Free use images

About

Unsplash screenshot

If you are searching for a specific photo for a presentation etc (eg: "smiling couple beach") Google Image search might get you a few nice results (actually not that great sadly), but often a lot of these are stock photos with watermarks over the top saying you can't use them. What if you want photos you can legal use AND you want high quality. Once you restrict a Google Image search to Tools > Usage Rights > Labelled for reuse you are left with not a lot of good results.

Here's a few sites that might have what you want with a CC0 (No Copyright, Creative Commons) license:

• Composite Search:
  • Google Image Search - great for searching for specifics like "pistachio ice cream" making sure to set to tools > "labelled for free use" and "large", and then double check the image is fair game.

• The Best Ones:
  • unsplash.com - >300,000 free photos, stunning quality, sophisticated search bar (liscence)
  • pexels.com - Super clean, almost no ads (liscence)
  • stocksnap.io - Great search, the first few results are ads, but that's okay (liscence)
  • pixabay.com - Great search, includes some risqué photos that might pop up (liscence)
  • canva.com - Canva has millions of high-quality stock photos to use for design needs, including a free photos area.
  • flickr.com - search with license set appropriately, actually has lots of pics.

• Pretty Good:
  • burst.shopify.com - Some good search results, very clean stock photos, some with white background (liscence)

• Specific Domain:
  • foodiesfeed.com - Only 900 photos? :( (liscence)
  • nos.twnsnd.co - Vintage photos, but no search (liscence)

• So so:
  • negativespace.co - Search is pretty limited sadly (liscence)
  • picography.co - Often yields no results, and instead shows shutterstock stuff (liscence)
  • freestocks.org - Seems a little limited (liscence)
  • mmtstock.com - Think background images for slides, but relatively small collection. Search yielded almost nothing for basic things like "yoga" (liscence)
  • deathtothestockphoto.com Great name, but I don't like it - they have no search feature and push a "premium" subscription model to access only 2k photos? - (liscence)
  • lifeofpix.com - Very small set (only 100s) organized into "nature", "architecture" etc (liscence)
  • www.gratisography - Crappy search (liscence)

• Icons:
  • www.flaticon.com - Some are not free, but most are, but high quality designs.

Special Paid Images

• Special Licence:
  • www.gettyimages.com - Huge number of images, searchable by number of people and event specific people and events. I don't think any are free images, but they are very high quality.

See Also

• Photography

Links

• 21 Amazing Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos - nice list.
• Top 10 Sites for Copyright and Royalty Free Images and Photos - great list.

Acknowledgements: Anna Dickson for giving me this amazing list!