Tips for Finding Great Free-to-Use Images Online

by sonia on January 4, 2012 · 3 comments in Resources

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Finding great free-to-use images online can be a time-consuming and overwhelming task unless you know exactly what type of pictures you need and where to look for them. Of course you can simply browse through royalty-free stock photography libraries until you find some eye-catching images to suit your needs, but why not simplify things a little by restricting your picture search to the best free resources out there?

The first thing you have to do in order to find highly qualitative free photos is to create a short list of websites that can serve as databases for your search. If you’re not sure where to start, here are the best 10 websites offering an incredibly wide range of royalty-free images:

Stock.xchng

No registration is needed and you can browse through more than 390,000 pictures taken around the world by professional or amateur photographers.

FreeFoto.com

This site has more than 130,000 images for non-commercial use, organized into over 3,600 categories for easy navigation.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

FreeDigitalPhotos.net offers both free and premium stock photos taken by professional photographers that are suitable for advertising materials, prints, books covers, software applications and websites illustrations.

Fotogenika.net

This online resource includes photos, illustrations and clip art images for personal or educational purposes.

MorgueFile.com

MorgueFile.com offers more than 55,000 high resolution images for inspiration and use in creative works, commercial or noncommercial.

FreePhotoBank.org

This one also offers great photos for personal or commercial use (which may involve editing the initial image to use it on the print calendars, business cards, brochures, etc.), the only requirement being to link back to this website when placing one of its images on another webpage.

FreeRangeStock.com

FreeRangeStock.com offers plenty of images available, but you have to sign-up for a free membership before downloading highly qualitative pictures.

ImageAfter.com

ImageAfter.com provides a large collection of free images and textures for either personal or commercial use and requires no registration or membership fee.

StockVault.net

This site offers more than 2,800 images in various categories, from animals and constructions to seasonal photos and nature photography.

Flickr

The Creative Commons section has an inspiring collection that includes images for public, non-commercial use, but you have to credit the photographer whenever you post the downloaded image on your personal page.

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A second tip for finding great free-to-use images online is selecting a certain category from all the alternatives available on the chosen websites. For example, if you’re looking for highly qualitative pictures of flowers on FreeDigitalPhotos.net, you have to choose the closest category from the ones listed on the site – in this case, “nature” and then narrow down your search by clicking on the “plants” and respectively “flowers” folders.

If you don’t really want to spend too much time browsing through all the flowers pictures available on the chosen websites, you can narrow down the search once again by adding another criterion. Let’s say you need a great picture of an orchid – all you have to do is type “orchid” in the dedicated search box or field.

However, if you want to make sure you get the best image from all the available ones in the shortest time possible, one more step is required: After choosing the type of flower you’re interested in (“orchid” in our case), try to filter the results once again by adding another keyword to your search – for example, “white”. This way you’ll only get images of white orchids!

The last thing you have to do is check the terms and conditions of the website you used once again, just to make sure no extra actions are needed. So now that you’re done, you can download the winning picture or start your next search by applying these tips for finding great free-to-use images online!