Free Photos And Images
When I searched the web for free photos and images that allows personal and commercial use, I discovered thousands of sites. Many of those sites were small, personal sites with a few hundred images, while some sites hosted hundreds of thousands to millions of images.
In many of those sites, the terms of use were not clearly defined, although most do state that the images were free. Rather than face potential legal problems, I decided to focus only on the biggest sites, and those whose terms of use were clearly defined.
I would suggest having a core stable of sites that you get your content from. That way, you are familiar with their terms of use and don't have to waste time reading each individual site's terms.
My Free Photos And Images Sites
Public Domain Photos.com - There are 5,000 photos and 8,000 cliparts in the public domain. But you are warned to be careful if the image contains logos or products.
FreeDigitalPhotos.net - All images are royalty free. You can use the images for free on your website or blog, provided you include a link back, or purchase a higher resolution version. If you are a photographer, you can sell your photos here as well.
Stock.XCHG - There are nearly 400,000 quality stock photos contributed by more than 30.000 photographers. The photos are free for most uses although some restrictions might apply to certain photos.
EveryStockPhoto - This site is a search engine for free photos. There are practically millions of photos are indexed. Most photos are free to use, under specific licenses. Licenses include a variety of Creative Commons, GNU, public domain, and custom free licenses.
Pixabay.com - This is a new resource for 20,000+ public domain images. The images are released under the new Creative Commons Licence CC0, which basically means that you can use the images for any application you like, including commercial, without the need for attribution or backlinking.
Directories
Creative Commons Content Directories - A massive directory linking to hundreds of other directories containing content licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Content available include audio, video, image and text.
Caution
Do read the terms of use carefully and be extra careful if you want to distribute or sell the work, or if there is a model or models in the work.
