Where To Find Free Images For Your Blog
After reading Kevin Muldoon’s review of PicApp.com, I’ve though about sharing some tips on where and how to find free images to use in your blog posts, like I do.
I know for a fact (and Kevin confirms this too) that many bloggers use Google’s Image Search to find free photos to use on their blogs, which is cool, but not necessarily legal. Let me explain.
The Google bot has a nasty habit of indexing every information and file that is linked from your pages, which basically gives him access to the /images directory of every website. This can be fought by using a robots.txt file to prevent search engine access to directories and files.
By indexing these folders, Google will share through his results copyrighted images used to develop the websites, or images from professional photographers’ portfolios. So, these images are not free. And so says Google:
“Image may be scaled down and subject to copyright.”
So, why risk using copyrighted images when you have quite a few options of free or extremely low-cost photos available? Check them out below.
Free Photos from stock.xchng (sxc.hu)
Until now, stock.xchng has been my favorite tool for free images. Some of the images require a author notification of use, some don’t. They are all big, some have quite a high-resolution. For some topics you’ll find the perfect photo, for others, you’ll need to take a metaphorical approach, but still, they are free.
Free Photos from EveryStockPhoto.com
EveryStockPhoto is a service similar to stock.xchng, but check this out: they have 3,161,661 free photos in their database as I’m typing this. Definitely worth taking a look. Various photos come with various licenses.
Free Photos from PicApp.com
PicApp is a new website, currently in BETA stage, that lets you look (and use) for creative & editorial images. They are all high quality (like you would find on Getty Images), but there’s a downside. When embedding the image on your blog, a small animation produces when mousing over it, making way for some sponsored ads. True, the high price of the image rights don’t pay for themselves, and this is PicApp’s solution to provide high-quality FREE images. I would definitely recommend them if you’re running a celebrity or news blog. Paris Hilton, Geoge Cloney, Hillary Clinton, they are all there!
Free Photos from Photoree.com
Photoree is a service that’s searching Flickr database for images released under the Creative Commons license. After you sign up (free), you have the possibility of creating filters to display only images of interest to you. Thanks CTI97 for suggesting to add this service.
Free Photos from FreeFoto.com
FreeFoto has been around for many years and has a database of about 115.000 photos, organized in about 3000 categories. While some tech photos are a bit “old”, you’ll always find here nice travel images. They are free to use, but at a web resolution and with a link back and attribution. Higher resolutions are available for a price.
One Dollar Photo Resources
This is a somehow recent type of selling images online. Websites like Dreamstime.com, iStockPhoto.com and Stockxpert.com sell stock images for prices that go as low as one dollar. Basically, anyone can register and start submitting images that would generate revenue. By selling the images more than once, the owner can afford the low price for a very good quality. So, if your online activity generates enough income, these photos probably worth a $1 investment.
Other Resources
Some photographers share their work with the public, releasing their photos under the Public Domain license. You you’re one of them, or know one, add a comment and I’ll add it to this list:
Tight Budget?
No more! Now you can have your free or very cheap, but most important, LEGAL photos to spice up your blog!
Photo credits to Miguel Ugalde.
Post has been updated to include EveryStockPhoto.com and Photoree.com.
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My blog at keyboard-culture-global-warming.com now sees more than 7,500 unique visitors per month and I average 2 images per post, 3 times per week. So, I’m in the market for fresh images all the time. Stock.xchange used to have hardware problems but now runs smoothly most of the time. It is an excellent place to begin the quest for a specific image or theme. FreeFoto can be helpful, too, but I prefer the former. Don’t forget that if you have Microsoft Office installed, you can pull lots of free images from the Clip Gallery. The convenient redirect is dgl.microsoft.com
What do you know, I’ve never tried the MS Office solution. Thanks for the tip, and for both comments. This one almost got caught by Akismet because of the 2 links. Luckily I take a quick scan before deleting.
Very good roundup Alex. The one dollar websites look good, I’ll make a note of them
photoree.com for accesing very nice images from flickr with creative commons licence.
@Kevin: Glad I could help.
@CTI97: Thanks for your suggestion! I’ve included it in the list.
Hi!
