10 Places To Find High Quality Copyright Free Photos
Starting a new project? Not sure where to start? Or do you have an idea but want to get some further inspiration from a photo or two? Simply using Google or Yahoo search doesn’t cut it as you could get hit with copyright infringement for using someone’s photo without their permission.
Luckily, there are people with creators like you in mind who have made photo libraries filled with copyright-free photos that are safe to use in any way you want!
Here is a list of 10 of those places where you can find plenty of inspiration for your next project, advertisement, painting, or whatever you are creating.
Just click on any of the titles or photos to go to their website!
1. Unsplash
Unsplash is both royalty-free and free to use. It was started in 2013 as a Tumblr blog and has grown immensely since then. Over 150,000 photographers add images to the Unsplash library so that people like us can use their photos to create. They have over 1,000,000 photos with more photos being added daily. Find anything you need here from wildlife, portraits, landscapes, architecture, etc. It has a very easy-to-use interface and you can join their community for free!
2. Pixabay
Pixabay was founded in 2011 in Germany. It has grown to become a major source for free images and videos to use by creators. As of two years ago, there were over 1,185,000 free photos and videos in their library. You can imagine how much that has increased since then. Users can register for free allowing them to download photos and upload their own to contribute to the community.
3. Pexels
With hundreds of thousands of photos in their library, you can find just about any type of photo you desire on Pexels. Its mission is to help creators such as artists access beautiful photos to inspire their work. They call it: “Empowering Creators”. You can also become a part of the team and upload your own pictures to their site. The cover image for this article was found on Pexels. Then I just added the text overtop. All royalty-free!
4. FreeImages
Freeimages was launched in 2001. It was made as a place for creators to collaborate and share free stock images. Today there are over 2.5 million users and over 400,000 photos in their library. You can find just about anything you are looking for. Just like many of the other platforms, you can become a contributor and share your photos with others!
5. Burst
Burst is a free stock photo platform that is powered by Shopify. Though their library might not be as expansive as some of the others, it is full of awesome photos that can be used for anything. Their goal is to build the best free image library so they are continuously adding content to their platform.
6. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io seems to be an easy-to-use platform where you can find high-quality photos to use for free. Some sites only allow smaller resolution downloads but this one includes the full resolution photos. They have a search bar and a categories page to help you find inspiration for your next project easily.
7. Gratisography
Was made for creators like you. They provide free photos for you to use in order to attract and wow your customers. Though the photo library is quite small, all of the photos are of very high quality.
8. Flickr
I’m sure many of you have heard of or have used Flickr before. It has a massive photo library with photos of just about anything you could think of. Here is the catch though, when searching for a photo, make sure you do an advanced search and under “license” put “Commercial Use Allowed”, some of them still may require you to give attribution (which is easy enough) but you don’t want to be caught up in stealing someone’s work.
9. PicJumbo
PicJumbo was created in 2013 and in 2015 2.5 million pictures had already been downloaded from the site. Though their library is not as large or extensive as some other sites, PicJumbo provides high-quality photos for you to use in your next project.
10. Google Advanced Search
When searching for an image on Google search, you can find royalty-free photos to use. Once you have searched the subject you are looking for, click on the “Settings” button under the search bar. Then scroll down until you see “usage rights” and change the option to “free to use or share, even commercially”. Then the images that now show up should be royalty-free. I usually still go to the website that the photo comes from and double-check the copyright fine print there just to be sure. If you want to watch how to do this, check out the video below:
I hope you found this list useful! If you have any other places where you get copyright-free images, feel free to share them in the comments so that others can benefit as well!
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