Apart from quality content, it is important that we must take care of the presentation of the article too. To enhance any article presentation you should add a relevant image to the article because:
[Tweet “A picture is worth a thousand words”]You might have noticed that we use images with all the articles in our blog to make articles more attractive. There are many images available online but it is important that you use only those images on your blog or for other projects which are allowed by the owner to be used.
I’m not going to talk about image licensing here and straight away share my list of Websites to download free stock photos. Yah, you heard me right and it’s completely free.
Thanks to all the commentators who have made this list more resourceful by suggesting many other free stock images website. I suggest you do check comment section and feel free to suggest one which you are using for your use. These images can be used for commercial purposes as well.
Free Stock Images Websites for Commercial or Blogging use:
1. FreePik
FreePik is most popular website in 2020 to download free pictures. It is a freemium website that offers free + paid images, and it definitely stand out from the rest.
It offers modern vector images, characters which will make your website or landing pages stand out.
2. Gratisography:
I discovered this website in February 2016 & since then I’m in love with this website. Unlike other sites, here you can download the high-quality images & use it for your personal & professional projects without giving any credits. Yah! You heard me right. And the quality of images you gonna find here is par excellence.
3. Pixabay:
After trying Gratisography, I got really includes to use beautiful looking stock images. The one with more colors & emotions. I believe in 2020 & in the coming years, we will see a lot of trends around it in the stock image industry.
You should also bookmark Pixabay as it offers a wide range of images from people all around the world. These images are free to use even for commercial use. Attribution is not required.
4. Pexels:
This site is suggested by Shouter Dipal & it looks pretty solid. All pictures here are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, that means you can use these images for commercial uses too.
The CC0 license was released by the non-profit organization Creative Commons (CC). Every month they add 1500 new HQ photos & right now they boast about having more than 10k+ pics.
5. Stocksnap:
This is another free stock photos site where you can download high quality pictures for free. All images are licensed under CCO license (Same as above).
6. Flickr
Flickr is one of my favorite websites to search and download free images for websites. It has a huge database of royalty-free images and whenever I am in a hurry to download any image for my article then Flickr is the website that I visit.
To download any image you just need to visit creative common category and search for the image, you will get lots of relevant images of different size and you can download any image which suits your article. You can read more about Flickr in the following articles:
Search for free stock photos using Flickr advanced search
7. MorgueFile
Morgue File is one of the best free Stock image sites, which makes it easy to search the images via category. You can select the category of images to make more relevant search. It have clean and clutter-free landing page and easy navigation. It gives you option to crop the image at same time and makes it easy to post on your blog. You can read more about MorgueFile in the review of MorgueFile.
[ Link ]8. FreeRangeStock
You can download images from FreeRangeStock for personal and commercial use. To download images you need to do a quick and free registration on FreeRangeStock website.
Apart from downloading images, if you are a photographer then you can also upload the images and earn money with their Adsense revenue sharing program.
You can also edit directly on Pixlr before downloading it on your computer. The only thing which you might not like about Free Range stock is the interface, as it’s quite old and is not so friendly. Though at the price of zero, would you really mind it?? 🙂
[ Link ]9. FreeDigitalPhotos
Apart from downloading free royalty images from FreeDigitalPhotos, you can also download Powerpoint, Word , Educational projects, Photoshop projects and more for personal and commercial use. It also provides greeting cards but it’s not allowed to use for commercial use. Thus if you are looking for something more than just images then do head to FreeDigitalPhotos.
[ Link ]10. Photogen
Photogen also provides free images for personal and commercial use. Photogen provides you categories of images such as animals, cultures, nature, business etc. You can select the one suits your requirement. Photogen provides very relevant search and good quality images. It is simple to use and easy to search for free images.
[ Link ]11. Stock Photos for free:
This is another popular Website that let you download free stock photos for your personal or commercial use. You can create a free account and start downloading images right now. You can also mark images as favorite and download it later.
When you are not in the budget and need free images for your project, above mentioned free sites will work as a rescue. Make sure you read every site’s terms of usage to be clear about where you can use or where you can’t use these download images. Most of them don’t allow using downloaded images for the pornographic site or for the trademark.
This is another popular site where you can find 335 MILLION Premium Royalty-Free Stock Photos From The Foter Community. Though it requires attribution.
For further reading:
Do you prefer to use Royalty Free Stock Images on your blog, if yes, then do share with us which stock image website you prefer to use for downloading images?
Nice article, Very helpful. I particularly enjoyed pexels.
Gratisography is another amazing free stock image website.
Hi Harsha,
If we create a GIF image from any movie or video can we use that GIF image without attribution ? can we mark it as our property?
and on the CC0 image, is attribution mandatory?
Harsh, you’re a GOLDMINE of information. You rock.
I did a Google search about 4 hours ago on the subject of “rel=canonical” trying to find out whether I should be sharing my blog post content on other sites.
4 Hours later I’ve consumed a mountain of information via your wide ranging blog post topics. As I’m fairly new to blogging, I feel like I have hit the jackpot with learning your content.
I am now one of your disciples.
The value you give is extraordinary Harsh. Thank you.
You’ve made this 50 year old bloke seriously happy.
Tim
Harsh i agree with your points.. Images such show a lot of words, only one image can define a lot of thing.. For my experiance I see only those images which are present in any article bcoz it show me most of the things, those are use in blog via blogger…and image are most important in any blog bcoz it make your article atractive….!!!
Thankx for sharing this wounderful article with us….This article will give a inspiartion to all bloggers….!!!
I often use pixabay for the images on my site.Thanks for introducing other good sites
Hi can we use shutter stock images that are available on pixabay. By clicking on the image it takes us to shutterstock website where we have to pay.
Can we use http://www.flikr.com to get images and just add credits to the owner of the photo? or is it illegal for adsense? thank you
@Jervis
Yes, you can. Read this guide for using images from Flickr
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-find-images-for-your-blog-post-using-flickr.html
I am starting an online tshirt shop featuring horse and equestrian designs. You say certain sites like Pixabay say free for commercial use. I can use these images on the tshirts and sell them without being sued?
Pixabay has changed their license. You must alter the image and it cannot be used “as is”
Hey,
Very helpful. I particularly enjoyed pixabay. I think that one was perhaps the best one 🙂
Yes, images have great power to get user attention. I am totally in the market to create my own images because I can almost never find what I’m looking for even at stock sites. Thank you!
Wow! this is awesome! I am looking for stock photo website list on Google and I landed on your website. Thanks for the helpful information! I open up Pixabay first and found what i’m looking for,
superb quality pictures.. thanks for the information..
SIR CAN I USE THOSE IMAGE FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSE? I WILL EAGER GIVE THE CREDIT.
@Atanu
Yes, you can!
A small request, Don’t write in all caps in future. It’s bit annoying!