You can use my photos for free at http://freeartisticphotos.com – all of them are taken by me and made Public Domain ; hope you enjoy them!
Cheers, Husac!
hope that you find this interesting!
EXELLENT
I see some nice flower piks at http://www.budscape.net u’ll find many variants
Johl, since that is your website (pardon me if I’m wrong), I don’t see any copyright policy about those pictures. Further more, there are not that many pictures yet.
Thanks for the post. I’ve come across many people starting out in the Website Design industry either for profit or personal use and they do not understand the grasp of royalty free vs. non royalty free. A lot of images have legal restrictions and just because it’s posted on say Google or elsewhere doesn’t mean it’s free to be reused.
Great list here and a good start to avoid costly fees from places like Shutterstock or Ghetty Images.
Photoeverywhere.co.uk has 3000 travel related stock photos available under a creative commons attribution license.
GREAT post…something I’ve been wondering about lately. Keep it up!
If you are a WordPress.com, Blogger.com, Typepad.com, and self-hosted WordPresses from version 2.0 onwards you can use this Firefox add-on from Zemanta. It loads in the WordPress sidebar and links to free/CC images for your use and automatically embeded them in the post a credit line from where the photos is from.
I’ve been using it for a few months and love it! sure saves time as the images and links (oh yeah, Zemanta also searches for related links), well Zemanta scans your blog post and finds relavant images and links.
http://www.zemanta.com
Why did you refer to Google as “he” and referenced something of Google’s as “his”? It’s creepy.
@Steve Gibson & Tinch72: Thanks for your suggestions!
@hollymolly: “It” is not that “personal” and I prefer “he”, since Google is – sometimes – one of my best friends.
Another good free image source is creativecommons.org The searchable pictures all fall under the creative commons license.
Hi
I saw your article. It is very good. If you add image,logo or photo to an article it will look good.
I saw one photography search engine which will all provide all types of photos for you.
http://xcavator.net/
I’m creating a blog as of today. Thanks so much for the links you guys posted. I will definitely be looking through them =)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Don’t forget Wikimedia Commons. Everything there is free in the since of freedom. The public domain images are even better as there are no strings attached.
Very useful & colourful collection. I am bored by searching the same picture in same site. Let me try with this list
Thanks
Really a cool collection
This will Help Me a lot In My Work
Thanks Again
Raaj Cena
I have a lot of fairly good quality, free photos that I would like bloggers to use:-
http://money-from-photos.blogs.....-site.html
Thanks for the article. I’m always on the lookout for creative wordpress themes and information to make them creative. http://www.tutable.com
THANK YOU! I hated using Google for my designs these are much better!
Hi, we offer free images too… but in a manner different from all these free photo sites. Just have a look at http://acobox.com. Thank you!
Here you can find free images too:
http://www.pixelio.de/
If you like PicApp, you will love GumGum.com for photos of famous people. They let you use photos from Splash, PCN, Bauer Griffin, etc. legally.
Another helpful one I discovered was a wordpress plugin called “Photo Dropper”. This one lets you click on it when writing a post, then you search for what you’re looking for, and it will give you a photo with proper credit to its owner.
Great site! I might have to enlist you for the design for my personal blog. So far, premade themes aren’t doing it for me.
Very useful information, something that i was always thinking about lately. thanks for all the info.
could i link to this post from my blog?
You can also find free photos at: http://www.sunipix.com
Wow!Wonderful information.. This could be useful for me and other people. Thanks for sharing
When I saw your title, I instantly bookmarked this page.
Images are a must for every blog post.
You will have already outshine 90% of your blog competitors with the images !
But its hard to find quality images without paying.
Thank you for the great post. Now I know where to look for free and legal images.
Great Blog. Is it legal to use a store catalog image cover? I wanted to tell people what to look for after they clicked on their site. I am not trying to sell anything on the site.
Stephen Carnazzo, as this is going to be a promotion for their store, I’m sure they would not mind.
I recommend this great site http://www.public-domain-image.com Public domain image, royalty free stock photo. All photos on this site are top quality high resolution public domain images. They are explicitly placed in the public domain. Use them freely for personal and commercial use. Largest image archive, several thousand photos in high resolution, nicely organized hierarchically in folders, easy to browse, all are public domain images, and all are 100% free for download.
