Free Images To Use For Any Reason

Finding free images to use was a big problem when I started out building websites. I would search for “free images online” in the hope that I would have a limitless supply of sources. Unfortunately many searches returned sites where I could “download free images online” only to find out that I had to provide a link to the image owner’s site or at least attribute them under the image. Other times the search came up with “free images no copyright” but again they required attribution.

The webmasters of these free image sites were pretty clever, wording their site descriptions in such a way as to entice cheapskates like me to their sites in the hope that we would get fed up and just take one of their images or pay for an upgrade where no attribution was required. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with paying for images especially for specialised niche areas. One site I regularly use to buy images is confusingly named freedigitalphotos.net. This garden image is from their site. As you can see it is a good size for free and would be pretty good in a gardening blog or similar. The attribution, in my opinion, doesn’t look too professional therefore I would choose to upgrade and pay for this image if I was building a site for a landscape gardener.

Free Images – No Copyright and No Attribution

Of course, free images without any copyright issues or the need to attribute hits the nail on the head as long as the images themselves are of good quality and relevant to your subject. It turns out there are several sites providing such images that you can use for any reason that you like. They are great for general subject blogs and still worth a look for specialist areas. I have highlighted my favourite 7 sources below and hope that they will be useful in your next project, whatever it will be.

PIXABAY

I have to start with Pixabay. It was the first such site I found that was of real quality and it is still the first site I visit when looking for free images. You can search for your keyword straight from the centre of the home page. On the results page click on any image you like to highlight it and get the option to download various sizes. Remember, you don’t need high resolution images for websites – only if printing. I am often happy with the size of the example shown on the download page and usually just right click on it and “save as”. Job done!

PUBLIC DOMAIN PICTURES

The images that we are focusing on in this blog post i.e. with no copyright issues, no attribution required and can be used for anything are said to be in the “public domain” hence the name of this site. It works in a similar way to Pixabay. Like all of these sites though, be aware that they do provide links to “paid for” images from other companies too. This is one way they make money. Just watch out that you don’t click on a premium image.

STOCKSNAP

A recent find any very good quality images too. Similar to the two above.

LIFE OF PIX

You can search on this site as with the others but there are not as many images in total and therefore it may be better clicking on “Gallery” and then hovering over the resulting images until you find a category you are interested in. You cannot right click on the resulting images but when you hover over them there is the option to open them or save them. The images are also very large so remember to resize them before using them online.

GRATISOGRAPHY

This is another site where it is better to click on a category of image or view all of the images. For a start there is no search box on this site but there are also not that many images.

PEXELS

This is a very nice site where you can just keep scrolling down the homepage and more and more images load. You can also pick a category from the top or search for a keyword. Click on your chosen image. You can then right click and save on the image that appears or press download to open a bigger version of the image in a new window. There are some very nice images here.

UNSPLASH

This site was just pointed out so me from another web designer. This is another one which just keeps loading one image after the other as you scroll down the page. The images are very big so it can take a while for them to load. Alternatively you can choose a category or search for a keyword. The categories and search box are difficult to see. They are to the left, just above the first image on the home page. If you click on “Search by keyword” the first image moves down revealing the categories. Just right click and choose “save as” when you find an image you like. They are big and will need resizing but also good for banner images, like this blog, if cropped and kept wide.

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of free image sites. There are many sources for free images with no copyright or attribution required. If you find any more that you like, please comment below and let everyone know.

Thanks for reading.