As a designer, you probably have your favorite go-to sites for free stock photography. But it’s inevitable that you will exhaust the supply on your favorite site or just need a few fresh images at some point. Here is a collection of more than 30 free stock photo sites to add to your list.
1. stock.xchng
Touted as the leading free stock photography site, they have more than 390,000 photos. The site also has an extensive search functionality, lightboxes, and Photoshop and GIMP tutorials for a number of photo effects.
2. morgueFILE
This free photo site has over 200,000 free images, mostly in the categories of scenic, nature, objects and still life. There is a filtering option so you can sort by category, size, date, color, etc.
3. Freerange Stock
This is a very nice collection of good quality photos. There is not a site-wide browsing capability, but you can browse photos that are provided by the site owners. They provide lightboxes as well as a new tutorials section.
Everystockphoto.com is a photo search engine that provides a portal to freely licensed photos. Results include photos from stock.xchng, Flickr and morgueFILE, among others.
Another free image search engine to check out: OpenStockPhotography
FreeDigitalPhotos.net provides a solid collection of photos in the standard categories (animals, people, sports, etc.). The quality is very good for free stock. Web quality versions of the photos (typically 640×427) are free, with a fee required for higher resolutions.
Stockvault.net has an extensive collection of images free for non-commercial use. The site also has tutorials, videos and articles.
It may not be the largest or most easily searchable collection, but Unprofound is a very unique site that provides free stock photos sorted by color.
8. Photogen
This site has about 1,250 images, spread over a number of categories. The photos are very good quality and available in high resolution. A nice feature is that you can add images to your lightbox and then download them all in a ZIP file.
More than 3,000 photos focused on travel and leisure time in the U.K.
10. STUDIO7DESIGNS Free Stock Photography
A very small, but really nice collection of high resolution nature photos.
11. FreePhotos.com
This is collection has just over 4,600 images. The site is searchable, and the categories for browsing are very specific which makes it easier to find photos.
12. AarinFreePhoto.com
This is a small but quality collection of just over 950 images. No registration is required to download.
13. ImageBase
ImageBase has really nice high resolution images that fall under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. The site is searchable and browseable.
If you’re looking for a straightforward photo collection without a lot of other options, this is a good starting point. You select a category — primarily location-based and scenic — and can view thumbnails displayed on one page.
This site has 5,000 photos and 8,000 clipart images. The photos are separated by category with a limited search option.
16. Free Images
Free Images has more than 3,000 original stock photos all taken specifically to add to the image database on the site. They are categorized and searchable, with the top three categories being Home, Financial and Flora.
17. Openphoto.net
This site provides necessary information — direct links, terms, required attribution — with each photo, eliminating the need to dig around for the rights for a specific photo. They provide a fair mix of subjects from animals to technology.
18. Majestic Imagery
This is a small collection with just over 450 images. Most of the photos are scenic and nature settings.
19. Cepolina Photos
Cepolina has over 8,000 photos; some are high resolution. You can search, browse by category, or sort by clicking on image icons.
20. Dreamstime
Dreamstime has a nice variety of images, but most require the purchase of credits. You can use the search function to locate free photos.
21. PhotoRogue
If you’re having trouble finding a specific photo, and don’t need it immediately, add this site to your list. You submit information on the photo you’re looking for and site volunteers attempt to capture the perfect shot for you for free. The photos taken are added to the public gallery for everyone to see and use.
22. National Park Service Digital Image Archive
A collection of public domain images from U.S. national parks. Other categories include headshots of government officials, event-specific photos and photos taken at youth programs.
For other U.S. government photos, try:
And here are a few more free stock photo sites:
23. Flickr Creative Commons Attribution
24. image*after
25. freemediaGOO.com
26. PD Photo
27. Hoover Stock Photography
28. Freepixels
29. Barry’s Free Photos
30. Bigphoto.com
Many of the sites listed here provide photos that are free for personal or commercial use as long as you provide a credit to the photographer and/or site. But since usage rights can change, be sure to read the policies on each site before using the photos.
Which of these is your favorite stock photo site, or do you have one to add to the list?
Image credits:
Car in desert, Jamie Brelsford on stock.xchng
Wood boards, Aarin Free Photo
Bee, Cepolina
Volcano, National Park Service
Another good one is Crestock. It’s not totally free, but they post one free image per day that you can download.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Wow, great list! I was only aware of a few of these. A whole new range of amazing images for me to play with. Thanks Alyssa!
March 5th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Very valuable and useful. Thanks for compiling all that info.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Fotolia.com also offers a few free pictures every day.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
try
http://www.saint-pierre-des-nids.com
and
http://www.dartmoor-photos.com
March 5th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Really these links are very useful.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Excellent links
March 5th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Man, Sitepoint should have some sort of “bookmarks” or “favourite pages” option to have articles like this always accesible.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Man, Sitepoint should have some sort of “bookmarks” or “favourite pages” option to have articles like this always accesible.
You could of course just bookmark it in your browser.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Great and useful list of resources!
Thank you.
March 6th, 2009 at 5:56 am
Thanks for this resource… Been looking for some images for a while.
Registered for http://www.stockxpert.com and it seems you have to buy credits. Are their free images here or ido you have to purchase?
March 6th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Awe-sooooooommmmmmmmmeeeeeeee!!!
*bookmark*
March 6th, 2009 at 10:55 am
I had written a similar article sometime back, thought it would be helpful to let you know guys here
90+ Free Stock Photo Websites [Exhaustive List]
March 8th, 2009 at 5:46 am
What reassurance is given that these images come with full rights to be reused, without credit, for any purpose with cost?
I imagine that likes of Stock.XCHNG cannot verify the origin of ANY photo, so if the true owner of the rights takes up the issue with your client, then you as the designer will probably cop any legal ramifications.
Be careful.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:22 am
another place would be 123rf.com they have a free section with alot of pictures of various themes.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:24 am
PurYel has a directory as well as an aggregator for stock photo sites. Visit puryel.com and check out the “Stock Photography” section which has Cheap Stock Photos, Commercial Stock Photos and Free Stock Photos. Their aggregator which is located at news.puryel.com aggregates listings from the websites in the above mentioned categories.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Thanks for the listings of the free photo websites. I also found thousands of high quality categorised free photos at http://www.sunipix.com Hope you will include http://www.sunipix.com to your article.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:04 am
This is a new one its got paid and free: http://www.photostogo.com
April 7th, 2009 at 9:23 am
thats not free…
April 10th, 2009 at 1:41 am
You can try http://www.freeartisticphotos.com , one of the best? ;)
Cheers!
April 30th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Another useful one is http://www.freestockimages.org/
May 5th, 2009 at 3:26 am