A great content marketing strategy requires professional looking and captivating imagery.
As a digital agency, we know how bored you can get seeing those really basic stock images. (You know the ones we're talking about - two men in suits shaking hands..).
That's why we've collected our favourite stock photography websites. Here you'll find what you need to give your next creative project that special touch. The best thing is - they are all free. You're welcome!
What does Royalty Free mean?
A quick explanation of what to look out for when downloading free images. Most of the pictures on these sites are "Royalty Free". This means that the photography licenses (CC0 license) on these sites are free from copyright restrictions and are licenced to "creative commons public domain". That translates to: you can share, modify and copy them - even for commercial purposes.
Some photos may require you to acknowledge the work's copyright holder, but it will clearly specify this before downloading and using these images.
Enough of rules and regulations, let's dive into the fun part:
The 5 best free Stock Image Databases
1. Pikwizard
Pikwizrad offers free photography and video material. It's one of the newer websites that offer stock images and has a wide range of "people" photography - which is always hard to find.
On top of free images and videos, it offers a free picture editing tool, which allows you to easily add text and watermarks to images downloaded from their site without any design or photoshop experience.
Liked to Pikwizard is the online tool Design Wizard that you can also use for free. It supplies you with a variety of templates for posters, social media posts, and more to amend to your specific needs.
2. StockSnap
StockSnaps online database is constantly growing as everyone can submit pictures. Only the best quality high-resolution images get selected. So you can be sure to find the perfect image for your cause. All photographs come without any limitations. Meaning you can download any image for free, edit it as much as you like, and use it for whatever you like - even commercial purposes.
3. Unsplash
Unsplash works with the same approach to serve a community of photographers and creatives. High-res images can be submitted and downloaded for free. They already have a database of over 2 million photographs, submitted by over 200.000 photographers and keep growing by the day.
4. Gratisography
If you’re looking for an image that’s different and a bit unusual, Gratisography is the right place for you. This website claims to offer “the world’s quirkiest collection of high-resolution free stock photography”. It’s a great place to get inspiration and find content that doesn’t look like the commercial backgrounds we’ve all seen a hundred times already. Next time you feel stuck in front of a blank page, check their photos and illustrations.
5. New Old Stock
New Old Stock is a vintage photography blog where you can find black and white images from the past. Most pictures are not to be used for commercial purposes, but can still give your blog posts, 404 pages or articles that retro touch. It’s definitely worth a browse.
Do you need help with your next creative project?
Do you have a specific photo or video in mind? 