Free images are a blessing when one has to design something, or use an image for a social post which is the purpose of a digital marketer’s work. Spending hours on a search engine tearing your hair out over yet another paid stock image is enough to drive anyone to tears. Fear not! There are a number of lovely free image sites available. Here we take a look at a few of them and give you a great breakdown.
Splitshire
SplitShire boasts 1038 free photos, ranging from romantic old boats to light bulbs. The photos are all great quality, and have an arty look about them. All the photos are from one artist who says : “I created SplitShire with the simple aim of giving life to photographs that would have gone into oblivion without any utility.” Here you will find the ramblings of an incredible photographer, who has very kindly allowed all of his work to be freely downloaded and used for personal and commercial purposes.
Pros:
- Original Images from artist
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is a boutique-like site. It offers a collection of photo shoots and a blog. The photos are all pretty typical stock type pics, rather than arty, like SplitShire. This is a great site of you are looking for pics for ads. The blog has relevant subjects pertaining to images and the advertising industry, many of which are interesting to read. It also works on colour palettes, which is super useful for anyone trying to get pics to match a theme.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Made for the advertising industry
- Works on color palettes
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Negative Space
Negative Space offers beautiful free stock photos of things such as nature, plants, and people dancing. Although the pics are pretty standard stock images, there are some lovely textures amongst them too. The images are sorted into tags and categories for easy filtering. All the images are one click downloads which is nice, but beware the side bar that takes you to similar images on a paid site.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Lovely texture options
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
- Beware sidebar to paid site
Epicantus
This one is a little different. These are pics from a particular artist called Daria. She specializes in land and aerial pics taken from a plane. All of her work is free to use, also may not fit into your general idea of stock photography. It is interesting to look at though, and well worth a visit!
Pros:
- Original Images from artist
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Only landscape images
Cupcake
Cupcake has a good selection of stock pics that you can do what you want with. You are free to modify them in any way, as well as use them either personally or professionally. These are all pics taken by a talented guy called Jonas. He specializes in landscapes and nature, but there are some food and animal shots interspersed too.
Pros:
- Original Images from artist
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Specializes in nature and landscapes
Moveast
This is the journey of one traveler as he moved to Dubai. Most of the pics are of South Korea, its people and its landscapes. He is a very talented artist, although the pics are not stock as you would imagine. They are free to use though, and may work in a very specific setting.
Pros:
- Original Images from artist
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Only images of his trip through Korea
Stock Up
Stock-Up is a nice site full of stock images for all occasions. You can find over 25 000 images here, ranging from food to people, to landscapes to objects. Each one is tagged, so you can search through them using words such as “yellow” and “dog”. These pics are bright, and can be used in a number of settings. All are free for use to distribute or change as you wish.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Over 25 000 images
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Pexels
Pexels is one of the better known free pics sites. It has a very wide range of images. Most people are bound to find something there that suits their needs. Personally, Pexels is my go-to site when I need an image for anything. All the pics are high quality, you have a choice of sizes that you can download, and it’s easy as pie.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Over 1 million pics
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
- Choice of download size
Librestock
Another well-known site. Libre has a huge range of images, although it works a bit differently. They source images from other sites, and pull them through into one place for you. This means you don’t have to go searching. It’s kind of like an image search engine.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Image search engine
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Burst
Burst is a pretty free image site with a wide range of stock images. Everything from animals to jewelry, you will definitely find a pic to suit you here. It also has a cool little tips section on how to make social media ads better, and other topics worth a read.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Great Tips section
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Stocksnap
This site offers hundreds of high resolution pics, which is slightly less than other big free image sites. It has all the same sort of pics though, ranging from birds to business. You can also submit your own photos, and see if they make the cut!
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Submit your own pics
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Foodies Feed
This is a cool site that is dedicated to food images. Here you can find all sorts of delicious photos that can be used as borders, or just images. High res and good quality, this is undoubtedly the place to go to if you need pics of food.
Pros:
- Specialized food image site
- Images for fillers and borders
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Everything food orientated
Lorem Picsum
We all know the Lorem Ipsum text place holder. This site is a play on those words, and prides itself as a Lorem Ipsum but for photos. Simply enter the size of the placeholder photo that you need, and the site will bring up something pretty for in the meantime. Of course, you can use the pics for your project if you wish.
