In a perfect world, we could all take amazing photos, edit them scrupulously, and somehow manage to have enough props and stylish flair to snap the exact image you need to illustrate your post.
In the real world, we have access to other talented people who do that instead!
I’ve lost count of the posts I’ve pinned, sent to Evernote, or emailed to myself that round up great places to find free images on the internet. To save myself that headache (and hopefully you too!) here they all are, finally, in one place. Pin it for yourself!
Tweet this: 27 Places to Find Free Images Online: @veggie_mama + @ProBlogger
Pexels
Pexels
from their site: All photos on Pexels are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the photos. The pictures are free for personal and even for commercial use. All without asking for permission or setting a link to the source. So thatattribution is not required. All in all the photos are completely free to be used for any legal purpose.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons has almost 25 million freely usable media files. You need to read their Reuse guide to check out the licensing requirements, though.
Getty Images
Getty Images has more than 50 million embeddable images – just hover over an image and click the </> icon to get the code to paste into your post.
Note: with Getty you can use these images IF you are non commercial. So if you’re making money from your blog – proceed with caution.
Public Domain Archive
Public Domain Archive
Public Domain Images are bloggers who have curated all the images in the public domain they’ve come across in one handy place. Both modern and vintage images to choose from.
Free Images
Free Images (previously stock.XCHNG) have stricter requirements with their licensing, so do check each image before use. Option to purchase other photos as well.
Open Photo
Open Photo has plenty of images, vectors, and even video to choose from.
New Old Stock
New Old Stock
New Old Stock is full of vintage photos from public archives, free of known copyright restrictions. You could scroll for hours!
Picography
As Picography says: Free high resolution photos. Use them however you like.
Creative Market
Creative Market is a paid service, with a weekly grab-bag of free images, fonts and other goodies to use on your blog.
Stokpic
Stokpic
Stokpic not only has beautiful images totally free to use for personal or commercial use, they will also email you a package of 10 every two weeks. Their image categories are listed right at the top so you can see at a glance if they have something you’re looking for.
Foodies Feed
Stockvault
A very easy search function lets you find exactly what you’re looking for straight away on Stockvault. You can read the permitted usage terms here.
Unsplash
Unsplash
A great selection of images, to which 10 new ones are added every 10 days. There isn’t any search function or categories list, which can make it hard to find something specific, but the current images are laid out in a grid format for you to view.
Photopin
Photopin has free photos for bloggers and creatives, which are accessed from the search bar on their home page.
A Prettier Web
A Prettier Web has beautiful (and quite girly) free images for bloggers and creatives.
Picjumbo
Picjumbo
Picjumbo has categories of free images on the left-hand side to help you find what you’re looking for. Everything from abstracts to weddings.
SplitShire
Click the menu box on the upper right-hand-side of SplitShire to find the categories, otherwise, scroll through the offerings.
Death to the Stock Photo
Death to the Stock Photo has a bundle of free images that get sent to subscribers each month, usually in a theme.
Gratisography
If you’re looking for something quirky and fun, you’ll find it at Gratisography.
Morguefile
To use some of the images at Morguefile, you’ll need to ask permission and link back to the creator, but they’re free and hi-res.
Dreamstime
An easy-to-use list of categories shows itself when you are on the “free images” section of the Dreamstime site.
Pixabay
Pixabay
Pixabay has tons of public domain vectors, drawings, and photos – all for free. A captcha is necessary prior to download, or you can sign up.
FreeFoto
FreeFoto has 132549 free images to use with attribution and linkback.
iStock
Part of Getty Images,iStock has free photos, illustrations, video, audio, and editorial files in weekly batches.
Boss Fight
Boss Fight has one mission: To be your final “Boss Fight” when it comes to finding completely free (do whatever you want) stock images, photos, and photography.
Flickr Creative Commons
Flickr Creative Commons is constantly updated with people all over the world sharing their photos for use. Do check each attribution licence, however, as some are stricter than others.
StockSnap
StockSnap also has royalty-free images with no attribution required.
And not technically photos, but Entypo has 411 pictograms for use on websites. Fun!
Where are your favourite places to get images? Are you a photographer yourself?
Stacey is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net: a writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd balancing it all with being a stay-at-home mum. She writes about all this and more at Veggie Mama. Chat with her on Twitter @veggie_mama or be entertained on Facebook.
Very useful post, thanks!
