Looking for free image stock photos?  … Images that you can use without fear of copyright infringement?

 

Free Image Stock Photos for Websites and Blogs

 

Need free photo images for your website or blog?

This guide will help you find the best free image stock photos, vectors, clip-art and the like, and how to attribute properly if required – some of the best free image photos on the web!

We all know Content is King in the world of blogging and attaining a high ranking in Google, but how your content is displayed in the way of graphics can have a big effect on influencing and keeping your visitor on your site.

When and if I see nothing but a long stretch of “words” with no pleasing or related “visuals”, or if the images are poor quality, I usually move on – that’s just me, but I’m pretty confident most do the same.  (Of course, you don’t want to go “overboard” either).

Below you will find a list of websites that should help you quite a bit.
… I know they have me!
All of the photos and images in this article are FREE.

© copyrighted material
Remember to give proper credit if required.  You DO NOT want to use an image at all on your site, if you don’t intend to give proper attribution when necessary – it could get you in “deep kimchi”! (big trouble)

I will be adding to this page as I find more resources and information – so keep tuned!

… and please Share if you like this content!
I’d also appreciate your comments! (bottom of page)

 

High Resolution Images (High-Res)
Stock Photos
Vintage or “Antique” Graphics and Photos
Illustrations
Picture Quotes
Patterns and Textures


Creative Commons Licenses
Flickr
Public Domain Images

 

 

High-Res Photos

Free Web Photography

Remember to resize your images for fast load times.

 

IMPORTANT

When downloading images, they will most likely be in a very large format.  Unless you’re using them as backgrounds you’ll want to resize them so they don’t cause unnecessary load time.

 

 

 


Unsplash
These are large, high resolution images. Ideal for designing and using in headers etc.
10 new photos every 10 days.
There are some really nice photographs here!

Getrefe
Free photos for personal and commercial use.  Not to many, but worth a look.

Gratisography
Professional photographer’s private collection – free to use with no copyright restrictions.

LittleVisuals
You can sign up to get 7 hi-res images zipped up in your inbox every 7 days if you are so inclined – or just download what you like.  Use them any way you want.

Wefunction
Not a large selection, but not too bad – definitely worth a look and free to use any way you want.

Superfamous
Collection of hi-res photography by Folkert Gorter.  Mostly landscape and close-up (some of the best in my opinion) photography.
Available under the conditions of a Creative Commons Attribution License. This means that you can use the work for your own purposes — including commercial use — as long as credit is provided.

Death to the Stockphoto
10 free images every month to your e-mail inbox. (currently e-mail only unfortunately)

 

 

Stock Photos

cathedral

Make your images relevant to your topic.

 

 

IMPORTANT

Try to make your images as relevant to your topic as possible – if it doesn’t make sense, don’t use it.

 

 

 

 

All of the sites listed below offer free stock photos and images.

picjumbo
What a find – nice high quality stock photos, and one on my favorites!
This one is a must.

morgueFile
Another website with a great selection of photos for free.  Quality stock photos submitted by photographers and artists.

Photo Pin
A free stock photo search engine – Search millions of Creative Commons photos from Flickr.  Be sure to check the Creative Commons License.

stockphotosforfree.com
Easy to search by category and type.

Dotspin
Crowd sourced photography available under Creative Commons.
Proper attribution must be given.

openphoto
A photographer submitted resource of free-to-use photos.

Pixabay
Free photos, vectors and illustrations in a searchable library.

unprofound
Cool photos. Search by color.

freeimages
Lots of photos.

500px – Creative Commons Section

Photober
Free photos, sorted by category.

RGBStock
Decent stock photo finder. Includes plenty of natural settings.

NASA
Nasa’s image library contains copyright free historical and scientific images.

Getty Images – embedded attribution
50 million embeddable images

 

 

Vintage Photos and Images

Vintage and Antique Images

Vintage Images – check in the Public Domain!

