updated: December 19, 2017
Royalty Free Images
After mastering the art of writing blog posts at lightening speed, I found myself tripping over the image part of my blog creation. Sometimes I could create a “How To” style of blog post in 30 minutes, and then go on to spend over an hour looking for the right picture, or agonizing over lighting when taking my own. And then one of my favorite business advisors gave me a list of image resources. I’ve been adding to that list as I continue on my journey & I’m sharing it with you today.
Remember to watch for copyright & licensing terms. Even if they’re in a free directory, there may still be specific terms for the one image you choose. Happy Blogging!
Royalty Free Images
Free to use on your blogs – but it’s always a good idea to watch to see if the terms say otherwise.
Images for Blogging :: Creative Commons & Stock Photos
- Ancestry Images offers a free image archive of historical prints, maps and artifact photos, like this print of a New Zealand Maori Warrior from 1817.
- Design School Canva offers 74 free stock images – a great combination to use with the graphics you can create in their free design software.
- 123RF (some aren’t free, but this link “should” lead to free ones)
- BigFoto (amateur photographers, no login required)
- Bigstock (Free Images each week)
- Compfight.com (searches through flickrs creative commons images)
- Crow the Stone
- DeathToTheStockphoto.com (free high resolution, sent to you once a month)
- Dreamstime a free section that’s searchable and frequently updated. You will have to sign up for a free account though.
- Everystockphoto.com
- Foodiesfeed (free high resolution food images for personal or commercial use)
- Foter (compiles Flickr images, including some that may not be usable for commercial purposes)
- Free Pixels
- Freedigitalphotos.net (categorized and searchable. Business, personal or educational use. Small sizes are free, larger sizes available for purchase)
- Free Images – more than 350,000 stock photos, searchable and categorized. Bit of a painful sign up process.
- Freemediagoo.com
- Free Photos Bank (categorized & searchable. Download without login)
- Freerange Stock (free high-resolution stock photos. Registration required)
- Getty Images (over 350K images)
- GetRefe
- Graphic Leftovers (includes some vectors too)
- Gratisography (free high-resolution, completely free of copyright, weekly, simply click to download, no registration)
- IM Free (search by keyword or browse by category. All for commercial use.)
- ISO Republic
- Little Visuals
- Kozzi.com
- Life of Pix
- Littlevisuals.co (7 images every 7 days)
- Magdeleine
- Microsoft Clipart (retiring Jan 1, 2015)
- Morgue File.com (credit the photographer when possible)
- New Old Stock Photos (vintage photos from public archives)
- Pexels
- Photodropper.com
- PhotoDune (several free images available each month)
- Photolib.noaa.gov
- Photopin.com (searches Flickr’s creative commons licenses)
- Picjumbo.com (New photos uploaded daily, no registration)
- Pickupimage (nature and outdoor images, free to do as you wish, including commercial use)
- Picography
- Pixabay.com (copy, modify, distribute and use the images, even for commercial purposes. No registration is required)
- Pixel Perfect (free stock photography for designers)
- Public Domain Archive
- Public-domain-photos.com (amateur photographers. signup required)
- Rgbstock is a free stock image site created by photographers and graphic artists. Registration (required) is one-click and the pool of photos is pretty deep.
- Snapwi.re 7 free photos each week. Plus, signup to use Snapwire and we both get $20 towards a photo from a request or their marketplace. Use my link http://ssqt.co/ccPq
- Stock Vault
- StockPhotos.io (photos sharing community, 25,000+ images. Allowed for commercial use with credit to author)
- Split Shire
- Startup Stock * must attribute
- Stock Exchange
- The Stocks (compilation of photo sites – including many on this list)
- Travel Coffee Book (10 new photos every 10 days – travel photos – no sign up required)
- UncleSamsPhotos.com (directory of US Government ‘s free photo galleries)
- Unprofound.com (no sign up required, all images are available for commercial use)
- Unsplash.com (10 free photos every 10 days in your inbox)
- Wikimedia (also includes video & mp3)
Free stock photo bundles from Hubspot
(you’ll need to enter your name and email, but you’ll have full rights to use their images)
- 75 Free Stock Photos to Use in Your Marketing
- 250 Holiday Stock Photos
- 160 Free Business-Themed Stock Photos
Where to Edit Your Images
- Pixlr.com*
- Picmonkey
- Skitch*
- Gimp
- Microsoft Paint.net (psd plugin)*
- Photoshop ($399+ or $20/mo)
- Photoshop Elements $99
Create Image Mockups
(create mockups of iphone, laptops etc)
Want to find the original source of an image? Worried about copyright?
TinEye will do a reverse image search for you. It will show if there is modified versions of the image, or even higher resolution versions.
photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc
Pictures paint a thousand words, so as they say! Photos and images gives flare and enhances your web content, thank you for the post.
Thanks Loralee! Awesome as always.