Images and photos are essential elements and building for creating great designs. Getting access to highest quality unique photographic material can be quite costly unless you’re taking the pictures yourself. Fortunately there are other options because some photographers believe it makes sense to share their creative work for free. Quite a number of websites provide services to creative photographers that allow them to participate in communities and share, get rates etc. This article provides an collection of the best websites where you can get quality images and photos for free. If I missed some web sites that deserve to be features please let me know.
Some of the sites included in the list offer free stock photos only for personal use, All photos are the property of their respective authors check their policy before using their collection.
Everystockphotos
Search more than 4.500.000 photos. It features a nice feature to allow you to collect photos you find.
Stock.Xchng
Browse through SXC’s gallery of over 390,000 stock photos, as provided by the site’s more than 30,000 users. Photos are provided free of charge, as a service by photography addicts for photography addicts! This site has a very friendly feel, with one of its notable features being a discussion forum where suggestions and problems are dealt with in a community-based setting. In order to upload and download photos, as well as participate in the forum, a registration is required, but SXC’s privacy policy is tight to ensure the protection of your personal information.
morgueFile
This site offers free photo exchange and a community section where you can participate in bulletin board discussions or join as a member if you wish to contribute your own work. They also provide free online photography courses and sponsor a scavenger hunt and photo competition. Their stock photos can be used in commercial or personal projects without permission or credit from the photographer, and as mentioned, you can also submit photos to the site with their approval. You’ll find a very broad range of subjects offered, and the site is neatly organized and user-friendly.
Stockvault
StockVault.net provides a directory of over 14,500 great free stock photos, 20000 members. The photos are available for download in the following categories: 3-D Renders, Animal Kingdom, Construction and Buildings, Nature, Objects, People, Seasonal, Textures and Backgrounds, Web Templates, and a variety of unsorted images.
Flickr
Flickers main purpose is photo management and sharing and millions use it for that purpose. This makes it a great place for inspiration and searching for good photographs. Many photographers allow others to use their art and you will find that many photos are licensed under Creative Common.
kavewall
You will find very high quality photo material here and it is free. All images are separated in 18 different categories with really handy navigation.
Deviantart
Very popular community for designers, photographers etc. It is a very good source for photos. Just make sure you check the license carefully and/or ask authors first for their permission.
pixelperfectdigital
This site has over 7500 free photographs for download and more than 8000 users.
They’re free to use in both your personal and professional design projects. Registration is not required, but just be sure to review the Terms of Use before downloading. All images are high quality JPEGs, easy-to-find with an Advanced Search function to help locate them quickly. The Image Hotlist also displays the highest rated, most viewed, and most downloaded in the gallery, so you can get a sense of what your fellow web designers find appealing.
turbophoto
browse and download 2,000 (3.4 GB) free stock images from 10 categories
freeimages
This easy-to-use site offers over 2500 original stock photos, free of charge. While registration isn’t necessary, you can sign up for their mailing list to be notified of website features and images updates, as well as to gain access to a special members-only area featuring additional image galleries.
Photo.net
free-stockphotos
Unprofound – Free Stock Photos
A collaborative website, created and run by designers, that offers a wide range of user-submitted free stock photography. You don’t have to sign-up in order to download images, making this site very easy-to-use. Of particular interest is a feature that allows you to create a free online photo portfolio – when contributing photos to Unprofound, you automatically get a website showcasing all the photos contributed by you, as well as an optional personal photo, bio and links. You can use this self-contained portfolio website for professional or personal business use.
Freerange
This stock photography site offers a wide range of high resolution free stock photos and textures, with all images at least 2400 x 1600. All you have to do is sign up for a free membership, log in, and download away. You can use a keyword searchable stock photography database, or alternatively, browse through their online image catalogs. As well, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you have the option of e-mailing them to see if they have your desired image in one of their extensive, not-yet-online archives. If they have it, they’ll get it to you for free.
Image*After – Free Stock Photos
Image*After offers you the possibility to download and use free stock photos and high resolution pictures. The site’s layout is simple, with an easy-to-use FAQ available on the main page. At the moment, the volume of images is somewhat limited, but it is quickly growing. Sign up for their weekly newsletter to be notified of new additions to the site!
Free digital photos
PopPhotos
Photo Rack – Free Stock Photos
A vast collection of stock photos for free private and commercial use, Photo Rack organizes its images by category. Categories include Lifestyle, Nature, Food/Cooking, Animals, Industrial/Technology, Sports, Business, People, Cities, Backgrounds/Textures, and Miscellaneous. A cool feature of this site is the option to send most images to any e-mail address of your choice as a postcard!
PBase
Openphoto
Currently in process of updating their layout, but worth checking back, as it was mentioned by Mark Thompson of YotoPhoto as being a top free stock photo site!
Photobucket
Onexposure.1X
Public Domain Photos
EyeFetch
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August 31st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Life.com does not belong on this list. While it’s an amazing site, and the tools they offer for the archive are compelling, its photos are not free for reuse elsewhere. All photos have licenses which are handled by Getty Images.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
@ThomasT, you’re right it was a mistake! I have removed the link.
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:21 am
This isn’t spam, and I did hand-type this comment. I was just going to say that I launched a free stock photo website/blog a few months back at http://www.introportfolio.com and am working on providing more content on the site daily.
Good article — Although I’ve seen this subject written on a few times in the community and also most of these resources listed, it’s always nice to have a fresh take on it.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:39 am
A new site to find high resolution free stock photos to use for art is:
http://ai-ya.yolasite.com
Will be great to see them added to the list.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:07 am
nice…thank you
September 26th, 2009 at 5:13 am
There is a good collection of high quality free photos at http://www.sunipix.com
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Not for free but at an affordable price I often use photos from this site on my own website. Photomace.com
October 29th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Plug here, but I really think you’ll like this one. It’s a completely 100% free stock photo, design and vector website.
Our site, http://www.allourstock.com is not spammy, it’s built around a nice, easy-to-use functional layout with easy drag-and-drop interface,
and has a lot more planned for the future. Currently we have about 500 images but we have a database of over 7000 yet to be added and
growing everyday. I personally shoot photos myself and create custom designs as well. All are available for person OR commercial use, most
of which do not require attribution.
check us out on twitter as well, http://www.twitter.com/AllOurStock
December 10th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Here’s another good one. http://www.photoxpress.com
January 19th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
http://www.KosherStock.com offers weekly free photos for personnal and commercial use. KS is a royalty-free microstock site (photos, illustrations and cliparts) focusing on the Jewish life, culture and religion.
February 21st, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Great roundup, very useful!
Thanks
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:29 am
nice collection
will use in my design
thanks
Satish