures are available under CC attribution license.
Also Read: 14 Tools to Instantly Convert 2d Images to 3d Ones
Pixabay
Pixabay is packed with over 300,000 free images, vectors and art illustrations. Browse by category or search through color, orientation and image type. You can also upload and share your own pictures here. The site is available in 20 languages.
Flickr
Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their images under CC license or for free. Here you will find millions of creative images that you can use in personal and commercial projects.
Wikimedia Commons
Recommended: Internet Images you CAN and CAN’T use on your Website
The site hosts over 24 million images, mostly under public domain and CC license, and a few of them under some private license. Everyone is allowed to copy, modify and use any picture freely as long as they follow the term specified by the uploader/author.
We’re a bunch of volunteers and starting a
new scheme in our community. Your site provided us with valuable info to work on. You have done a formidable
task and our entire neighborhood will likely be thankful to you.