A Comprehensive List of Photo collections that are Free For Commercial Use

This started as an in-house resource, but we have decided to share this with any interested readers. The web is a rapidly changing place so please help us out. If you leave a comment that you have another site to add, a more detailed description, have found an error or think our opinion on the site is just wrong, we will add your comment under the site’s link so that the next readers will see your comments regarding the site before visiting it.

Many Free to Use, Stock photo and Royalty Free site do not allow use in projects that may generate revenue. So if you have a website that has adsense on it or other forms of generating revenue, even soliciting donations unless your site is operated by a bonified non-profit could be considered a commercial use, and using photos on your site is probably a commercial use of those photos.

Here is my list of over 100 Photo sites that, for the most part, can be used freely for commercial works.

An interesting note: there are alot of photos out there. Between just TWO sites there are over 6 BILLION photos on -line

2 Billion at Flicker - 4 Billion at Facebook according to Cutcaster’s blog

I have included a few that do not allow commercial use, these are clearly marked and included since I saw them referred to elsewhere as broadly free to use photo sites, when they specific exclude commerical use. If there is no notice as to their usage policy commercial use is generally not allowed as I understand it.

Please Note: I am not an attorney nor do I claim any specialized knowledge of copyright law. Any and All comments regarding these resources are my opinion only and should not be relied on, please check read the usage terms on each site and abide by them.

Search engines for Free to Use photos

For the most part I recommend using this list to find a sites that meets your individual need and going direct to those sites. The results from these engines have been spotty at best in my experience. Photos are often mis-categorized as free to use when they are actually all rights reserved, non-commercial use only or required direct photographer permission for use.

YotoPhoto Mostly indexing other sites, with photos under various forms of Creative commons licenses, check each photo

Creative Commons Image Search A Search Engine - redirects to other repositories

Flickr Creative Commons

Photo Resources

If you visit these sites please leave a comment as to the quality and licensing of the site. I will update these as comments are received. If the existing descriptions is accurate and adequate, Please leave a comment as well; I can always use the positive reinforcement.

NOTES: Juputier Image owned sites are not generally available for commercial use.

A:

123rf Good size site, good search function, recommended by a reader BUT, I did NOT include originally, because you can not search by topic for free images, just by photographer. When I checked 8000 images free out of at least 100 thousand. I have linked to their browse free images section. Most free images are only available for a limited time so if you find something you like download it when you find it. Must be registered to download, Can earn credits and fees if you upload photos. Personally, takes to long to find what I am looking for. Might be good if building a gallery of usable free use photos, and not looking for a specific type of image. I also just found out that I could not use the lightbox in either firefox or IE browsers.

AboutPixel Large Collection not English - need to register to use register here

Aarin Free Photo 950+ images for commercial use

amygdela’s atmosphere Some excellent pictures - search facility seems weak, small to mid size collections, they talk about free stockphotos, but I did not find an explicit usage policy. I would recommend contacting them before using these photos in an extensive or mission critical project.

9×13 A photo gallery free to use commercially with attribution, in German. Bablefish did an ok job of translation.

AMG Media Works Small section of good photographs, mostly objects. Free to use with attribution.

ARTFAVOR NON-COMMERCIAL ONLY

Aarin 950 or so photo, free use with link back. Pretty good job of categorization

Abstract Influence A large forum based site, create a blog and personal personal gallery, in which you can upload your own stock photos and download those provided by other users.

Afflict Textures only

Amazing Textures More textures

B:

Bigfoto.com - Free for personal or commercial use - medium size - well categorized. If you use the image for a web site, you must provide a link (free pictures, or free photos) to bigfoto. The link does not have to be positioned next to the image. If you don’t wish to make a link to www.bigfoto.com, you may make a payment to BigFoto via PayPal. If you use bigfoto images for your own home page, please ensure that they are saved on your server.

Bajstock - 650 photos mixed quality the site is heavy on advertising - free to use. requires citation.

Barry’s Free Photos Offers over 2300 FREE Stock Photos this site is actually owned, hosted and operated by JUPITERIMAGES according to the terms of use. Photos watermarked arttoday.com which redirects to clipart.com which is a subscription site

Big Stock Photo $1-2 apiece

BurninWell.org 2000+ public domain photos

Buzz NetOrganized by popularity - questionable use

Backgrounds Archive Small selection of backgrounds for tiling

C:

Cepolina 5000 photo - all resolutions - ok commercial use good resource primarily geographical, nature and animal subjects.

creativity103 500mb of free abstract digital photos, backgrounds and video footage

Cromavista Photos by Ricardo Martín Herrero that can be used without limitations - Non English

Christian Net Photos Small site good photos for the most part, also large scale hi res photos for use in print media by christian organizations.

