40 Free Stock Photo Sites

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Jammed packed article with 40 different websites that offer FREE stock photography for commercial use. Some of these websites really offer some nice photo gems. Bookmark for future reference!

By Linda Chadbourne on May 30th, 2008 in Articles |

Image After
Image*After – A large collection of free photos and textures. Quite an unusual selection of photos.

Imagebase – Nice selection of free photos including a category of The Holy Land.

Insect Images – Insects, bugs and more creepy crawlers.

Kavewall – This site is a great find. They have very unusual categories that might inspire you. Smoke, Electric and tattoo. Check this one out.

Liam’s Pictures from Old Books – Scanned images, engravings and pictures from old books. Over 2100 high resolutions images are available.

Morgue File
MorgueFile – This is a site that contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use. I reference this site on a regular basis.

NOAA
NOAA Photo Library – Gorgeous science, and nature shots including tornados, hurricanes and other weather tragedies, polar region photos, coral reefs and more.

PD Photo.org – Royalty Free, Public Domain Stock Photos There are thousands of photos nicely divided into hundreds of categories. There is a search feature which will reduce your search time. Good one to check out for sure.

Photocase – This is a community run site with really great photos. Not your typical stock photography but still amazing. There are photos here that you couldn’t even imagine. Search by keyword or color.

Photogen – Lots of unique photos but I didn’t find a search feature. Also these photos were not separated into easy to find categories.

Open Photo
Openphoto.net – Nice selection and a variety of permissions. Interesting categories such as macro, recreation, art and colors. This one is worth a look.

Open Stock – This site will keep you busy. Lots of photos. You must use the search feature to get you started. This site is powered by trynt, yahoo and wikipedia. This one you should also check out.

Stock.xchng – Large selection of free photos. They also have a search feature which aids in finding what you want and a welcomed hover feature for close-ups.

Studio 25
Studio.25 – Amazing resource. This is a must see and really easy to use. Search or use the categories and then finally see close- ups with the hover feature.

Turbo Photo – 2000 free stock photos available for download. A search feature makes this site easy to use.

Unprofound.com – This is a nice site. You can search by keywords or by color. Unusual collection of photos because they are not your typical stock photos. You might enjoy this site. It’s non-profit with no advertising.

USDA
USDA – United States Department of Agriculture Nice site of Animals, Crops, Fruits & Veggies, Insects and other agricultural categories.

Vintage Pixels – Interesting site since all photos are black and white historical photos. You must be a member to download photos but membership is free. Each photo has details to see the approximate date the photo was taken. This site is like taking a walk through history.

Visipix.com – This site has photos and fine art that is free to use as long as you place the photographer’s name near. 6 sizes are offered for each photo.

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About The Author

Linda Chadbourne

Linda Chadbourne has been a web designer since 2001. A large portion of her day also involves graphic and logo design for Cozy Penguin Web Studio which she owns and operates. Linda is also one of the co-founders of The Web Squeeze which is a Web Design and Development Help Forum. In her free time she is an avid family person, horseback rider and reader.

Comments

Mayor of Kentonville.com said :
June 8th, 2008 at 8:29 am

Stellar list, I was not aware of quite a few of these. Thanks
alex said :
June 9th, 2008 at 1:18 am

dude, like deviantart is not a freestock photo site.. why you mislead ppl?
Linda said :
June 9th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

If you check the link, it takes you directly to the free stock image page. I realize that most of DevianART is not free and this link looks deceptive but it is not. Thanks for commenting!
Stephen Gibson said :
June 10th, 2008 at 1:16 am

Might I also suggest photoeverywhere.co.uk for free travel images and creativity103.com for more unusual abstract textures and photography. Thanks.
Jon said :
June 12th, 2008 at 10:42 am

Many thanks for the link to Photogen.com. Unlike some other image libraries, the home page is ordered by how new the images are, but we do definitely have a Search feature – it’s at the top of the page, next to the logo, and next to that is a drop down list with all the categories in it. All the images are also tagged with clickable keywords, so finding the right image should (hopefully) be easy.
Linda said :
June 12th, 2008 at 11:11 am

Ah, yes, I do see the search feature now. I’m not sure how I missed that!
Clifford said :
August 4th, 2008 at 1:45 am

Brilliant, Thanks
Benny Buttons said :
August 15th, 2008 at 12:40 am

Dandy list! I’d never heard of some of these sites.
Ted said :
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm

May i suggest http://sweetstockphoto.com – it’s a small but growing archive of totally free stock photos. They are released under a public domain license, meaning you can use them however you want, even in commercial projects. No registration required, either!
Karinne Legault said :
September 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am

@Ted: Oh! That’s very nice! Thanks for the link. It looks very promising. Good luck with that project!
Fiona said :
September 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Thanks very much for the very handy list!
Bmiller said :
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm

I would like to suggest http://www.webphotomart.com as another resource for free stock photos.
P said :
November 9th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Please check out http://www.freedesignphoto.com – Photos specifically for design, web design as well as print design.
HairyMan said :
November 12th, 2008 at 12:08 am

Not bad… Not bad.
Chantal said :
November 13th, 2008 at 6:54 am

Wow, thanks a lot for this, it was very, very handy!!
loremipsumblvd said :
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm

I’ve got a lot of the same Free Stock Photo Sites on my blog, but I’ve tried to get rid of the budget/lame ones. I’ve also compiled a list of the top 35 Free Vector Sites at http://www.loremipsumblvd.com/

Thanks!
Tim said :
April 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

Kindly also include http://www.sunipix.com to the list of free stock photo websites.
FreeStockImages said :
April 26th, 2009 at 5:45 am

I would like to add FreeStockImages.org – new, but photos are not published anywhere else, so they are original as long posted fresh.
Pavel said :
April 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

A good list of well-known websites!

From myself i may add two resources – co-photo.com as a small free photos site and designbeginshere.com as an other fully-classified list. You may try to find there something to add to your current list there.
Hero said :
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:22 am

thnks, these really come in handy.
Download Free Photos said :
July 15th, 2009 at 5:13 am

Hi,

You can use my photos for free at http://www.download-free-photos.com/

Enjoy,
Alex
Photoshooter said :
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Cheap royalty free stock photos. Simple site, but good photos. Photomace.com
Michael Garmahis said :
January 9th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

My version of best Free Stock Photos Sites
Yakov said :
January 19th, 2010 at 3:27 pm

http://www.KosherStock.com offers weekly free photos for personnal and commercial use. KS is a royalty-free microstock site (photos, illustrations and cliparts) focusing on the Jewish life, culture and religion.
Jaj said :
January 20th, 2010 at 10:43 am

An other great free stock photo site:
http://www.rgbstock.com