You’re very welcome!
Agreed! Very helpful indeed is the post. I always use Comfight.com which provides ready-to-use attribution code for pasting into the image caption, but having alternatives doesn’t hurt. Thanks a bunch, Stacey!
you missed http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/vince-vaughn-and-costars-pose-idiotic-stock-photos-you-can-have-free-163239 these are classic.
Oh my gosh, they are hilarious!
wow. Now I must use one of these on my business blog just to see if anyone even notices. Thanks for sharing, too funny.
Creative Common On Flickr
it’s a good one!
Whoa, huge list of free images. I am really going to find these useful. I used to use Flickr and Pixabay. Now I have lots more. Thank you!
Neil
Oh yes, plenty to choose from now!
This is just like a dream come true, my blogs have no images the reason being am scared to use someone else photo and get myself a lawsuit for copyrighting someone else work currently budgeting for my own camera and take may own then this post just shows up on my reading list an hurray!! just going through to find amazing picks that will entertain my readers thanks once again, you are such a life saver
Well worry no more!
Awesome list. My personal favorite – Pixabay – coz it’s convenient and all images come with WTFPL license.
It seems to be quite popular!
Hi Stacy,
Thanks for these links.
Some free images often come in handy to illustrate a blog or web page.
Regards,
David.
Definitely! I hope they’re useful to you.
Don’t forget about Unsplash!
https://unsplash.com/
Doh I missed it. Sorry about that.
Haha no problem. Unsplash is actually my favourite – I wouldn’t miss it!
I’m using only Photopin and rarely Compfight. How many of these sources provide ready to use attribution code? Photopin provides it, I’m sure of it.
Some of these places offer photos that don’t need attribution, but there are others who provide the ready-to-use code. I’m sorry, I didn’t take note of exactly how many.
Ciau Stacy, thanks for the links! Here is another free stock with really good imagery: http://barnimages.com/
Ooh thank you!
yes thank you!
This a perfect list that every marketer, community manager and even a disgner who can use. I think that this kind of list will help too many people to concentrate on getting the best of images rather than spending a huge amount of time to repair them and make them useful.
THX FOR SHARING.
Yes! They’ve saved me so much time :)
Hello Stacey,
This is really a big list to find free images. This list will surely help me to find proper images for my blogs.
Thanks for the great sharing.
You’re welcome :)
Thanks for this list, You can always use a variety of sources.
You sure can.
I’m bookmarking this!
Excellent! I’m glad to hear it’s useful :)
Thanks for including me. Thrilled!! :)
I am a little bit in love with your site, Mel! <3
hi there.
and thanks for sharing this amazing list of free images.
this list could come to help when i write new posts for my blog
I hope so!
Great list! A site I use that kind of has a few of these all listed together in one place: http://thestocks.im/
Also iconfinder.com is great for finding some cool icons, they have a great library of free ones!
Chris
Oh excellent tips, thank you!
Thanks for this solid information on where to find free stock photos. Pixabay is also a great place for free stock images.
Oh yes, that’s on the list! It’s quite a popular one.
Going to check out the recommended free stock image site link above soon. Thanks for posting this blog. :-)
Great article. I am going to post a link to it on G+
Thank you, that’s very kind!
Flickr Creative Commons is often sufficient for my needs … it’s a bootstrapper’s best friend!
Yes I used it for years! Then I started needing something a little more specific at times, and couldn’t find it there.
thank you
Free images used on a blog or website is a great way for people to pin your content to their pinboards on Pinterest.
Definitely. I certainly appreciate a good image I can Pin, so I know how useful it is!
Exactly. And it’s also good for business on Pinterest. :-)
I will use my own photos or photoshop creations, but one of my favorite sources of free photos is the Library of Congress’ Flickr page. All the images are in the public domain. If you’re looking for vintage photos, it’s a great resource.
Pixabay and PicJumbo are some of my go-to’s! And I just like looking at Foodie’s feed, even if I don’t actually use it. Bad thing to do around dinner time though.
This is an amazing list! It just kept going!!!! I have been using unsplash but I go to http://unsplash.com/grid to browse them easier and quicker.
Thanks again!!!!
They’ve added a search function.
It’s discreet, so v. easy to miss. Just click on the magnifying glass in the top left corner of the first image. So much easier!
Great list Stacey!
