- Are you looking for royalty-free stock photos or images?
- Do you need an image to throw into a product, presentation, post, or page?
- Are you looking for an easy starting point in your next search for the “perfect image”?
The source of your free stock photos is important
If you use copyrighted images, you can be held legally and financially accountable for using property that isn’t yours. Using someone else’s image without permission is like stealing.
What are the right kinds of free stock photos?
Thankfully, there are standard copyrights that give an informed user a shorthand for understanding if a photo is allowed to be used by them.
For example, “CC0” copyrighted images are free to use (if you credit the owner of the image).
Where to find free stock photos and images
Thanks to paid advertising and misleading copyediting on web sites that sell photos, search engines do a lousy job identifying web sites that offer CC0 and free stock photos.
Here are more than 2 dozen free stock photo sites I’ve found in my research (plus some bonuses).
I’ve sorted the list in roughly the order I’ve found the most value. The sites I use the most are at the top; sites I use less often are toward the bottom. Because each has somewhat different themes and contributors, you may find you have different preferences.
Let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below!
Thanks to everyone who’s shared these with me over the years (see credits at the bottom)!
Free Stock Photos
- Public Domain Pictures
- Pikwizard.com
- pxfuel
- unsplash.com
- pexels.com
- pixabay.com
- Google Images (filtering with Tools > License > Labeled for reuse).
- pxhere.com
- Megan Stewart’s resource list
- ThemeIsle.com
- rawpixel.com
- StockSnap
- Take your own
- KaboomPics
- Libreshot
- Negative Space
- Life of Pix
- ISO Republic
- Picjumbo
- JESHOOTS.com
- https://www.matteoduo.com/free-photo-websites-commercial-use/
- www.nappy.co ‘Beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people.’
- FancyCrave
- DeathtoStock has a really funky “free email pack per month” with their newsletter
- Freedigitalphotos.net
- AvoPix
- Freerange
Free Banner Images
- https://www.backgroundimagepro.com/
- http://www.linkedinbackground.com/
- http://freelinkedinbackgrounds.com/
- http://stocksnap.io/ Free 2000 x 1200 photos
Bonus 1: Free stock videos
Bonus 2: Free icons
Paid
Fact is, sometimes I can’t find quite the right photo.
Since amazing marketing requires projecting the aspirational future of my prospect, sometimes I need to find just the right photos of the right people in the right situations having the right experiences. Here are the sites I’ve used so far, when all else fails:
Images
- istockphoto.com
- Dall-e
- This page lists several more.
Icons
Give Credit Where Credit Is Due:
Offer proper attribution for the source of the photo.
Share your sources of free and CC0 images and photos in comments below.
Many thanks to the following for your contributions to the above:
- Members of Ray Edwards Copywriting Academy
- Members of Sam Ovens Consulting Accelerator
- Right Management
- YourOnlineGenius
- Many others
Photo credit: https://quotefancy.com/fun-quotes