15 Best Places to Find Free Stock Photos
Imagery is an important part of websites. We all know why. The point is, if you’re using photos it is essential that you use really good ones – good composition, good quality, good colours; basically, all it takes to make an drool-worthy shot. In most cases, people turn to stock photos. But what if you need many large images and you’re short on budget? Well, in that case, you get two options:
- Do the photo-shoot yourself
- Hire a professional
Are you kidding me?
You bet I am! The best option in this case is to go for websites that offer quality stock photos for commercial use for free. Yes! F-R-E-E!!!
Okay. That’s too good to be true. Now tell me the catch.
There’s no catch. You don’t even have to give away your email id on most of them, so you won’t have the fear of getting spammed. They’re all high quality, large photos shot by professionals. “There’s still some good left in this world”, my dear people.
Without further chitchat, here’s the list of some of these angels of the stock photo world.
1. Pexels
Undoubtedly one of the best sites to discover brilliant images for free, Pexels can also integrate into Photoshop. It has apps for both Windows and MacOS.
2. Unsplash
Unsplash is another website that has a huge treasury of high quality images.
WordPress users, here’s the good news:
These guys have a WordPress plugin for adding images directly from their website to your WP site.
3. Pixabay
Just like Unsplash, they too have a WordPress plugin for adding images directly from Pixabay to WordPress websites. And, of course, their photo collection is simply great!
As an add-on, Pixabay also shows all information about the camera used.
4. Foodiesfeed
People interested in food photos, this is the place you’ve been looking for. With a collection of more than 900 food photos – all of them brilliantly composed and uploaded in high resolution – this website is sure to make you hungry.
5. Skitterphoto
Along with an interesting stock of photos, Skitterphoto also has an interesting feature. It lets you browse photos by colour. Yes, the usual categorization exists; this is an additional feature to help you find something when you may not know which category best suits your, say, blog header but you do know which colour scheme to go with.
So, when you opt for a large preview of a particular image, you get the camera information and the dominant colour palette for the image. You can then hop on any of the colours and browse through more images.
6. StockSnap
StockSnap is another website that hosts a large array of images of every category. Once you land on their website, you will fall in love with the warm palette that envelopes every photo.
7. Kaboompics
These people have made the downloading process slightly different. In a good way, that is. Along with the usual options for file dimension – “Original” and “Medium” – they have added a “Custom” field where you can download the image in the width you desire. Just type in the width, hit Enter and Kaboom! Your file is on its way to your device.
Kaboompics also lets you download the colour palette for the image you just got.
8. Focus Fitness
Focus Fitness is, as obvious from the name, a fitness blog but they also provide stock photos for free – fitness related ones only. They have a good collection of high quality images so, if you’re looking for health and fitness related images, you can look here without any second thought.
9. Negative Space
Time to fill up that negative space on your page, folks!
This is exactly what this website offers: beautiful, high quality pictures to make your webpage look gorgeous. Good choice of name for the purpose.
10. Death to the Stock
Sounds weird for a website hosting stock photos? Well, the idea was to do something what other online photo stores could not do: provide appropriate and quality images for free. Hence the name.
They offer an interesting way of giving away photos. Simply put in your email id and lo! You just unlocked the gateway to receiving a fresh set of new photos every week – direct to your inbox. They also have paid membership plans where you can enjoy full-time access to all the photos.
11. Picjumbo
Picjumbo is a collection of some really good images clicked by the author of the site Viktor Hanacek. The images are absolutely free to download but you can also avail a lot more by subscribing to paid plans.
12. MMT
MMT is another website where you can browse images by colour along with the general categorization. Every image that you browse also comes with its own colour palette.
Apart from great images, you can also find videos here. Cheers!
13. Shutteroo
Downloading images on Shutteroo is slightly different from that on other websites. The images come in bundles based on their categories. Once you drop your email on the website, you will receive the selected bundle directly in your inbox.
All images have been clicked by author and photographer Klaye Morrison.
14. Stokpic
You get two options to download images: either browse through images and download them individually or subscribe and receive 10 new images straight in your inbox every 2 weeks.
The idea is to have you focus on your work while they curate the images for you.
15. Burst
And finally comes Burst by Shopify. After bringing entrepreneurs some wonderful experience with websites, and after wooing us with their illustrations, Shopify has now brought us a collection of free images for commercial use. And, yes, they do have a fantastic collection.
Please remember that all images in all of the above websites come with Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means that you can use them wherever you please – on your blog, on your website or mobile app, on your brochure – anywhere.
But.
It’s important to remember that you cannot claim the images to be your creation.
And.
You cannot indulge in inappropriate use of images that feature people.
To get a clear understanding of the do’s and don’ts, it’s best if you read the license on the websites thoroughly. And then, you know, rock on with your project!
Got the images but not sure how to best use them? We can help!