Royalties are amounts paid for the use of property, such as patents, copyrights, or natural resources; for example, creators get paid royalties when their work is created and sold; authors can get royalties when the books they write are sold; landowners who lease their land to oil companies or mining companies will receive royalties on the basis of the amount of oil produced and the land.
In this post, we'll share other resources and tools for free images, including searchable image sites, create your own image tools, and more.
Know these terms before using any free images.
There are many things to understand before we start. The following terms will often come around when we review free image resources. Read the terms and conditions of each website you try until you know exactly when and what type of attribution is needed.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that allows it to share and use its creations and knowledge through free legal tools. There are various types of Creative Commons licenses ranging from allowing all types of use without attribution to only allowing certain uses and without switching.
Is it audience domain?
Creations in the public domain are creations whose copyright has expired, has been withdrawn, or cannot be applied. Finding something on the internet doesn't mean it's in the-public domain.
Is it royalty free?
Royalty-free images are not necessarily free. In most cases, you have to pay a 1x fee to get the rights to use the image. Then you can wear it as much as you like that. The word "free" in "royalty-free" simply means that you don't have to pay royalties to the owner of the image every time you use it. For an in-depth read on royalty-free images, check out this tutorial by Amos Struck.
Royalty Free Images Stock Site
1. VECTEEZY
Vecteezy has is an extensive library of good free stock photos. There are many benefits that make this website stand out from other stock photo sites. Firstly, the website has a more powerful crawler engine that allows you to filter photos by color, purpose, style, number of people, age of fashion, and more. Second, Vecteezy provides a signature launching mode and property for all free photos if needed. This protects users (and their designs) from any legal liability - a detail that other free stock photo sites often overlook. In the end, members of the Vecteezy content team manually evaluate each photo submission for quality. This means their photo collection is expertly curated, ensuring a high standard of quality.
2. FREEOGRAPHY
Freeography has something else going on. They love to be "the world's most unique collection of high resolution free stock images." They couldn't compare to Unsplash in terms of numbers, but that wasn't their direction. They excel at offering free photos that are unique and less "burly" than what you'll see elsewhere. Only the most "interesting" posts are curated on this website.
3. MORGUEFILE
This website is a little different. Some of the photos are not curated and not professionally created like Unsplash or Freeography. You'll find pictures of random people and things every day, just like your aunt Sally shared her Google Photos channel with you. Morguefile isn't the place to find big header images, but if you need a simple free photo of a kid brushing his teeth, this is the free stock photo website for you.
4. PIXABAY
This website has a huge database of high quality images. It's quite a bit more business and marketing focused than Unsplash, which often helps content marketers and bloggers alike. Another big advantage of Pixabay is that they offer free vectors and samples.
5. STOCKVAULT
Stokvault is another source of free stock photos, wallpapers, and structures. The collection is only about 1/2 the size of Unsplash, but it's well curated and has new additions every day. This website has a good crawler engine and is well organized to search by group.
6. PEXELS
We can't publish free stock images without saying Pexels. Their extensive and well-organized collection of free stock photos is some of the best curated on the internet. Plus, they have free stock videos! Pexels is a dedicated image resource for some bloggers.
7. PICJUMBO
Driven by a 24-year-old photographer who was tired of having his photos rejected by special stock sites and chose to make his own, PicJumbo is now a thriving free stock photo community with some beautiful free photos to choose from.
8. PIKWIZARD
In addition to having a large collection of unique stock images, Pikwazard offers design tutorials that allow you to do basic corrections such as adding stretches of text before taking. While the basics are free, they have a paid version called a full featured online image correction tool.
9. RAWPIXEL
Rawpixel claims to have the most diverse stock photo collection in the industry — and that's probably true. They have vectors, PSD mockups, and public domain content like the popular Japanese wood panel prints. Their paid choice plays on Hope for Children.
10. RESHOT
More than just a simple stock photo collection, Reshot is a community with a vision. They aim to give budding photographers a base to share their creations with those who need it. Their curated collection is truly extensive, amazing, and completely free.