Silent Storms

Image via Stock Xchng

If you’re a graphic enthu­si­ast like me, you do not make money with your graph­ics. Which means we’re not usu­ally up for buy­ing stock pho­tog­ra­phy (although I do occa­sion­ally buy stock pho­tos). I’ve com­piled this list of 20 sites¹ to get free stock pho­tos to use in your graph­ics or on your site. For some sites you’ll have to reg­is­ter to down­load the pho­tos. Make sure to check each site’s terms of use, and that your intended use of a par­tic­u­lar photo is allowed.²

1. DeviantArt’s Stock Pho­tog­ra­phy section

DeviantArt is a site that show­cases dig­i­tal and tra­di­tional art from both pro­fes­sion­als and hob­by­ists. Their stock pho­tog­ra­phy sec­tion is huge, with great qual­ity pho­tos. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

2. Dream­stime

They have both a paid and a free sec­tion, but the free sec­tion is huge with over 27500 great qual­ity pho­tos. Reg­is­tra­tion required to down­load photos.

3. Flickr

Flickr is one of the largest photo shar­ing web­sites. Make sure you used the Advanced Search and check the ‘Cre­ative Com­mons licensed’ box to find pic­tures that can be used in web design and such. No reg­is­tra­tion required to down­load photos.

4. Foto­lia

Foto­lia, like Dream­stime, has both a paid and a free sec­tion. Fotolia’s free sec­tion, how­ever, changes every day. They offer ten to twenty free pho­tos per day, which allows you to build quite a photo library over time. Reg­is­tra­tion required to down­load photos.

5. Free­bie Images

Free­bie Images is not an actual stock photo site, but a Word­Press plu­gin that allows you to search through loads of qual­ity pho­tos and add them to your blog. The pho­tos are pro­vided by Cre­stock, which is a paid stock photo site that gives away one free stock image per day as well. One per day! That quickly gives you a nice col­lec­tion to use. No reg­is­tra­tion needed for WP plu­gin, but Cre­stock does require reg­is­tra­tion to down­load photos.

6. Free Pix­els

Free Pix­els con­tains high qual­ity images. Their col­lec­tion is quite small com­pared to other sites, but with over 4000 pho­tos it’s still plenty to choose from. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

7. Freerange Stock

Freerange Stock has great qual­ity images, free both for com­mer­cial and non-commercial use. Requires reg­is­tra­tion to down­load photos.

8. Free Dig­i­tal Photos

Free Dig­i­tal Pho­tos has great qual­ity images, although their col­lec­tion is quite small com­pared to other sites. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

9. Image After

Image After has a huge col­lec­tion of great pho­tos. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

10. iStock­photo

This is not really a free site, but they offer one free photo per week, while those pho­tos stay free for four weeks, so there’s a total of four free images per month. The pho­tos are great qual­ity and you can build a nice photo library over time. Requires reg­is­tra­tion to down­load photos.

11. Morgue­File

Morgue­File has a great col­lec­tion of high qual­ity images. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

12. NationsIllustrated.com

Nation­sIl­lus­trated has thou­sands of high qual­ity travel pho­tos from all over the world. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

13. Open Photo

Pho­tos on Open Photo are sim­i­lar qual­ity and con­tent as those you can find on Flickr. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

14. Photl

Photl con­tains hun­dreds of thou­sands of extremely high qual­ity pic­tures. Requires reg­is­tra­tion to down­load photos.

15. Pho­to­gen

The pho­tos are good qual­ity, and free both for com­mer­cial and non-commercial use. Requires reg­is­tra­tion to down­load photos.

16. Pixel Per­fect Digital

Although they have quite small col­lec­tion com­pared to other sites, there’s still plenty to choose from and the pho­tos are great qual­ity. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

17. Pix­mac Free Section

Pix­mac offers loads of high qual­ity stock pho­tos in their free sec­tion. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to get pho­tos. Upon click­ing down­load, you will either have to enter your email address and a link to down­load the photo will be sent by email, or you can register/log in to down­load the photo directly.

18. Stock Xchng

Well… if you’ve ever looked for free stock pho­tos, you’ve prob­a­bly used Stock Xchng. It’s pos­si­bly the best known free stock pho­tog­ra­phy site around. They have a great col­lec­tion. Reg­is­tra­tion required to down­load photos.

19. Stock­Vault

Stock­Vault is another stock photo shar­ing web­site with a great col­lec­tion of high qual­ity images. No reg­is­tra­tion needed to down­load photos.

20. Unpro­found

Although Unpro­found doesn’t have nearly as many images of some of the oth­ers, they still have a great col­lec­tion of good qual­ity images. Brows­ing is only by colour, so you have to know what you’re look­ing for. No reg­is­tra­tion required to down­load photos.

Did I miss any of your favourite free stock photo sites? What is your favourite place to get stock photos?

1. Sorted alpha­bet­i­cally because I couldn’t pos­si­bly rank them, they’re all great! [↩]
2. Espe­cially make sure you’re allowed to use it com­mer­cially if you plan to do so. [↩]

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 14:50 and is filed under Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.