# free images for commercial use **a giant collection of places where you can get free images that are safe to use in commercial projects.** **Respect the licenses!** ---------- ## search engines and indexed collections _before I jump into the individual sites, here’s a list of places that collect images from multiple sites and sources to help you quickly find your image._ - [**Creative Commons Search**](https://search.creativecommons.org/) : great starting place to search for openly licensed materials, including images. - [**Visual Hunt**](https://visualhunt.com/) : an indexed collection of images sourced from across the web. They boast over 350 million creative commons images in the database with over 116 thousand Creative Commons Zero images. - [**Librestock**](https://librestock.com/) - a newish site with tons of images from many different stock photo sites. - **[Openverse](https://openverse.org/)** - search through photos, images, and audio from the creative commons or public domain. - [**Flickr**](https://www.flickr.com/) : giant collection of user submitted images. When searching for images, you can sort by license to find ones that are acceptable for commercial use. - [**Compfight**](http://compfight.com/) : uses the Flickr API to narrow your search for images that can be openly used for commercial use. - [**Photo Pin**](http://photopin.com/) : uses the Flickr API to narrow your search for images. Most of the images will require a CC-By license, which means you will need to give attribution to the original photographer. - [**Every Stock Photo**](http://www.everystockphoto.com/) : search engine pulling from many different sources to create a database of nearly 30 million images. They have images from the Library of Congress and NASA in the collection. You can filter for license types as part of the search image. - [**Stock Up**](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up) : this is an index of almost 30 stock photo sites so you can quickly search for images across the spectrum in one place. Most images should be free for use, but check specific licensing for each image you want by simply hovering over the picture. - [**Wikimedia Commons**](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) : affiliated with wikipedia, this database has over 36 million files that can be freely used. Most content will require a CC-By license, which means you will need to give attribution to the original photographer. - [**Wonderstock**](https://wunderstock.com/) : is a wonderful visual index of images from Flickr with the added benefit of being able to adjust colors and settings of the images before downloading. most of the images are CC-0 however you may get some that require attribution. You can filter as needed. Definitely worth checking out . ---------- ## creative commons zero license _all images are licensed as_ [*Creative Commons Zero*](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) _which means you can use the images in any way you want with zero need for attribution._ - [**Stockio**](https://www.stockio.com) : lots of free images, as well as vectors, fonts, icons, etc. Cool stuff here. - [**Unsplash**](https://unsplash.com/) : broad range of content organized into nice collections. Subscribe to their newsletter for regular image updates. - [**Pixabay**](https://pixabay.com/) : all images are licensed as Creative Commons Zero which means you can use the images in any way you want with zero need for attribution. Over 860,000 images, illustrations, and videos with more being added on a regular basis. - [**Pexels**](https://www.pexels.com/) : tons of amazing images across a huge spectrum of content categories. They have tools you can use to search their library from your desktop or even within Photoshop. - [**Gratisography**](http://www.gratisography.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. many fun, creative images here. Definitely unique content that will give you a smile. - [**Reshot**](https://www.reshot.com/) - as they say “handpicked non-stocky images”. - [**Free For Commercial Use**](http://freeforcommercialuse.net/) : a fairly new site with limited selection, however they will be growing quickly. They have the typical content categories and search. - [**StockSnap**](https://stocksnap.io/) : solid collection of images across broad categories. Nice filter tools to find trending and favorited images. Not sure how images are collected, but I see several pictures I’ve seen on other sites. This site is hosted by a company that has an online graphic editor program you can pay to use. - [**Stockpik**](http://stokpic.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. Lots of content here to see. He is seeking sponsored photographers to help expand the site content. - [**Stockvault**](http://www.stockvault.net/) : tons of images here, including computer renderings, textures, and backgrounds. Good selection in a broad range of categories. - [**Picography**](http://picography.co/) : small collection of interesting images. - [**Splitshire**](https://www.splitshire.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. High quality, but limited selection. - [**Kaboompics**](http://kaboompics.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. High quality, but limited selection. - [**ISO Republic**](http://isorepublic.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. High quality, but limited selection. - [**Skitterphoto**](http://skitterphoto.com/) : decent collection of original images you won’t find on other sites. Limited selection, however the archive does seem to be growing. - [**Free Stock Images**](https://freeimages.red/) : nice collection of images from a variety of photographers. Typical range of categories. - [**Magdaleine**](http://magdeleine.co/browse/) : curated collection of images from a variety of photographers. There’s a filter option for CC-Zero and CC-By. Most of the images have a nice, moody look to them. - [**Free Nature Stock**](http://freenaturestock.com/) : single photographer sharing their collection. Given the name, no surprise that the focus is on nature images. - [**New Old Stock**](http://nos.twnsnd.co/) : an interesting curated collection of vintage pictures from around the world. The images are mostly from Flickr and should be listed as public domain. Be sure to double-check licensing on individual images just to be sure. - [**Centre for Ageing Better**](https://ageingbetter.resourcespace.com/pages/home.php) : a collection of age-positive images of older people. - [**Nappy**](https://nappy.co/) : beautiful images of black and brown people. ---------- ## creative commons by license _all images are licensed as_ [*Creative Commons By*](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) _which means you can mostly use the images in any way you want but will need to attribute the photographer._ - [**Morguefile**](http://stokpic.com/) : one of the oldest sites for free images. They have over 350,000 images in the collection. Plenty of content for you to use. No specific CC-By license listed, however their license on the site requires attribution if you are not modifying the base image. - [**Raumrot**](http://raumrot.com/) : solid collection of images across a variety of content categories. Can browse by categories or special sets. --- tags: #design #resources home: [[! graphic design resources]]