Creating Online Lots of photos, most require payment. Some free at 640 x 480, Must check each photo to determine if usable for free. It can be a frustrating time consumer. There are better options if Free use is a requirement.

D:

Design Packs PhotosGood but small mostly texture and backgrounds

DeviantArt Good selection - some cutting edge

Digital Library System Organized access to public domain photos such as the Alaska Image Library, Pacific Image Gallery

DHD Multimedia Gallery Some good items but hard to navigate and find what you are looking for. There is a wide range of photos, 23,000 .

Diwiesign Not clear on the usage policy, Free to use not profit and Non profitable . here is the disclaimer he uses "The stockphotos may be downloaded for free and can be used to create own artworks for non-profitable projects"

Digital Dreamer A small collection of good photos well categorized, Free for commercial use.

 

E: - F:

Everystockphoto 283,000+ free photos.

Flickr Creative Commons Attribution Required commercial projects.

Fontplay Free Photos 900 photo mixed quality and organization

Fotodatebank foreign site not sure it works

Fotogenica Pretty good slow site with High res photos

Fotolia 3 mill photos $1-3 each

Four Bees Very nice site design, not sure how many photos are available but some in all of the usual categories, Bonus this site also has collection of free to use media in other formats like audio and video files.

Free Digital Photos Netmed-small collection good - charge for some high res. photos

Free Images UK Offers about 2500 free stock photos that can be used for both personal and commercial projects. Attribution is required.

Free Media Goo small-med but good no restrictions

FreePixels Archive of about 2000 photos and raster illustrations that can be freely used for personal or commercial projects

FreePhotosBank Collection of free photos that can be used for personal and commercial projects

FreePhotos.com3000 photo Free use register to download

Freephotos.se    small to meduim site of a photographer’s personal collection a decent sized collection for a personal collect, no restrictions

Free Photo Station good site 3000-4000 free There is no mention on the site if the photos can be used commercially. Small collection heavy on landscape and architecture

FreeRangeStock A collection of about 2000 free stock photos with a minimum resolution of 3MP. Requires registration (free) but the images can be used for commercial purposes

Free Stock Photos small collection Middle eastern towns and general

freshpics The site is in German, Looks like a number if different contributors and individually owned copywrites since I could not find a usage policy. My Guess = NOT free to use.

 

 

Free Photographs NON COMMERICAL USE ONLY

FreeFoto Free for Commercial Use ONLINE ONLY - fee applys to off line commerical usage Claim to be the largest free use collection on line with 111779 images with 147 sections organized into 3167 categories

G:

Geek Philosopher - appears to be free for personal and commercial use - link back to site. good index Many US Government public domain photos -

GIMP Savvy 27000+ public domain images collected from US Government supported sources

H, I, J, K

Holy Land Photos An unusal usage policy, but a lot of location specific photos. Here is an excerpt from the usage policy page.

In general, the images are NOT to be used on other Web sites - however, permission is granted to use up to 4 images per web site IF clear credit is given to www.HolyLandPhotos.org for each image used. For the use of 5 or more images, you must have the express permission of www.HolyLandPhotos.org. Text is not to be reproduced without specific permission from content provider.

 

Image Blowout small collection looks like under 500 photos - linkback requrested, high resolution image for download, no real categorization or search.

Image After Amazing Site Free to use - Raw Photos, Great if you want to do your own reworks - crop, blend and generally photoshop them. Alot of the photos are pretty raw (amateurish) If you have photo’s you don’t mind sharing upload them uncompressed.

ImageTemple 500 High def photos, mostly objects - Computer parts, coins etc..

International flavor Lots of photos heavy on architecture - some landscape

Image Base Free to use no real restriction other than resale Good selection - Odd search - read directions first small to medium size collection

Iron Orchid Usage rights are vague, probably ok for commercial use but I would not use in a high value project.

iStockpiStockpiStockpiStockphoto Low cost - some free, a lot of selection

KAVEWALL Nice looking gallery, Many of the photos are quite unusal. Free to use with attribution, Most photos large enough for web usage, High resolution photos suitable for print use are available for a fee.

L , M, N

Lightmatter Not a lot of photo’s but all top quality

LogoDesignweb Very small selection

Photo credit must be given to JM http://www.logodesignweb.com/stockphoto. Except when photos are used as a design element (in web design for example) then credit is not required.

