50 sites to find free stock images

by Jean-Baptiste Jung. 169 Comments -

If you like Web Design, you probably use a lot of stock images in your designs. The following article is a list of 50 websites that provide free, open-sources images and photography to help you creating stunning designs without spending a dollar.

FreeFoto.com : Lots of images, orgnized in different galleries.

Dexhaus : Good site with excellent photos.
Kavewall : images and textures.
Digital Dreamers : Different falleries.
StockVault : Very well-known, and very good of course.
FreePhotosBank : Good choice.

FreeDigitalPhotos : Lots of photos.
Cepolina : Many free images availables in different formats.
TurboPhoto : Simple and efficient!
FreeStockImages : Beautiful website, awesome content.

DeviantArt : Another well-known site with images, photo and Photoshop brushes.

DreamsTime : Hi-Res pictures.
Unprofound : Many, many, many, images!
VintagePixel : Old-School style images.
OpenStockPhotography : More than a million images.

ImageAfter : Images and textures.
FreePhotosIndex : Good but hard to navigate.
EveryStockPhoto : Nice site, nice content.
Photocase : Same :)
Stock.xchg : Simply great.

MorgueFile : A site everyone should have in his bookmarks!.
Flickr : You already know it, right? ;)
GraphicsArena : Stunning pics to donwload.
PixelPerfectDigital : If you like digital photography, you’ll love this site.
FreeRange : Another well known site.

AnimationFactory : If you like animations, you’ll be happy with that one!
Fotogenika : Very nice galleries.
Woophy : To find pictures of the world.
MayangFreeTextures : Lots of free textures to download.

FromOldBooks : If you like old books!

TextureWarehouse : Only top quality textures.
FreeStockPhotos : Ugly site but cool pictures.
MajesticImagery : Very nice.
BurningWell : Same here, very nice site.

DesignPack : Themed images packs to download
ZurbPhotos : Download Bryan Zmijewski pictures.
AmazingTextures : The name says it all ;)
ImageBase : Lots of gorgeous photos.
DiwieDesign : Images are free but you’re encouraged to make a donation.

Tofz : Free stock urban photography.

LightMatter : Download Aaron Logan’s pictures.
InsectImages : Only insects images. Bzzz…
Afflict : Great site.
ArtFavor : Images, fonts and wallpapers on the same site.

FreeImages : Another nice one..
CreatingOnline : Good resource.
GeekPhilosopher : Pictures from GeekPhilosopher.
Creativity103 : Lots of images.

PhotoshopSupport : If you like Photoshop, you’ll love that site!.
FreeMediaGoo : Very complete resource.

Une Image au Hasard : Gallery from an amateur photographer.

That’s all. Now I just have to hope that this article will be as useful to you as is it to me. That’s always a good thing to see that we can still find very good free images online.
And you, do you have another site to tell us about? Leave us a comment!

This article is an English adaptation of Fred Pereira list of free stock images sites.

Comments (169) - Leave yours

  5. Tristan Bethe said:

    I use imageafter.com all the time! ;)

    We also have an every growing list on our forum:

    http://www.imageafter.com/forum/index.php?thread_id=250

    Do you mind if I add your findings?

  6. Catrin W said:

    Thanks for sharing and putting efforts to compile this list. Very useful indeed. I always need free stock photos and now i can finally have my favorite list.

  7. Raju said:

    Earlier this week I had written a post exactly on the same thing
    90+ Free Stock photo Websites – http://techpp.com/2009/01/16/90-free-stock-photo-websites-exhaustive-list/

  11. AskWiki: Internet said:

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  12. Best Design Options said:

    Thanks for the links… I’ll check them out since I am needing new and fresh stock images every now and then. And, if I could get them for free, then it’s added bonus. Are these stock photos Royalty free? or absolutely free?

  17. Boyz II Men said:

    Nice, it’s so hard finding photos for things, especially with the legal teams that hunt down everyone using their images and sending law suits out. Having this list of sites will make it a lot easier/safer.

  19. pligg.com said:

    50 sites to find free stock images…

    If you like Web Design, you probably use a lot of stock images in your designs. The following article is a list of 50 websites that provide free, open-sources images and photography to help you creating stunning designs without spending a dollar….

  21. busby said:

    Honestly, this thing of free stock images takes the cake ! I know it’s also all about point of view. Anyway, I don’t see great future in that kind of free websites.

  36. Max said:

    Photocase free??? Check the site! http://www.photocase.com/en/shop.asp

    The best list of free stock photos is at http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm

  41. Henrik - Web Designer Perth said:

    Fantastic collection of links. Many thanks. I was searching for a particular shot to illustrate an ‘arson’ crime scene for a website I’m currently designing. Thanks to your list I’ve got a choice of shots to show the client next week. Thanks again.

  50. Rita said:

    Wow-so many I hadn’t heard about! Thanks ever so much for this list. Love it when people give helpful info to so many for the taking.

