Where to Find Free and High-Quality Stock Photos

All good digital marketers understand the value of including a really good image or video with their text content, and that means it’s very important to know where some of the best stock photos can be retrieved from. Stock photos are very good at building your business’s brand, adding life to your social media post or to your blog, and simply for boosting engagement with your target audience.

One thing you have to be very careful of when using stock photos however, is to not infringe on the copyright of any individual or company. Respecting the creative rights of other individuals and companies is not only proper business etiquette, but there can be serious repercussions if you fail to do so. In the past, some people have been issued major fines for failing to respect copyrights, and in a few cases websites have even been taken down for the same reason.

The easiest way to avoid any of these dire consequences is to simply retrieve your photos from a free stock photo site. These sites gather high-quality images from photographers and various artists who have previously given their permission to have these photos used by anyone who cares to. You can consult any of the following free stock photo sites to safely supplement your digital marketing content, and breathe life into your posts.

IM Free

This site proclaims itself to be a curated collection of web design components, all of which are free for public use, and available to anyone who wants to use them. The photos themselves are organized into categories such as education, nature, and technology, so that you can quickly navigate to just those photos you’re interested in. In addition to the free stock photos, you’ll also find icons, templates, button makers, and even more resources, which you can use in your digital marketing campaigns.

Pixabay

This site is home to more than half a million free videos and images, which you can use either for personal use or for some commercial application. All the videos and images on the site are royalty-free, and are considered to be Creative Commons Zero licensed photos. This puts them in the category of being modifiable, and eligible to be used online commercially or in any kind of printed application.

Reshot

This website proclaims that it has the biggest catalog of free stock photos, which are of the highest quality, and which can’t be found anywhere else on the Internet. The photos are sourced from a collection of highly talented photographers whom the site has partnered with, in order to provide the best possible images for any of the categories contained on the site.

Morguefile

This website was created in 1996, which makes it one of the very oldest free stock photo websites anywhere on the Internet. All the images provided on the site are royalty-free, but the website requests that the original owners of all photos be credited for their work. This is one of the best resources for social media images which are intended to be used with text-based graphics, and also as background images.

Picjumbo

Since it’s launching in 2013, this website has had upwards of 5 million downloads of its images, making it one of the most popular resources for social media pictures. There are thousands of high quality photos available on this site which can be downloaded either individually or in packs. When downloading packs of photos, the image itself plus three Photoshop mock-ups are included, and a donation is requested of at least $15.

Negative Space

Every week, this site adds a number of free stock photos to its catalog, which is totally searchable by position, color, or category. For anyone active in the social media, it’s a simple matter to learn which new images have been added, or if there have been any updates to the site itself, by simply following Negative Space on either Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Kaboompics

On this site, you’ll find a whole slew of high resolution images which can be used either commercially or for personal usage. The site makes a point of including only those images which are considered modern, bright, and in some way aesthetically attractive. Each photo on the site also includes a very useful color palette which can be used when you are planning out your visuals for whatever application you have in mind.

Fancy Crave

This site goes beyond merely providing free stock photos, and strives to provide images which are emotionally driven, and which convey a clear story to the viewer. The specialty of the site is travel photography, and you can expect to see at least two new travel-related images every day on the site. Social media marketers on the hunt for eye-catching images will love this site because of the vibrant and colorful nature of all the photos contained here. Almost any photo used from the site will make your social media posts more popular, more shareable, and more engaging.

RawPixel

The big claim to fame for this website is that it has the most diverse collection of free stock images to be found anywhere on the Internet. It has embarked on a mission to completely alter the nature of stock photography, and the artists contributing to this site have taken it upon themselves to photograph individuals from every country on earth. As noteworthy as this initiative is, the site also provides a fantastic collection of dynamic images which are sure to enhance your next digital marketing campaign.

Freestocks

As you might guess from its name, this site specializes in providing high resolution free stock photos for commercial use or for personal applications. The main difference between this site and most other stock photo sites on the Internet is that all of the photos are sourced from three specific photographers who create the images in their spare time. Despite the fact that the contributing artists form a much smaller pool than several other sites, all the images contributed are of the highest quality.

StockSnap

In the past several years, this site has become a favorite for digital marketers and social media gurus. One big reason for this is that it has a tremendous collection of images which can be organized by their number of views, downloads, keywords, creation date, and even by their usage in what’s trending on the Internet.