80 Amazing Photo Resources for your Interactive Content and Social Media Posts
Photographs play an important role in any content - be it text-based such as blog posts and eBooks or interactive such as quizzes and calculators. It also plays a huge role when it comes to generating engagement on social media. However, finding high-quality photos that resonate with one’s brand or project can be strenuous because a lot of them come with a hefty price.
To make things easier for you, we took it upon ourselves to list some of the most incredible websites and projects that publish photos which have no copyright restrictions or fall under public domain or Creative Commons license. You will also notice that a few on the list have both free and premium creatives and it is up to you to choose which ones suit your requirement and budget.
As a final word of caution, we recommend that you do read terms of use to prevent any copyright infringement.
Read More: A Creative’s Guide to Building Viral Quizzes and Calculators
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#1 Albumarium: Albumarium calls categories as albums and have organised images that way. They are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license and are best-suited for social media campaigns.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#2 Avopix: Avopix have 115,000+ images and over 7.2 million videos that are released under public domain. Both can be modified, distributed, downloaded for commercial applications as well as personal use..
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#3 BucketListly: It’s an ideal place to find images related to travel. They have a collection of over 5,000 photos from around the world! The best part is that you can contact Pete Rojwongsuriya, the mastermind behind Bucketlistly and self-proclaimed digital nomad if you need any of those photos in HD! .
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Attribution to Pete Rojwongsuriya and a link back to BucketListly Photos must be made along with the image.
Price: Free
#4 Burst by Shopify: Powered by Spotify, Burst has thousands of royalty-free images available for download. The wide-range of collection makes it possible for anyone to use it personally or professionally on websites, or for marketing and social media campaigns. In particular, their ‘business ideas’ photo collection caters evto the eCommerce industry.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#5 Cupcake: All images on Cupcake are by Jonas Wimmerström and licensed under Creative Commons License (CO0). This is a stunning high-res collection of cityscape, nature, food and abstract photographs that he gives you rights to be used commercially and personally.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes, as a courtesy.
Price: Free
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#6 Death to stock photos: They have an incredible collection of photographs and perhaps as the name suggests want to put an end to the stock photos available on most photo websites! They have their own license agreement which you should check here. They also send monthly photo mails with 10 images for free download.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#7 Designer Pics: Designer Pics is an ongoing project by Jeshu John who lets you use his photos for free. The website has categories based on industries like technology, architecture, wildlife, and business etc.f
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#8 Epicantus: All photographs are by Daria, a visual and UX designer and Lean startup coach. On his website, he says he’s making his images available because, “Finding images that carry the right message usually takes hours, therefore every photo I make in my spare time will appear here for you”. All of them are free for personal & commercial use. You can also send Daria a special photo request.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes
Price: Free
#9 EveryStockPhoto: Welcome to the free stock photo search engine! You can filter and search for images that are published under the public domain. The results are from searches through public domain image websites like Wikimedia, Flickr, NASA. Although the results will be of copyright-free images, but do cross-check the license terms on every photo.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yesf
Price: Free
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#10 Fancy Grave: Igor Ovysyannykov started Fancy Crave in 2015 and started giving away 2 free photos from his travel. Quite soon he started making the right kind of noise for his photographs! Now, all his photos and of fellow photographers have been licensed under the CO0. He also has a premium collection available only to members where you can pay what you want.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free and Pay What You Want
#11 FindA.Photo: A relatively simple search engine where you can browse photos based on sources and categories and attributes like color, saturation, and width. All photos are CCO licensed.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#12 Flaticon: Flaticon is a database of vector icons available in PNG, SVG, PSD, EPS and base 64 formats. They add about 28,500 every month. As a free user you get access to 589,500 icons but if you subscribe to the paid premium plan you gain access to additional 115,000 premium icons.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No for free icons; yes for premium icons.
Price: Free and paid
#13 Flickr Commons: Flickr Commons hosts free public domain images contributed by institutions and libraries from around the globe. The photographs have no copyright restrictions, but it is suggested that you read terms of use.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No, but recommended to verify.
Price: Free
#14 Foodie Factor: Foodie Factor is a website dedicated to food and drinks stock photographs created by the owners of ISO Republic. The photos can be used for personal or commercial, creative projects.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#15 FoodieFeed: For delicious-looking food photos, hop onto this website where food photographers from around the world share their photographs for others to use for free! The founder of FoodieFeed, Jakub, himself approves the photographs because he wants only the best to be available for download.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#16 Foter: They have around 335 million stock photos in their database and 220 million of these are listed under the Creative Commons License! Now, imagine the number of options you get on Foter!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes, they have a code that automatically inserts Creative Commons attributions.
Price: Free
#17 Fotolia.com: This stock photo site is a part of Adobe and a resource house of over 104 million inspiring royalty-free images, videos and vectors!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes
Price: Paid
#18 FreeForCommercialUse: FFCU is a photograph and image resource platform that has astounding lifestyle creatives for everyone who wants to up their project quality. All photos are under public domain hence copyright free. Although they are still new in the industry but their collection is worth a look.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#19 Free Images: They have over 390,530 free-to-use images and stock photos and illustrations to choose from. All are listed under the Creative Commons License.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Not for commercial use but for editorial purposes in this format: “FreeImages.com/Artist’s Member Name.”