  51. zyva said:

    Very useful information. I am sure this information will be useful for me and anothers in order to fullfill our need for this image. Thank you.

  57. FreebiesLinkShare.Com said:

    50 sites to find free stock images – Compiled by CatsWhoCode.Com…

    If you like Web Design, you probably use a lot of stock images in your designs. The following article is a list of 50 websites that provide free, open-sources images and photography to help you creating stunning designs without spending a dollar. And t…

  59. Edmonton SEO said:

    Wow. This is the mother of all free stock photo sites. My list had about 6, but now I will simply refer clients to this list when they are looking for free stock photos. Thank you thank you thank you.

  63. Boyz II Men said:

    Just wanted to let you know, I’m building a new site and I used one of the free stock photo sites that you listed to build the banner. Thanks a lot for the list! The site looks great now because of you :)

  65. lingu said:

    Hey. I havent see so wide list before. Thanks a lot. I use http://www.flickr.com, http://stockart.deviantart.com/ and also http://www.pixmac.com/free-pictures

  72. Hair Replacement Harry said:

    Man, just what I need!
    My Web designer is always charging me a few bucks for pictures, and not presenting me with enough options eithers.
    I’m tackling this list tonite and hope to find what I need quickly!

  83. Ajith | Blog Money said:

    Wow, this is a mother-of-all list for stock images. I always found it difficult to find the right one and often ended up editing one of those images on some website and colage’d.

    Will go through ‘em

  90. Brett Dugan said:

    Great list. Stock.xchg is definitely my favorite from that mash up. But then again, I think I have only tried a handful of those which you have posted. Looks like I need to expand my stock image sources.

  91. Mawe said:

    I don’t do graphic design, but I do love putting images into my blogs to spice them up a bit. Blog posts without images are so boring, in my opinion. This list of sites to find stock images will work very well for me, i think. great article and thank you!

  113. Dan said:

    Thanks for the listings. The information was very helpful. I found thousands of good quality royalty free images at www.sunipix.com

  114. Online Marketing Blog said:

    Another great list is on http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm they have a list for every tyep of stock you are looking for , photos, textures, vectors, music, animation and video. Its a great site and i use it for all my stock needs.

  119. lisa said:

    Great list =) But for deviantART.com each stock contributor has their own set of rules so please check with the artist as some are not all rights free.

  120. Gato said:

    dA isn’t as free as you might expect. Always ask the deviant if you can use their art or not. Many though are gonna give a clear NO. As for stock and resources, not all the stock and resources are free and might have some kinda requirements…like non commercial unless you pay or you have to be a deviant yourself.

    Before you take art from dA, read the individual rules.

  124. Madmouse Blog Tips said:

    One of the biggest problems is always finding images for my blog posts. It always has been so time consuming for me trying to find quality images, that I quit looking for images.
    These days, pictures seem to attract peoples interest to click on the link and read the full post. Furthermore, it also helps get some extra traffic from Google Image Search.

    Nice list. Will have to check the sites out to see what they have to offer.

  143. gas card said:

    Awesome websites for free photos, I usually use zimbio to find photos, but not all of the photos on zimbio are free to use, since alot of them are copyrighted, but as long as you aren’t using them for profit you should be okay!

    -Randy

  144. derek nadeau said:

    Nice, it’s so hard finding photos for things, especially with the legal teams that hunt down everyone using their images and sending law suits out. Having this list of sites will make it a lot easier/safer.

  148. SawII said:

    Check out this site too.

    http://www.photovaco.com

    All photos are high resolution and absolutely free to use for both personal and commercial projects.

  154. Martin Fairclough said:

    Search through the Creative Commons site for images that the copyright holders don’t mind you re-using. For free.
    http://search.creativecommons.org/

    flickr is not a source of free photos. Unless they’re available under a creative commons license.
    Nor, I suspect, are many of the other sites.

  159. PsdDude said:

    That is a really great list :) very useful for my photoshop tutorials … i already knew only flickr and deviantart ! Thanks to you and Fred

  160. Garth said:

    Handy list, bookmarked. Sometimes finding a relevant graphic is that one extra step I want to add, but it can be time consuming. Nice to have a larger list to search in one place. Thanks

  162. Marty said:

    This list has been a great resource for many people. I wonder whether it would be worth creating an updated list since the original list was posted a couple of years ago? I noticed that majesticimagery.com is no longer up.

  163. Amber said:

    WHOA, WAIT A MINUTE! Deviantart is NOT a stock website, it’s a place for artists to showcase their work. True there is a small stock section, but almost everything on the site is under exclusive copyright to the artists. In said stock section each artist has their own rules about how the image can be used so don’t go assuming anything! Some people (and myself occasionally) will let you use something of theirs if you ask but it is NOT free reign.

    Next time, check your facts.

  165. Joe said:

    Nice post!
    I have a new addition to the list: http://rgbstock.com
    (Done some by former stock.xchng members)

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