Free Stock Photos

Burst

Burst has photos released under a Creative Commons CC0 license, as well as under their own license. In both cases, you may use them for commercial purposes, without attribution. The photos under their own license can not be used to create a competing service.

Canva

Canva has a collection of free photos that you can download and use, commercially, without attribution. You will need to create a free account to be able to download them.

Free Media Goo

Free Media Goo provides free images, audio files, textures and flash files that you can pretty much do whatever you please with them except use them in propaganda, pornography, or anything suggestive, according to their license.

Free Stock Photos

Free Stock Photos has tons of photos with varying licenses, many of which allow for commercial use, including items meant for resale. Check the license terms included on the page with each photo.

FreeImages

FreeImages offers lots of high quality stock photos, free of charge, under a standard license that allows you to use them commercially, provided they are not being redistributed, used in web templates for resale, print-on-demand, or items where the photo is the main focus of the item. They were previously known as Stock.xchng, till their parent company was bought out by Getty. All of their commercial assets were then added to Getty’s collection. The old free photos site was then spun off as FreeImages.com.

Freerange Stock

Freerange Stock offers photos you can use for just about anything. They request that you give credit, but they also say it isn’t required if you don’t want to. There is a credit and link requirement if you plan to redistribute their photos as part of a web template, though.

freestocks.org

freestocks.org has many photos you can use for commercial purposes, released under a Creative Commons CC0 license. While the license terms published on the site says they are all CC0, it also says you can’t sell the photos, themselves. But the CC0 license actually allows you to do just that. So, I’d be a little careful with this site, as they don’t seem to want to adhere to the letter of the license type they have chosen for their photos.

Gratisography

Gratisography claims to be the world’s quirkiest collection of free high-resolution pictures. I am not totally sure about that, but I am sure that they have a very generous license that allows you to do pretty much anything you want with their images, so long as it doesn’t involve redistribution of the image files or usage on merchandise where the image would be the main focus of the item.

Heritage Library

The Heritage Library collects beautiful illustrations from the past which are 100% free to use. They carefully research and edit the content to make it suitable for use in personal or commercial projects. At the time of writing, they have 30 packages containing PNG and vector illustrations. They also have a mailing list that you can sign up for, to receive additional design resources, including fonts, illustrations, textures and more.

Image*After

Image*After lets you do anything you want with their photos, as long as you don’t use them to set up a stock photo site that competes with theirs.

ISO Republic

ISO Republic offers stock photos and videos under a CC0 license, which allows you to do anything you wish with the photos, including commercial usage, print on demand products, inclusion in web templates, selling them, or even including them on your own stock photo site, all without attribution.

Kaboompics

Kaboompics is a one woman show, featuring almost 20,000 lifestyle and interior design photos. Every photo includes a downloadable color palette and you can easily search for other images with similar colors, or ones from the same photoshoot. Licensing allows for non-commercial and commercial use, including for use in web templates, and print-on-demand merchandise, without attribution. The only things not allowed are giving away the photos as stock photos on your own website and/or selling the photos as stock photos.

Life of Pix

Life of Pix offers free high-resolution CC0 licensed photos for personal and commercial use. New photographs are added weekly. All images are donated to the public domain, and can be used in non-commercial and commercial projects, without attribution.

Mixkit

Mixkit offers both stock illustrations and videos suitable for a variety of purposes, absolutely free of charge, with generous license terms that do not require attribution. There are some limitations on what you can use them for, so please check their terms of use to be sure they are suitable for your project.

Morguefile

Morguefile has some very generous license terms that even allow you to sell the images, as images, as long as you have altered it so that it isn’t identical to the original (and I don’t think mere resizing counts as altering). If you use the photos as-is, without changing them somehow, then you have to give credit to the original creator.

Nappy

Nappy is a website dedicated to providing free, beautiful, high-res photography of black and brown people, under a Creative Commons (CC0) license.

NASA

NASA, as a government agency, exists to benefit the citizens of the US, and is funded by tax money collected from those same citizens. All of the images they produce, therefore, belongs to those citizens, aka the public domain, and you can do whatever you wish with them.

New Old Stock

New Old Stock has vintage photos from the public domain, that have no known copyright restrictions, so you may do whatever you wish with them.