For free images my absolute favorite is sxc. For pay ones – i like sxp and shutterstock.
Other free ones seem to be smaller or less convenient.. CC images are of good use as well.
I often need images for my blog but never really knew how to get them. I am sure this will help me.
I loves sxu.hu but everystockphoto.com is good too, I thing I didn’t like about is, is that it comes with a lot of irrelevant results when you search everystockphoto.com. SXC.hu is good.
that’s great ,to be honest I don’t even know one online serivcie mentioned in this article,the list is great resource for bloggers to find free images.
Thanks all for the links, there are useful ones!
From myself i may add an other list, classified on free and pay resources – at designbeginshere.com
From the list above, sxc is my favorite source..
Hi I came across this site on Stumble Upon. I am a photographer and I have a pictures on my site that are worth looking at. I do want to say thank you for the inspiration. I went to a few of the sites you have listed and found some inspiration. I will even add some images to my blog http://faustohernandez.blogspot.com We’ll see how it turns out.
Great list of links. My site has been seriously textual for too long and there is nothing like images to add appeal. For now free is best, but if I get sufficient traffic, a buck for a photo is really quite a reasonable investment for someone’s effort.
What a great list! This is awesome.
In fact, finding a relevant picture could be a tough job for many bloggers. In one hand, we don’t want to pay for image, on the other hand, it’s not worth getting trouble with this kind of stuff.
Well, we always need to give credit to the image copyright owner. That’s rule number one.
I guess we could add Flickr to the list. Although, we should check the rights corresponding to the selected photo all the time.
Thanks for the article. I found it very helpful.
All the Best!
Hooshmand
great list!!
i offer a few nature pictures for free on my blog, more will come soon, perhaps somebody need something like this
Great list!
I suggest you to use these free royalty images sites: http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php and http://freerangestock.com/, they offer high quality images both.
We got a useful guide of free images sources on http://www.masternewmedia.org/.....part-2.htm
Hope this helps!
I have been looking for free photos for my blog for a while now. Thanks for help me out.
To have fresh photos for my blogs is a must for me. Thanks for sharing this tip.
Another website with images released under public domain license: http://4freephotos.com
Thanks
Check out http://www.photovaco.com too.
All photos are high resolution photos and absolutely free to use for both personal and commercial projects
Hi Alex! Thankyou for these tips. My site is just 3-months old and Im having dilemnas when it comes to attaching images for my blog. I use images from PicApp.com and Photobucket.com. But oftentimes, I don’t see what I really wanted to see on my blog. Good thing you presented many options, as well as my fellow commenters.
Keep up the good work!
Great resource! Two sites I use are:
http://www.123rf.com/ (Free Images)
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
Be sure to check out their license agreements
It is always great when you EXACTLY the blog post you are looking for. Thanks!
Very good roundup Alex. The one dollar websites look good, I’ll make a note of them
Hi,
Nice topic to be discussed,There is alot to be found from here.
i mostly find pics from google images.
Hi all,
I like very much to make photos and to travel. On my website http://freebigpictures.com I share some of my photos free of charge. Most of them are inspired by nature. I hope you will help!
Cheers,
Michael
CAPL, the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon has CC Licensed photos for non-commercial use. The site is a multi-lingual, authentic picture dictionary. It features easy to find image from various cultures. http://capl.washjeff.edu/ Enjoy images in English, German, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and more!
Thank you so much for the list. I know a lot of people that just use google images for their blog, but I don’t want to do this.
Thank you. Now ,I know where to find the photos.
or you can get zemanta
http://www.photospd.com/
This is not a bad site either.
A great site for free images for bloggers at fotoforfree.com.au
Add your own for other bloggers to use. Wonderful resource.
Good info and a great rescource list for free photos. I would like to add my website to the list, it’s new with a tightly edited collection of very high quality photographs, free for bloggers to use.
http://www.toasto.com
Thanks
Thanks for the picture sites you listed, I think I will be using these often. If we also like to be creative with our photos, why don’ we make them also, right?, I think that will be good also.
Very informative post. I am using Flickr for my blogs. Flickr provides very good quality images. You can visit http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ for more information.
