Here are the greatest stock photography websites to ensure you always have access to royalty-free and copyrighted photographs.
Perhaps you’re a budding photographer looking for ideas. Or perhaps you’re a budding entrepreneur looking for stock images to use on your website.
This list of the greatest stock photography websites will ensure that you always have access to copyright and royalty-free photographs, no matter what your job is.
What Are Copyright-Free Images and How Do They Work?
Some websites enable you to download photographs for personal use (for example, background wallpapers), but not for commercial usage.
This can include things like business cards, websites, and posters. The following websites’ photographs are protected by the Creative Commons CC0 license:
The websites listed below either support or are entirely made up of CC0 photos in the public domain. The proprietors of these photos have given people permission to tweak, edit, and use their images without fear of retaliation for violating their copyright.
There are two typical courtesy considerations to keep in mind when using CC0 photos before diving into the free stock image sites.
We encourage that you publicize the artists’ efforts, even if you are not required to provide credit to the creator.
A Donate page or splash screen is frequently found on these websites. Consider donating to their cause if you frequently utilize free image hosting sites. If everyone who uses a copyright-free image site contributed the cost of a cup of coffee, it would be a huge help to the photographers and artists who give their work away for free.
Now that that’s out of the way, these are the websites you should bookmark if you want to find high-quality, copyright-free photographs.
1. Freerange
Freerange offers thousands of high-resolution stock photographs. You can use all images on the website for commercial or personal projects. Freerange offers revenue sharing via Google AdSense for photographers who contribute.
The site has thousands of images and about 20,000 CC0 photographs. Most of these photos have precise keywords and descriptions.
2. Unsplash
Crew is an online marketing agency that helps you make your design dreams come true. Crew started Unsplash as a side project.
Unsplash offers free stock photography and also features user-created graphic designs in its MadeWith section.
Unsplash began as a side-project, but it has since become one of the most popular copyright-free stock image websites .
3. Pexels
Pexels is a website which wants to help. It was established in 2015 and has since grown to be a respected stock photo library. Their mission statement best describes their goal:
Pexels is unique because it does not only display images found on the Pexels site. It also sources images from high-quality websites like Little Visions.
Pexels has a screening process that ensures the highest quality images. You can also download stock videos without copyright from the site.
4. Flickr
Flickr does not have a dedicated public domain image collection, but it has a large library of high-quality images from the public domain.
Flickr has been and will continue to be one of the most popular image collections on the internet. You won’t run out of stock photography soon, as there are millions of high-quality images available in the public domain.
Flickr is constantly updating their features. You can now order photo prints from Flickr.
5. Life of Pix
Life of Pix is a treasure trove of beautiful, copyright-free photos that you can lose yourself in.
Life of Pix was created by LEEROY, a Montreal advertising agency. It is a place for free, public domain photography. Even better, the Life of Vids website offers even more stock video footage for free.
6. StockSnap
StockSnap offers a large and varied collection of stock imagery for free. StockSnap offers a wide range of high-quality images, with hundreds added every week.
Every image in StockSnap was created by Snappa and is completely free to use. It would be difficult to find a better image collection.
7. Pixabay
Pixabay, another image repository, integrates images from different image hosting sites. It aims to provide the best free stock images available for personal and commercial use.
Pixabay offers easy access to “camerasearch,” which allows users the ability to search images by camera. This is an excellent resource for professional and beginner photographers alike.
8. Wikimedia
Wikimedia offers a stunning image collection that covers everything, from historical events to lush landscapes.
Wikimedia has over 34 million media pieces that can be freely used, including sounds and videos. It is an essential resource for artists, graphic designers, and photographers looking for high-quality, free images. Wikimedia is part of a larger organization that provides free images, education and information.
9. Burst
Burst is a great example of this. Burst is a similar interface to Unsplash. It offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of categories and images to explore.
It also provides high-quality images with no copyright. This is depending on whether images are being added to websites or used for graphic design.
Bookmark Burst to get a huge online collection of high-quality, free images.
10. KaboomPics
KaboomPics is an impressive project. You will be able to browse through images that you don’t need, from the UI design to the huge reservoir of stellar images.
KaboomPics would be the best if it were just about royalty-free images. It also has a color-picker search engine and color pallets for images.
This is just a small sample of the many features KaboomPics offers. It’s one the best free stock image websites around, with everything from photoshoots and informative blog entries.
11. Vintage Stock Photos
Freerange also runs Vintage Stock Photos, a free website that specializes in vintage images. You used to have to pay for the content, but you can now find thousands of high-quality vintage photos at no additional cost.
Vintage Stock Photos is another website where you can spend a lot of time looking through the catalogue. You can see a great snapshot of life throughout the ages with the wide range of images that are not subject to copyright.
12. Free
Do you want something a little more unusual? Are you looking for a unique, high-resolution image? Gratisography is for you.
This site has a lot of copyright-free images, including some that are “quirky… beautiful… arresting”. These images will allow you to give your next project a unique twist.
Here are more copyright-free media you can use
There are many websites that offer high-quality stock images at no cost. You may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. You can even find free stock websites for vectors.
We recommend that you focus on the most attractive site, and then browse the wide range of images without copyright until you find the right image.
