Visuals are essential when it comes to online attention. It is important to understand though that you cannot use just any image that you Google online. So how do you find great images to add to your blog posts and social media posts? Thanks to thousands of stunning free stock photos for you to use in your websites and projects – many of them without attribution. Here are some great ways to find beautiful images for FREE!
Unsplash
Unsplash provides some of the most high-quality collections of photos online. There are over a million stunning photos from contributors all over the world that give access to royalty-free images with unlimited free downloads. Unsplash even has an iOS app, so that you can download pictures to your iPhone or iPad. There are also no ads on the site which makes it easier for viewing.
Pexels
Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. They have a large variety of images and videos. When you download an image from Pexels you can choose the size of the image and. This large stock photo site with have many ads for Shutterstock, iStock, and more.
Pixabay
Pixabay is one of the largest free stock photo sites online. One of the advantages Pixabay has is they offer free vectors and illustrations in addition to photos and videos. You can choose from various types of resolutions before you download your image. Pixabay also has many links to paid sites such as iStock and Shutterstock which can cause complications when viewing photos.
Kaboompics
Kaboompics is one of the most popular sources of free images for lifestyle, interior design, and specialized bloggers. With their search engine, you can not only search by keywords but also choose the main color scheme of the image that you would like. The photos are layaed out nicely and edited to perfection.
Gratisography
For fun, quirky images check out Gratisography. They have a creative collection of free downloadable images with a fun and unusual spin to them. Their interesting images are great for social media posts and blog images when you want to capture attention. This website doesn’t have a large selection of photos but good for when you are looking for something different or “whimsical.”
Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is an excellent source of images, vectors, videos, and more. This is a paid site however you can sign up for a free one month trial where you will receive 10 free images on their trial before charging. As a marketing or social media manager, this website is excellent for creating marketing materials and other designs. The high-quality vectors and illustrations are also available in .eps formats.
Ivory Mix
This is one of my hidden faves! The Ivory Mix photo library has a great selection of stock photos for bloggers. The owner creates and takes her own image to make beautiful layouts in all colors and styles. Ivory Mix has the option of a paid membership but you can also sign up for a free Ivory Mix account. This will give you access to over 500 free styled stock photos, weekly tips, and bonus monthly stock photos that are always on season for that given month.
New Old Stock
While there is not a large selection on this website if you are looking for a historic black and white photo you can find them here. They are vintage photos from the public archives and are free of known copyright restrictions.
PicJumbo
PicJumbo started this free stock photo site for bloggers and designers around the world. It is a great resource for free photos that provide a business stock photo feel and not just for trendy photos. Photos are high quality however watch out for the swarm of ads that are on the site. This is inevitable of most sites that provide free value and resources.
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SplitShire
Starting as a collection of photos from photographers over the course of 10 years and now has a large collection and millions of downloads. Photos are great for websites, social media, and ebooks and separated into themes. The Huffington Post and CNN even use SplitShire for photos sometimes.
FoodiesFeed
This stock site is packed with Foodie Friendly photos. It has highly visually appealing free food photos in high resolution that are great for websites, blogs, and social media. FoodiesFeed started with a single photographer who wanted to share his food photography for free and has now grown with many contributors sharing their food art photos to the site.
Canva
Not only is Canva a free tool to build gorgeous social media and marketing material, but there is also a section for free stock photos that can be inputted into your designs. Canva provides professional looking and easy to use templates for social media graphics, presentations, ebooks, videos, and more.
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