Pros:
- Image filler site
- Great stock images
- Choose your image size and filler shape
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Imageric
This site doesn’t just offer pics, but vectors too. Vectors are incredibly useful when designing, as they can be resized infinitely. The site itself doesn’t seem to hold any vectors, and sends you to other vector sites where you have to sign in. The images are good, although you can see that many of them are organized into photo-shoots. Be careful, clicking on the wrong image can send you to paid stock sites.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Be careful of getting taken to paid site
- Has access to vectors, but you have to sign in
- Most images are from organized shoots
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Skitter Photo
Skitter is a nice little site with a wide variety of high res pics. It’s easy to download, you just use one click. There are no different sizes however, but all the pics are at least 3 mb. You can use them completely without permission, for both personal and professional use. There is also an option to tip the author via PayPal, which is always nice.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Only one size of 3mb for images
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Reshot
Reshot was designed by creatives, for creatives. It’s a resource of emerging photographers and their works free to use. These pics are incredibly high quality, and each one credits their artist. This is a great resource for those in the advertising world, who want to give others a hand up.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- By creative for creatives
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Gratisography
Gratis means “free” in a number of languages, which describes this site to a T. the images are all free, and all of high quality taken by professionals. Gratis prides itself in quirky, unique images that won’t be found anywhere else. These are not your usual stock photos that you can find on pretty much any site. As they say, stock images are a dime a dozen, you have read about many on this blog alone! Gratis knows this, and strives for something different. They believe in quality over quantity, so expect thousands of pics of smiling stock families drinking stock coffee, or doing yoga in the rain.
The site was created by a guy called Ryan, who is a graphic and Web designer himself. A fun fact about Ryan is that he drives a 1971 VW Beetle that he has turned into a dinosaur, and another is that he has worn 50 bells around his ankles every day for the past 12 years.
Pros:
- Totally unique site
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
ISO Republic
ISO is another stock site with beautiful, free photos. I quite like the textures offered in this site though, that does make it stand out from the rest a bit. It has everything that you would expect from an image stock site, from laptops to lamas. The Blog has some cool articles about photography, how to use it, and how to integrate it into your designs.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Interesting Blog
- Good texture offerings
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Pixabay
Pixabay, like Pexels, is huge. It’s one of the best known free stock image sites in the world. You will find pretty much everything here, although rather standard stock photography. They boast over one million photos, so definitely go for quantity rather than anything niche. Pixabay does offer free vectors though, which is a nice touch. Finding good quality, actually free vectors can be a huge pain, so this is a great resource to keep in mind. You will have to sign up to access the high res versions though. Vectors can be downloaded in PNG format, but not EPS unless you create an account. The same goes for images. Which actually means that you cannot really get the vectors unless you sign up, although they are still free.
Pros:
- Huge stock site
- Over 1 million images
- Free for download and reproduction of certain sizes only
- Have to sign in for bigger pics and vectors
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Unsplash
Unsplash is another free stock image site where the photos have been gifted by the artists. This is, of course, a great way for the artists to get exposure. It boasts over 850 000 free pics, with no licenses attached. They are all pretty basic stock photos though, but you are guaranteed to find something that you can use. They also have an online community of creatives who both upload and download pics, so if you are into photography it may be interesting to join. The images are downloaded with one click, which is nice and easy. Each artist is credited on their image, and you are given the choice to give them a nod.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Choice to upload your own work
- Over 850 000 images
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
Free Images
Our last stock site, FreeImages has over 300 000 stock photos free to use. As with the others, you can use the pics for both personal and professional use, or distribute them. You can also upload your work, and be seen by people all over the world. The images are all high res, and beautiful, although pretty standard stock pics.
Pros:
- Great stock images
- Upload your own work to gain exposure
- Over 300 000 images
- Free for download and reproduction
- One click download
- Wide range of images
And there you have it! A comprehensive list of stock image sites, to suit every taste. From dads to dugongs, you will most definitely find the image that you are looking for on one of these sites. Happy browsing!
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