Fortunately, there are millions of high-quality stock photos, illustrations, vector graphics, and even stock video footage to help bring your most eccentric ideas to life. A complete list of the best stock photo websites for designers and creative teams. Discover the best free and premium resources for unique photos and worry-free licensing. IM Creator is an online website building tool, but they also put together a small library of premium photos for use in your designs.
Their search is powerful – you can filter the images results by color, orientation, style, number of people, age of people, and more. StockSnap adds hundreds of images on a daily basis and all photos are released under creative commons public domain – no attribution required. However, most stock photo websites allow you to make minor tweaks and adjustments to fit them within your brand’s layout.
Best Free Stock Photo Sites
Thankfully, if you know where to look there are an abundance of free images of superb quality available for you to use. The vast majority of pictures on Pixabay are safe for work, but to avoid anything explicit appearing in search results, make sure you check the Enable SafeSearch box before browsing. But what really shines is the type of results you can filter, which we’ve not seen so far.
- Browse by collection, creator, theme, and other filters to find the right content for your needs.
- It was only a matter of time before someone found a way to aggregate free stock photo results and monetize the concept somehow, and that’s what Everystockphoto does.
- We also granted extra points for various plugins, add-ons, and tools that make your life as a designer easier.
- Pixabay is a very polished German site that could easily pass for a stock photo agency website.
If you’re looking for freelance design jobs, find out more about the benefits when you join DesignCrowd today. The name is certainly not misplaced as the pictures on the site are quite polished, especially the illustrations. The photos, although quite small in number, look good and have been post processed by professionals.
Noun Project Photos
There are thousands of the best free stock photos to use on your websites and projects – though many of them are without attribution. If you’re looking for more sites that prioritize the photography community, Pexels is a great Flickr alternative. Pexels offers hundreds of thousands of photos that are free for both commercial and personal use. The site has a leaderboard and a number of photography contests for contributors, which makes it a great site for finding photographers who are engaged with the platform and constantly uploading fresh content. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t have as much variety as other stock photo sites—and not all of the photos are free for commercial use. The site creator advises commercial users to check with the originating institution’s rights statement through the provided link to the original Flickr posting of each photo.
There are also many niche stock photography sites out there (like Foodiesfeed, which specializes in food photography). So if you’re looking for a specific type of image, it’s worth seeing if there’s a niche site available. These sites might give you a wider range of options in the specific category you’re looking for. If you get sick of seeing ads as you browse Flickr, you can upgrade to an ad-free experience for $5.54/month.
Startup Stock Photos is a website that offers free stock photos for startups, entrepreneurs, and freelancers to use in their marketing materials, websites, and social media posts. The website features a variety of high-quality, modern, and trendy photos best free photo stocks for designers that depict the startup culture and workspace, including images of office spaces, laptops, coffee shops, and technology. Jay Mantri is a photographer and designer who has made his photographs available for free on his website, jaymantri.com.
Be sure to check the resolution of photos you find on this site; not all of them are in a high enough resolution to print properly. However, since it’s all absolutely free, it’s worth taking the time to sniff out the highest quality images. WallpaperCave is a website that provides a wide range of wallpapers for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. The website offers a variety of categories including nature, anime, cars, sports, and more. Users can search for wallpapers based on their preferred resolution, and can also upload their own wallpapers to share with others.
Plus, get a breakdown of the licensing options for each platform, so you know which photos you can use worry-free. This huge, and still growing, collection of images by creator Viktor Hanácek is easy to navigate and features free stock photos that mostly don’t require attribution. The site is funded entirely by ads, which allow it to keep running and for Viktor to travel the world and take his photos. This site is especially great for food shots, so if you’re running a food-related business or blog, this might be the answer to your prayers. If you’re looking for something a bit quirky, Gratisography – a collection of pictures by talented photographer and graphic designer Ryan McGuire – is perfect. Ryan’s photos often have a surreal edge, and are brilliant if you’re sick of dull stock photo clichés; there are no women laughing alone with salad here.