Price: Free
#20 Free Nature Stock: You will find royalty-free nature stock photos on this website created by Adrian Pelletier. It is updated daily and are perfect for people looking for nature-themed images. They are all listed under the Creative Commons Zero and hence require no exclusive permissions to use them.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#21 Freeqration: Freeqration has over 2 million free photos, illustrations, and vectors all of which are curated from stock photo websites. You can browse images from one or more sources or from trends, editor’s picks etc. They also release download packs every week!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Click on each photo to check attribution requirement.
Price: Free
#22 Freerange: You can download photos and illustrations that are licensed for commercial use and require no attribution, although they do appreciate if you can give a photo credit. You will however be required to register to download photos. Images from their website have been used by industry stalwarts like Inc.com, The Huffington Post etc.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#23 FreeStocks: All the photographs on FreeStocks are released under the Creative Commons License and can hence be copied, modified but not be sold for commercial and personal purpose. If you want, you can support the team by making a token donation through PayPal.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required:
Price: Free
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#24 Getty Images: Also the owner of iStock, Getty Images curates hand-picked premium photos that can be used by purchasing from them.
Searchable: Yesth
Attribution required: Yes
Price: Paid
#25 Get Refe: Get Refe has extremely life-like and realistic photos on their website. While there’s Free Refe where you can find photos that can be used without seeking permission and credits, you will find paid photo packs too.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free and paid
#26 Giphy: It is here where you can search, discover, create and share gifs! Don’t blame us if you end up spending hours on the site just having fun! You can use them on your blog or social media!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No, though you probably should give a shoutout!
Price: No
#27 Google Image Search: It is content offered in exchange for contact information. Typically examples include, downloadable content like whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, guides, reports, but can also be non-downloadable like free consultations, product demos, free trials etc.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No, but do verify.
Price: Free
#28 Gratisography: All the photos are by Ryan McGuire and can be used and modified for commercial as well as personal projects. The photographs, however, cannot be redistributed. McGuire has teamed up with Shutterstock; those images are copyright protected and come at a cost.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes
Price: Free; third-party images can be bought
Donate: Yes, whatever your wallet allows!
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#29 IconFinder: IconFinder is a team of designers that claims it to be one of the largest collections of icons! They have about 2.03 million icons for download that can be used on websites, applications, presentations etc. About 105,884 icons are free to be downloaded. The icons are available in SVG and PNG formats.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes
Price: Paid; starter @ $19/month and unlimited @ $49/month
#30 IM Free: IM Free is a curated collection of photographs that can be used free of cost for personal and commercial use too. You can also download website templates for free!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No, however, it is recommended you see license terms for each image you download.
Price: Free
#31 Image Base: Image Base runs on a simple search tool and gives 100% free photo results. The site allows instant image previews (i.e. thumbnails) without you having to load individual photos. All photos can be used for educational, commercial, official or personal purposes.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free; If you like you can donate money.
#32 ISO Republic: Three years old, ISO Republic is making its mark thanks to the HD images available on their website. Since launching, they have published over 3,000 CC0 licensed images and adding more every week.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#33 Jay Mantri: A photographer and graphic designer, Jay Mantri’s collection though is small but makes it available to everyone for free under the CC0 license. The photographs are a breath of fresh air. If you want urbanscape images then his photographs are where your quest end!
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
#34 JeShoots: Founded by Jan Vašek, one of the best designer in the Czech Republic, JÉSHOOTS has free stock photography made available to people under the CC0 license, meaning it can be used in any manner but cannot be resold, redistributed, sublicensed, transferred or shared.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#35 Kaboom: The founder of Kaboompics, Karolina says, “Kaboompics is one of the most popular source of free images for lifestyle, interior design and specialized bloggers” You can find free images of the highest quality in every size. The website also has a category called photoshoots where you don’t receive just a single photo based on the entered keyword, but a whole gallery of them taken from many different angles and positions.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No, but appreciate if you do so.
Price: Free
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#36 Life Of Pix: An advertising agency from Montreal called LEEROY is the team behind Life of Pix. They have an impressive collection of photos that can be used free of charge and any restrictions as they are all listed under the Creative Commons License. They release new photographs every week.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
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#37 Magdeleine: It has hand-picked free, stunning stock photos. It is recommended that you filter photos to get a search result of CO0 licensed images because some photos require attribution.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes, for photos where the author asks for it.
Price: Free
#38 Morguefile: Founded by Michael Connors, Morguefile is a free photo archive ‘for creatives, by creatives’. It is a community-based photosite and the photos can be used for work whether it is commercial or not.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Yes if it is not modified. Suggested credit line, “Photo by
Price: Free
#39 MMT Stock: MMT Stock is a collection of photographs by Jeffrey Betts. He releases new photos every week and all the photos he published are copyright-free. You can use them as per your need, including on print materials, social media, themes, templates, websites, blogs etc.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: Would love a shout out
Price: Free
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#40 Negative Space: From food, technology, fashion, art, typography to animals, architecture, nature and objects, Negative Space has you covered. They release images under CO0 and hence are free for personal and professional projects. Their search partner is Shutterstock which gives members a chance to get 20% off on purchase made on the partner website.
Searchable: Yes
Attribution required: No
Price: Free
