A picture is worth a thousand words. This is why all top bloggers utilize images to grab attention and effectively convey their message. We often get asked the question, how to find good royalty free images? What are some of the best places to find royalty free images for your WordPress site? In this article, we will share some of our top sources to find royalty free images for your WordPress blog posts, so you can make your content stand out.
1. stock.xchng
We like stock.xchng because of its large collection of photographs which are neatly categorized and tagged. Finding a photo on stock.xchng is easy. You can either browse image by categories or use the search feature.
Most images here are fairly high quality, so you can use them in your website as well as your presentations. You might come across images that are widely used and easily recognizable.
Like for example if you search for business, lots of images would show up that you have seen on other websites. But if you search for a niche-specific search term, you would find images that are not overly used.
2. Pixabay
Pixabay is popular destination to find royalty free CC-0 licensed images. The website offers a large collection of images sorted into categories and tags.
The website has an advanced search feature which allows you to narrow down your search. You can search by prominent color in images.
3. Unsplash
A well-known destination for high quality royalty free, CC-0 Licensed, and public domain photos. Unsplash releases 10 photos every 10 days.
Unsplash has has a good enough search feature, that can be used to find images matching certain themes like nature, office, work, etc.
The website also offers a Google Chrome extension which shows a random image in the background when you open a new tab. You can then download that image on your computer.
4. Photo Pin
Photo Pin helps bloggers find photographs to use in their posts and articles. It uses Flickr API to search for creative commons licensed photographs. Just like the Creative Commons Search, most photographs you find here require that you give attribution.
5. Public Domain Pictures
Public Domain Pictures has a large collection of royalty free images and photographs. You can find images by using the search feature, or browse through categories.
6. New Old Stock
This beautifully curated website features vintage photographs that are now in public domain. The photographs are uniquely interesting as they give you a look into the past.
7. Pickup Image
Pickup Image offers a large collection of royalty free photographs, images, and clipart. The site offers an easy to use search feature. Images are also sorted into categories and tags for easier browsing.
8. Public Domain Archive
Public Domain Archive offers high quality royalty free stock photos. The site offers a mix of both modern and vintage photographs. You can browse through images using categories or use the search feature.
9. SplitShire
SplitShire is a collection of photographs by Daniel Nanescu released under CC0 license. You can browse the site by using tags filter, or view images in mosaic view. New photos are uploaded to the site regularly.
10. LibreShot
11. Skitterphoto
Skitterphoto offers high resolution royalty free photographs. All images on the website are licensed under CC-0 public domain. The site features works of theirs own photographers so you will find less used and unique photographs.
12. Stocksnap.io
A beautifully curated and easy to use website for royalty free photographs and CC0 Licensed images. Stocksnap.io allows you to browse images in categories and tags. You can also use the search feature.
13. WikiMedia Commons
A project of Wikimedia Foundation, WikiMedia Commons is a large library of images, audio, and video files that can be freely used. Library can be browsed by media type such as images, photographs, drawings, illustrations or by file type like audio, video, image, etc. Images can also be browsed based on license. A large number of images on Wikimedia Commons are in public domain which means you are free to use them without any attribution. Some images may have a creative commons license requiring attribution. Make sure you check the license information below each image.
14. PDPics
PDPics offers a large collection of thousands of public domain images. At first look the site may look very basic but it has images neatly curated into categories and tags.
15. ShutterStock
Shutterstock is not free, but it’s definitely worth a mention here. Their library of photos, vectors, and illustrations are just phenomenal.
Once you have found the image that you are looking for, you can crop and edit those images using your favorite image editing program. Don’t forget to save your images optimized for web because it will help speed up your site.