Free Stock Photography Websites

iTec · April 3, 2002, 6:16am

The list of free stock photography that has been floating around has too many non-free links to be of any real use, so I have given myself the task of finding as many places as I can and checking to make sure they are free!

LEGEND

* = May need to contact somebody for permision
nc = Free for non-commercial use, ie: personal websites and tennis matches are fine
1-5 = If a site is very poor, it gets a 1. If it’s great, give it a 5. If there is no number, I was too lazy to type it.

THE LIST

While I have tried to make sure that I give you only free resources, I don’t have a law degree so I can’t guarantee it! Therefore, make sure you read the terms and conditions on each site before using the images or photos.

March 19 2004 List cleaned up, removed dead links and added more sites.

Winged_Spider · April 3, 2002, 6:23am

Thanks for this great thread.

Wow, I think that if something happens to our race, at least were going to leave behind some nice photographical references to who we were. Just think if aliens 3,000,000 years from now discover old Sitepoint threads.

Shap · April 3, 2002, 6:32am

another great one is

Thanks for the great links! going straight to the favorites

Patrick · April 3, 2002, 6:58am

Hey, I was gonna do this iTec. Read my mind. Good job. Because I went through those links and was SO FRUSTRATED. Kept checking FAQ. Only a few of them had free unrestricted (and no contact neccessary!) actual FREE stock photos.

iTec · April 3, 2002, 8:38am

Originally posted by Shap
another great one is
www.istockphoto.com

I was tempted to include istockphoto (they did get a mention) in the list but now that they charge 25c a download they arent technically free…

Ruchir · April 3, 2002, 11:20am

Great list Nick… cool work… thanx

JMulder · April 3, 2002, 3:05pm

iTec, if you play it good at iStockPhoto then you can get them for free

Just upload your own photos or make your own, for each uploaded photo that gets accepted you will get a price (I think glenplake mentioned that).

Steelsun · April 3, 2002, 3:20pm

I agree that Istockphoto is great.
Yes they charge 25 cents per download, but:

You get 4 free downloads for joining
Uploading is free, and for every one of your upload that is downloaded you get 5 cents.

So, it’s quite easy to not have to pay for Royalty Free, Commercial Use images.

Jimknee · April 4, 2002, 5:42am

Good stuff, iTec.:tup:

This thread was a bit confusing because it was titled: “Free photos for commercial use.” But Trillian actually asked:

…are there any stock photo discs that are available for $50 or less?

So we were giving Trillian free and cheap sources. Including Photo-Objects. And sites where you help with bandwidth costs. (iStockPhoto)

Smarky · April 5, 2002, 3:42pm

I downloaded one of those Tree notepad things called “Treepad plus” that was in one of the Sitepoint Tributes recently :). I just copied these links into it for future reference. Thanks allot for the links

wert · June 13, 2002, 9:34pm

Want some really nice outdoor images courtesy of the U.S. Gov’t?

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/

And did I mention that they are public domain and all images are available in Hi-Res?

Enjoy.

flashswami · June 19, 2002, 2:14pm

Another one-

http://www.dotdragnet.co.uk/noflash.asp?action=0&cat=35

ghuytro · January 26, 2003, 3:26pm

Surprisingly - the best collection of truly FREE stock photos I’ve found is at the Microsoft site!!

dgl.microsoft.com

Just do a search and be sure to select “Photos” under the select menu titled “Results Should Be:”

I’ve found them to be very good quality photos

anode · January 26, 2003, 3:36pm

iStockPhoto has raised the price per photo to $0.50 . Can’t complain though, as now you get $0.10 per download.

Hierophant · January 26, 2003, 4:55pm

Originally posted by ghuytro
[B]Surprisingly - the best collection of truly FREE stock photos I’ve found is at the Microsoft site!!

dgl.microsoft.com

Just do a search and be sure to select “Photos” under the select menu titled “Results Should Be:”

I’ve found them to be very good quality photos [/B]

And technically you are allowed to use these images only if you own one of the Microsoft Office packages.

phate · January 26, 2003, 10:52pm

Photo’s from Hungary. The site’s a bit vague but worth a look. - all images are 1152x872
http://orangetrash.d2.hu/

http://www.digitaleden.de/

http://www.photocase.de/Default.asp
No English

Again, make sure you read the terms and conditions on each site before using any images.

korruptking · April 19, 2003, 10:21pm

My Personal favorite is www.gettyimages.com

darthpingu · April 20, 2003, 12:31am

I just opened http://stock.briony.cc
New images added weekly. Anyone from Sydney should recognise a few shots

anode · April 20, 2003, 12:33am

Not exactly free, though.

mydster · April 22, 2003, 1:14am

Awesome list!

A place that isn’t free, but has nice city stockphotos is photonica.com