 

 

 

IMPORTANT

Focusing on the past can often  impart great emotion on the reader – use them to your advantage!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love vintage photography!
The nice thing about these is that most of the old images are free of copyright restrictions and in the public domain.

New Old Stock
Vintage photos from the Public Archives.
One of my favorite places!

Vintage Printable
Large collection of some really nice vintage images – all in the Public Domain.
Broken up into categories for easy viewing and searching.

Library of Congress – on Flickr
Great historical collection of images – love this one!

Search Wikipedia’s photo collection
Searching wikimedia.org is a lot of fun; and there is a ton of images.

US History Images
A sorted collection of images from both the Public Domain and the Smithsonian Institute (some terms of use with SI)

 

 

Illustrations and Clip-Art

Illustrations and Clip-Art

 

 

IMPORTANT

Everything doesn’t have to be a photo – many illustrations, clip-art and vectors can be just as useful, sometimes more.  There are many website owners who will use these more than anything else!  Be Creative!

 

 

 

Sometimes an illustration, clip-art or the like can be just as, if not more effective in getting across your message and making your point.

OpenClipArt
Free clip art and vectors.

wpclipart
Some graphics are a little dated, but still a great place to check out.

publicdomainvectors.org
Public domain vectors and illustrations – one of my favorite places to browse.

pdclipart.org
More public domain clip art.

 

Picture Quotes and Graphic Generators

Quotes as Images

Images as Quotes can be Very Effective!

 

 

 

IMPORTANT

Try to make it different – try to make it eye catching!
Humor works well too, but relate it in some way to your topic.

 

 

 

 

Increase your social sharing on sites like Pinterest, Facebook and Tumblr with the use of picture quotes.

Quozio
A simple picture quote maker, with 28 templates.

Curated Quotes
Really high quality and beautiful designed picture quotes – free to use with citation or attribution.

Pinstamatic
This is a great free picture quote maker – makes sharing on Pinterest “sweet” and easy!

Recite This
Create picture quotes using 42 different backgrounds, upload directly to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr.

Quotes by Pro Writing Aid
Simple quote generator.

 

 

Patterns and Textures

You won’t use these as images in of themselves of course, but they would make great backgrounds for your website , blog or such things as infographics etc.

The Pattern Library
There are some really interesting backgrounds here – I can see myself using a few of these myself!

 

 


 

Flickr

Many people offer up their images on Flickr using the Creative Commons.  There are millions of photos that can be used with proper attribution.
Don’t miss searching this site! … but Remember to attribute as specified in the CC License!
(see above for Creative Commons Licenses, what they mean and how to use them)

 

Creative Commons Licenses

 

Creative Commons

 

… these are important to know when using images and graphics from the Creative Commons.  You will come upon many great sources to use, and it’s necessary to give proper credit as listed in the License.

 

 

Attribution
CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

Attribution-NoDerivatives 
CC BY-ND

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

 

 

The Public Domain

Free to use without attribution
Public Domain Dedication

Public Domain Images

Public Domain Images are plentiful, and Free!

 

 

 “The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.”

 

 

Wikipedia – Public Domain Image Resources
If you scroll down the page you will find a very large number of different sources!

Public Domain Pictures
Site offers a lot of images – intermixed with “paid” options so select carefully.

Public-Domain-Images
Arranged by category and search

U.S. Government Photos and Images
Most are in the Public Domain, but check each agency’s terms as far as acknowledgements.

Public Domain Archive
One of my favorites!
High-resolution free public domain images. A must see!

National Digital Library – U.S. Fish and Wildlife

National Gallery of Art – NGA Images
Awesome, if you can use art images. This is a great site and easy to navigate.

Picdrome
Very nice site – clean crisp and easy to find what you’re looking for.

PDPoster
… same as above. Easy to search and categorized.

 

 

IMPORTANT

Before you race off to use  these images remember …
There are many different licenses for using the photos featured above; be sure to check and double-check, but if you’re unsure  just give credit. Many of them don’t require any attribution at all, but it’s always worth checking to be safe.

 

Free Photo Images & Free Image Stock Photos
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