Where to Find Quality Images for Your Website
If there is a thing that will make your website look more professional, trustworthy, and appealing in a second, it’s definitely adding high-quality images. How many times have you heard that a picture is worth a thousand words? You don’t have to be a graphic designer or a photographer to have access to high-resolution images for free.
The website background image is just the beginning…
Using better images on your website is the fastest way to brighten up the look and feel of your website with the least amount of work – regardless if it’s a personal website, business website, online store or blog. By choosing the right images, you can instantly make your products more attractive and desirable, make your ideas more influential, and show your expertise while inspiring trust. The visual part of your website can, therefore, make a noticeable difference in terms of the brand’s success.
People like nice things
Remember, people do like nice things: they favor and visit pages with visual and easy-to-scan information. High-quality and relevant images help visitors understand what your pages are about quickly, improving your audience’s experiences on your website. Images help increase views and user engagement – users will spend more time on your website and share it more often.
A search engine like Google Images will quickly show you any shot you could ever want, but using them will almost certainly violate someone’s copyright as many of the images have been used illegally. Fortunately, there is a simple and safe alternative: a growing number of websites with beautiful stock photography popping up all over the web. Yes, there are plenty of online libraries offering free images that you can use, even commercially, at no cost to you.
Licenses – how to recognize free images
How free is free? Some websites allow you to download pictures for private use (wallpaper for your screen) but will disallow images for commercial use (e.g. business cards, websites, or posters). Thankfully, many photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons zero public domain dedication (or CC0), meaning that you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Some photos, however, may still require attribution.
1. Pixabay
Pixabay is a vibrant community of creative people releasing all content under CC0. You will find more than 1.5 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, illustrations, and also videos safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist.
2. Pexels
All photos on Pexels can be used for free commercial and non-commercial purposes, without any attribution required. You can be creative and edit the photos as you like. The Pexels team takes all images from other free image sources like Pixabay, Gratisography, Little Visuals, etc.
3. Unsplash
In 2013, Unsplash added the tagline “10 photos every 10 days” when they only had 10 photos for the first version of Unsplash. Then, it has grown into an industry-leading photography community. In April 2018, it passed 500,000 photos. Available for commercial and non-commercial uses, editing and copying allowed and no attribution required.
4. Picjumbo
It all started when all of the regular stock photo sites rejected photos of a Czech designer and photographer due to “insufficient quality.“ In 2013, Viktor Hanacek created Picjumbo with free pictures in full resolution and now counts more than 6 million downloads. All photos are free for commercial use, however, registered trademarks and brands must be respected.
5. Gratisography
They claim to be the world’s quirkiest collection of free high-resolution images, the world’s best, most creative images included. If you are searching for photos you just won’t find anywhere else, try Gratisography. You can find almost anything you can think of.
6. StockSnap
Hundreds of high-quality and high-resolution stock images free from all copyright restrictions (CC0) are added weekly on Stocksnap, with no attribution required. Check StockSnap’s tag-based category system to find images that convey the right mood, feeling, sense, or content that you need.
7. ISO Republic
ISO Republic offers thousands of high-resolution free stock photos under CC0, with more being added weekly. They also launched Foodie Factor, a website providing the best free food and drink stock photos. This website will make you indescribably hungry.
With these resources, we are confident that you will manage to get the best pictures to make your blog, personal, or business website unforgettable!
Below are some fun tools to take your images to the next level:
Canva
Canva is a tool loaded with enough easy-to-use features and functionality that anyone can create a variety of engaging content that gets shared.
Duotone by ShapeFactory
With Duotone by ShapeFactory, you can find beautiful free duotone images to use in any project, or make custom duotone images by uploading your own image and applying a duotone effect.
Pixlr
Pixlr is a free online photo editor right in your browser. Experience next-level, intuitive photo editing with AI-powered tools for quick yet professional edits.
