Websites for Free Stock Photos
Websites for Free Stock Photos (the TOP 10)
There are literally hundreds of free stock image websites, offering unrestricted access to public domain or CC0 images. Any image which falls into these categories is considered public property, either because the photographer is unknown, or the original owner has relinquished their ownership rights. What you can do with these free stock images will vary slightly based on the individual website’s licensing policy. For the most part, any public domain image can be used however you see fit, though you should be aware that selling an image on is generally a no-go.
In theory, with so much available, we should never have to pay for images for personal or commercial use ever again! Unfortunately, finding a reputable free stock image website which has what you need can be time consuming and oftentimes unfruitful. Not to mention the fact that there are many misleading “free” stock photo websites out there, whereby “free” either means:
Free sign up and royalty-free images (but you actually pay a one-off price per image)
Or…
Free images! (but there is a limit to how many you can download before you eventually have to pay)
What we want and need is website with a good selection of public domain images, where you don’t need to sign up to get access, or part with a single penny. There are plenty of good options if you know where to look, and now you will – because we’ve gone ahead and done the research for you!
Here are our top ten websites for free stock photos, all of which offer instant downloads with no sign-up required. Enjoy!
This site has more than 1.2 million free, public domain images. Users have the benefit of a well-tuned search facility that brings up highly-relevant images based on even the most obscure search terms. You can also search for photos based on category, colour, orientation and size!
Pexels have a pretty impressive quantity of public domain images, all of which are vetted by the editors to meet a high standard of quality. The search facility is easy to use and you can choose to from several size options, or customise the size of the image yourself.
Like the first two websites in this list, Unsplash is home to a large section of images in a wide range of themes, styles and categories. The search and download facilities are quite user-friendly.
Life of Pix doesn’t offer quite as much choice as some of the other “all-category” free stock image websites we’ve listed above. However, they do have some really beautiful location-specific photographs which can be downloaded easily in high-resolution.
This is a very niche free stock photo website and easily one of our favourites! They offer old, copyright-free images which have been released from public archives. If you’re looking for something vintage, historic or location-based you could be onto a winner with this website!
Here we have another niche, free stock image database. Foodie’s feed specialises in (you guessed it) food images! They have great selection of delicious looking photographs and useful descriptions on each image.
1 million free pictures offer an enormous variety of free, amateur photographs. You’re likely to find some interesting images, but it’s not so helpful
if you’re looking for something specific as the search tool isn’t very efficient.
Here you will find both public domain images and images where attribution is required. We recommend using the public domain filter on the righthand side. There are some stunning images of people, animals, food and places but not so much in the way of less general themes. Users can also search for photos based on the dominant colour.
Photogen have an enormous variety of free stock images of varying quality. The search tool doesn’t seem to be very good and finding relevant images, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in quantity.
This site supplies beautiful high-resolution images, though their range is fairly limited. If you’re looking for natural landscapes or location-specific images, this could be the free stock image website for you.
There you have it – our top ten websites with free images. If you don’t even have the time to check out these websites and download the images you need and would love someone help take the load off with your work, contact Easy Consulting today. We can help with so many things. Take a look!