Let’s admit it, if we are not a photography pro ourselves, we are always on the lookout for attractive images to incorporate in our social posts, blog, or website.
However, we’ve grown accustomed to boring stock images that we see in different posts or websites every now and then. Not only do they look tacky, they can also cost a lot of money!
Luckily enough, a lot of websites have come up, which provide a huge library of breathtaking free images for you to choose from.
If you are currently scouring the web for that perfect free image or may require one in future, keep reading to know more about these websites.
Know These Terms Before Using Free Images
As we are on the subject of free image sources, it’s best to understand certain terms that you may come across while searching for them. Also, we recommend that you go through the terms and conditions of each website to know what kind of attribution they need.
Now, let’s discuss the terms we were talking about:
Creative Commons
A nonprofit organization, Creative Commons allows the sharing as well as the use of knowledge and creativity via free-of-cost legal tools. From enabling any kind of use without attribution to allowing only specific uses and no changes, different types of Creative Commons licenses exist.
Public domain
Works in the public domain are those whose copyrights have been forfeited, expired, or are not applicable.
Royalty-free
Royalty-free images or photos are not necessarily free. In the majority of cases, you need to pay a one-time fee to get the right to use the photo.
Non-copyright images
Non-copyright images are the ones that are not subject to copyright. These images belong to everyone.
21 Websites That Offer Engaging Free Images
1. Unsplash
Unsplash, one of the most popular sites to get free images, has its own license. This means, it allows you to use the images for free.
If you are someone who is looking to schedule their social media posts and incorporate image posting in them, you can use SocialPilot, which comes with Unsplash integration. With this integration, you can easily create and schedule visually captivating social posts with access to 2m+ high-res copyright-free stock images.
SocialPilot also allows you to add trending GIFs while creating social content, all thanks to its GIPHY integration.
2. Pixabay
Pixabay is a free stock image site that you can access if you want to choose from millions of beautiful shots.
The site is home to over 320,000 free photos, art illustrations, and vectors. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.
3. Canva
Canva comes next in our list of websites where you can find amazing free photos to use.
You may have heard of Canva as an amazing platform to create visual content. But, it also comes in the list of free stock image sites. This website possesses a library of 1.7 million free stock photos (and also 86 million which are premium), audio tracks, graphics, videos, and more!
Tip: Use Canva if you want to design social media banners or flyers. You can also use it to enhance your images by tweaking their vibrancy or transparency. The website also allows you to add text overlays to your images.
4. Pexels
Pexels provides supreme-quality, free stock images that are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
You can easily find free photos on this website. The images are also easily-discoverable via its discovery pages.
In all, Pexel is a reliable stock image site that has thousands of hand-picked images from the Pexel community, so you can go ahead and use the photos for your website, online store, or social media feed!
5. Burst (by Shopify)
Burst is one of the best sites to get stunning free stock photos. The site’s image library contains thousands of high-quality images taken from international photographers.
These public domain images are high-definition photos, free to use for personal or commercial use. So, regardless of whether you are a social media manager looking to spruce up your posts or an entrepreneur wanting to amp up your website, Burst can offer you a range of high-resolution free images.
6. Reshot
Home to millions of photos, Reshot is a huge library of free stock photos built for freelancers and startups. Featuring photos that you won’t find anywhere else, Reshot is one website you can find breathtaking photos on.
The photos on this website are free to use editorially and commercially, with no attribution needed.
7. Gratisography
Created by photographer Ryan McGuire, Gratisography is a free stock image website that you can also use to find images.
This site is popular for its whimsical and humorous images. You can use these images entirely for free, with no copyright restrictions.
Tip: Images from this site will definitely help you make an impact. Use it to express your brand and watch the magic unfold!
8. Free Images
The name says it all, doesn’t it?
Free Images is next on our list of websites to find free pictures.
Under its own license, the website offers over 300,000 free stock images.
The license allows a wide range of uses. But, it does list down different restrictive users (something that’s common for almost all the free image download sites).
9. Life of Pix
Life of Pix lists free-to-use, high-quality photographs, perfect for use on your social media channels or website.
All the images on this site are donated to the public domain, and are available for commercial and personal use.
10. Kaboompics
Kaboompics is different from other free stock image sites because it allows you to search by color! You also get a complementary palette of colors in the image. If you are on the hunt for very Instagrammable photoshoots, Kaboompics is the website you need to check.
This website uses its own license.
Note: You can use a textured photo from Kaboompics to serve as a border or backdrop for another stock image.
11. Shutterstock
While searching for sites where you can get stock photos for free, Shutterstock is one of the best websites to choose from.
Shutterstock is a major provider of licensed stock images, illustrations, music, and vectors for consumers and businesses the world over. It possesses a library of over 300 million free stock images.
With users in 150+ countries and an ever-increasing community of about one million creators, Shutterstock offers appealing photos for you to use. People use Shutterstock for downloading images, music tracks, and video clips everyday.
12. Getty Images
Another awesome website with beautiful free stock images is Getty Images. From over 200 million assets, it provides stock images, video, editorial photography, and music.
The website is more suited for use by creative professionals in advertising and media, and in corporations.
A point to note here: You will not find most images for free. But, you can use free images with Getty’s Embed feature (only for non-commercial use).
13. iStock
When it comes to stock photography, iStock by Getty Images is another major website to lookout. It boasts of numerous illustrations, images, videos, pieces of clip art, audio clips.
Although you have to pay a licensing fee for almost all the assets, this website does provide free stock images for your use.
14. Freepik
Next in our list of websites to download free photos is Freepik. It is a useful free stock image site for creators wanting to access attractive stock images and professional Photoshop templates.
You can download from a whopping four million assets, from illustrations to vectors.
Note: Attribution is needed to use the website’s stock for personal or commercial use.
15. Picjumbo
If you are looking for free images for your next blog post or web design, then you can always consider Picjumbo.
This website adds fresh photos everyday. You can choose supreme-quality images on a broad range of topics.
16. Skitterphoto
Three Dutch photographers run a website called Skitterphoto, which offers free photos that don’t require any attribution.
Another great thing about Skitterphoto is it even accepts contributions from photographers who want to contribute to the website’s catalog.
17. Freerange
Freerange is another website that offers free pictures to download. You can access its huge library of images spanning a myriad range of topics such as technology and vintage.
The website updates its image library daily, with images shot both by in-house photographers and outside contributors.
18. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io is another site to download free stock photos. It provides many high-resolution photos for you to download and use. When you view the library, its modern, trendy style may appeal to you. The site also adds new photos every week.
A notable thing about StockSnap.io is its user-friendly search function. It lets you filter by views, favorites, popularity, downloads, and more.
19. Picography
Picography is another popular website you can consider to get breathtaking free images. The website has a lot of categories to browse through, perfect for many kinds of businesses.
In all, you can use its easy-to-navigate interface to download free photos.
20. Shot Stash
Next on our list of websites that offer free stock images to use is Shot Stash.
If you are a creative professional, you should definitely check this website. This site allows you to gain access to 7,000 images. These are available under a Creative Commons license without any restrictions.
21. Libreshot
Libreshot offers free stock photos for commercial and private use, without attribution.
The images on the site are taken by Martin Vorel, a search engine marketing consultant and photographer.
The categories of images that you find on Libreshot include architecture, business, nature, people, close-up, and technology.
Conclusion
The bottomline? There is no dearth of amazing websites out there with breathtaking free images.
Now that you have a ready list of such websites, you are in a more informed position to make a decision regarding which site you should choose to get attractive, engaging free images.