Ive come across one more site offering free images for commercial use – http://www.photl.com
Its good for designers and bloggers and i love it for my projects.
I have just recently started a blog (http://www.thedollartalk.com/) and it looked pretty boring without images. The truth to be told most images are pretty expensive when you want to buy them, especially if you are a beginner with a tight budget. Thanks for the great info
Thanks for putting these resources together.
Very useful post.
Also,
can you give some tips on getting indexed by Google images?
ThX
My first comment was deleted,
it was basically a thank you for the grest tips and insights. I run a blog at http://thewanderlife.com. I write about my travels, but, alas, I traveled for some years with only a video camera, so I need to get photos of specific places I mention in my blogs all the time.
I have been checking out some of these sites, and they look fabulous.
THX
This is my own site. Here you will find High Resolution, Copyright Free, Public Domain images.
I do internet coaching and I’m always asked by folks where they can find “Free” photos. After reading your article and the comments of your readers I now have a bucket load of sites I can share with my clients.
Thanks!
Any sites out there that allow you to download AND edit the photos before using them?
People are welcome to use the images on http://cjophoto.com/ for commercial and non-commercial use on their websites and blogs.
Did not know about these tools. But now i will check them out see if they work for me.
Great post. I am always on the lookout for freebies, widgets, fotos e.t.c.
I often find the images at the Jeyjoo Gallery http://jeyjoo.com/gallery
Why?
They add new images every day
They are absolutely free
They are very high quality
I also find that they are generic and can be used in a variety of projects.
Definitely add to your list
Hi, I’m quite new about CC licence. If I decide to use an image with CC licence how do I attribute to the owner? It says “must attribute in a manner specified by the owner” something like that. How on earth do I know how he wants me to attribute his work when he didn’t mention it anywhere?? Just confused. Help?
Thank you so much! I have been struggling to find really free images especially since I am *not* a photographer. Cannot wait to check out the complete library you have provided us.
Thank you for the timely information!
Thank you so much…I am starting a blog and this infomation has proved quite helpful. Thank you again
Try http://depositphotos.com/
They offer 35 free images for trial period. Also their prices almost the lowest on th market.
Great List for Finding Images for a blog thanks so much
Hello, My name is Nancy Manzano. And I am a professional photographer, serving northwest houston texas area. Feel free to Use Some of my Photos, for your blogs. My only Requirement is that you put a link to my website or Facebook page, on your posts. Any comments or photo Reviews, are welcome, definitely encouraged, and appreciated. Thanks Guys.
You will find a link to my facebook page, on my website.
Have a great day.
Hello, This is a great post. I am an online writer, and for the images, I use http://www.googleimageripper.com/. It got a great selection of images for free.
Grace
Warmpicture.com has some of the best stock photo prices in the industry, and they also also offer free images every week.
Great post! I didn’t know there were so many free photo sources out there. Thanks
Their are lot of sources to find free images but so far this is the reliable one! I will try to visit the sites if ever I will have my own blog.
Sarah Kimmel Photography
hmmm….you have nice list,But i usually search images using creative commons.I like to use flickr photos…….and some time i use photos from picasa.
Excellent list!
You may want to check http://www.picdrome.com, a growing Public Domain picture collection, free of copyright.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/.....821532.htm
http://www.kozzi.com
Check out new photos from here.
A new site for free images http://www.photosshare.gr
Thank you for putting together this post. I am relatively new to blogging and have been searching for photos to use. I know the post isn’t new but it’s still very useful!
Awesome! those are some noteworthy tips. I’m very glad you’ve shared it to everyone. Anyhow, I always find free stock photos at kozzi.com. They often provide new images everyday and also, I found out that there photos are taken by their professional photographers! Awesome, right? mmmm… ^___^ ♥
Yes, sometimes I use google to search for images that I use in the blog. Then I found TinEye. and now I found your article. Thank you.
http://www.jeyjoo.com/gallery/ has cheerful macros
I used kozzi.com to some of my photos in my blog since they have lots of image loaded in there site i found also some vectors that can be use.
I offer 100% free original photos for anyone to use. All I ask is that you credit my blog. There are hundreds of images! http://hobbiesonabudget.com/re.....for-blogs/
Great list of picture resources. Most useful blog.