Why should I use a ?
When you’re designing websites, creating marketing collateral or doing anything else design related, a good will do wonders for your finished product. Often, you don’t have the budget, time, or skills to capture the you have in mind. If you have a big budget, you can explore a such as iStockphoto or . However, if you’re not willing to fork out big $$$ a will become your best friend.
Finding a good (or a few stock photos) can be challenging if you don’t know the best places to look. A google search for “Free Stock Photos” or “Free Websites” will bring up mixed results. Many sites will show a combination of some , some royalty , and a lot of paid images. It can be difficult to sort through the entire mix to find an image you can use for free. This is why you should turn to a truly free, and royalty free, .
What is the difference between a and a paid ?
Paid websites rely on people or businesses paying for the specific images (or a membership fee) to use their high-quality photographs and . Often, these website memberships or image purchases come at a high price, but there is a huge market of options available.
Free websites exist thanks to on-page advertising and often less experienced or up and coming photographers. Fortunately, this means you can find some great images for free, from largely undiscovered talent. There are thousands of photographers who upload their images to websites knowing it will be beneficial for small businesses or individuals while providing them with exposure and experience at the same time.
Free websites allow you to use their photos often under licensing, which means creators waive their copyright and other related rights to the asset. This allows you to use their (or other creative assets) for commercial purposes, absolutely free.
What are the best websites?
Canva
Canva is an Australian-born creative website with free as one of its services. Canva has over 1 million photographs and available for use, through either its free service or the Canva Pro service. These photographs have been compiled with graphic design in mind – as this is a core service of Canva. So every is great for use on most graphic design projects, such as posters, social media graphics, flyers and more.
Pexels
Pexels is a great (if not the best ) to find a high-quality and other royalty .
Pexels is a based in Germany. It was created by two brothers with a background in computer and software technology. The website aims to provide that are more authentic and modern than some other free websites.
Pexels stands out with its search function – which is easily filterable and multiple useful parameters make it easy to find the image you need. All photos on Pexels are nicely tagged, easily searchable and has a great variety of royalty .
Pexels also has a branch for free stock videos – a great resource for when you’re needing something beyond a simple photograph.
Pixabay
Pixabay is our next pick for . Pixabay has a large collection of , , and art illustrators. This website is also German-based, created by Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger, who both have a background in computer technology.
Pixabay is also crowdsourced, which means users upload their to be used. Over 1.4 million files are uploaded to the website under license. CC0 does still mean there could be privacy and property rights, but Pixabay has a dedicated and image editor who reviews submissions for quality and legality, creating a more . This is a great positive if you’re worried about usage.
Unsplash
Unsplash has a large collection of free, high-resolution . The team at Unsplash looks through submissions and features the best on their homepage. All photos are released for free usage under the Unsplash license.
Unsplash was born from a Tumblr blog that offered leftover photos from photoshoots, for free. It was then developed and is managed by the owners of Crew – a platform connecting clients with freelance designers, web developers, and small studio services. The site now has over 500,000 free photographs and with 10 royalty-free photographs being uploaded every 10 days.
Photos on Unsplash are , modern and authentic. The site uses its own custom license, which replicates a license but removes the right to compile its photos (avoiding a competitor using its ).
Where can free stock photos be used?
Most free stock photos sites allow use for commercial purposes, but it is always good to check, especially if you plan to use the photo for advertising or marketing as copyright restrictions might not allow you to do so. Generally, we like to use stock photos for blog posts, and social media posts. They can also come in handy when showing someone an example of the photo you are trying to recreate – or even find on a paid stock photo site.