Norebbo

Norebbo has some great 3D renderings that would be perfect for illustrating technology related blog posts, creating web templates, Powerpoint presentations, and many other types of projects. The free images are ENORMOUS compared to similar free images offered by other artists. Norebbo has some very generous terms of use for his free images, too. You may use them any way you wish, except redistributing them, as-is. And while a link back to his site is appreciated, it is not required. He has recently been creating a lot of 3D renderings of airplanes, so if you are looking for something other than that, you may have to dig deep into his older blog posts.

PDPhoto.org

PDPhoto.org has some really nice images that you can do whatever you please with, as they are all dedicated to the public domain.

Pexels

Pexels is one of my favorite stock photo sites, and has lots of free stock photos that you may use commercially, even in web templates, and for printed items (so long as you alter them in some way that adds to their value). The only thing you can’t do is sell them as stock photos. There’s even a WordPress plugin available that makes it easy to add their photos to your blog posts.

Photo Rack

Photo Rack says there are no limitations on the use of their images. There’s no site search, but photos are grouped into categories, with an extensive list of sub-categories, to make finding what you are looking for a little easier. Unfortunately, they haven’t added any new photos since 2007, but their collection is still quite large.

PicJumbo

PicJumbo has lots of free stock photos available under a generous license that allows you to do pretty much anything, as long as it doesn’t involve the restribution or sale of the image files, or as part of a competing service. They also have a Pro service available as a paid subscription, with even more photos.

PICNOI

PICNOI provides free stock photos focusing on racial diversity, under a Creative Commons (CC-0) license.

Picography

Picography is another Creative Commons CC0 stock photo site. The site’s licensing terms do try to restrict the rights granted under the CC0 license the creators have chosen for their photos, though, by not allowing you to claim the photos are your own work. CC0 has no restrictions on usage or attribution, and is a declaration by the creator that they are giving up ALL rights to their work, including the right to be recognized as the creator. So, beware! The site owner may not actually understand the license their photographers have chosen and what rights you actually have under that license.

Pixabay

Pixabay has lots of free stock photos,  vectors, videos, and music that you may use commercially, even in web templates, and for printed items, so long as you alter them in some way that adds to their value. The only thing you can’t do is sell them as stock files.

Public Domain Pictures

Public Domain Pictures is a repository for free public domain photos. You can do anything you want with them, but keep in mind that none of the photos have model or property releases.

Public Domain Project

Pond5’s Public Domain Project provides thousands of historical photos that you may use for any purpose.

PublicDomainPhotos.com

PublicDomainPhotos.com has images you can do anything you want with, no restrictions.

Reshot

Reshot specializes in photos with a distinct Instagram feel to them, that do not have the typical staged stock photo look, giving them a more authentic vibe. Their license terms are quite generous, but there are some limitations. You can use them for pretty much anything you want, without attribution, even commercially, with some exceptions. You can even use them in print-on-demand products, provided that you first alter them by applying skill and effort, and incorporating other elements (merely printing a photo on an object such as a mug or shirt is not sufficient alteration). Please see their User Terms for full details and usage exceptions.

Rgbstock

Rgbstock offers free photos that follow the standard license of not allowing redistribution, usage in web templates for resale, or any other item for sale, where the photo is the main focus of the item. However, you are free to contact the creator of the photo to ask for permission, if your usage will fall outside what is permitted by Rgbstock’s license terms.

Skitterphoto

Skitterphoto advertises themselves as a place to find, show and share public domain photos. All photos on the site have a Creative Commons CC0 license, which means you can do whatever you want with them, including redistribution, using them on articles for sale, print on demand, and even to create a competing service.

Smithsonian Open Access

The Smithsonian Institute has released over 2.8 million high resolution 2D and 3D images into the public domain, under a CC0 license.  The collection features data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo. You are encouraged to browse, use, reuse, and transform the materials into anything that you wish.

StockSnap

StockSnap has lots of Creative Commons CC0 images that you can use for any purpose you wish, with no attribution required.

The Flickr Commons

The Flickr Commons contains tons of photos and other images that are in the public domain, with no known copyright restrictions.

Unprofound

Unprofound was created by designers, for designers and will pretty much let you do anything with their photos except redistribute them as stock photos. The only payment they want is the pleasure of knowing what their work has become. All they want in return is to be able to see what you have done with them, which means either sending them a photo of your product, screenshot of your software, link to your website or template, or whatever other way you can show them what their images have become part of.

Unsplash

Unsplash has plenty of photos that you can use for whatever purpose you need, except to offer a competing service.