30+ Excellent Free Stock Photo Websites for Designers

Images and photos are essential elements and building blocks for creating great designs. Getting access to highest quality unique photographic material can be quite costly unless you are taking the pictures yourself. Fortunately, there are other options because some photographers and webmasters believe it makes sense to share their creative work as free downloads. Quite a number of websites provide services to creative photographers that allow them to participate in communities and share, get feedback and be known. This article provides a collection of the best websites right now where you can get quality images and photos without spending. Please note however, that some free stock photos comes with a license that require attribution when used in commercial projects. So before using free stock photos it is highly recommended to read the terms. Also, please note that some websites that offer free stock photos also have premium offers.

If I missed some web sites that deserve to be featured as part of this list, then please let me know in a comment below. If you have plans for sharing or showing off your own photography skills and work online it is not as hard as it once was, to set up an online photo portfolio yourself. I believe a photography theme for platforms such as WordPress, can be a great help for building a professional photography website.

If you like pro photos, and only want the best for your project, make sure to check out the thousands of fully-licensed premium photos found over at Envato Market.

Some of the sites included in the list offer free stock photos only for personal use, All photos are the property of their respective authors check their policy before using their collection. This article was just refreshed with new free stock photo resources.
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Open Photo – MORE INFO

OpenPhoto is a niche photo sharing platform created in 1998 by michael jastremski. The website’s primary audience is artists, developers, teachers and students. The photos are easy to navigate using tags. OpenPhoto contributors offer their images for free under terms of Creative Commons licensing.

Woophy – MORE INFO

Woophy stands for WOrld Of PHotographY, a website founded by a Dutch collective of photo aficionados and internet designers who believe navigation on internet can be more visual, logical and associative.

Every Stock Photo – MORE INFO

Search more than 19.000.000+ photos. It features a nice feature to allow you to collect photos you find.

Stock.xchng – MORE INFO

Browse through SXC’s gallery of over 401673 stock photos, as provided by the site’s users. Photos are provided free of charge, as a service by photography addicts for photography addicts! This site has a very friendly feel, with one of its notable features being a discussion forum where suggestions and problems are dealt with in a community-based setting. In order to upload and download photos, as well as participate in the forum, a registration is required, but SXC’s privacy policy is tight to ensure the protection of your personal information.

Morgue File – MORE INFO

This site offers free photo exchange and a community section where you can participate in bulletin board discussions or join as a member if you wish to contribute your own work. They also provide free online photography courses and sponsor a scavenger hunt and photo competition. Their stock photos can be used in commercial or personal projects without permission or credit from the photographer, and as mentioned, you can also submit photos to the site with their approval. You’ll find a very broad range of subjects offered, and the site is neatly organized and user-friendly.

Stockvault – MORE INFO

StockVault.net provides a directory of over 40.000 great free stock photos, 20000 members. The photos are available for download in the following categories: 3-D Renders, Animal Kingdom, Construction and Buildings, Nature, Objects, People, Seasonal, Textures and Backgrounds, Web Templates, and a variety of unsorted images.

Wikimedia Commons – MORE INFO

This site offers 18+ million free media files. Not all of these are photos but this site is a massive resource worth exploring.

Flickr Creative Commons – MORE INFO

Flickers main purpose is photo management and sharing and millions use it for that purpose.  This makes it a great place for inspiration and searching for good photographs. Many photographers allow others to use their art and you will find that many photos are licensed under Creative Common.

Kave Wall – MORE INFO

You will find very high quality photo material here and it is free. All images are  separated in 18 different categories with really handy navigation.

Turbo Photo – MORE INFO

Deviantart – MORE INFO

Very popular community for designers, photographers etc. It is a very good source for photos. Just make sure you check the license carefully and/or ask authors first for their permission.

pixel perfect digital – MORE INFO

This site has tons of free photographs for download in many categories. They’re free to use in both your personal and professional design projects under creative commons attribution. Registration is not required, but just be sure to review the Terms of Use before downloading. All images are high quality JPEGs, easy-to-find with an Advanced Search function to help locate them quickly. The Image Hotlist also displays the highest rated, most viewed, and most downloaded in the gallery, so you can get a sense of what your fellow web designers find appealing.

Turbo Photo – MORE INFO

Browse and download 2,000 (3.4 GB) free stock images from 10 categories

Fotolia – MORE INFO

FreeImages – MORE INFO

This easy-to-use site offers over 6000 original stock photos, free of charge. While registration isn’t necessary, you can sign up for their mailing list to be notified of website features and images updates, as well as to gain access to a special members-only area featuring additional image galleries.

Stock Photogram – MORE INFO

Photo.net – MORE INFO

Free Stock Photos – MORE INFO

RGB Stock – MORE INFO

Unprofound – MORE INFO

A collaborative website, created and run by designers, that offers a wide range of user-submitted free stock photography. You don’t have to sign-up in order to download images, making this site very easy-to-use. Of particular interest is a feature that allows you to create a free online photo portfolio – when contributing photos to Unprofound, you automatically get a website showcasing all the photos contributed by you, as well as an optional personal photo, bio and links. You can use this self-contained portfolio website for professional or personal business use.

Free Range Stock – MORE INFO

This stock photography site offers a wide range of high resolution free stock photos and textures, with all images at least 2400 x 1600. All you have to do is sign up for a free membership, log in, and download away. You can use a keyword searchable stock photography database, or alternatively, browse through their online image catalogs. As well, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you have the option of e-mailing them to see if they have your desired image in one of their extensive, not-yet-online archives. If they have it, they’ll get it to you for free.

Image*After – Free Stock Photos – MORE INFO

Image*After offers you the possibility to download and use free stock photos and high resolution pictures. The site’s layout is simple, with an easy-to-use FAQ available on the main page. At the moment, the volume of images is somewhat limited, but it is quickly growing. Sign up for their weekly newsletter to be notified of new additions to the site!

Free digital photos – MORE INFO

Photo Rack – MORE INFO

A vast collection of stock photos for free private and commercial use, Photo Rack organizes its images by category. Categories include Lifestyle, Nature, Food/Cooking, Animals, Industrial/Technology, Sports, Business, People, Cities, Backgrounds/Textures, and Miscellaneous. A cool feature of this site is the option to send most images to any e-mail address of your choice as a postcard!

PBase

Photobucket

Public Domain Photos

123RF – MORE INFO

Image Base – MORE INFO

Historical Stock Photos – MORE INFO

Geek Philosopher – MORE INFO

Lars

Lars started tripwire magazine back in January 2009. He is really passionate about web design, web development and loves to look into new technologies, techniques, tools etc. and to write articles for his readers.