The 5 copyright-free image sites we recommend
Typical case: you want to make a series of canvases to decorate your home and are looking for original shots – you don’t want the usual stock images! But you don’t know where to look.
Other type case: you need images for your site, you don’t want to spend money on a photo shoot and decide to look for what you need online. But you don’t know where to find copyright-free photos.
Well, in both cases you are in the right place. Here we have collected copyright-free image sites that you can draw on to find the photographs you are looking for. Breadth of choice, quality of the image, originality of the shot, and free service are the requirements that guided our selection.
What is copyright and why it is important to respect it
First it is good to make a pit-stop to clarify copyright, a sensitive and insidious topic for those who do not take it seriously. In fact, the mistake of thinking that what we find online is free content to be used as we please can lead to mistakes and … fines!
Copyright is the copyright that protects any work of genius (music, painting, photography, literature…). When we are faced with a work protected by this right, we cannot use it indiscriminately: it is forbidden to reproduce or share it without a financial agreement with the author, or at least without requesting permission.
So, if you are looking for images for your site, social editorial plan, flyer or any other project: buy the images you need or use the copyright-free ones, free for everyone’s use.
How to search for copyright-free images on Google
You can also find the photographs you need on Google, through a simple image search. The important thing is to do it without violating copyright. So once you start your image search, just below the bar, click on “Tools” and start applying filters to refine your selection of results. Here are the parts you can customize.
Size: choose from Large; Medium; Small; Icon.
Color: a very useful filter if you want to narrow your search to a precise color palette.
Type: choose from Any type; Clipart; Drawings; GIF. If you are looking for photographs leave the setting “Any type.”
Date/Time: you can narrow the search to a precise time frame.
Usage Rights: this is the part we are most interested in. The choice is between: All, Creative Commons Licenses; Commercial Licenses; and Other Licenses. If you are looking for images without copyright select “Creative Commons Licenses” and you will get a selection of images with different types of licenses. Click on the one you are interested in and elaborate on the conditions of use through the item: “License Details.”
Now, however, the question arises: what are Creative Commons? They are copyright licenses; they are used when an author wants to grant the right to use or modify his work under certain conditions. For example, he may decide that his image can only be used for non-commercial use.
As you may have guessed, evaluating the type of license is not a practical and immediate task, but rather cumbersome. In fact, for your convenience, we recommend relying on sites that offer you free image archives that you can download with a single click, without the risk of copyright infringement.
Our recommendations: 5 free copyright-free image sites
There are numerous sites that offer free, high-quality, original and copyright-free images. Let’s take a look at some of them together, from the best known to more niche projects.
Pixabay, many filters for a targeted search
Pixabay is perhaps the most famous of all. It is a community of creative people who share copyright-free images that you can use, therefore, also for commercial purposes. Its archive is vast: we are talking about more than 1.9 million images. So we bet you will be able to find without too much effort just the one you are looking for.
Searching is made faster by numerous filters; you can, for example:
- perform combined searches;
- exclude terms (you can, for example, search for red flowers and decide to exclude roses);
- search by author;
- enrich your search by including images marked by keys that have spelling errors;
- search through groups of keywords.
More convenient than that!
Pexels’ recommendations
Pexels also has a truly enviable archive of free high-definition images. Its strengths? We liked several aspects of it:
- Thematic collections. Very useful when we don’t have a clear idea of the image we need and are looking for inspiration on a theme.
- The search by color. Convenient when we have a palette to stick to.
- The “side” tips. Example: we search for images starting with the keyword “shamrock” and among the results we get a number of suggestions of collections themed luck, color green, Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day…
Unsplash, quantity and quality travel hand in hand
Unsplash hosts a huge gallery of images for free download. Beware though: if the images are used for commercial purposes, the author can request credits (Photo by: author name). Quite right, because Unsplash is also a self-promotion tool. We recommend it because of the quality of the shots: you will find really nice and also quite “cool” images there. And the archive is vast.
Filters to refine your search include: image orientation; colors; relevance or novelty of results. There is also no shortage of tags related to your search that will help you narrow it down to get to the right image faster. Go take it for a spin!
Gratisography, not the usual stock images
“We are the world’s most extravagant collection of free, high-resolution stock images.” This is how Gratisography describes itself, which positions itself as a site that collects “images you won’t find anywhere else.“
It doesn’t focus on quantity so much as quality: so don’t expect an endless archive a la Pixabay or Pexels, but do expect something unique and different. That is.
Kaboompics, “one woman show”
Kaboompics is another very interesting project: behind the scenes is Karolina who, with the help of a team of friends, has managed to put together an enviable gallery of images organized by thematic headings.
As you will see, her photographs are very different from the usual stock images. To us, it feels like flipping through a photographer’s portfolio: it is evident that there is a mind, an eye, a sensibility behind each shot. This is, in our opinion, the added value of the site.
We gave you several references because we wanted to be sure that you would be able to find the right images for your project-website, brochure, social post, or flyer. If, on the other hand, you ended up here because you are looking for photographs to create a canvas, go read the article dedicated to photo collages: there you will find tips (and several tools) for professionally designed photo canvases. Happy reading and happy searching.