One caveat with Getty Images. I added an embedded Getty Image following their instructions on a blog post a year or so ago. I have since been sent demand letters from an Australian law firm demanding I pay over $600 for breach of copyright for using a Getty Image.
If you search “Getty Images Demand Letter” on Google, you’ll find that thousands of small businesses have received these demand letters from Getty. It seems that Getty is now targeting Australian small businesses. For this reason, I would never recommend anyone use Getty Images.
This is the biggest list I have seen. Previously I was using pixabay, photopin, or my own pictures I had taken. Thanks for sharing all these!
WoW. Thank you for this very extensive list. I knew about some of them, but most I didn’t know about.
Hi Stacey,
Nice list! I dig free digital photos if I’m writing articles for clients. For my blog I simply use travel photos snapped with my snazzy camera, to save myself time and energy and to post images in full alignment with my brand. Make sure wherever you snatch up eye candy that it’s aligned with your posts and of course, with your online persona.
From Google You Can Find Images
This is quite a comprehensive list. But I have not seen any post till date which mentions where we can find car images.
Wonderful post, Thanks for listing the URL to get images, this is very useful for bloggers. i was never aware of such URL or place exists to download images.
Regards
Mukesh
Fantastic list! I hadn’t heard of any of those links until now!
These are great. Thanks for sharing. Haven’t checked them all out but wondering if any of these have free clip art using a flat design.
this is very good list but i always use google images for online images and downloading. But now i try these websites for online images thanks for it.
Great share Stacey
Excellent list!! I have also just added to the list of places – I’ve got a bunch of my own pics that I’m offering as free stock photos too – themed around rural landscapes, the beach, and my own quirky sense of weirdness and beauty. You can find them here – http://tractorgirl.com.au/?p=12792. Enjoy :)
Oops, I mean http://www.snapwi.re
Great, great list!. I thought I’ve had all but yours is much more. Thanks Stacey
Thanks Darren! This is very useful. I just started a blog and this is such a big help.
Thank you for putting this list together. I normally use my own photos but often need more but I used to be worried about the copyright etc
I love unSplash too – but they have recently added a search function!
It’s very easy to miss, but just click on the little magnifying glass to the top left of the first image and a search option appears.
Thanks for pulling this list together. It’s great to discover some new sites!
I’m a photojournalist as well as a journalist, so I use a lot of my own photos on my blogs.
However, I’m always looking for free photos to use, too. This is a helpful list.
Wow, thank you for the list. Now I have more image resources. I used to use images from pixabay only. But, now I get more resources. Thanks again! :)
Another list about free image sources on the web? Excellent!
I have found other lists online, some more extensive, some less, but they are all unique from one another. This list is definitely unique.
I have also found that shorter lists, like this one, have better sites. The catch-all sites have more options, but you end up sifting through a lot of mediocre ones in order to find the better collections.
Images are a must-have. Those vector images and clip art never looked good – even in 1996, when a majority of them came out.
I love the new Instagram-ish, conceptual stock photos on offer today.
One issue I have with stock images is that they can take a long time to wade through. I prefer stock images that are high-quality, and as generic as possible, so that they can potentially overlap with the topics in my blog posts.
I also use Canva. Anyone use that? It is a very simple program to use where you can create custom graphics. Often, I will use stock photos in combo with this program. It is great for marketing on Pinterest.
It can also take twice as long. However, I find that practice makes perfect!
Thank you for this infomation as I was searching images for my fitness blog and glad to find your post.
Thanks for the article. I always used shutterstock for my images but I will branch out and explore other sites because of this article. Thanks again
just set up my site so this will come in handy thanks ;d
What a brilliant blog post! Thank you so much for compiling this amazing list for us. I do use a lot of my own photos but sometimes they’re just not exactly what I need and I get really worried about using images without permission so this is going to be great! Thank you again. :)
I enjoy creating my own images with my camera and photo editing tools such as Photoshop. I also paint and draw and basically use that to create my own art for my blog. I refer to my Photoshopped images as my photo-art, while the painted or drawn ones as art.
However this takes a long time so I like use-sing images from free digital photo’s.net. These only require an attribution. I have also recently discovered Morgue files, and am loving all the free to use images there. Wikipedia commons is also a great resource depending on what kind of blog post I am writing.
I’ve also discovered icon bug for twitter images and such like “icon” types.
Thanks for all of these other sites. :) It is always best to have a huge selection when you are looking for something specific. :)