Browse sites that offer high-quality, free-to-use images for your personal projects — like your blog or website — or commercial work.
WordPress.com also offers support for embedding Getty Images, which means you can access and share photos from Getty’s extensive library for non-commercial use.
For many of you, images are an integral part of your site. But sometimes, you may not have the right photograph to use for a post or page. You can use the Creative Commons to search for images you need across the web, from Flickr to Wikimedia Commons, and source and attribute images that you find. There are also excellent online resources that compile high-resolution images that are free to use on your site. Let’s take a peek.
Unsplash
Unsplash has gorgeous high-resolution photos, many of which work well for full-width featured images, custom headers, and custom backgrounds. While crediting the photographer is not required, Unsplash provides the HTML code for an image credit line, which you can easily copy and paste into a caption on your site.
Pexels
Pexels pulls the best stock photos, all licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, in one place. Images are tagged, searchable, and can be downloaded quickly in different sizes (as well as a custom size, too).
Death to the Stock Photo
A lot of stock photos out there are uninspiring, and this site wants to change that. A project by Allison Lehman and David Sherry, Death to the Stock Photo offers free monthly photos for your creative needs, personal or commercial. The pair shoots fresh, modern images, and then sends each new collection to their subscribers.
The Pattern Library
The Pattern Library offers vibrant patterns for download. Just scroll down the page to see each pattern “slide” over the last one — it’s a fun way to browse patterns. Many of the selections are colorful and bold, while there are more subtle options, which work well for those seeking custom backgrounds.
Gratisography
Created by artist Ryan McGuire, this online project offers free, high-resolution images for personal and commercial use. New photographs are added weekly and are free of copyright restrictions.
Currently blogless? You’re a click away from sharing your story.
Create your blog at WordPress.com
Most helpful–thank you for posting this compendium!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post, thanks for sharing, I am sure I will put these links to good use.
LikeLike
thanks for sharing, this is really useful information.
LikeLike
Excellent post! Thank you for sharing. Have a spectacular day.
LikeLike
What a brilliant set of resources! This post is going in my bookmarks folder 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks very much – this is so necessary. Truly appreciated.
LikeLike
Thanks for these! I’m going to update a post I did a couple of weeks ago with the other suggestions you’ve made.
By the way, I have a couple on there which you haven’t listed. Try these 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for the additional suggestions!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! This looks very helpful.
LikeLike
I have been using stock photos with their watermarks on my blog and have been wondering if this is acceptable. . . Does anyone know if I am wrong?
LikeLike
Well, they do put watermarks on to stop people using them ……
As a sometime contributor to one microstock agency (Dreamstime) i have to say that the idea is that you have to pay for a watermark free version of the image.
(but you will not be the first, nor the last person to use a watermarked photo !)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know that they put the watermarks to stop people from using the photos without buying them. But if I use the photos with the watermarks (thus showing where they are coming from) does that mean I am infringing any copyright?
Thanks for the input.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d suggest not using other people’s images without their permission or proper attribution, watermarked or not. The services/sites above are great in this regard, as you can use the images as you wish (without attribution).
I know people steal photos all the time, but I suggest poking around these sites in this post for alternatives, and/or properly crediting/captioning images taken from the Creative Commons, as specified by the license of the image.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t want to steal anything 😦 I guess I will have a lot of editing to do on my blog now, but thanks for the information.
♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes! That is what stock footage is there for!
LikeLike
so glad I read this. thank you for informing us!
LikeLike
thanks for the info!
LikeLike
Exactly what I needed most. Thank you
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing! These will come in handy.
LikeLike
Liked & Bookmarked 🙂
LikeLike
This is so helpful. I really like when bloggers support bloggers by providing practical tips like this. It’s such a great thing to share what helps you 🙂
LikeLike
Pixabay offers photos free on public domain too: http://pixabay.com/
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing this additional option with our readers.
LikeLike
Thanks to you, Cheri 🙂
LikeLike
Brilliant…thank you!
LikeLike
Great resources thank you!
LikeLike
Outstanding information! Great source for creating graphics.
LikeLike
This helped so much! Thank you!
LikeLike
You can create Patterns through programming!
LikeLike
Thank you–so useful.
LikeLike
Thanks for the info. Great research. I will put these to good use.
LikeLike
Wow! Didn’t know about these resources out there! Thanks for the list!
LikeLike
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
Please also check out http://www.goodfreephotos.com for thousands of public domain images. Appreciate it if you would add it to your resources list.
LikeLike
Thanks for this additional suggestion!
LikeLike
Thank you for this info. It’ll be really useful.
LikeLike
As an artist and photographer, I always use all of my own images on my sites. Then I know I don’t have to worry how I use them.
LikeLike
Great article and very helpful information! Thank You!!!
LikeLike
I won’t use pinterest.com for this reason. I have no real idea what the origin is from any image. Someone may have “borrowed” this illegally and you cannot trust sources anymore. In legalities such as this, you would not be able to say “I got it from that guy” and not be liable just because someone else did take an image illegally. I say this because I know someone that was really burned once and he had to pay huge fines when sued later.
LikeLike