When you see a website with lovely photos, it makes you happy. The visual impact of the pictures you are looking it is undeniable. It could either affect one’s mood or effectively convey a message through the use of images.
Part of creating a good content are the media elements that go with it. Seeing a plain text on a screen will bore you. But if you see a web page with a good combination of images and text, it makes you want to read and stay on the page.
That’s why images are very important especially in this era of digital technology wherein many information are passed to its audience via pictures. So, what if you need to use a nice photo from an online source, say Google, will you immediately download and use it?
You shouldn’t. Because you might end up penalized for using images that you do not have the license to use. No one wants to get sued due to wrong usage of images. Well, definitely no one wants to get sued for whatever reason!
Yes, you can faces legal charges if you grab images without checking their license. Although it is available on the internet, it doesn’t mean that it is free. That is why we all need to be careful so we can save ourselves from stress and pressure of getting in trouble online.
This sounds scary, right? Well, you don’t have to be anxious about using online images anymore because there are actually free image sources. To make it easier for you, I created a list of websites where you can get free pictures for your blog content and design for your projects. I recommend that you always read a website or a photo’s license, conditions, and terms prior to using it.
But before I give you the list, let us look into the different licenses that you usually see in photos.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons refers to a nonprofit organization which allows sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. There are various types of Creative Commons licenses that range from allowing any type of use with no attribution to allowing only certain uses and no changes.
What is public domain?
Works that are in the public domain are those with expired copyrights, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Not everything that you find on the internet are in the public domain.
What is royalty free?
Royalty-free images aren’t actually free. It means that you have to pay a one-time fee to obtain the rights to use the image. Then you can use it as many times as you like. The “free” in “royalty-free” only means that you do not have to pay royalties to the owner of the image every time you use it.
Most of my images in this blog are from Unsplash because I love their pictures! There are over 1 million images from this that are all high resolution taken by professional photographers. You can use photos from the site for commercial and non-commercial without the need to credit the owners.
From wallpapers to manipulated images- you can get all these from Pixabay which offers millions of beautiful photos that you can use for your blogs and creative projects. Aside from Unsplash, I also use this site for my blog images.
The images from this website are free to use but you can also donate to the photographers or follow them on Instagram. No attribution is required.
Commit 2 Design created this website to provide free stock photos both for commercial and personal use. You can even get 7 new images every that you can use for your creative projects.
Picjumbo has stunning images that would be great for blogs and Pinterest images. I just discovered this site and I would definitely grab photos from them for my blog. Check their site and you’ll know what I mean by “stunning!”
Grab unique free images of people, places, and things from Reshot. All their photos have an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license which means you can use whatever way you want.
Get free high-quality creative images from this website without any copyright restrictions. Check out their photos and you’ll surely love them!
You will find thousands of CC0 creative commons zero licensed images from this site. The photos here are nice too which varies from food photography to landscape photography and more!
In Picography, you can use their photos in however way you like since they offer free license. But you can also buy premium photos if you want to.
Although this site doesn’t have millions photos, their images are beautiful and are categorized for easier access. For sure, they will have more photos to offer in the future.
Burst is powered by Shopify (an e-commerce platform) which provides free stock photos that you can use for your school projects, client work, print ads, menus, on websites and beyond. And yes, you can even sell shirts using images from the site.
You can find public domain photos here in different categories. There are lots of new images everyday that you can use for your work or personal projects.
What’s interesting about Kaboompics is that you get a color palette in every photo. This would be very helpful when it comes to creating your branding based on a photo. The color palette also shoes its corresponding HEX colors. Nice, right?
If you need backgrounds, textures and other photos for commercial use without the need of any attribution, then this is the site you are looking for. You need to register first before you can download their images.
Do you need nature photos? There’s no better way to get high-resolution nature images than this website! Take a look at the lovely scenery, animals, and more! These will work well as wallpapers or even for your school projects.
Well the website’s name explains what they can offer. It has over 300,000 images that you can use for free. But not all of them are from professional photographers.
17. Stock Snap. io
The free stock images here are also nice. So if you can’t find it from your usual go-to sites for free stock photos, try this website. For sure, you will get what you are looking for.
If you are looking for images with a particular color in mind, head over to Magdeleine where you can search for images based on its dominant color and tags.
19. Snapwire Snaps
Over 200,000 talented photographers contributed their images in this website which add 7 new photos every 7 days.
This website is created to provide free technology, business and startup realted photos for bloggers, publishers, startups, websites, designers, and everyone else.
Another website that is under the Creative Commons license CC0 which allows anyone to use the photo without any cost and for whatever purpose.
Foca Stock will not only give you free stock photos but you can also access free social media templates that you can use for Facebook, Instagram, and more. You can even edit and resize the photos without the need of using another tool or app since you can do this in their website.
Although Raw Pixel is selling premium images, they also provide safe to use images. It is a nice place to get photos for blogs too!
Do you have food blog? If you do, this is the best resource for free stock images. I assure you that the images are all mouth-watering!
What about if you have a travel blog? Then the Travel Coffee Book will be your best friend when it comes to travel photos. You can get stunning images of famous places around the world!
The next time you need a high-quality image for your blog, website or designs, you can get from the sources above. It would be better to come up with your masterpiece without feeling guilty!
Don’t forget to bookmark this post so you can go back to it whenever you need free image sources.