Microshots Cool Closeup Photos. About 600 images

Majestic Imagery 450 images good organization - linkback

Mayang texture library has over 3400 free to use and download, some building and objects

Morgue Files - I really like this one no restrictions lots of good photos

New York Public Library I included this site since I saw it listed several places as a good photo resource. Please note these photos are NOT available for free use, Very restrictive licensing

.NWYH Stock Images Small selection of innovative photo’s in office setting

O,P,Q,R

Old Books Photos 1300+ pictures scanned from old books - Public Domain

One Odd Dude NON Commercial use only

Open Photo Generally free to use 3500 pictures, check each picture for lic.

Orangetrash Mostly Urban Hungary - a couple hundred pictures

Open Stock Photograhpy - a meta search engine for wikei and other collections

PDPhoto Pretty good collection medium size - mostly free to use check individual pictures

PhotoCase Download fee - Seem like they are not free to use photo’s either, looks like photographer retains rights.

Photogen 1000 to 1500 photos not categorized but does have search

The Photo Repository Restrictive license very small site

Photo Rogue Volunteer Photographers for you to use. A cool concept, have not used the free service but it is worth a try if you are having problems locating a particular image and do not have a tight deadline. 11-2007 status 71 top-level albums (94 total), 623 images

Photo Rack Nice site 28,690 Files in 153 Categories

Picture Station Dead link

Piotrpix Non profit or personal use only. A gallery of about 2000 free images available for personal use. Most images are 2MP in size. Larger sizes are available after registration.

PIX Small collection - Free to use

Pix @ Halal A Very Small but interesting collection, by photographer and subject. International scope

Pixalia Requires registration (free) to access the free stock photos

Pixelbag Closed - plan to relaunch

Pixelio German site looks like a good resource if you can figure out how to register only thumbnail available without registration.

Pixel Perfect Digital Free to use commercially 5000 images,

Pixelquelle Huge site - non - English - licensing uncertain. (if anyone can read this please review and note license restrictions

Plants of Hawaii Plants found on Hawaii over 46,000+ images Part of a botantical research site. Many free for use with attribution.

Publicdomainpictures.net Good site for web use photos

Public Domain Photos Good Site Lots of photos Free for commerical use medium resolution fine for web usage.

S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z

StockVault - Their terms of use appear to allow use their photo in the ways we would provided a picture of a person is not used in such a way as to endorse a product or service. 7000+ photo well organized

Stock Stash - NOT CURRENTLY ACTIVE - RESTRUCTURING 7 DAYS - appears to be free for personal or commercial use. Registration required

Stock ExchangeHuge collection 300k check each image for rights - generally free to use in our type of application

Studio.25: Digital Resource Bank Photos are either no restrictions or contact author, nice Ajax like interface

Texture King Free textures that can be used for commercial purposes

TextureWarehouse Textures Free to use

tOfz Urban - individual’s collection - free to use

Triparalbum Some great travel photo, but generally not available for commercial use.

Truly Free Stock Good Photos small selection good categories free for commercial use

Twice Pix German Site - - Free Commercial Use, Google translation works well good selection, worth the time - high resolution downloads. Search probably won’t help unless you write in German

TurboPhotos - Good selection pretty standard layout and usage, 5000

Unprofound Free to use, small to medium collection, unusual arrangement the pictures are sorted by base color and with a limited search

Vectricity Free vector files great quality on a wide number of designs

Vintage Pixels a large database of historical, high quality, free-for-use images

Visipix A good selection and design but the search feature did not produce many results for the terms I tried.

Woophy 300,000 photos usage rights not clear, a map of locations of contributors a good regionally and subject based search

Yellowstone Park Photos Free to use with link back good source for nature/outdoor photos of yellowstone park approximately 13,000 images. Very Comprehensive

ZURBphotos NON COMMERCIAL use only

Nature and Science Photographs Government photos Free to use - a few require permission so check.

University of Maryland - image library and 1500 Illustrator symbol library

Center for disease control Lots of good pictures, some disturbing

• Gimp-Savvy - Images from NASA, NOAA, and US FWS
• Insect Images
• NASA Images
• US Fish and Wildlife Photos: FWS2 and/or FWS1
• US National Park Service Royalty Free Photographs
• Earth from Space
• NOAA Photographs and Images
• USDA Images
• USDA Gallery
• US Geological Survey Photographic Library More than 400,000

Audio files Some Public Use

ccMixter.org - A site to try your hand at mixing and mashing music that is all offered under the CC.

TheFreeSoundProject - A huge collection of CC licensed sound effects files.

Free Private Use may allow some public use - check out individual sites/artists

ArtistServer.com - out smaller bands.

Jamendo.com - A full-length albums for download. Pay the artists on a donation basis or just spread the word about them.

PodShow.com - A site filling your MP3 player with Creative Commons licensed music, that allows you to discover old and new music alike.

SoundClick.com - A site for bands, both signed and unsigned, to be promoted. Offers free, downloadable, legal MP3s from some bands.