In an increasing visual world, it is crucial to have great images to use in your content and marketing. The awesome thing is that with modern technology anyone can be a great photographer and share their images with the world.
Today I am sharing more than 90 free image sources for bloggers and businesses.
Keep in mind that free is a relative term and may mean free with attribution and a link back to the original. Likewise, royalty free differs from free of charge.
As with anything else, it is absolutely necessary that we understand the terms of our work. Glossaries like The Blogger's Guide to Blog Speak are handy to keep around for this reason. But if you need a quick run down of just image terms, this post by Inc.com has a great explanation of the different terms image licenses are likely to use: free, public domain, royalty free and creative commons.
NEVER just copy and use an image you find on a Google search or another person's blog or website. And always be sure to double check the permissions, attribution requirements and licenses. Just as you would give attribution to a quote from a book or other text, an artist's work should also be attributed, unless he/she has specifically waived that requirement.
You can never be too careful, and an extra minute or two now can save you lots of money and headache in the long run. Trust me, if you cannot afford to purchase stock images, you cannot afford the fines that come with “stealing images” and claiming ignorance is not going to get you anywhere.
The Mega List of Free Image Sources
This mega-list of free image sources contains thousands of images that can be used for free, under differing conditions: some with attribution and some without, some for personal or educational use, and some for commercial use. Either way, there are enough images here to last a lifetime, and many of these sites continue to add images daily.
* means I have used the source personally.
- 1 Million Free Pictures
- Ancestry Images
- Barn Images
- *Best Pics Monthly
- BigFoto
- British Library
- Bucketlistly
- Camarama
- Canva
- Christian Image Source
- CLKER.com
- Creative Vix
- Cupcake
- *Death to Stock Photos
- Designers Pics
- Dreamstime
- Digimad Media
- Epicva
- Every Stock Photo
- Fancy Crave
- *Flickr: Creative Commons
- Free Digital Photos
- Free Images
- Free Foto
- Free Mage Bank
- Free Media Goo
- FreePik
- Free Photos Bank
- Free Range Stock
- Foodie's Feed
- Getrefe
- Getty Images
- Good Free Photos
- Good Stock Photos
- Gratisography
- Image * After
- ImageBase
- IM Free
- Instastock
- ISO Republic
- Jay Mantri
- JE Shoots
- Kaboom Pics
- Large Photos
- Life of Pix
- *Little Visuals
- Lock & Stock Photos
- Made in Moments
- Magdeleine
- Mayang’s Free Textures
- MMT
- *Morgue File
- National Gallery of Art – artwork in the public domain
- Negative Space
- New Old Stock
- Old Design Shop
- *Open Clip Art Library
- pdpics
- Pexels
- Photogen
- Photos by People
- Picjumbo
- Pickup Image
- Picography
- *Pixabay
- Plixs
- Portrait Gallery – portraits in the public domain
- *Public Domain Archive
- *Public Domain Clipart
- *Public Domain Pictures
- Raumrot
- Re:splashed
- Rgbstock
- Skitterphoto
- SnapOGraphic
- Snapwire Snaps
- Splitshire
- Solate
- Startup Stock
- Stock.xchng
- Stock Photos.io
- Stock Photos for Free
- Stock Snap.io
- Stockvault
- Stocka
- Superfamous Studios
- The Pattern Library
- Tinyography – iphone images
- Tookapic Stock
- Travel Coffee Book
- TurboPhoto
- Udhwallpaper
- *Unsplash
- Vecteezy – free vector art
- Viintage.com
- Wefunction
- *Wikimedia Commons
- WPClipart – free clipart
Another interesting way to do things backwards is to use TinEye: a reverse image search engine. Here you can find information such as where an image came from, how it is being used, if there is a higher resolution version, or if modified versions of the image exist.
Want to edit your images?
Once you have an image chosen, here are my affiliate links to some great tools to use to edit it, spruce it up, add a title and/or your brand or blog logo:
- *Canva www.Canva.com
- Pic Monkey www.PicMonkey.com
- *Adobe Photoshop CS6
– a professional photo editing program
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 13
– a lighter (and cheaper) version
- *Shotbox – table top light room allows you to take professional photos of products and projects with just your iphone or camera
Which free image sources are your favorites? Did I leave one out? Please mention it in the comments.
