Free Stock Photos For Commercial Projects

Pikwizard

New kid on the block, Pikwizard, provides a great simple layout for you to search through hundreds of free images.

Unsplash

We came across this site a few years ago and we love it. The site itself really lends itself to the photos provided giving them enough room to “breathe”. A lot of the images on here are of landscapes and are breathtaking. Even if you’re not looking for photos for your website of other project, then it’s still worth a visit. There is no search functionality sadly but there is a “Collections” area which are grouped images by the same photographer.

Pexels

A great selection of stock photos that could easily have been produced by their commercial counterparts. The site provides an easy to use search functionality and suggests alternate terms. The site has search functionality and each image is tagged with various terms.

Stocksnap.io

Another great selection of quality photos all provided for free. The site provides search and allows you to sort images by date uploaded, popularity and most “favourited”. Your own favourites can be stored by signing up. Each image is tagged so you can find simialr images within teh same subject matter.

Gratisography

Some amazing photos taken by the very talented Ryan McGuire. Some of these are just as you find on other sites; landscapes and objects but here there are a few that have been manipulated by Ryan to give them a weirder look. Well worth checking out.

Negative Space

These guys provide a good selection of images but the premium images are interspersed with the free images so keep an eye out for the “Premium” label in the top left of the image which are the ones you’ll need to pay for. But hold on as the Premium option is a great deal! You nominate a fair price for the images and half goes to the World Wildlife Fund while the other half goes to Unicef. The current pack is Christams related so might be a good investment when December comes round.

SplitShire

The license is tricky to find here but at the bottom of each image is a link to the CC0 License. The site has search functionality and also categorizes their images. The most interesting of these are “Low Poly Background” and “Blur Background” which really do fire the imagination as to how they would be used.

Little Visuals

The introduction on this site tells us that the talented photographer who took these photos died suddenly at the age of 26. Despite this, his family hope to keep publishing previously unpublished works in his memory hopefully with a small donation from you to JustGiving. This is a really clean and simple site without the clutter of others so you get the real impact of each image. Images are tagged and searchable. You can also sign up to get the latest images delivered to you inbox every week.

Life Of Pix

There is a choice of layouts here allowing you to view images in a grid which is probably a lot easier to home in on the image you want. At the last count, the site boasted 787 images to choose from. The gallery pages break up the images into categories

Jay Mantri

Another clean and simple site lacking in functionality but we kind of like this. It forces you to browse through all the images and with the minimal design of the Tumblr template, the images really come to life.

Took A Pic

A bit hard to find the images licensed under CC0. Look for the cog on the right hand side under the main banner, select “CC0 License” and volia! You may also be alarmed by the prices which appear but fear not – these are for premium images.

Jéshoots

Another simple grid layout with good quality photos. Images can be broken down into categories via the menu such as “Animals” or “City & Street”

Pixabay

Pixabay boasts over half a million items all free of copyright and licensed under CC0. Not only do they provide photos but there is a wide selection of vectors, illustrations and videos. The search functionality on this site is exceptionally good and allows you to search by type, size and colour (a particular favourite of ours) among other things. This site would be a good first stop to find your perfect photo.

Realistic Shots

7 new photos added every week displayed in a grid format and with infinite scroll which we really like. No more pagination! You can filter down the images into basic categories such as “Nature” or “People”.

Magdeleine

This site has a mixture of licenses are very clearly labelled by placing your mouse over the thumbnail image. There is also a link on the right hand side allowing you to filter for images licensed with CC0. This also has a “filter by dominant colour” feature which allows you to pick the right hue to fit in with whatever project you are working on. There is also a function to swap the background of the entire site between light and dark so you get a feel for how the image will react in different circumstances. Really feature packed site!

MMT

Fantastic photos from Jeffrey Betts in a nice simple theme once again making the most impact of the image. The site provides a simple filter by category but no search. Simple and straight to the point. Perfect.

Resplashed

Simple, grid layout but be warned that a lot of these images are from Unsplash however there are a few on here that are from different sources so definitely still worth checking out.

Creative Vix

While there is no search functionality, you are able to filter through the images here by categories such as “People” and “Landscapes”. The grid layout is nice allowing to see the wide range of images on offer.

LibreShot

At the last count, this site boasts 1063 images all of varying themes. The easy categorization to the left should allow you to find the right subject matter along with the search to the top of teh page.

Huney

Another simple site but with a relatively small selection but the quality of some of these is truly outstanding. Well worth a visit. We’re hoping more will be added soon.

Update: 8 May 2017
Seems huney.co no longer exists but you can obtain the images that were on there here.