What about usage rights on free stock photos?
Nearly all images on these free stock sites have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means you can copy, adapt or distribute the images — even for commercial purposes — without requiring author consent. In other words, do whatever you want with them!
Good photos are vital for grabbing attention and getting your message across. Check out the best of 2023's free stock photo websites!
1. UNSPLASH
One of our favorites with a collection of over 300,000 beautiful, high-resolution images from more than 50,000 contributors. Top quality photos from around the world. One of our favorites
2. PIXABAY
This site has a very large database of high-quality images. It’s somewhat more oriented towards business and marketing than Unsplash, which is often helpful for content marketers and bloggers. Another big advantage of Pixabay is that they also offer free vectors and illustrations.
3. PEXELS
We can't do a post on free stock images without mentioning The Pexels collection is a vast, well-organized collection of free stock photos is one of the best curated on the internet. In addition, they have free stock videos! Pexels is the go-to image source for many bloggers.
4. GRATISOGRAPHY
They pride themselves on being the “world’s quirkiest collection of high-resolution free stock images.” Images are a little more authentic and they excel at offering free photos that are unique and less “stocky” than what you see elsewhere.
5. MORGUEFILE
This site is also somewhat different. The photos are not curated and not as professionally produced as on Unsplash, Pixabay or Gratisography. You’ll find pictures of random people and everyday objects, super authentic vibe. Morguefile is great spot if you need a random picture of everyday things like brushing your teeth, doing the dishes etc.
6. STOCKVAULT
The Stockvault collection offers stock photos, wallpapers, and textures. The collection is a little bit smaller than the top 3 but has new additions daily. This site also has a good search engine and is well-organized for browsing by category.
7. PICJUMBO
PicJumbo is now a thriving free stock photo community with a big selection of beautiful free photos.
8. PIKWIZARD
Besides having a huge collection of unique stock images, Pikwazard also offers a design wizard that allows you to make basic edits like adding text overlays before downloading. While the basics are free, they also have paid version that's a full-feature online image editing tool.
9. RAWPIXEL
Rawpixel claims to have the most diverse collection of stock photos in the industry — and it may be true. They also have vectors, PSD mockups, and even public domain content.
10. RESHOT
Reshot aims to give emerging photographers a platform to share their creativity with those who need it. Their curated collections are extensive, stunning, and completely free.
11.Vecteezy
Vecteezy has an extensive library of nice free stock photos. There are a few benefits that make this website stand out against other stock photo sites. First, the site has a more robust search engine that allows you to filter photos by color, orientation, style, number of people, age of models, and more. Second, Vecteezy provides signed model and property releases for all free photos where needed. This protects users (and their designs) from any legal liabilities – a detail often overlooked by other free stock photo sites. Finally, Vecteezy’s content team members manually review each photo submission for quality. This means their photo collection is expertly curated, ensuring a high bar of quality.
12. Freepik
Freepik is a powerful search engine that helps users find free high-quality stock photos, and other graphic resources such as vector images, illustrations, and PSD files. Millions of graphic resources are available to download and can be used in any personal or professional design project. In addition, Freepik’s search engine has powerful filters helping to find any type of resource, orientation, color, style, etc. Freepik users can download graphic resources formats compatible with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
What about usage rights on free stock photos?
Nearly all images on these free stock sites have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means you can copy, adapt or distribute the images — even for commercial purposes — without requiring author consent. In other words, do whatever you want with them!