40 Free Stock Photo Sites

40 Free Stock Photo Sites

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 | Print This Article

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

Unprofound.com
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
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
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
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

  1. Gravatar Icon
    Mayor of Kentonville.com said :

    Stellar list, I was not aware of quite a few of these. Thanks

  2. Gravatar Icon
    alex said :

    dude, like deviantart is not a freestock photo site.. why you mislead ppl?

  3. Gravatar Icon
    Linda said :

    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!

  4. Gravatar Icon
    Stephen Gibson said :

    Might I also suggest photoeverywhere.co.uk for free travel images and creativity103.com for more unusual abstract textures and photography. Thanks.

  5. Gravatar Icon
    Jon said :

    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.

  6. Gravatar Icon
    Linda said :

    Ah, yes, I do see the search feature now. I’m not sure how I missed that!

  7. Gravatar Icon
    Clifford said :

    Brilliant, Thanks

  8. Gravatar Icon
    Benny Buttons said :

    Dandy list! I’d never heard of some of these sites.

  9. Gravatar Icon
    Ted said :

    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!

  10. Gravatar Icon
    Karinne Legault said :

    @Ted: Oh! That’s very nice! Thanks for the link. It looks very promising. Good luck with that project!

  11. Gravatar Icon
    Fiona said :

    Thanks very much for the very handy list!

  12. Gravatar Icon
    Bmiller said :

    I would like to suggest http://www.webphotomart.com as another resource for free stock photos.

  13. Gravatar Icon
    P said :

    Please check out http://www.freedesignphoto.com – Photos specifically for design, web design as well as print design.

  14. Gravatar Icon
    HairyMan said :

    Not bad… Not bad.

  15. Gravatar Icon
    Chantal said :

    Wow, thanks a lot for this, it was very, very handy!!

  16. Gravatar Icon
    loremipsumblvd said :

    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!

  17. Gravatar Icon
    Tim said :

    Kindly also include http://www.sunipix.com to the list of free stock photo websites.

  18. Gravatar Icon
    FreeStockImages said :

    I would like to add FreeStockImages.org – new, but photos are not published anywhere else, so they are original as long posted fresh.

  19. Gravatar Icon
    Pavel said :

    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.

  20. Gravatar Icon
    Hero said :

    thnks, these really come in handy.

  21. Gravatar Icon
    Download Free Photos said :

    Hi,

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

    Enjoy,
    Alex

  22. Gravatar Icon
    Photoshooter said :

    Cheap royalty free stock photos. Simple site, but good photos. Photomace.com

  23. Gravatar Icon
    Michael Garmahis said :
  24. Gravatar Icon
    Yakov said :

    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.

  25. Gravatar Icon
    Jaj said :

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

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