So…you’ve written your blog post or perhaps a social media post. But it isn’t quite done until you’ve included an image or two.
Where do you find images? You don’t want to copy images from random websites – they are likely copyrighted and not licensed for reuse, so copying would be illegal — not to mention unethical.
But the good news is that there are some great sites out there where you can get high-quality images for free.
Some require that you attribute the source of the image (usually with the name of its creator and a link back to the source); others don’t.
There are many stock photography sites on the web, but these are my favorites:
Free stock photography
The sites below are all great resources for free, high-quality images.
(Please note that large images should be resized to appropriate dimensions for your blog, before uploading them to your blog post. Here’s how and why.)
unsplash.com – Free high-res images with no restrictions at all. Especially good for (but definitely not limited to) photos of the outdoors. Usually my first stop.
pexels.com – A very large collection of gorgeous free photos in all categories. No attribution necessary.
littlevisuals.co – More free high-res images with no restrictions.
freeimages.com – A very large repository of free images. It is necessary to attribute the images.
rgbstock.com – Another very large collection of free images. No attribution necessary.
foter.com Foter lets you search Flickr for images that you can use on your blog. You can filter for either commercial or non-commercial use. (Choose the commercial license if you sell anything or have ads on your site.) Most of these images will require attribution.
goodfreephotos.com – Public domain photos. Attribution requested but not mandatory.
Historical Photos
Library of Congress – A rich repository of historical photos and other images. Many are copyright-free. (Not every image on the site is available for download – but many are.)
Digital Public Library of America
From Old Books – Images scanned from old books; mostly illustrations.
Paid royalty-free images
Not finding what you’re looking for on the free stock photography sites? You can buy images on these sites. (But since there are so many free resources, why pay?)
istockphoto.com
stockfresh.com
bigstockphoto.com
dreamstime.com
What do you think?
Do you have favorite stock photography sites that I haven’t mentioned? Have an opinion about the ones above? Leave a comment below and let me know.
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