Most bloggers and digital marketers are usually skeptical of using photos not taken by them due to the fear of copyright infringement. They’ll instead get a professional graphics designer to come up with unique designs for them. That’s all good, but what if you are on a budget and you can’t afford a designer? To help prevent the consequences that come with using someone’s work without permission, you can make use of the free stock photos that are all over the internet. These photos are from high-quality photographers who have a passion for capturing people and random things.

A quick word of caution – Avoid using Google Image Search for images for your blog posts. If you do, there is a high chance you might run into copyright issues which could be costly.

Here we have put together some resources where you can get free stock photos and keep your readers or followers appreciate your content the more and subsequently boost engagement. Take a look at some of them:

PikWizard

PikWizard is a vital source for free stock photos, not because of any fancy programming or crazy features, but rather because they’ve focused on the only two things that genuinely matter when building a free stock photo and video library: quantity and quality.

PikWizard is a (mostly) free stock image and video site with libraries that hold over 1 million stock images and videos. All assets are premium, contemporary, and completely copyright-free. 

What makes PikWizard unique is Full integration with an editing tool called Design Wizard. PikWizard is a good source of editorial video content (news, reports, etc.), and its blog also offers valuable lessons in online marketing.

Pixabay

Pixabay is one website you can get the brightest and most appealing pictures for free! There are over 450,000 images, and videos to choose from and not pay a dime. You can even decide to edit the photo and use it online or also print it out for commercial purposes. Quite generous from pixabay.

Pexels

Pexels do not only get their photos from photographers, but they also go all out to source for more pictures from other free stock photo websites such as pixabay, gratisography, and so on. The images are of high quality and do not have any element of blurriness in them.

Gratisography

Gratisography offers a wide range of free stock photos from people to animals, objects, nature, urban, etc. It is managed by a photographer called Ryan McGuire who is so generous that he adds new ones every week. Visit and download as many as you want without minding about royalty.

Reshot

According to reshot, they possess the most extensive free-stock photos, all of which are of high quality. They partnered with a community of professional photographers to give their website visitors the best. Head there and see for yourself.

Burst

This site is a new free stock photo location that was built by Shopify as part of their social responsibility. They made photoshoots of genders in the workplace and diverse ethnic groups. You can use the pictures for personal and commercial objectives.

Unsplash

Another website dishing out lovely free images is the Unsplash team. They get it from their photographer’s website and post on their site only for you to access. Great service! They have over 800,000 images and still adding more. If you look around, you can see some popular online businesses getting their photos from them.

Picjumbo

If you are wondering where to get free images for your social media posting, then picjumbo is the site to visit. It has over 1500 free pictures with different categories and has recorded over 5 million downloads. Now you won’t need to worry about where to get photos for Instagram.

Stockvault

Stockvault has two different categories, which are free and premium stock photos. Using the premium requires payment, but you can choose any picture from more than 35,000 free ones. They source these pictures from designers, students, and photographers from anywhere in the world. Their images are a good match for social media content.

RawPixel

RawPixel has lots of free and diverse stock photos that are so good you won’t need to use a paid photo. They plan on taking the free stock photo initiative a step further by taking pictures of people from different parts of the world.

FancyCrave

If you are looking for free stock travel photos, FancyCrave is the right place to go as they deal with travel photography. Their images are unique and vibrant, which makes it an excellent choice for people planning to use it on their social media. The site uploads two pictures into the catalog daily.

Negative space

Negative space adds new free stock photos every week. They keep their customers updated via their social media accounts so you might want to follow them. They have their Creative Common Zero license (CCO) which allows them to put up photos that you can use for commercial purposes.

MMT Stock

This free stock website got created out of the passion of a photographer Jeffrey Betts who wants the world to love pictures like him. Every photo in the catalog can suit the needs of every digital marketer. Don’t fret if you can’t find the pictures you want because he updates weekly with new and sophisticated ones.

ISO Republic

This site comes with different categories of pictures that you can pick for your social media network posting. If you are a blogger, designer, marketer, etc. they have free images that would suit your needs.

Free Refe

This site also contains bright and spotless photos that depict real-life emotions and would work for any marketer looking to convert followers to customers. You can get any picture you are looking for from their different categories.

Kamboompics

You can get high-quality pictures to use when in need of some free images. You are also permitted to modify them and apply for commercial or personal gains.

Freestocks

The name should already inform you of their offerings. The source their images from only three photographers who only create the photos when they have the time. The photos may be limited but are still of very high quality.

New old stock

Vintage pictures are classy and can never go out of fashion. Find a way to keep your readers and followers enchanted by using free vintage photos gotten from the new old stock collection. You will find a variety of old pictures when you visit the website.

Splitshire

Top websites like Huffington Post have used Splitshire’s free photos, and so you should try it out. Created by a web designer, Daniel Nanescu, Splitshire photos are of high quality and have three categories which are still life, abstract and technology. You can check out the images under each group to decide which to use.

FoodiesFeed

If you are a food lover, nutritionist or food blogger, you will need lots of food images. Use the website to source for food-related photos, and you won’t get disappointed.

Conclusion

Almost all the images on these free stock sites have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This implies that you can copy, adapt or distribute the pictures — even for commercial purposes — without requiring author consent. In other words, you can do whatever you want with them!

You can also check here to get a list of the best stock photo sites in 2020. Do you still have trouble picking the right tools for creating your social media images? Read our 12 Best Tools for Creating Awesome Social Media Images.