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বাংলাStop!
Don’t learn your lesson the hard way. Using copyright protected images in any content that you are creating can lead to major financial consequences. Avoid getting hit with hefty fines by:
- Ensuring that your visual content gets sourced appropriately.
- Understanding the different types of Creative Commons licenses and how to correctly use them.
Of course you can always err on the side of caution and pay for bland stock photos, but why do that when plenty of artists out there feel your pain, and are willing to offer their works for free?
To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of 85 free stock photography sites (that don’t suck).
1. 123RF
Source: 123RF Stock Photo
123RF offers a large inventory of premium high-quality content as well as a constantly updated selection of free stock images at lower resolutions (72dpi). Availability changes often so check back frequently if you can’t find what you’re looking for at first.
Search: Yes
Quality: Low-res (Pay for hi-res)
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: Yes
2.) ALBUMARIUM
Diverse stock library with images for personal and commercial use. Be sure to check copyright privileges before use.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
3.) ANCESTRY IMAGES
Unique library of high-quality antique prints. Images are free for personal use.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
4.) BARN IMAGES
Don’t let the name fool you–Barn Images provides way more than pictures of barns. Ironically, with more than 1,000 photos available in their collections, Barn Images don’t have any actual images of barns.
You are allowed to use all of the images published in Barn Images collections (both Free Images and Premium Packs) for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
5.) BIGFOTO
BigFoto offers images from all categories to its users. The quality is mixed, but you can find gems if you’re willing to dig around. As for copyright, Bigfoto requests a link back to their site, but be sure to check the ownership of each photo because they are mostly personal works from various photographers.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies (check each photo)
6.) CANVA
Canva’s free library offers an extensive collection of photos from multiple Creative Commons sources online. However, the real draw of using Canva is its library of templates. Whether you need to create a business card or a banner, there’s a good chance they’ve got a template to suit your needs.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: No
7.) (CG)TEXTURES.COM
Formerly CGTextures.com, Textures.com offers free pictures of all sorts of material. Pictures range from fabrics, wood, metal, bricks, plastic, and more. Although textures is their specialty, they also offer many other images.
You can login to download up to 15 small to medium images per day. They also offer memberships to those who would like purchase more options.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: Varies (depends on image usage)
8.) CUPCAKE
These images have been offered to the public domain. This means no attribution unless you want to.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: No
9.) DEATH TO THE STOCK PHOTO
Death to the Stock Photo is a membership-based stock photo library. After signing up, you’ll receive a photo pack immediately.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: No
10.) DESIGNERSPICS.COM
DesignerPics is an assortment of photos free of copyright. Attribution is requested but not required.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
11.) EPICANTUS
Scroll through Epicantus for beautiful imagery of everyday life. Images are free to use without attribution. You can also request specific photos.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
12.) FANCYCRAVE
FancyCrave is a free stock photo site created by designer & photographer Igor Ovsyannykov. He publishes two hi-res photos daily that you can use for your personal and commercial projects without copyright restrictions
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
13.) FINDA.PHOTO
One of their best features is the ability to search by color so you can get images that are color related. Most images are public domain, but make sure to check the license before downloading.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
14.) FLICKR
Flickr (pronounced “flicker”) is an image and video hosting website and web services suite. Flickr hosts photos under all types of licenses, but you have the option of filtering for only the licenses you want within the search function.
Search: Yes
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies (check individual photos)
Quality: Mix
15.) FOODIESFEED
FoodiesFeed is a collection of high quality food images that are fully available for free download.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies (check individual photos)
16.) FOODSHOT
All photos on Foodshot are collected and curated purely from sites where photos are distributed for free use. You may copy, modify, and use images on Foodshot without asking for permission or giving attribution, personally or for commercial use.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
17.) FOTER
Photo credit: Foter.com
Home to over 220 million free Creative Commons images from many online sources (mainly Flickr). Attribution varies by photo so make sure you double check.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
18.) FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Photo by stockimages at freedigitalphotos.net
Full-sized hi-res images are available for purchase, but FreeDigitalPhotos.net also provides smaller versions of each image free of charge.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
19.) FREE IMAGES
Free Images has an impressive library of stock images, but it requires a soul crushing sign up process before you can download the images.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: Varies
20.) FREE NATURE STOCK
As its name hints, Free Nature Stock is a library of stock nature photos for you to use however you want.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
21.) FREE STOCK IMAGE POINT
Free Stock Image Point offers free, original images with no copyright restrictions. Categories offered are Landscape, City, Animals, Architecture, and Flowers.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
22.) FREEIMAGES.RED
Freeimages.red offers a collection of public domain images (free to use). The site is in German, but can be easily translated by your browser.
Search: Yes
High Resolution: Yes
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: No
23.) FREERANGE STOCK
Freerange Stock provides quality stock photos to registered users for both commercial and personal uses. For free.
Search: Yes
Quality: High-res
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: Not required, but requested
24.) FREESTOCK.CA
Photo credit: Kat Van Skiver via freestock.ca/CC BY 3.0
freestock.ca offers a wide variety of free images but attribution is required.
Search: Yes
Quality: High-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
26.) FREESTOCKPHOTOS.BIZ
All images on this site are completely free to download and use as long as abide by the Image License and Usage Terms listed on the photo download page.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies (check image’s download page)
27.) FREESTOCKPHOTOS.ORG
Powered by HubSpot, FreeStockPhotos.org offers up a small selection of original images for public use.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
28.) GOOD FREE PHOTOS
Good Free Photos offers public domain photos–lots of original images from travel around the world.
Search: Yes
Quality: Mixed
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
29.) GRATISOGRAPHY
Offered free from photographer Ryan McGuire. Although attribution isn’t required, it is appreciated.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
30.) IM FREE
Free photos gathered from around the web–they’re free for personal and commercial use.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: Yes
Attribution Required: Varies
31.) ISO REPUBLIC
ISO Republic offers both free and premium high quality photos.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
32.) JAY MANTRI
Every Thursday, Jay Mantri shares seven new high quality photos. Use the images in whatever way you’d like, without attribution.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
33.) JÉSHOOTS
Jeshoots doesn’t require attribution for its wide collection of free photos.
Search: Within categories
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
34.) KABOOMPICS
KaboomPics is a small inventory of high quality images. Attribution is not required, but greatly appreciated.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Requested
35.) KAVE WALL
Stock photos offered by graphic design agency. Full resolution images are available for purchase.
Search: No
Quality: Low-res (Purchase hi-res)
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Yes
36.) LIFE OF PIX
Images are donated from Canadian firm Leeroy Advertising Agency with no copyright restrictions.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
37.) LITTLE VISUALS
Sadly, the founder of Little Visuals has passed, but his family has chosen to keep the website up as well as all images. The images offered here are all free under Public Domain.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
38.) MAGDELEINE
Free images curated from around the web. Magdeleine also has a great search feature–you search by keyword, color, category, or license. Not all images on Magdeleine are attribution free so be careful.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies
39.) MARBLEPICS
Free high-res images with most not requiring attribution, but please double check all download page descriptions.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Varies
40.) MMT
Released to public domain, MMT offers many nature images.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
41.) MORGUEFILE
Photo by Modnar at Morguefile
Large inventory of images with great search functionality–you can click the image and download from the same screen.
Search: Yes
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: Required if you do not edit/alter the image.
42.) MOVEAST
Find free, stunning photography of the eastern world.
Search: No
Quality: Hi-res
Membership Required: No
Attribution Required: No
43.) NEGATIVE SPACE
Negative Space offers a large variety of photos offered to the public domain. Their search function also has a great color filter.
Search: Yes
